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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	believe_v	faith_n	object_n	1,927	5	8.5671	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66556	The Scriptures genuine interpreter asserted, or, A discourse concerning the right interpretation of Scripture wherein a late exercitation, intituled, Philosophia S. scripturæ interpres, is examin'd, and the Protestant doctrine in that point vindicated : with some reflections on another discourse of L.W. written in answer to the said exercitation : to which is added, An appendix concerning internal illumination, and other operations of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man, justifying the doctrine of Protestants, and the practice of serious Christians, against the charge of ethusiasm, and other unjust criminations / by John Wilson ...	Wilson, John, 17th cent.	1678 (1678)	Wing W2903; ESTC R6465	125,777	376

What can be the meaning of this that these Principles are written in our Minds I cannot understand any further than this that there is begotten in our Minds a clear perception and firm perswasion of them But the great Question will be By what Act doth God write these in our Minds or beget in us this perception and perswasion of them Surely they will not say that when God creates the Soul of Man this perception or perswasion of these Principles is concreated by him in and with the Soul for if so how is it that during our Infant-state we are such strangers to them and do so continue till we come gradually by observation and experience to be acquainted with them And when we come to discern them and to be perswaded of them how come we to be assured that they are of God There must be some difference between the Testimony and the Thing testified The Principles of Reason are supposed to be the Res testata the Thing testified But what is the Testimony or the Actus Testificandi My perception or perswasion cannot be it for if so then whatsoever I perceive and am fully perswaded of I must believe to come from God and what will that come to at last These Principles of Reason are not Complex Propositions form'd by God in our Minds or suggested to us by a Divine Afflatus this would make every Man an Enthusiast The best account I can give of them is that they are such General Truths as have their foundation in the nature of things and their mutual habitudes and respects which our Reason apprehending doth therein discover the aforesaid Principles thence resulting And because it is God alone who gives to all things their several Beings and constitutes them in such and such habitudes each to other and hath given us our Reason whereby we are enabled to discern them therefore he is said to be the Author of those Principles which lie fundamentally in his Workmanship And we do not take them for Truthus upon the credit of any foregoing testimony that God gives to us of them but we assent to them propter evidentiam r●i because our Reason sees them perfectly agreeable to the nature of things and thereby finding them to be certainly true thence it gathers that they are of God from whom all Truth comes But now the method of Faith is widely different from this Here we first own the testimony of God speaking in the Scriptures and thence we are perswaded that what the Scripture speaks is true and so we come to embrace the many severals therein asserted by yielding a particular assent to them as we find them But will some say before we believe the Scriptures we must be convinced by Reason that these Scriptures are of God Very true but the effect of such a conviction is not properly Faith but Knowledge And when I know by satisfying Grounds of Reason that the Scripture is indeed the Voice of God then do I by Faith assent to what that speaks as Gods testimony And whereas there are some Truths which are knowable in some measure by Natural Light and yet are revealed likewise in the Scripture it is commonly and truly said by our Divines that as they are received by Natural Light and upon Rational Grounds so they are the Objects of Science but as they are revealed in the Scripture so and only so they are the Objects of Faith which as the Apostle tells us is the evidence of things not seen that is of things not discernable by Natural Light whether of Sense or Reason or at least that are not consider'd as such when we receive them as Objects of Faith which therefore is call'd the evidence of them because it discerns the truth and reality of them in the infallible testimony of the Revealer Now besides what hath been already said it may further be proved that Reason is not any part of the Rule of Faith For 1. Were this granted it would necessarily follow that Scripture of it self is an imperfect Rule and if so it is no Rule at all That cannot be own'd for a Rule that is not adequate and commensurate to what is to be regulated by it The known description of a Rule given by Varinus and so frequently quoted by our best Authors hath never that I know of been questioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Rule or Canon is an immutable Law and an unerring Measure which at no hand will admit of addition or diminution This is one great Argument used by our Protestant Writers to shut out Popish Traditions from being any part of the Rule of Faith because the Scripture is a perfect and sufficient Rule of it self and must be so or else it cannot be a Rule at all Of which the Reader may see enough for his satisfaction in the Learned Bishop of