Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	believe_v	faith_n	implicit_a	1,688	5	13.6300	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45915	An Enquiry whether oral tradition or the sacred writings be the safest conservatory and conveyance of divine truths, down from their original delivery, through all succeeding ages in two parts.		1685 (1685)	Wing I222A; ESTC R32365	93,637	258

are the Holy Scriptures and Oracles of God against what is affirm'd and can be prov'd by us to be uncertain or false in Tradition As in a like case Scholars argue from what is true and clear in Reason against what is false or dubious tho' it have Reason pretended for it Thus discoursing from Reason against Reason i. e. from what is really such against what is such but in name and appearance The sum and result of the Premises is this That as we do not take Tradition's Word for all the Doctrines or Practices and Senses of Scripture it would impose on us though we accept of Tradition's Evidence concerning the Scriptures as was in the beginning of this Chapter acknowledg'd So nor are we oblig'd to the former by acknowledgment of the latter Having stated what may be allow'd and what is denyed to Oral Tradition Next it shall be examin'd what Reason and Experience suggest against its sureness and safety of Conveyance and likewise after that what either can pretend on it's behalf CHAP. III. Reasons against the Certainty and Safety of Conveyance of Divine Truths by Oral Tradition SECT I. IT is asserted That the Body of the Faithful from Age to Age are the Traditioners of Divine Truths Sure Footing p. 60.100 101. that in reality Tradition rightly understood is the same thing materially with the living Voice and Practice of the whole Church essential consisting of Pastors and Laiety Now before Reason can acquiesce in a Tradition by Pastors and Laiety it must according to what has been premis'd be well satisfied in the fitness of the Testifiers The Qualifications of Persons for a due Testification especially in so weighty a matter as Religion are 1. Good knowingness of Fathers and Ancestors in Religion as also due care and diligence of Fathers in teaching their Children together with good Apprehensions Memory and Tractableness in the Children and Posterity 2ly Such a measure of Integrity through all descents as may secure the successive Testifiers against all temptations unto swerving from what they received from Fathers Let these Qualifications be farther considered of 1. The first Requisites are good Knowingness of Fathers together with Care and Diligence as also Apprehension Memory and Tractableness in Children let us examine how far these may be found in the Laiety I believe that the value and zeal for Religion in the first and golden Age of the Church made Fathers diligent to teach and Youth to learn But I doubt that this Temper as is incident to Religious Fervors might cool afterwards and that when Emperors became Christians Ease and Prosperity might beget a restiveness and neglect both in Ancestors and Posterity How well Fathers of Families did perform their part and how docile Children have been throughout the many hundred years before us is out of our Ken. But if we may guess at times past as there is often a likeness in some measure of the ways of Men in one Age to those in another by the times present and nearer to us it is to be wished I fear rather than it will be found that all or most Fathers and Governors of Families were such as Abraham Gen. 18.19 Josh 24.15 and Joshua Religion is too little minded in too many Families The use of a Catechisme is too rare and That when us'd is often little understood and less remembred Commonly Parents teach their Children the Lords Prayer Creed and Ten Commandments and that is well But these Rudiments are too slender a stock for Children to set up with as qualified Conveyers of the Body of the Christian Faith And if even these should pass down long by word of Mouth and not be Written they would be in danger of Maims or Corruptions But it may be thought Dr. James in his Manuduction to Divinity p. 108. Ex. Jo. Avent Conc. Bas M. S. that Spiritual Fathers instruct Young and Old both and capacitate them better for being Oral Traditioners Yet when the Priests were Fools Stocks and slothful Beasts when they had neither Scientiam nor Conscientiam neither Knowledge nor Conscience as it was complain'd in Old time it is not likely that then the Clergy were very careful to instruct the Laiety or that the Laiety should learn much from such a Clergy When of far later years some in Ireland (a) The reverend Arch-Bishop Usher in a Sermon Preached before the King June 20. 1624. on Eph. 4.13 who would be accounted Members of the Roman Church being demanded what they thought of the Doctrine of Transubstantiation not only rejected it with indignation but wondred also that it should be imagin'd any of their side should be so foolish as to give Credit to such a senseless thing When throughout a County in England (b) Dr. J. White in his Preface to The way to the true Church the Vulgar Papists were unable to render an account of their Faith or to understand the Points of the Catechism and utter'd their Creed in a Gibberish ridiculous to others and unintelligible by themselves Then the Priests fail'd in teaching the People or the People in teachableness But perhaps it has been otherwise since and was then in those Countries where the Publick and Authoriz'd Profession of the Roman Religion gave their Clergy more freedom of Access to and of Conversation with the Laiety Yet there 's an Opinion of the Romanists which will not much forward the diligent instructing of the Laiety in the Religion of Forefathers viz. That (a) The Author of Charity mistaken c. In Dr. Potter 's Answer to it pag. 183. 200 201. it suffices the Vulgar to believe implicitely what the Church teaches And that by virtue of such an implicite Faith a Cardinal Bellarmine and a Catholick Collier are of the same Belief This implicite Faith makes quick work and supersedes a distinct knowledge of Divine Truths and then what much need is there of a careful Teaching them They who speak not so broadly yet (a) Azor Instit Mor. Part 1. Lib. 8. Cap. 6. Sect. Tertiò quaeritur Et Sect. Sed mihi probabilius verius say it is the common Opinion of Divines that it is necessary to believe explicitely no more than the Apostles Creed or the fourteen Articles as they speak Nay some hold too that if this explicite Belief be only of the substance of the Articles confusedly and generally it is sufficient But by leave of these Authors such an explicite Belief of the Apostles Creed only much less a confus'd and general Belief cannot be sufficient howsoever sufficient it may be for other purposes to qualifie the Laiety for that great Purpose which in these Papers I am treating of But let the utmost be suppos'd viz. That the Clergy now do and formerly did discharge their Pastoral Duty as amply and faithfully as is requisite yet the Peoples usual immersion in secular business and distractions their oscitancy in Religious matters slowness of Understanding frailty of Memory in the

