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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	authority_n	faith_n	word_n	1,792	5	4.8868	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62632	Several discourses viz. Of the great duties of natural religion. Instituted religion not intended to undermine natural. Christianity not destructive; but perfective of the law of Moses. The nature and necessity of regeneration. The danger of all known sin. Knowledge and practice necessary in religion. The sins of men not chargeable on God. By the most reverend Dr. John Tillotson, late lord arch-bishop of Canterbury. Being the fourth volume; published from the originals, by Ralph Barker, D.D. chaplain to his Grace.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Barker, Ralph, 1648-1708.; White, Robert, 1600-1690, engraver.	1697 (1697)	Wing T1261A; ESTC R221745	169,748	495

this was affirmed of some part of Brasil by some of the first Discoverers who yet at the same time owned that these very People did most expresly believe the immortality of the Soul and the Rewards and Punishments of another Life Opinions which no Man can well reconcile with the denial and disbelief of a Deity But to put an end to this Argument later and more perfect discoveries have found this not to be true and do assure us upon better acquaintance with those barbarous People that they are deeply possest with the belief of One supream God who made and governs the World Having thus given a particular Answer to Socinus his Arguments against the Natural knowledge of a God I will now briefly offer some Arguments for it And to prove that the knowledge and belief of a God is natural to Mankind my First Argument shall be from the Universal Consent in this matter of all Nations in all Ages And this is an Argument of great force there being no better way to prove any thing to be natural to any kind of Being than if it be generally found in the whole Kind Omnium consensus naturae vox est the Consent of all is the voice of Nature saith Tully And indeed by what other Argument can we prove that Reason and Speech and an Inclination to Society are Natural to Men but that these belong to the whole Kind Secondly Unless the Knowledge of God and his Essential Perfections be Natural I do not see what sufficient and certain foundation there can be of Revealed Religion For unless we naturally know God to be a Being of all perfection and consequently that whatever he says is true I cannot see what Divine Revelation can signifie For God's revealing or declaring such a thing to us is no necessary Argument that it is so unless antecedently to this Revelation we be possest firmly with this Principle that whatever God says is true And whatever is known antecedently to Revelation must be known by Natural Light and by Reasonings and Deductions from Natural Principles I might further add to this Argument that the only standard and measure to judge of Divine Revelations and to distinguish between what are true and what are counterfeit are the Natural Notions which Men have of God and of his Essential Perfections Thirdly If the Notion of a God be not Natural I do not see how Men can have any Natural Notion of the difference of Moral Good and Evil Just and Unjust For if I do not naturally know there is a God how can I naturally know that there is any Law obliging to the one and forbidding the other all Law and Obligation to Obedience necessarily supposing the Authority of a Superiour Being But the Apostle expresly asserts that the Gentiles who were destitute of a Revealed Law were a Law unto themselves but there cannot be a Natural Law obliging Mankind unless God be Naturally known to them And this Socinus himself in his Discourse upon this very Argument is forced to acknowledge In all Men says he there is Naturally a difference of Just and Unjust or at least there is planted in all Men an acknowledgment that Just ought to be preferr'd be●ore Unjust and that which is honest before the contrary and this is nothing else but the Word of God wit●in a Man which whosoever obeys in so doing obeys God tho' otherwise he neither know nor think there is a God and there is no doubt but he that thus obeys God is accepted of him So that here is an acknowledgement of a Natural Obligation to a Law without any Natural Knowledge of a Superior Authority which I think cannot be and which is worse that a Man may obey God acceptably without knowing and believing there is a God which direc●ly thwarts the ground of his first Argument from those words of the Apostle Without Faith it is impossible to please God for he that cometh to God that is he that will be Religious and please God must believe that he is so hard is it for any Man to contradict Nature without contradicting himself Fourthly My last Argument I ground upon the words of the Apostle in my Text That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them Is manifest in them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among them God hath sufficiently manifested it to Mankind And which way hath God done this by Revelation or by the Natural Light of Reason He tells us at the 20 th ver For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen that is God who in himself is invisible ever since he hath Created the World hath given a visible Demonstration of himself that is of his Eternal Power and Godhead