Selected quad for the lemma: faith_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
faith_n	rule_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	12,255	5	9.8749	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60590	Two compendious discourses the one concerning the power of God, the other about the certainty and evidence of a future state : published in opposition to the growing atheism and deism of the age.	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1699 (1699)	Wing S4254; ESTC R4066	40,478	66

communion If in things which are plainly and confessedly possible in themselves we are not to engage the infinite power of God without a just cause nor to think God almighty obliged to make good our groundless and extravagant phansies much less are we to destroy the nature of things and swallow down and maintain real and manifest contradictions and make that which would be one of the greatest wonders of the world supposing that it were possible to be done ordinarily and every where and every day a thousand times without any other proof than our bare phansying so as they do who maintain the doctrine of Transsubstantiation in all the School-niceties of it against Scripture and reason against the principles of nature and philosophy against the attestation of sense and the judgment of antiquity and against the experience of all mankind and do all this rather than admit of a figurative expression in the words of the Institution In favour of this monstrous tenent the Romanists object to us the incomprehensibility of the mysteries of faith and hence think that they may elude all those unanswerable difficulties which this new doctrine is charged with and that there is argument enough to satisfie their doubts in that misapplyed saying the effect it may be of rapture and indiscreet devotion Ideo credo quia est impossibile But the great disparity which is between them is easily obvious to any one who will give himself leave to consider things calmly and fairly and not suffer himself to be imposed upon by a pretense of an authority absolutely to be obeyed and submitted to as well in doctrine as in matters and decrees of discipline without the least scruple and hesitation As 1. That there is the highest reason in the world to believe the mysteries of faith tho' they transcend our utmost capacity because they are expresly and clearly revealed in the writings of the new Testament It is the greatest security of our faith imaginable that God has said it and therefore let the thing revealed seem never so unlikely and harsh to my understanding I have as much reason to believe it as any thing which happens ordinarily every day and presents it self to my senses nay more for there is a possibility that a particular person may be deceived sometimes not to say all mankind even in a matter of sense but there is an utter impossibility that God should be deceived in any proposition he has thought fit to reveal But this they will not pretend to say for their Transsubstantiation that there is the same evidence of Scripture for it or indeed that they have any evidence at all as many of their own party have confessed and for want of which they have recourse to the authority of the Church Besides their greatest stress for the proof of it wholly lyes upon a gross and unnatural sense of words which are capable of a far easier and more agreeable interpretation especially when the other words used by our B. Saviour in the blessing and consecration of the wine are most certainly and undeniably figurative 2. These articles are essential to the Christian faith the doctrine of it cannot be entire without them and besides they were explicitely believed and assented to as to the matter of them from the first ages of Christanity tho' there were some disputes raised about the terms by which they were expressed and a latitude used in the explication of them and the disbelief or denial of them was justly branded with the odious name of heresie in general Councils and the dissenters anathematized and thrust out of the communion of the Church and the true doctrine of the Christian religion as delivered by Christ and his Apostles secured and established against the corruptions and innovations in after-times by publick Creeds universally received Whereas this is a meer novel doctrine first brought into the Church the better to establish the gross errors and superstitions relating both to the opinions and practises of Image-worship and advancing by degrees in times of horrible ignorance and corruption of manners till it came first to be decreed and established an article of faith by the Assessors of the Lateran Council besides it does no way serve or promote the interests of Christianity but does very much prejudice it and expose it I am sure to the contempt of the enemies of it both Turks and Jews who choose rather to continue in their infidelity than submit to it upon their first disbelieving their very senses 3. There is a vast difference between them in respect of their subject-manner Things relating to God are above the level of our understanding most of our little knowledge being derived from sense which cannot reach those objects that are altogether abstracted from it whereas this falls under the examination of our senses and reason they are things we every day converse with things we may safely pretend to judge of as being every way proportionable to our faculties 4. These articles of faith involve in them no true and real contradiction as the doctrine of Transsubstantiation does The Christian religion proposes nothing to our belief but what is possible and therefore credible as has been proved by several learned men of our Church against the heterodoxies and blasphemies of the Socinians nothing which contradicts or thwarts the common and established notions of nature I say the doctrine of it as it is contained in the Scripture and according to the ancient tradition of the Catholick Church and the explications of the first oecumenical Councils to both which tradition and authority next to the sacred Scripture which is the rule of faith we ought to have regard even in controversies of faith and not as it is perplext and entangled by the bold niceties of the School-men who have corrupted the truth and simplicity of the Christian religion by the mixtures of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle So that we do not limit the divine power or deny it to be infinite as the bigotted Romanists pretend because we reject this figment of Transsubstantiation as a false absurd and contradictory doctrine besides the other above-mentioned exceptions which no sophistry or cavil can honestly and truly put by or justly satisfie which they ought to prove to be in the number of things possible All which we believe from the nature of this attribute as we are obliged that God can do 2. The second proposition is this that nothing can hinder the effects of God's power if once he has willed and determined the same And of this truth both of nature and religion the very Heathen had a fixt belief and apprehension viz. that all opposition made against God was vain and ineffectual and that though some according to the fictions of their Poets were so foolish as well as impious to make a war upon the Gods and attempted to pluck Jupiter out of his throne yet they always came by the worst and were cast down from their hopes and

