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	sufficient_a	1,462	5	7.5981	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39270	The vanity of scoffing, or, A letter to a witty gentleman evidently shewing the great weakness and unreasonableness of scoffing at the Christian's faith, on account of its supposed uncertainty : together with the madness of the scoffer's unchristian choice.	Ellis, Clement, 1630-1700.	1674 (1674)	Wing E575; ESTC R3033	22,122	41

of Faith which none can have would you not be angry I have sometime heard a man of your own temper when he was in his gibing mood and had a mind to recreate himself and his companions with such wild friskings of his playsome wit call all men fools that durst say they knew there is any such thing as that we call a world thus when wit begins to rave it knows not when to make an end and that you may seem wise not only the Christian but all men whatsoever must be content sometimes at least to be thought fools and the certainty of sense no more regarded than that of Faith but when this Gentleman was asked whether he knew he had an estate in this world and if he did not believe that man should do him wrong that should thrust him out of his possession or pretend a right to share with him in his inheritance he came a little to himself and was content to be a fool for company he swore it stoutly that he would not so tamely part with his estate here as we Christians in some cases are willing to do and that he would send any such bold intruder to seek a portion in that other world which we expect Yet was this Gentleman more beholden to the certainty of Faith than Sense for the knowledge of his right sense could only inform him that a House and Land c. was there visible and now in his possession but other evidences creating Faith were the only things could make him a satisfactory assurance of his rightful title to them It is so clear that a man may have so great an assurance of Faith as may free him from doubting and beget a chearful acquiescence and confidence that we have no other assurance of any thing done before we were brought forth or in those parts of the world which we never saw whereof yet we conclude our selves so certain that we would hiss at the man that should deny them It is not therefore yet apparent that we are fools because we pretend to a certainty of Faith or if it be we shall be sure to find company amongst you We will yet grant you this your desired advantage also suppose we then that no such certainty as we pretend to can be had but suppose withall that your opinion have as little of probability as our Faith hath of certainty the advantage is not yet so great but that if we must be thought foolishly credulous you must also be esteem'd as foolishly opinionative When you have set your wits on tenters to prove the things that we believe to have no being you are still fain to come off with a mere possibility that they may not be We will not be so unreasonable as you are to demand of you as you ridiculously do of us any thing like Mathematical demonstrations for your opinion of no God no Soul no future life and the like but we think it reasonable that you should shew us some at least probable reasons for your opinion if you will have it pass for an opinion that is for something rational and not rather for a mere dotage and yet such reasons shew you none nor ever can do your opinion is therefore groundless and vain Now on the other hand we upon all occasions produce our motives of credibility and such grounds of believing as all men able to exercise their reason do account sufficient to build a Faith upon because all that matters of this nature are capable of and he that demands more only declares his ignorance and is as ●bsurd as he that will not own there be any colours because he hears them not or sounds because he sees them not Yet do we offer you more than you can justly demand for what we have reason enough upon the true motives of credibility only to believe we have undeniably so much assistance both from sense and reason as to render them highly probable even in the judgment of the considering unbeliever Now if it be thus as you will certainly find when you shall have patience to peruse seriously the many things which are written to this purpose then certainly is the folly yet yours who out of a vain and groundless opinion of the truth whereof you can give no probable account go on to deride our Faith of things both credible and probable and on no other account but this that still you suppose it possible that we may be deceived Yea but this is our folly that we believe things incredible and so you say we do because we do believe such things to be as far exceed the comprehension of any mans understanding when you have said this you have said all and we must either now be fools or never But say I pray' Is it a thing so incredible that there should be something that we poor mortals are not able by our reason to comprehend You say indeed it is only pride which makes men hope for Heaven the vanity of which expression it were as easie for me to shew as you would find it hard to prove that it is only pride which makes men humble but I am not now to disprove your bold sayings but reprove your unreasonable arrogance I shall only therefore return you this which I think no man will say stands in need of a proof that it is pride alone can make men think that what their reason doth not comprehend is not I shall need to do no more but wish you seriously to advise with your own Philosophy to discover this piece of your folly to you There you will easily learn without my help that incomprehensibility by our sense and reason is so far from making any colourable proof that the thing to which it is supposed to belong is not that even the minutest things considerable in nature have depths unsearchable by either Nay it hath been often shewn you and let me now beg this favour of you when you next take our books into your hands not to resolve before-hand to laugh at what should make you wise and modest that whilest you are studying how to charge our Faith with soul absurdities you plunge your selves sometimes into the very same and oft into those which confessedly on all hands are much fouler I shall therefore leave with you this reasonable request that you will only so long forbear to censure our Faith as absurd till you can free your selves from those absurdities which you are forced inevitably to run into by contradicting it All that I have hitherto said tends only to perswade you to be so just to mankind as to think it possible some of them may be wiser and know more than your selves or if this will not down with your proud stomachs to imagine at least for a time that you may possibly be as foolish as the wisest of those who are not of your opinion till you have weighed well what they can plead for themselves If we all erre pity the