of the Understanding and any operose Discourse Now where is the more easiness of knowing things there is the less liableness to mistakes And a less liableness to and therefore a less probability of mistake in others is one reason why caeteris paribus to give credit to their Intelligence the more securely 2. Mankind is forc'd to content themselves with Information from Testimony in multitudes of Things which their Curiosity or the Exigency of their Affairs do engage them to be satisfied in and yet their own Sense or Reason can give no prospect of them Those many who never cross'd nor saw the Seas must trust others Relation that there are such places as Paris Rome Constantinople both the Indies where these places lye and what their circumstances are The reason why Men believe that they were born in such a year on or about such a day and therefore that they are of such an Age that they were Baptiz'd and that such is their Name is that they are told so 'T is not possible to come acquainted with Times past and with the divers Revolutions and Events of the numerous Ages before we were born otherwise than by Testimony from History If we would satisfie our selves whether the Books in our possession are indeed the Works of the Authors whose Names they bear that which we must have recourse to is that these Books have been and are witnessed to are generally reputed to be those Authors Works i. e. there 's a general Tradition for it For the two Reasons given it is plain that there is both a comparative safety and likewise a necessity in a considerable measure of reliance upon others Testimony and common Tradition in many things SECT III. Notwithstanding what has been said on the behalf of Testimony and Tradition yet they are not such an Oracle that their Responses must be receiv'd indiscriminately and without wary Examination Though where they well cannot mistake or deceive or there 's little or no temptation to misrepresent things they may be trusty yet both Written and Oral Tradition are often guilty of no small failures Of the two Oral Tradition is subject to the more shortness and uncertainty It is ordinary for Reports to pass from one to another to have a general Vogue and yet to be very false 'T is usual for Stories which might be true enough in the first Relation of them yet after they have travelled through many Mouths to be so much altered from what they were at the first that they look like one of Ovid's Metamorphoses There are Traditions from Fathers which yet the Posterity have not Faith enough or more Wisdom than to believe It will be found upon due Consideration that as when a Man hears others talking at a good distance from him only a noise and now and then a word or two come to his Ears the Articulation of the rest being lost by the way insomuch that little if any thing is understood of what is said So that from past and remote Ages there arrive down to us but meer generals confus'd and very short notices of things and the Credit of those too comes weakned with acknowledgedly fabulous or suspected intermixtures especially is this true of those Antiquities which meer Oral Tradition wafts to us Observe Families one would think that considering the love which Men have for their Native Soil the particular place of their Birth and Habitation for their Inheritance and for the Stock of which they are Branches Young Persons should be much inquisitive from their Fathers and Fathers should delight to Story to their Children the Circumstances pertaining to these things Yet often excepting some general Informations comparatively little News is brought of such concerns and of particulars which hapned but three or four Generations off further than they can be certified from Registries Deeds and the like Writings 'T is not unusual for Persons to enquire of the Church-Book how Old they are Books deserve care they are a relief of Mortality in them the Dead Authors do in some manner survive themselves and continue useful to the world after they have left it Yet what a multitude of these has Tradition suffered to perish to be buried as well as their Authors nothing to be left of them except as an Epitaph the Titles of them Of many there remains no more than some fragmenta some scatter'd Limbs as 't were of a mangled Body Several Books are father'd upon certain Authors of whom they have it may be no more than the Name Divers are more or less corrupted some so much depraved ut samnium in ipso samnio quaeratur that the Books may be search'd for in the very Books and scarce found Hence it follows that Tradition is not so careful a preserver of it's Deposita as it should be not so faithful a Relater of Things past as that it should be thought irrefragable and that Belief should be subjected to it promiscuously and without choice Therefore there must be something else and beyond it which may instruct us how to distinguish of Testimonies and Traditions which to mistrust or to reject and which to believe This Director is Reason which in it's Debate and Decision of the due Credibility of Testimonies and Traditions and of the deserv'd precedence of one to the other proceeds upon the Circumstances of the Testifiers and their qualifications These in general are 1. A sufficient knowledge of the things attested to 2ly Such Honesty and Integrity as may encline the Testifiers to relate things as they know them to be Some of the particular Rules or Cautions in the accepting Testimonies may be 1. The More the Testifiers are the stronger the Testimony is and the More are to be preferr'd to the Fewer supposing a Parity of Circumstances 2ly Forasmuch as generals and the substance of things are commonly more easily knowable and remembred than Particulars and minuter Circumstances therefore Testimony may be more safely credited in the former than in the latter 3ly Because Integrity is least to be suspected or question'd when not under temptation by Interest therefore the Testimony of clear and uninteressed Witnesses may be the more confidently admitted 4ly The nearer the Testifiers liv'd to the Times in which what is witnessed to was spoken or done the more valuable their Testimony is for the greater the remove is from what is Evidenced to the more accidents might intervene for the clouding and misrepresentation of it By this it appears that Reason's Court is the Soveraign Judicatory where lies the last Appeal here it being to be determin'd concerning the competency and validness of the Testimony or Tradition So much of Tradition in general whose so near alliance to Testimony at large makes them much to agree in their use and force what it is in what matter most properly useful and argumentative It 's Efficacy and yet it 's Failures into what it is lastly resolv'd where the relief lyes against a deception by it in it's