unpardonable piece of arrogance is it for a man to think his reason able to comprehend the things of God when there is such an infinite disproportion between them and call in question the truth of the divine revelations and measure all by this crooked and deceitful rule whether it be agreeable to his phansie or not It is a most rational and infallible ground of faith that God who has revealed these mysteries cannot utter a falshood It is more certain than demonstration if God has once said it There are some monsters in the world whose lusts and debaucheries have suggested to them doubts about the being of God and the truth of his attributes and a consciousness of their guilt has made them wish that there were none No one was ever found who acknowledged a God and did not at the same time acknowledge that he was just and true Pythagoras found no opposition when he taught that there were two things by which men became like to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by speaking truth and doing good both perfections naturally streaming from the divine nature So that upon the whole matter it will appear that it is nothing but pride and a presumptuous conceit of mastering all the difficulties of religion by the strength of reason which put them upon the denial of these revealed truths and that this pride and presumption are altogether unjust and unreasonable Which was the thing to be proved From this necessary essential and fundamental notion of the divine power these following inferences relating to practise may most certainly be drawn 1. That we are to repose our whole trust and confidence in God whose power is infinite We naturally fly in case of distress and danger to a power which is able to protect and relieve us There is no man but needs a support some time or other Men are not always able of themselves to resist successfully the assaults of envy and malice but this way envy may be at last conquered and enemies brought over and reconciled or else defeated Let this therefore be the great comfort of our minds that God is both able and ready to assist us in our utmost and greatest dangers and in all the particular difficulties and distresses of our lives which may befall us It was a reflexion upon this which made David break out into those triumphant expressions Psalm xlvi 1 2 3. God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble therefore will we not fear tho' the earth be moved and tho' the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea tho' the waters roar and be troubled tho' the mountains shake with the swelling thereof And v. 7. The Lord of hosts is with us the God of Jacob is our refuge 2. That we are to stand in fear and awe of God and do nothing which may displease him Fear is a passion which usually results from a reflexion upon power and according to the nature and degrees of it the fear will rise and encrease proportionably and therefore the power of God who is able to punish us eternally is a most rational ground of fear S. Luke xii 4 5. says our B. Saviour to his disciples Be not afraid of them who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do but I will forewarn you whom you shall fear fear him who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell yea I say unto you fear him And with this argument the heroic woman encouraged her young son to endure the torments and cruelties of Antiochus as his six brothers had done before him rather than save his life by violation of the divine law I beseech thee my son look upon the heaven and upon the earth and all that is therein and consider that God has made them of things that were not and so was mankind made likewise Fear not this tormentor but being worthy of thy brethren take thy death that I may receive thee again in mercy with thy brethren as you may read the tragical history in the second book of Maccabees chap. vii Whosoever reflects seriously on God's infinite power will never presumptuously do such things as may draw on him his displeasure and upon a true sense of his guilt will be restless till by repentance and a good life he is reinstated in the love and favour of God 3. That the sense of our weakness and defects should teach us humility and modesty in our enquiries into the great mysteries of religion there being as great reason for us to submit our understanding to the revealed truths of Scripture as our will to its commands He who religiously adores and believes a God and acknowledges him to be a being infinitely perfect will not dare to question the truth of his revelations and as firmly will he believe that all those promises and threats which are contained in the holy Scriptures which have a reference to a future state shall one day be fulfilled For with what pretense can any one doubt or disbelieve their fulfilling who reflects upon God's truth and power All doubt or distrust ariseth from a double cause either because men are not real in what they say and so intend it not or else want power to make their words good neither of which can possibly have any place here For God is a God of infinite veracity and all his promises are infallibly real and firm and he is able to perform them We value not indeed those menaces which are the effects of an impotent passion when we are out of their power and when they cannot reach us but there will be no flying from God his eye and hand will find and lay hold on us wherever we are He who made me at first and placed the several parts of my body in that comely order in which they stand and which from time to time in continuance and in the succession of a few months were fashioned when as yet there was none of them he can raise up this very body at the last day and will raise it up and of this I cannot pretend to have the least rational doubt were it ten thousand times more difficult to conceive than it is because he has absolutely promised it and his veracity is obliged for it and his infinite power can easily make it good Does God threaten impenitent and incorrigible sinners with everlasting torment in hell I with trembling submit to the truth of this threatning because he can easily continue a creature in a miserable being unconsumed and that for ever and I know he will do it because he has said it And upon this belief and assurance we are to provide accordingly that so we may avoid the strokes the fierceness the terribleness of his revenging hand and may partake of those most glorious promises which his goodness and mercy in Christ our Saviour has made over to us in this life and which his infinite power will make good to