Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	believe_v	divine_a	revelation_n	7,143	5	9.8233	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43632	Reflections on a late libel intituled, Observations on a late famous sermon intituled, Curse ye Meroz in a letter to our old friend, R.L.; Reflections on a late libel, intituled, Observations on a late famous sermon, intituled, Curse ye Meroz	Hickeringill, Edmund, 1631-1708.	1680 (1680)	Wing H1824; ESTC R3189	26,477	48

thy own Eye The man from first to last it seems stares all the Sermon over to spy faults or any thing that looks but faulty by his dis-joynting it from the rest of the Sentence to lessen the Reputation as he us'd to phrase it of the Sermon and the Author and therefore tells the most Generous and Ingenuous Nation in the World that there 's a Plot a Popish Plot or a Plot by one that would as he phrases it page 7. kiss the Mass-book and all against their Generosity and Ingenuity and make them Blockish English Sure the Observator has got the Sermon printed for his own turn for that printed for J. Williams has not one word in it of a Plot against Generous and Ingenuous English but onely those English that were gull'd that surely was not all the English nor any part of the English that were either generous or ingenuous but onely such blockish English as in spight of all Sence Grammar and the Context by wresting the plain and easie sence thereof were gull'd to their destruction these are the very words of the Sermon And is not this Observator also a keen Sophister to impose upon men that in sensu diviso which is and ought to be taken in sensu composito to pick out a word and a scrap of a Sentence here and there and then expose it not in its own colours but even what he is pleased to bedaub it with and whether this be like a Member of the most Ingenuous and Generous English Nation or more like the Knavish and Blockish English judge you Has he not cause to wish in all haste that the Parliament might sit to make Bottoms for Ingenuity Truth and Honesty as well as Bottoms for his Faith for by his Discourse his Honesty as well as his Faith is bottomless I having been searching for a little of either of them either Honesty or Faith and cannot yet find a Bit sure then it is so his Honesty and Faith is bottomless I wish he would read St. Austin and he 'l tell him his Faith was not bottomless but bottom'd on Humane Authority nay saith he I would not believe nor had not believ'd the Scriptures but for the Church that handed them to him of which Church he had a good opinion The bottom of a mans Faith must be either private or publick if private then his own or other mens private Dreams Fancies Madness and Enthusiasms may as well be obtruded under Pretence of Divine Testimony for ought any man knows to the contrary excepting only where there is supernatural and miraculous Revelation in the case to convince others as was in the Apostles Nay at this day if there should come an Angel from Heaven or a Worker of Wonders endeavouring to stagger or alter the Faith held out unto us by the holy Scriptures infallibly as they are interpreted to us by the Laws of the Land and by them only the Lord our God does it to prove us as Moses said and we are not to believe him or them contrary to our said Laws much less should we believe the Comment and Interpretation of every Jugler that cannot work any one Miracle and is so far from the Gift of Tongues that he has scarce one Tongue that can speak Sense or good English though he may like other Hocus's speak hard Words and new Words or instead of old Jingo Tanutus c. cries Incomes Outgoings c. which are indeed Nothingnesses For all men that believe either believe with or without Reason either they do know or they do not know wherefore He that believes and knows not wherefore is an Ass or a Beast not a man at least a very silly man with a bottomless Faith like our Observator and then at best is but an Enthusiast or Dreamer a Fanatick or Frantick alias a Madman and knows not why nor wherefore he thinks so and so and no man in England can have a certain humane Authority to trust to but only our sacred Laws The Church of England and People of England are or should be one and the same of and over which under God and Christ the King in the executive Power and the King and Parliament in the Legislative Power is the Head and all Canons and Laws that are not confirmed by Acts of Parliament are not Canons nor Rules to an English Christian nor bottoms of any godly and wise English-mans Faith or Works And People for want of being thus truly taught are led to follow blindly a Stranger whose own the Sheep are not as the English Papists who have nothing to do with the Laws of another Country another Bishop or Potentate nor can never be True and Loyal Subjects whilst they think themselves under such an Obligation Neither can a Fanatick be a Loyal Subject and a good Christian if he thinks he may without Sin transgress and disobey the Laws of the Land for passive Obedience is no Obedience that will justifie a Man 't is but Gallows-Obedience and the Obedience of Devils for they obey Gods Laws passively But to pursue this Discourse will raise as much Discourse as did that innocent Sermon and the unblemisht Author I mean justly and truly unblemisht and as for Fools and Knaves that will hear but of one Ear and being credulous to believe any Slander of one they hate though perhaps they hate but as they believe not knowing wherefore for the Judgments or condemning Sentences of such men the Author is so much plac't above them and as little concern'd as the Moon is when the Dogs bark And all the Dirt and Stones which Malice has now on this Occasion cast upon Mr. Hickeringill will have no worse Effect than those Stones which the Jews and Mahometans as their Custom is to this day do cast upon Absalom's Pillar as they pass by namely to build him a fairer that is a greater and a more lasting Monument In a little time graceless Villain spightful Rascal popishly affected Masse-book-kisser and jesuitical Dog c. as the Fanaticks are old excellent at calling of Names will be accounted but words of Course and only the familiar Results of frenzical Wrath and of a silly Observator and will rather heighten than lessen Reputation amongst the generous and ingenuous English If the Sermon on Curse ye Meroz had only spoke against Popery Arbitrary Government c. the Fanaticks had made a precious godly man of that same graceless Villain all England over before this and if it had only smartly check't Fanatical-plots and designs another sort of People would have almost canoniz'd and besainted the Preacher but to be such a plain-dealer and to spare neither Papist Fanatick nor cursing Debanchee which three include a great part of the Blockish-English That That makes the Sermon on Curse ye Meroz the common-eye-sore to some as well as the common-Talk to all But if no man can answer nor save old Calvin's-Ears with Scholar-like Man-like and Christian-like Attacques they seem to