being understood by the things which are made The plain sense of the whole is that this wise and wonderful frame of the World which cannot Reasonably be ascribed to any other Cause but God is a sensible Demonstration to all Mankind of an Eternal and Powerful Being that was the Author and Framer of it The only Question now is Whether this Text speak of the Knowledge of God by particular Revelation or by Natural Light and Reason from the contemplation of the Works of God Socinus having no other way to avoid the force of this Text will needs understand it of the Knowledge of God by the Revelation of the Gospel His words are these The Apostle therefore says in this place that the Eternal Godhead of God that is that which God would always have us to do for the Godhead is sometimes taken in this sense and his Eternal Power that is his Promise which never fails in which sense he said a little before that the Gospel is the Power of God these I say which were never seen by Men that is were never known to them since the Creation of the World are known by his Works that is by the wonderful Operation of God and Divine Men especially of Christ and his Apostles These are his very words and now I refer it to any indifferent Judgment whether this be not a very forced and constrained Interpretation of this Text and whether that which I have before given be not infinitely more free and natural and every way more agreeable to the obvious sense of the words and the scope of the Apostle's Argument For he plainly speaks of the Heathen and proves them to be inexcusable because they held the truth in unrighteousness and having a Natural Knowledge of God from the contemplation of his Works and the things which are made they did not glorifie him as God And therefore I shall not trouble my self to give any other Answer to it for by the absurd violence of it in every part it confutes it self more effectually than any Discourse about it can do I have been the larger upon this because it is a Matter of so great Consequence and lies at the bottom of all Religion For

and degeneracy of Humane Nature that there is a real Change made in them by the operation of God's grace upon their Minds yet it is as certain in experience that this Change is made in very many by very silent and insensible degrees 'till at length the seeds of Religion which were planted in them by a good Education do visibly prevail over all the evil inclinations of corrupt Nature so as to sway and govern the Actions of their Lives and when the Principles of grace and goodness do apparently prevail we may conclude them to be in a Regenerate s●ate tho' perhaps very few of these can give any account of the particular time and occasion of this Change For things may be seen in their Effect which were never very sensible in their Cause And it is very Reasonable that such Persons who never lived in any evil course should escape those Pangs and Terrours which unavoidably happen unto others from a course of actual Sin and the guilt of a wicked Life and if there be any such Persons as I have described who are in this gradual and insensible manner Regenerated and made good this is a Demonstration that there is no necessity that this Change should be in an instant it being so frequently found to be otherwise in Experience And as for others who are visibly reclaimed from a notorious wicked Course in these we likewise frequently see this Change gradually made by strong impressions made upon their Minds most frequently by the Word of God sometimes by his Providence whereby they are convin●'d of the evil and danger of their Course and awakened to Consideration and melted into Sorrow and Repentance and perhaps exercis'd with great terrours of Conscience 'till at length by the grace of God they come to a fixt Purpose and Resolution of forsaking their Sins and turning to God and after many struglings and conflicts with their Lusts and the strong byass of evil habits this Resolution assisted by the grace of God doth effectually prevail and make a real change both in the Temper of their Minds and the Course of their Lives and when this is done and not before they are said to be Regenerate But all the while this was a doing the new Man was forming and the work of Regeneration was going on and it was perhaps a very considerable time from the first beginning of it 'till it came to a fixt and setled state And this I doubt not in experience of most Persons who are reclaim'd from a vicious course of Life is found to be the usual and ordinary Method of God's grace in their Conversion And if so it is in vain to pretend that a thing is done in an instant which by so manifold experience is found to take up a great deal of time and to be effected by degrees And whereas some Men are pleased to call all this the Preparatory work to Regeneration but not the Regeneration it self this is an idle contention about words For if these Preparations be a degree of goodness and a gradual tendency towards it then the work is begun by them and during the continuance of them is all the while a doing and tho' it be hard to fix the point or instant when a Man just arrives at this state and not before yet it is very sensible when a Man is in it and this Change when it is really made will soon discover it self by plain and sensible effects Fourthly and Lastly all this is very agreeable to the plain and constant tenour of Scripture Isa 1. 