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	testimony_n	1,573	5	8.5071	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49895	Five letters concerning the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures translated out of French.; Défense des Sentimens de quelques théologiens de Hollande sur l'Histoire critique du Vieux Testament contre la réponse du prieur de Bolleville. English. Selections	Le Clerc, Jean, 1657-1736.; Locke, John, 1632-1704.; Le Clerc, Jean, 1657-1736. Sentimens de quelques théologiens de Hollande sur l'Histoire critique du Vieux Testament, composée par le P. Richard Simon. English. Selections.	1690 (1690)	Wing L815; ESTC R22740	97,734	266

I have first observ'd that several great Men and who have pass'd for good Christians have held this Opinion without losing the Reputation they had of Piety There is not a Man of Worth and Honour among the Protestants who will dare to say that Erasmus and Grotius were Libertines and yet both of them defended openly this same Opinion But because there are some Divines who esteem none but those that have been of the Society they live in I will repeat some reremarkable words of a Divine famous amongst the Presbyterians in England and even amongst those on this side the Water It is Mr. Richard Baxter who speaks thus in an English Book translated not long since into Dutch and intituled The Saints everlasting Rest. 22. Though all Scripture be of Divine Authority yet he who believeth but some one Book that containeth the Substance of the Doctrine of Salvation may be sav'd much more they that have doubted but of some particular Books 23. They that take the Scripture to be but the Writings of godly honest Men and so to be only a means of making known Christ having a gradual Precedency to the Writings of other godly Men and do believe in Christ upon those strong Grounds which are drawn from his Doctrine Miracles c. rather than upon the Testimony of the Writing it being purely infallible and divine may yet have a divine and saving Faith 24. Much more those that believe the whole Writing to be of Divine Inspiration where it handleth the Substance but doubt whether God infallibly guided them in every Circumstance And in the next Page 32. The Circumstantials are many of them divine yet so as they have in them something humane as the bringing of St. Paul 's Cloke and the Parchments and as it seems his Counsel about Marriage c. 33. Much more is there something human in the Method and Phrase which is not so immediately divine as the Doctrine 34. Yet is there nothing sinfully humane and therefore nothing false in all 35. But all innocent Imperfection here is in the Method and Phrase which of we deny we must renounce most of our Logick and Rhetorick Nothing can be more expresly said for the Justification of our Friend Those who have a value for Mr. Baxter must forgo their Esteem of him or else not condemn so lightly those who in his Judgment may have a saving Faith together with some Opinions different from those commonly receiv'd It may likewise be observ'd that many of those who have writ of the Truth of the Christian Religion have prov'd it without supposing the particular Inspiration of the Historians of the New Testament to be such as it is ordinarily taken to be as Grotius whose Book has been alike esteem'd by all Parties Which shows that our Belief is not founded upon this Supposition and that consequently one may be a good Christian without admitting it But it is better to represent this by an Example which will give you a more lively Impression of what I aim at I will therefore now indeavour in as few words as is possible to give you the Idea of a Method that seems to me very strong and very proper to convince a Libertine of the Truth of our Religion without once mentioning any thing of particular Inspiration I do not pretend thereby to condemn all other Methods that may be used to the like purpose but it seems to me that this is the simplest of all and subject to the fewest Difficulties You will allow me Sir this small Digression which may perhaps not be unuseful in a time when there are every where so many that doubt of the Truth of the Christian Religion The first and the greatest Objection the Libertines make us is That our Judgments are pre-possess'd which hinders us from being undeceiv'd We say the same of them and maintain that it is nothing but sensual Inclinations that raise those Difficulties in their Minds which would vanish if they examin'd them without Passion It is not just that either they or we should take for granted our Pre-possessions as Principles demonstrated or which need not be demonstrated Let us then act on both sides as if we had not yet espous'd any party and let us urge nothing that is not founded upon Principles which both sides acknowledg It is agreed that there are certain Characters by which we may be assur'd whether a thing has been done or no and by which we may distinguish the Truth or Falshood of a History If we do not agree in that we are Pyrrhoniens or to give it a better Name altogether senseless for none but a Mad-Man can doubt of the Truth of all the Histories in the World But farther we must also agree in another thing which is no less certain It is that there are certain Matters of Fact the Truth whereof is better conceiv'd than it can be prov'd and which are of such a nature that unless a Man be in a proper Disposition of Mind he can hardly be induc'd to believe them For Example If any one should tell us here that the Inquisition of Spain and Italy has approv'd the Works of Calvin and allow'd the People to read them in Spanish and Italian although it is impossible for us to believe it and that we are firmly perswaded of the contrary we should not be able to convince a Person who should be obstinate in maintaining it until we had given him evident Proofs thereof In like manner if there were false Witnesses ready to swear that one of our Friends whose Vertue had been well known to us for divers Years and who but just then was gone out of our Company went then immediately in cold Blood to assassinate a Person unknown to him for no other reason but only to make an Anatomical Dissection of his Body it is certain we should not believe them although it might not be in our Power to prove judicially the contrary It is easy to imagine a thousand Examples of such like Truths which we apprehend better than we can prove That being suppos'd if we come to the Christian Religion there occurs at the very first a difficulty in discerning what are the Doctrines of this Religion for Christians have great Controversies among themselves about their Belief There would be no end of going about to examine all these Controversies Let us therefore suspend our Judgment thereupon and see first wherein all Christians are agreed They all agree for Example that most of the Books of the New Testament are the Writings of those Authors whose Name they bear and who writ them more than sixteen hundred Years ago that the History therein is true and that we ought to obey the Commandments therein contain'd This Obedience may be reduc'd to these general Heads a rendering to God the Service due to him a trusting in his Promises and a keeping his Commandments in what concerns both our selves and our Neighbour But this supposes a Belief of

