Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A70303
|
A rational discourse concerning transubstantiation in a letter to a person of honor from a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge.
|
Hutchinson, William, fl. 1676-1679.
|
1676
(1676)
|
Wing H3838; ESTC R2970
|
42,356
|
50
|
rather wonder at their stupidity and fond credulity who can believe any such thing But to get a right strong and well grounded Faith concerning this high mystery what must we do First Reflect we are Christians and as such must necessarily believe very many strange things unless we will renounce Christianity For example we must believe that there are three distinct Persons and every one of these is God and yet there are not three Gods but only one God We must also believe this one God is infinitly merciful and yet he will permit millions of souls to lament and howl amidst scorching Flames for ever though with a word he could ease them of all their pains Moreover we must believe that 1600. years ago one of the three divine Persons was incarnat and became a true mortal man flesh and blood as we are and after 33. years which he lived upon our Earth he was nailed to a Cross Hands and Feet till he died and after three daies came to life again and after 40. days ascended into Heaven where he remains to this day These would seem strange things to believe to one that should never have heard them before and yet stranger to one that from his Childhood should have been taught to laugh at such stories as mere Fables and idle fictions of cheating Priests who knew them well enough to be such but for their own gain and interest seem'd to believe them and with a great deal of Confidence taught them for infallible Truths to the credulous multitude Which being so Reflect 2d y. No Christian must bogle at any thing as to the belief of it merely for the strangeness of it and seeming unlikeliness to his senses or reason But must consider what grounds he has to judge the strange mystery he is required to believe was taught his Fore-fathers by our B. Saviour and his Apostles and if he find he has good grounds for this he must immediately submit his understanding and believe it 3dly Let us reflect upon the state of our own Country as it is at present and as our Annals represent it to have been ever since our first Receiving of the Christian Faith At present we have a considerable number of Families who believe Transubstantiation and have believed it from their Fore-fathers time out of mind and they say ever since the first planting of the Christian Faith amongst us We have also far greater multitudes who do not believe it but yet so as there 's scarce one who is fifty years old whose great Grand-father did not believe it but when his great Grand-father or his great Grand-fathers Ancesters began to believe it we are able to give no acconnt Moreover two hundred years ago in all the several Shires or Provinces of England we all universally Bishops Priests and People Rich and Poor Learned and Unlearned believed it And this not as a new Doctrin found out by themselves by reading the holy Scriptures No. They were Enemies to all Novelties and professed they must hold fast what had been taught by their Fore-elders and interpret Scripture in the sense their Fore-elders had done Now how is it possible they should come to believe such a strange Doctrin unless it had been taught them from their Fore-fathers and the first Preachers of Christianity in our Nation Especially they not reading the holy Scriptures as we do now nor having such store of Bibles that they might perhaps by their private reading have come to believe this hard and high mystery contrary to what had been taught them by their Fore-elders How came they to learn it then Did they some strange morning or other all awake of a different belief from what they had been of the Evening before Or did it come into some Schollars head by studying the holy Scriptures reading for example those words This is my body so often repeated in the Evangelists S. Paul and he hereupon was convinced they had all been in an Error for so many years and by Preaching and Disputing perswaded others But how comes it to pass then we having had Historians that have mentioned far less Matters yet say not a word of any such thing Or did the Britons before S. Austin the Monk believe no such thing How came they then not to clash about it or if they did how comes it to pass other differences are recorded and this is omitted Besides if S. Austin taught it our Ancesters he confirm'd the Religion he taught by miracles as all our Stories testifie And also he lived within the first 600 years to which Dr. N. N. in one of his Sermons appeals Nor did that blessed man pretend to teach us a new Religion neither newly found out at Rome but what was alwaies believed ever since S. Peter 4. Let us consider why we are Christians and we shall find if we be so rationally and groundedly and not merely because we were so brought up from our Childhood I say we shall find our Faith to be grounded upon such principles as if we be true to them they will force us as strongly to believe Transubstantiation as the Incarnation the Real presence as the Deity of our Saviour For example I believe the man Jesus Christ who lived 1600. years ago was also God And why Because he said he was so and proved by evident miracles that he was sent to teach the World Truth and nothing but Truth And why all this Because it could not stand with the providence of God to suffer a Deceiver to work such miracles as he wrought teaching withal and practising such sanctity as he did For then the most sincere desirers to know the Truth would be most subject to miss of it But how do I know Jesus Christ wrought such miracles Because I find them Recorded in certain Books which several Nations all over the World have immemorially looked upon as faithful true stories ever since the time the miracles are said to have been wrought Now 't is not possible but the men then alive must needs certainly know whether he did work such strange miracles or no. And if they had known no such thing was wrought by him but that these things were at first feigned by some of his Friends and afterwards committed to writing by them they could never contrary to the evidence of their own knovvledge have told unanimously such notorious Lyes to their Posterity and have made them believe them as they did Nor could have recommended the Books vvherein they vvere Recorded to their Children and have made them reverence them as unquestionable and infallibly certain Histories as they did But hovv do I knovv that Jesus Christ taught that he vvas God vvhy certainly the Apostles understood him vvhat he said concerning himself vvhether he vvere only a holy man like to their great Moyses or else vvere true and substantially God and consequently to be Worshipped by them as such And no doubt but they taught their first Converts vvhat they had learnt