16. where the Prophet exhorts to this Change he speaks of it as a gradual thing Wash ye make you clean put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes cease to do evil learn to do well that is break off evil and vicious habits and gain the contrary habits of virtue and goodness by the exercise of it The Scripture speaks of some as farther from a state of grace than others Jer. 13. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the Leopard his spots then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil plainly declaring the great difficulty equal almost to a natural impossibility of reclaiming those to goodness who have been long habituated to an evil course And the Scripture speaks of some as nearer to a state of grace than others Our Saviour tells the young Man in the Gospel who said he had kept the Commands of God from his youth that he was not far from the Kingdom of God But now if by an irresistible act of God's power this Change be made in an instant and cannot otherwise be made how is one Man nearer to a state of Grace or farther from it than another If all that are made good must be made so in an instant or not at all then no Man is nearer being made good than another for if he were nearer to it he might sooner be made so but that cannot be if all must be made good in an instant for sooner than that no Man can be made so If the similitude of our being dead in sins and trespasses be strictly taken no Man is nearer a Resurrection to a new Life than another as he that died but a week ago is as far from being raised to life again as he that died a thousand years ago the Resurrection of both requires an Omnipotent act and to that both are equally easie The two Parables of our Saviour Matth. 13. 31 33. are by many Interpreters understood of the gradual operation of grace upon the hearts of Men. That wherein the Kingdom of Heaven is likened to a grain of Mustard-seed which being sown was the least of all seeds but by degrees grew up to be the greatest of herbs and to leaven which a Woman took and hid in three measures of meal 'till the whole was leavened intimating the progress of God's grace which by degrees diffuseth it self over the whole temper of a Man's Mind into all the actions of his Life To be sure the Parable of the seed which fell upon good ground does represent the efficacy of the word of God accompanied by his grace upon the Minds of Men and that is said to spring up and increase and to bring forth fruit with patience which surely does express to us the gradual operation of God's word and grace iu the Renovation and Change of a Man's Heart and Life The New Testament indeed speaks of the sudden Change of many upon the first preaching of the Gospel which I have told you before is not a standard of the ordinary Method of God's grace the not considering of which hath been a great Cause of all the Mistakes in this Matter 'T is true those which were thus Converted to the belief of the Gospel their Faith was a virtual Principle of all grace and virtue tho' not formally the habit of every particular grace St. Paul himself who was a prime instance of this kind speaks as if he acquir'd

defined and determined so that no Man that is in any measure free from interest and prejudice can easily mistake in any great and material part of his Duty We have the Nature of God plainly revealed to us and such a Character of him given as is most suitable to our natural Conceptions of a Deity as render him both awful and amiable for the Scripture represents him to us as Great and Good Powerful and Merciful a perfect hater of Sin and a great lover of Mankind and we have the Law and manner of his Worship so far as was needful and the Rules of a good Life clearly exprest and laid down and as a powerful Motive and Argument to the obedience of those Laws a plain discovery made to us of the endless Rewards and Punishments of another World And is not this a mighty advantage to the doing of God's Will to have it so plainly declared to us and so powerfully enforced upon us So that our Duty lies plainly before us we see what we have to do and the danger of neglecting it so that considering the advantage we have of doing God's Will by our clear knowledge of it we are altogether inexcusable if we do it not Secondly The knowledge of our Lord's Will is likewise a great obligation upon us to the doing of it For what ought in reason to oblige us more to do any thing than to be fully assur'd that it is the Will of God and that it is the Law of the great Soveraign of the World who is able to save or to destroy that it is the pleasure of him that made us and who hath declared that he designs to make us happy by our obedience to his Laws So that if we know these things to be the Will of God we have the greatest obligation to do them whether we consider the Authority of God or our own interest and if we neglect them we have nothing to say in our own excuse We knew the Law and the advantage of keeping it and the penalty of breaking it and if after this we will transgress there is no Apology to be made for us They have something to plead for themselves who can say that tho' they had some apprehension of some parts of their Duty and their Minds were apt to dictate to them that they ought to do some things yet the different apprehensions of Mankind about several of