Down his Ductor Dubitantium Lib. 2. Cap. 3. Rule 14. p. 359 c. And the Argument is every whit as good to exclude Reason as Tradition in this case And that the Scripture is a perfect discovery of the Mind of God so far as is necessary for us to know it I have proved before in my first Argument 2. The Principles of Reason as I have formerly shewed in the proof of my first Proposition have no formal existence any where but in the Minds or Writings of fallible Men considering them as separate from the Scriptures for set the Bible aside there is no Infallible and Authentick Record of those Principles to which we can have recourse And this utterly disables them for being so much as a partial Rule of a Christians Faith 3. Principles of Natural Reason let us suppose them never so fixt and infallible are wholly aliene to matters of supernatural Revelation which are the proper Object of Faith And to measure these by them were as ridiculous as to attempt by a Carpenters Rule to take the distance of the Heavens or to spread a Fowlers Net to catch the Winds However therefore there is as hath been already acknowledged and maintain'd great use of Reason and its Principles in subordination and instrumental subserviency to the knowledge of Divine Matters yet that it is in any degree to be owned as the Rule of our Faith must not will not cannot be allowed by any that are true to the Christian Cause CHAP. XII An Exception of the Exercitator grounded upon a distinction of the Scriptures taken materially or formally propounded and the folly and fallacy of it detected BUt here the Exercitator gives us a distinction which he makes often use of as being very fit for his turn That the Scripture is taken either materially and so it signifies no more but the bare Words Phrases and Sentences of Scripture or formally and so it signifies the sense and meaning of these Words and Sentences Now says he when we say the Scripture is the Rule of Faith we do not mean the bare words but the

distinction and tedrously dilates upon it to amuse his Reader But the sum of all comes to this That the words of Scripture are of no further use than as they are signs of conceptions and things and under that consideration they cannot be understood unless the things signified by them be first known at least in some gross and confused manner Whereof he gives us this instance that where we sind in Scripture that God is Omniscient we cannot understand this unless we first know what God is and what Omniscience is Therefore says he all the benefit that any can get by any Book that is written is but this that it stirs up the Mind of the Reader to reflect upon the clear and distinct Idea's of those things in his Mind which the Book treats of not that the Book can of it self bring him to the true knowledge of things much less that it can beget any clear or distinct Ideas in his Mind which were not there before And thus he tells us it is with the Scripture all the use of it is to stir up the Reader or Hearer to think of the things that it propounds and inquire into them and examine them whether they be so as they are there propounded and that they may do this they must make use of Philosophy to try what is there written Therefore adds he the Scripture is to be used not that it should of it self inform us in the truth or render the truth more clear and distinct or make it more firm to us but that it may give us occasion and matter of meditating on those things which perhaps otherwise we should never have minded Therefore says he still the utility and excellency of the Scriptures above other Books consists onely in this That the things it speaks of are of so great concernment to our everlasting blessedness not for any use they are of to instruct us in the Truth This is all the use that he allows the Scripture from whence I think will inevitably follow that he owns the necessity of no knowledge of God or Religion but what is natural And so all supernatural Revelation or at least all necessity of it is denied And if there be no other use of the Written Word but what this Author assigns it it s put into the same rank with a Crucifix or a Deaths Head Indeed the whole design of his Book and of that other Tract that is prefixed to its latter Edition written as is supposed by the same Author is utterly to undermine and overthrow the credit of the Scriptures We need not wonder that he so often derides and calumniates the Protestant Doctrine of the Spirits internal illumination of the Mind which consists in curing the indisposition of the Subject and fitting it for the right understanding of Heavenly Things of which more hereafter in an Appendix to my present Discourse when he will not allow the necessity of so much as an Enternal Light for the Revelation of Supernatural Objects as acknowledging no such things And he that is thus principled must needs be very ignorant of himself and of the ruines that Sin hath made among the whole Race of Adam and the woful depravation of Mans Nature by his first Apostasie But for the Readers full satisfaction about the necessity of Supernatural Revelation I dare commend to his perusal besides many other useful Discourses that might be named that excellent Piece of the Eminently-accomplish'd Sir Charles Wolsly concerning the Reasonableness of Scripture Belief CHAP. VII 1. A fifth Argument That this would open a gap to the most pernicious Errors in Matters of Faith 2. And Practice AGain fifthly This Assertion le ts loose the Bridle to proud and wanton Wits to overthrow