Activity with which God and Nature had blest Mr. Hickeringill inclin'd him to a Military rather than a Colledge-life he therefore visiting the English Army and some of his nearest Relations in Scotland first accepted of a Commission to be a Lieutenant but after some few years he resolv'd to see the Wars in Foreign Countreys none whereof was then so famous as the Wars of Carolus Gustavus King of Swede whose Fame perswaded him to accept a Captains Commission in Major-General Fleetwood's Regiment then Swedish Ambassador in England carrying six score brave English-men to the Swede's Service where he continued till the Peace concluded between the Swede and Dane when he return'd to his Native Countrey in York-shire where he rais'd his Company and soon after was Captain of a Troop of Volunteer-Horse that rise under the Lord Fairfax and Duke of Buckingham declaring for a Free-Parliament the happy Prologue to His Majesties Restauration After that he had the Command of a Man of War under the King of Portugal as he formerly had been Commander of the North-Star a Man of War under the Swedes King afterwards his desire of Travel and seeing Foreign Countreys made him visit the Indies Surinam Barbadoes St. Christophers Jamaica c. from which last-mentioned Island he brought the Governour Doyly's Letters to His Majesty and Duke of Albemarle with a Map of the Countrey and Description of that Island which he Printed and dedicated to his Majesty And having rambled enough by the Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Saunderson he was both perswaded to be and made a Priest and his first Preferment eighteen years ago was what he now enjoys the Rectory of All Saints in Colchester a place that perhaps has more than any other exercised his Patience and other Virtues they that know Fanaticks they that know the men and their Communication must believe that a man of his Integrity Loyalty and plain dealing must meet with Calumnies and Opposition enough he was indicted for a Common-swearer and perhaps may be indicted for a Common-Barretor and what not But for a Common-swearer he stands now convict in the High-Court of Chancery and That never a word comes out of his Mouth but an Oath comes out attested and sworn by three Colchester men and yet it is as certain and commonly known for an undoubted Truth that he never swore a rash Oath in all his Life time or ever took the Sacred name of God in vain which scarce one man in Colchester can say except himself and yet he is the only man that stands convicted as aforesaid for a Common-swearer but 't is his Portion Innocence the most sacred Innocence and Integrity is no Fence or Skreen against Malice But that he should by Flattery or baser means hunt after Preferment is so senceless a Calumny against the Plainness and Austerity of his Conversation even unto Morosity as some construe it is a Supposal so ridiculously suggested that none can believe it that knows him and that large and plentiful Temporal Estate of Inheritance that God has blest him with above all or any of his Neighbour-Ministers and how smilingly careless and unconcern'd he is at the foolish and malicious Attempts of his Adversaries which hitherto has always ended in their own Shame and Confusion And why may not a man that was a Souldier in his juvenile years accept of an Ecclesiastical Office and be a Clergyman in his graver Hours and when he has sown his wild Oats rather than bring them up into the Pulpit with him St. Ambrose was first Governour then Bishop of the same City St. Peter was a Fisherman and then a Divine and after that followed the old Fishing trade still St. Paul was a Weaver and a Taylor for a Tent-maker implyed both these Trades and then a Divine and whilst he was so he sometimes fell to his Needle and Shuttle again Here 's a Doe with what men have been certainly if every mans Faults were exposed and writ in their Foreheads few men would look with any better Complection than this so slander'd Author And certainly if Mr. Hickeringill had still been a Fanatick he had been cry'd up as much for a precious godly Man as any Spiritual Pick-pocket amongst the Crew and as much as the Noyse-Makers now cry him down for a Villain Methinks I see how zealously and devoutly those holy Juglers rate and set on their silly Votaries to bawl and bark against the Author of that Sermon that discovers and bewrays the Craft by which they get their Wealth when they see that almost the Hopes of their Gain is gone And if his Sermon and Comment on that darling Text of Curse ye Meroz which has done such Feats had been Stylo vetere interpreted against all Sence Reason Religion or the Context not a Conventicle in the Nation but by this time had made Bonfires for Joy of that which as now it is they would gladly make a Bonfire on and another of him if they had their Wills But let them proceed as far and as fast as their old Father drives them He that sitteth in the Heavens shall laugh them to scorn the Lord shall have them in derision Nor could they readily have had a man to be the object of Fanatick-wrath who is more cheerfully Armour of Proof by long and large Experience against it than he for the more they have rag'd and ray'ld slander'd and calumniated fretted and fum'd Almighty God has blest him the more with Mercies both of the right hand and the left having given him so many comfortable and promising Heirs for his Estate and so comfortable and plentiful an Estate for his Heirs whilst his Adversaries grin and rail snarl and shew their Teeth and pine away In a little time it will be no Apocrypha that Truth is strongest and no weapon formed against it shall prosper Indeed the silly Observator nibbles p. 6. at that Passage in the Sermon p. 17. namely That all men's Faith must bottom upon some Humane Authority or other The Sermon does not assert that the Top and bottom of all men's Faith is Humane Authority for the Top of a man's Faith is the Grace of God So p. 19. of Curse ye Meroz you find these words Through the Grace of God enabling us to believe what such good men and true did depose upon their own knawledge Faith is the Life of a Christian c. And p. 17. All true Faith is the Gift of God as all other Gifts and Graces are for without Gods special Grace no man can believe the truest Humane Authority or Church upon Earth to be true Now where was the Observator's Eyes that he could not see those Passages of the Sermon and where was his Honesty to expose some bit of the Sermon without what went before and after and then too not to have one word to say by way of Answer but onely holding up his hands and falling to his Prayers and wishes that the Parliament might sit as soon as may