these things and the doubts and uncertainties of their own Minds concerning them made them easie to be carried off from their Duty by the vicious inclinations of their own Nature and the tyranny of Custom and Example and the pleasant temptations of flesh and blood but had they had a clear and undoubted Revelation from God and had certainly known these things to be his Will this would have conquered and born down all Objections and Temptations to the contrary or if it had not would have stopt their mouths and taken away all excuse from them There is some colour in this plea that in many cases they did not know certainly what the Will of God was but for us who own a clear Revelation from God and profess to believe it what can we say for our selves to mitigate the severity of God toward us why he should not pour forth all his wrath and execute upon us the fierceness of his anger Thirdly The neglect of God's will when we know it cannot be without a great deal of wilfulness and contempt If we know it and do it not the fault is solely in our wills and the more wilful any sin is the more hainously wicked is it There can hardly be a greater aggravation of a Crime than if it proceed from meer obstinacy and perverseness and if we know it to be our Lord's Will and do it not we are guilty of the highest contempt of the greatest Authority in the World And do we think this to be but a small aggravation to affront the great Soveraign and Judge of the World not only to break his Laws but to trample upon them and despise them when we know whose Laws they are Will we provoke the Lord to jealousie are we stronger than he We believe that it is God who said Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not Steal thou shalt not bear false witness against thy Neighbour thou shalt not hate or oppress or defraud thy Brother in any thing but thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and will we notwithstanding venture to break these Laws knowing whose Authority they are stampt withal After this contempt of him what favour can we hope for from him what can we say for our selves why any one of those many stripes which are threatned should be abated to us Ignosci aliquatenus ignorantiae potest contemptus veniam non habet Something may be pardoned to ignorance but contempt can expect no forgiveness He that strikes his Prince not knowing him to be so hath something to say for himself that tho' he did a disloyal act yet it did not proceed from a disloyal Mind but he that first acknowledgeth him for his Prince and then affronts him deserves to be prosecuted with the utmost severity because he did it wilfully and in meer contempt The knowledge of our Duty and that it is the will of God which we go against takes away all possible excuse from us for nothing can be said why we should offend him who hath both Authority to command us and Power to destroy us And thus I have as briefly as I could represented to you the true ground and reason of the aggravation of those Sins which are committed against the clear knowledge of God's Will and our Duty because this knowledge is so great an advantage to the doing of our Duty so great an obligation upon us to it and because the neglect of our Lord's Will in this case cannot be without great wilfulness and a down-right contempt of his Authority And shall I now need to tell you how much it concerns every one of us to live up to that knowledge which we have of our Lord's Will and to prepare our selves to do according to it to be always in a readiness and disposition to do what we know to be his Will and actually to do it when there is occasion and opportunity And it concerns us the more because we in this Age and Nation have so many advantages above a great part of the World of coming to the knowledge of our Duty We enjoy the clearest and most perfect Revelation which God ever made of his Will to Mankind and have the light of Divine Truth plentifully shed amongst us by the free use of the holy Scriptures which is not a sealed Book to us but lies open to be read and studied by us this Spiritual Food is rained down like Manna round about our Tents and every one may gather so much as is sufficient we are not stinted nor have the word of God given out to

others as above any occasion of being contemned by them He grudges no Man's happiness and therefore cannot tempt Men to Sin out of a desire to see them miserable So that none of those Considerations which move the Devil to tempt Men to Sin and Evil Men to tempt one another to do wickedly can be imagined to have any place in God And thus you see the force of the Apostle's Argument that because God cannot be tempted to evil therefore he can tempt no Man None tempt others to be bad but those who are first so themsemselves I shall now in the Second place Consider the Nature and Kind of the Argument which the Apostle here useth Let no Man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any Man He does not reject this impious Proposition barely upon his own Authority but he argues against it from the Nature and Perfection of God and therein appeals to the common Notions of Mankind concerning God We might very well have rested in his Authority being an Apostle Commissioned by our Saviour and extraordinarily assisted and witnessed to by the Miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost wherewith he was endowed But