the Foundations of Christian Religion for though there be not the least real repugnancy between the Doctrines of Christianity and the Principles of Right Reason and Sound Philosophy which undoubtedly there is not as I have already premised and asserted yet there being no certain and infallible Record of these Principles by which as by the Rule of Judgement particular Mens Reasonings may be tried If Scripture Revelation must be interpreted by Mens Reasonings I know not the any Error that hath ever crept into the Church of Christ either in matter of Faith or Practice since the first publication of the Gospel but may be introduced anew by this Engine The heretical Blasphemies of Servetus and Socinus which sprang up of late years and those of the Marcionites and Manichees that infested the Church in former times together with the loathsome impurities of the Gnosticks who esteemed themselves the only knowing Men or to speak in the new mode the onely Rational Divines have fair way made them by this Trim Device First Let us instance in Matters of Faith whatsoever is said in Scripture about the Creation of the World the Conception of our Saviour in a Virgins Womb the Personal Union of the two Natures the Resurrection of the Body at the last Day these with many more that might be named let them be brought to the Bar of Reason and tried by its Principles as they are to be found in the Minds of Men and what will it come to We have seen already what use some Men have made of this way to subvert the weightiest Truths of the Gospel But here it will be excepted perhaps by some That the Fundamentals of Christian Religion being clear and plain in Scripture there is no fear of this inconvenience To this I answer First If Divine Revelations must be no otherwise received or understood than as Men see ground for them in their own Reason the plainest and clearest Doctrines of Scripture will be rejected I shall here give two Instances as I find them quoted by a late learned Author The one is of Socinus who says That he would not believe Christ to have satisfied for our Sins though he should read it once and again in Scripture the infallibility of the Revealer not being sufficient to establish it unless he had declared it by its causes and effects and so satisfied Mens Reason concerning the possibility of it Smalcius is the other who says That he would not believe the Incarnation of the Son of God though he should meet with it in express terms in the Bible The same Author says elsewhere that by Reason alone we determine the possibility and impossibility of the Articles of Faith To which I might add the bold assertion of a late English Remonstrant in a Volume publish'd some years ago where he says I verily believe that in case any such unchangeableness of Gods love viz. as should assure the Saints infallible perseverance were to be found in or could regularly be deduced from the Scriptures it were a just ground to any considering Man to question their Authority or whether they were from God or no. And a late Belgick Tractator having affirmed that the

Cause it may not unfitly be call'd the Persuasion Dictate Testimony Inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God which Divines commonly but mistakingly ascribe to that which they call Supernatural Light out of their low esteem of Reason and that Natural Light that is in every Man This I confess the Author doth not make use of among the Arguments that he produceth to defend his Cause yet because it tends to beget a conceit according to the drift of his Discourse that what Men apprehend themselves to have a clear knowledge of by Reason or Philosophy is infallibly certain and thereby qualified for the sure Interpreting of Scripture I thought fit not to pass it over without some Animadversion This Assertion is a piece of wild somewhat for whether I should call it Philosophy or Divinity Sense of Nonsense I know not that if entertain'd gives ground to Men of corrupt Minds to father their most enormous Conceits upon God and his Holy Spirit Against it I shall propound a few Considerations 1. Do not all Ages of the Church bear witness that erring Persons may be as confidently persuaded of their mistaken opinions as others are of the Truth strongly conceiving what they hold to be most clear and evident so far as chearfully to lay down their lives in the defence of it So capable are Men of being deluded by their own darkned and corrupted Reason when they give themselves up to it as their sole guide that some have denied to the death those Truths that are in some degree knowable by Natural Light as that grand Maxim which is the Foundation of all Religion That there is a God witness Caesar Vaninus But for Doctrines of meer Revelation how peremptorily they are denied and upon what ground we need no farther instance than that of the Socinians or as they are otherwise called from a more Ancient Ring-leader Photinians who of all Hereticks have most perverted the Articles of our Creed and found out Followers in these latter ages who have erected a new Body of Divinity in opposition to the Catholick Theology says the Reverend Bishop of Chester Yet this new Socinian Body of Heterodoxies called by the Clergy of England in their Convocation Anno 1640. a Complication of Heresies is by its Fautors maintained with highest confidence and that under the plausible pretence of clear Perception by the Principles of Reason Upon this account One of that way denies Gods fore-knowledge of future contingencies and upon