be so stubborn and impudently refractory as to persist in disputation and so unreasonable as once more to call for any farther satisfaction in a thing so heterodoxly yet so magisterially asserted we shall usually see these tall gentlemen if they can find no fair opportunity of quitting the company and running away begin to stoop by little and little even so long till the bravado dwindle into a bare It may be so and yet possibly it may be thus and no man can tell us whether it be thus or so So that whatever conquest they obtain if ever they prove masters of the field must be wholly attributed to the weakness of their adversaries nothing to their own valour and prowesse To deal clearly with you after all that I have had to this day the opportunity to hear or read from any of these great wits who are so greedy of the honour to trample upon the Faith of Christians yet as impatient as the Devil himself would be though they deserve it much more to be called Atheists I could never see any thing offered as a conclusion which would amount to any more than one of your Sceptical premises and were these all with a thousand more as good as they laid together with all the art and confidence whereof you and your partners have good store how little strength they would have to secure you from as much folly as you charge upon others or defend the most tolerable of your desperate resolutions from the just imputation of madness requires no great skill in another to teach you nor sagacity in you to learn would you be at leisure from your vanities and have patience to consider without a teacher Who knows say you whether there be an Heaven and a life to come or no Suppose now that this your question were altogether unanswerable and be it as true as you would have it that no man knows this Yet are you far from having gain'd all that which you catch at such a victory over the poor Christian that you may without the just censure of vanity crow upon your beloved dunghill of uncleanness For if none know this then none knows whether you or he hold the truer though it will be easily seen anon which of you holds the safer opinion If the Christian think there is a life to come and yet there shall be no such thing then indeed he is in an error and his hopes are vain and yet I dare not say foolish because an eternal happy life after death is a thing so desirable of all that every man would be willing to lay hold on any grounds whereon he might build any though but the weakest hope and expectation of it It you think there is no life to come and yet there be one then are you in an error by so much the more dangerous by how much your loss will prove greater he losing only some temporal joys but you eternal and yet much more foolish inasmuch as you both despised what confessedly was in it self above all things desirable and rashly exposed your self to those torments which are of all things most formidable If then no man yet know whether there shall be any such thing or not then as no man can yet say which of you is in the error so certainly the folly must fall to your lot who make him the But of your scorn who for ought that either you or any man else upon your supposition can yet tell may be as wise yea and is probably even in his choice certainly in his modest behaviour much wiser than your self But yet good Sir if you and your confederates have authority to play the fools part and yet be thought the wisest on the Stage shew us whence you have it and we have done Again you say Who knows it This is your way you are ready at posing but as slow as others in answering and indeed this is your master-piece and you know whose character the Proverbial saying hath made it One fool can ask more questions than twenty wise men can answer But suppose that in answer to your question we should affirm that we know it or at least that it may be known what we should thus affirm whether truly or no you could never be able to disprove if you say and swear we know it not that is only to contradict not confute us and the world hath seen no more for it as yet but only your word and ours If neither of us as yet have so much command over men's Faith as to be credited in a matter of so great consequence upon our bare assirmation or negation then are we yet on even ground and you have no more cause of triumph over us then we have over you If either may be credited on his word why one and not both If both much good may it do you It cannot be in the contradiction but with respect to the divided parties We say we know it and are believed you say you know it not and are believed Say we both true then are we knowing and you ignorant Say we both falsey then are you alike guilty with us in cousening the world by a lie and your lie is the more pernicious by how much greater the good is out of which you cousen it Say we truly and you falsly I need not tell you what follows But if we say falsly and you truly you have only this advantage that you are ignorant and we are deceived both equally to be pitied by others but neither have cause of glorying over the other Yet without doubt you must be the only men who have searched into Nature's mysteries and have been fitted by the advantages of Education to discover the knaveries of jugling Priests and the follies of a deluded people If your word may be taken for it thus you shall be esteemed but if your great boastings of your selves will amount to no more but a piece of arrogance too well known to be essential to men of your complexion you must still go a begging as well as we fools for Faith to believe you Suppose it yet once more to be as you say that no man knows any thing of all this yet as this will afford you no ground of glorying over others simplicity so neither will the unreasonable inferences you fetch thence when throughly examined prove either acceptable to the considering part of the world or so much as safe or honourable to your selves I shall shew you the former of these now and the later in the close of this Letter You tell us that seeing these things cannot be known It is most reasonable that men should please themselves in a free enjoyment of all things they esteem good in this world and so make to themselves as much happiness as they can here seeing that happiness which men expect after death in another world is for ought we know no better than a dream I dare not doubt but whilest you talk at this