he condescends to give a Reason of what he says and appeals to the common Principles of Mankind For all Men will readily agree to this that God hath all imaginable perfection but it is a plain imperfection to be liable to be tempted to Evil and therefore God cannot be tempted to Evil. And if so it is as impossible that he should tempt others to it for none can have either an inclination or interest to seduce others to Evil but those who have been first seduced to it themselves Now in this Method of Arguing the Apostle teacheth us one of the surest ways of Reasoning in Religion namely from the Natural Notions which Men have of God So that all Doctrines plainly contrary to those Natural Notions which Men have of God are to be rejected what Authority soever they pretend to whatever plainly derogates from the goodness or justice of God or any other of his Perfections is certainly false what Authority soever it may claim from the Judgment of Learned and Pious Men yea tho' it pretend to be countenanc'd from the Texts and Expressions of Holy Scripture Because nothing can be entertain'd as a Divine Revelation which plainly contradicts the common Natural Notions which Mankind have of God For all Reasoning about Divine Revelation and whether that which pretends to be so be really so or not is to be govern'd by those Natural Notions And if any thing that pretends to be a Revelation from God should teach Men that there is no God or that he is not Wi●e and Good and Just and Powerful this is Reason enough to reject it how confident soever the pretence be that it is a Divine Revelation And if any thing be upon good grounds in Reason received for a Divine Revelation as the Holy Scriptures are amongst Christians no Man ought to be regarded who from thence pretends to maintain any Doctrine contrary to the Natural Notions which Men have of God such as clearly contradict his Holiness or Goodness or Justice or do by plain and undeniable Consequence make God the Author of Sin or the like because the very attempt to prove any such thing out of Scripture does strike at the Divine Authority of those Books For if they be from God it is certain they can contain no such thing So that no Man ought to suffer himself to be seduced into any such Opinions upon pretence that there are expressions in Scripture which seem to countenance them For if they really did so the Consequence would not be the confirming of such Opinions but the weakning of the Authority of the Scripture it self For just so many Arguments as any Man can draw from Scripture for any such Opinion so many Weapons he puts into the han●s of Atheists against the Scripture it self I do not speak this as if I thought there were any ground from Scripture for any such Doctrine I am very certain there is not And if there be any par●●cular expressions which to prejudic'd Men may seem to import any such thing every Man ought to govern himself in the interpretation of such passages by what is clear and plain and agreeable to the main Scope and Tenour of the Bible and to those Natural Notions which Men have of God and of his Perfections For when all is done this is one of the surest ways of Reasoning in Religion and whoever guides himself and steers by this Compass can never err much but whoever suffers himself to be led away by the appearance of some more obscure Phrases in the expressions of Scripture and the glosses of Men upon them without regard to this Rule may run into the greatest Delusions may wander Eternally and lose himself in one Mistake after another and shall never find his way out of this endless Labyrinth but by this Clue If St. James had not been an Apostle the Argument which he useth would have convinced any reasonable Man that God tempts no Man to Sin because he cannot be tempted with Evil himself and therefore it is unreasonable to imagine he should tempt any Man For he argues from such a Principle as all Mankind will at first hearing assent to And thus I have done with the first Thing asserted by the Apostle here in the Text That God tempts no Man to Sin Let no Man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted of evil neither tempteth he any Man Before I proceed to the second Assertion That every Man is his own greatest Tempter I should draw some useful Inferences from what hath been already delivered but I reserve both the one and the other to the next Opportunity SERMON XV. The Sins of Men not chargeable upon God but upon themselves JAMES I. 13 14. Let no Man say when he is tempted I am tempted of God for God cannot be tempted with evil neither tempteth he any Man But every Man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed WHEN I made entrance upon these Words I told you that next to the Belief of a God and a Providence nothing is more fundamentally necessary to the Practice of a good Life than the Belief of these two Principles That God is not the Author of the Sins of Men and That every Man's fault lies at his own door And both these Principles St. James does clearly and fully assert in these Words First God tempts no Man to Sin Secondly Every Man is his own greates● Tempter The first of these I have largely spoken to in my former Discourse and from what I then said I shall only draw a few useful Inferences before I proceed to the second Viz. These which follow First Let us beware of all such Doctrines as do any ways tend to