the same ground another of them denies the Doctrine of the Trinity and the two Natures of Christ because their Reason tells them as clearly and evidently as the Sun shines at Noon that these things are false 2. This countenances the absurd opinion of some ancient Philosophers That man is the measure of all things for according to this every thing must be accounted true that a Man is strongly persuaded to be so whereas the truth of our Perceptions lies in their consonancy to the nature of things which must be first supposed before we can apprehend them And therefore that great Maxim that bears such sway with some that whatsoever I have a clear and distinct Perception of is infalliby true is so far from being a sure Test of Truth and Falshood that in this dark and degenerate State of Mankind it infallibly betrays those who trust to it to innumerable and pernicious mistakes For suppose the Principle it self should be true That every thing is as we perceive provided our Perception of it be distinct and clear which way shall we be resolved whether this Perception we have of things be clear and distinct or dark and confused seeing experience puts us out of all doubt that persons as far distant in their apprehensions of the same thing as East and West do yet both of them with much confidence plead the greatest clearness and distinctness imaginable What shall we think to pass by other instances of the contest between Micajah and the four hundred false Prophets about Ahab's Expedition The false Prophets expressed as high a confidence of their being in the Right when abused by a lying Spirit as Micajah who was truely guided and acted by the Holy Spirit of God But the Explication that a late Author gives of this so much applauded Rule viz That then doth Reason clearly and distinctly perceive a thing when it perceives it as it is in it self renders it plainly ridiculous supposing the thing in question For when I am inquiring how I shall be assured that my apprehension of a thing is certainly true the meaning is how shall I be sure that I understand the thing to be as it really is for the verity of my Conception consists in its agreement with the object Therefore to make a clear and distinct Perception the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a true and right apprehension and to explain this clear and distinct Perception by saying it is a Perception of a thing as it is is to make the same thing the Index of it self and leaves me as much to seek as at first for still it will be asked how shall I know that I perceive a thing as it is or that my apprehension agrees with the nature of the thing 3. I might further add That we are obliged to believe many things whereof we cannot have a clear and distinct perception as the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead the Incarnation of our Saviour the Hypostatical Union of the Divine and Humane Nature and such like Touching which I grant we must have a clear perception that they are revealed ere we can believe them but a clear perception of the reveal'd objects themselves we cannot have they being to us incomprehensible Mysteries upon which ground both these and sundry other Scripture-Doctrines are by some rejected as unintelligible and irrational But here Des Cartes acquits himself For he somewhere gives his Readers this Caution That we should remember God the Maker of all things to be infinite and our selves finite and therefore if he reveal any thing to us of himself or other things that is above the strength of our Natural Wit such as the Mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity we must not deny them credit though we cannot clearly understand them Nor should we at all wonder that there are many things both in his immense nature and in the Creatures made by him that exceed our capacity 4. This fond conceit of the Exercitator borders upon that of the Enthusiasts whose high-flown pretences of the guidance of the Spirit and the internal living essential substantial word within them comes to no more when searcht to the quick but their own darkned and besotted Reason whose absurd Fancies and Blasphemous Dictates they daringly imputed to the Spirit of God This Clause in our Author brings him under a suspition of complying with those old Libertines and present Quakers whom he professeth to dislike onely with this difference They put their

Interpreter preclude them 3. Were this Argument allowed it would for ever debarr us from alledging Scripture against the Romanists in any Controversie that we have with them it being notorious to all Men that this is one great difference betwixt us and them who must be the Supreme Interpreter of Scripture which they challenge as the Priviledge of their Church and we ascribe to the Scripture it self But it is a miserable Plea that this Author makes elsewhere for himself viz. That he had to do with one whom he esteemed to be no Christian but an Heathen for so he accounts the Exercitator who would no more regard the Testimony of Scripture in this Case than a Jew would regard any proof from the New Testament and therefore it was that he declined dealing with him about those Testimonies from Scripture It seems then he would make the World believe that what he had said about this was onely spoken ad hominem By which it plainly appears that our Author began to see he could not stand his ground but was not so ingenuous as to confess his Error and therefore runs behind this Bush to hide himself For 1. His Words which I quoted before out of his Book De Scripturarum Interprete do evidently shew that he speaks according to his own Mind that it was a preposterous thing in this Controversie to alledge the Testimony of Scripture and that in this Case no such proof was to be allowed see him page 217. 