Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	believe_v	faith_n	revelation_n	1,466	5	9.8611	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

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

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