having themselves seen them or taken them out of good Records we may be consident that for the main of the History they tell us nothing that is not exactly true These Qualifications alone are sufficient to oblige us to give Credit to them An Historian that is honest and well inform'd of that which he relates is worthy of Credit And if you add thereto that he has also suffer'd Death in maintaining the Truth of his History as the Apostles did who were put to death for maintaining that they had seen and heard that which the Gospel tells us of Jesus Christ then not only that History will be worthy of Credit but they who shall refuse to believe it can pass for no other than Fools or obstinate Persons In this manner we may be fully assur'd of the Truth of the History of the New Testament that is to say That there was a Jesus who did divers Miracles who was rais'd from the Dead ascended up into Heaven and who taught the Doctrine which we find in the Gospels And this Jesus having born witness to the History of the Jews we cannot doubt its truth at least as to the principal Matters This can not be call'd in question without absolutely renouncing Christianity But People believe commonly two things which seem to me groundless unless they ground them upon Jewish Tradition a Principle as is well known extreamly uncertain They believe first that the sacred Historians were inspir'd with the Things themselves And next that they were inspir'd also with the Terms in which they have express'd them In a word that the holy History was dictated word for word by the holy Spirit and that the Authors whose Names it bears were no other than Secretaries of that Spirit who writ exactly as it dictated As to what concerns the Inspiration of Historical Matters of Fact I observe First That they suppose it without bringing any positive Proof and that consequently a Man may with good reason reject their Supposition They say only that if it were not so we could not be perfectly certain of the truth of the History But beside that a Consequence cannot undeniably prove a Fact and that it may happen that one cannot disprove a Consequence although that which is pretended to be prov'd thereby be not true I affirm that it is false that we cannot be perfectly certain of the main substance of a History unless we suppose it inspir'd We are for Example perfectly certain that Iulius Caesar was kill'd in the Senate by a Conspiracy whereof Brutus and Cassius were the Chiefs without believing that they who have inform'd us hereof were inspir'd There are such like matters in the Histories of all Nations which we cannot doubt of without being guilty of Folly and Opiniatrety and yet without supposing that these Histories were writ by Divine Inspiration In the second place this Opinion supposes without necessity a Miracle of which the Scripture it self says nothing To relate faithfully a matter of Fact which a Man has seen and well observed requires no Inspiration The Apostles had no need of Inspiration to tell what they had seen and what they had heard Christ say There needs nothing for that but Memory and Honesty Neither had those Authors who writ only the things that came to pass before their time as the Author of the Books of Chronicles any more need of Inspiration for copying of good Records And as for those who made the Records there was no more requisite than that they should be well inform'd of what they set down either by their Eyes or by their Ears or by faithful Witnesses It will be said perhaps that according to this Opinion the Faith which we build upon the Scripture will be no other than a Faith purely human because it will be grounded only upon Human Testimonies To this I answer That neither do we know any more than by a Human Faith that the Book which we call the Gospel of St. Matthew is truly his It is nothing but the uniform Consent of Christians since the beginning of Christianity to this day that makes us believe it which in truth is no more than a Testimony purely Human. We do not believe it because we are assur'd of it by an Oracle from Heaven which has told us that this Book is truly that Apostle's but on the same account that we believe that the Eneid is truly Virgil's and the Iliad Homer's But that which they here call Human Faith is of as great certainty as the Demonstrations of Geometry And even Divine Faith it self as they call it is built upon this Certainty For in truth we do not believe in Jesus Christ but because we are perswaded that the History we have of him is true And how do we know that this History is true Because Eye-witnesses have written it and have suffer'd Death to maintain the truth of their Testimonies And how are we certain that these were Eye-witnesses and that they suffer'd Death rather than deny what they said By History that is to say by the Testimony of Men who affirm it to us constantly from the time of the Establishment of the Christian Religion to the Age we live in So that Human Faith is found to be the ground of Divine Faith But we need not fear that this Foundation is not solid enough For without ceasing to be a Man and reasoning no more than a Brute it cannot be disputed as has been made appear by many Learned Men who have written of the Truth of Christian Religion In the third place The common Opinion is contrary to the Testimony even of the Sacred Writers St. Luke begins his Gospel after this manner For asmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in Order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us even as they delivered them unto us who from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word It seemed good to me also having had perfect Vnderstanding of all things from the very first to write unto thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed You may observe in these words a Confirmation of what I have been saying and a full Proof that St. Luke learn'd not that which he told us by Inspiration but by Information from those who knew it exactly Now if you allow St. Luke to have so faithfully related to us the Life and Discourses of Jesus without having been particularly inspir'd that we ought to receive what he tells us with an entire belief in his Fidelity you ought not to make any difficulty to grant the same concerning the other Historians of the Scripture If any of them ought to be inspir'd certainly they were the Evangelists And if you will have another Example of a Histoory written without Inspiration you have but to read the Books of Kings and of the Chronicles being Extracts out of publick Registers and out