219. and 247. and not only so but alledges the Reasons beforementioned such as they are for this wilde Position 2. He knows very well that the Jews to whom he compares his Antagonist do not at all own the Authority of the new Testament but professedly reject it Whereas the Exercitator whatever his Religion be does avowedly own the Divine Authority of the Scripture and delcares himself willing to be dealt with in that way in that he cites our Divines Arguments from thence and endeavors to answer them for which this Author reproves him So that the case is not the same And yet I appeal to the Authors Reason Should any Jewish Writer either cite any Testimonies out of the New Testament for himself or endeavor by his own Interpretations to evade any Testimonies thence alledged against him which is plainly the Case here whether should a Christian that pretends to answer him do well to say That the New Testament is not here to be heard and that it were a preposterous thing to alledge it Should he not rather endeavor to answer the objections that are made and clear the places cited And if in case he should do as this Author doth here might he not justly be condemned for a Betrayer of the Christian Cause If it be said that though the Exercitator acknowledge the Divine Authority of the Scriptures yet he holds them to be universally ambiguous and obscure further than Humane Reason expounds them and therefore it was to no purpose to use Scripture to him till they had agreed about the Rule of Interpretation I answer The Exeroitator does indeed charge the Scripture with obscurity because of its ambiguity but it is upon this ground because hesays all words whatsoever are ambiguous If therefore this should shut out the Scripture from bearing witness in the Controversie then all Arguments from Reason must upon the same account be excluded too for they must be made up of Words and Phrases the ambiguity whereof according to the Exercitators Doctrine will render them obscure as well as the Scripture Come we now to speak something to the Scriptures alledged by our Divines which the Exercitator labors to evade But methinks it is a pleasant thing to see how he betrays his own Cause by acting against his own Method and Principles For having all along cried up Philosophy as the onely Interpreter of Scripture when himself comes interpret the Scriptures brought against him one would think he should bring his own Tools to this Work and labor by Philosophick Principles to make out the Sense that he gives of these Scriptures But he waves this and seeks to fetch out his own Sense from the Scripture it self by examining the Antecedents and Consequents and the Authors scope Now he either takes this way of Interpretation to be right or he does not If he do not he doth but juggle with his Reader and designs to cheat him but if he do indeed think it to be right he yields the Cause that not Philosophy but the Scripture it self is the Rule of Interpretation Now for the Scriptures alledged The first is that in 1 Cor. 1. 19 20 21. where the Apostle speaks very contemptibly of Humane Wisdom the like may besaid of the next 1 Cor. 2. 6. Now in these places saith the Exercitator the Apostle does not go about to deny or condemn true Wisdom but the earthly sensual Wisdom of the World that is grounded upon vain opinions and puts Men upon the eager pursuit of earthly things such as Riches and Honors and Sensual Pleasures I answer The Apostle having to do with those who thought meanly of the Doctrine of Christ Crucified and affected a name for that which the world counted Wisdom endeavors to lay all Humane Wisdom in the dust and to discover its insufficiency to conduct man to true happiness for which he prefers the Doctrine of the Gospel which was so derided as foolishness above that which the World so much admired This therefore is no impertinent allegation against the Exercitators opinion That in 1 Cor. 2. 14. I have already pressed in the prosecution of my first Argument and have vindicated it from the corrupt glosses that some have put upon it The last is that in Coloss. 2. 8. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit Here saith the Exercitator the Apostle doth not condemn sound Philosophy but that which is vain and useless I answer Undoubtedly he doth not condemn Philosophy truely so called But he gives a caution to take heed of being deceived by it as Men may be when the use of it is extended beyond its Line and is not kept within its own proper Bounds Thus saith our learned Davenant Philosophy or Humane Reason which is the Mother of Philosophy is always found vain and deceitfull when it is carried beyond its proper limits That is says he when it attempts to determine of those things that fall not under the cognisance of Natural Reason such are those that belong to the Worship of God and to the Salvation of Man as the Points of Justification Reconciliation with God and other Matters of Faith that are above the reach of Reason and depend altogether upon Divine Revelation CHAP. XVII 1. That Sound Philosophy asserts nothing contrary to Scripture granted 2. Two Principles instanced in and Wolzogen's Tergiversation taxed 3. The two great Articles of the Creation of all things out of nothing and the