Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	faith_n	know_v	revelation_n	1,335	5	9.6714	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63003	An explication of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments, with reference to the catechism of the Church of England to which are premised by way of introduction several general discourses concerning God's both natural and positive laws / by Gabriel Towerson ...	Towerson, Gabriel, 1635?-1697.; Towerson, Gabriel, 1635?-1697. Introduction to the explication of the following commandments.	1676 (1676)	Wing T1970; ESTC R21684	636,461	560

performed without the knowledge of the nature and attributes of God and I have before said that what is prerequired to any thing enjoined is to be supposed to be enjoined by the same Commandment therefore before I proceed to shew what respect is due unto him I must shew 1. What the nature and attributes of God are 2. How the knowledge thereof is to be attained and 3. And lastly the necessity thereof 1. I begin with the last of these because the first in order to be known even the necessity of our knowledge of God which will appear from what was before intimated concerning the impossibility of our giving him that honour which is due without it For all honour being founded in the apprehension of those excellencies which we behold in another if the excellencies of the divine nature be either not at all or but superficially known our honour of it must be accordingly and consequently no way suitable to the Divine Majesty And hence Joh. 17.3 the knowledge of God and Christ is set to denote all that which is necessary to eternal life For this saith that Evangelist is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Not that this alone is sufficient to qualifie us for Heaven for Faith and Love and all other Graces of the Spirit are necessary to the attaining of it but that this is the basis and foundation of all the rest neither can we either love or trust in him or adore him if we have not a due knowledg of him 2. The necessity of the knowledge of God being thus evinced pass we in the second place to the means whereby that knowledge is to be attained which is either 1. the light of Reason and Nature or 2. of Revelation and Scripture That God may be known by the former of these ways S. Paul evidently declares Rom. 1.19 20. For that saith he which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them for the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternal power and Godhead It is true indeed what through the present weakness of humane nature and Gods just desertion of it because of our many provocations we cannot so easily or so perfectly attain to the knowledge of him by the light of reason and nature But as this hinders not but that God may be knowable by it because the eyes of our understandings are become less apt to discern it so he that shall seriously set himself to contemplate the works of nature will find no contemptible footsteps of the Deity upon them But because I have * Explication of the Apostles Creed elsewhere given a specimen of what is knowable by this light in my discourse upon that Article of the Creed concerning God the Father and because it is most certain that whatever may be knowable by it the best of us find it difficult enough to deduce the nature of God from it therefore consider we in the second place that more certain one even the light of Revelation and Scripture For as no one can be supposed to give us a more perfect account of the nature of God than he himself can and consequently that which comes immediately from him must be preferred before all other ways of knowing him so cannot that account but be thought the most easy and intelligible because added in consideration of our inability to discern it by the help of our own reason For after that * 1 Cor. 1.21 in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe Besides when that which may be known of God from the works of the Creation cannot be deduced but by a long train of consequences the Scriptures give us direct and manifest notices of it they present him to us not as in a glass that is to say by reflexion and obscurely but as I may so speak face to face And therefore being now to set before you the nature and attributes of God so far forth as shall be necessary to let us know what regard we ought to have for him I will borrow my description of it from the Scripture which is more exact and intelligible rather than from the light of nature which is both more imperfect and obscure This only would be premised as well to set bounds to our own enquiries as to enhance that respect which we ought to have for the Divine Majesty that being infinite in his nature and attributes according as hath been elsewhere * Explication of the Apostles Creed shewn and shall be farther in the conclusion of this discourse whatsoever knowledge we or any other creature may have of him yet we cannot hope to comprehend him in which sense some have with great probability understood that of S. Paul that he dwelleth in that light to which no man can approach and that no man either hath seen him or can 1 Tim. 6.16 Now if it should be demanded which ought to be the end of all our enquiries in this matter what this incomprehensibility of God exacts of us and by what means we may own him as such I answer by an humble and silent admiration of this his unintelligible perfection For as that Painter who drew a veil over the face of a sad Mother did thereby better express the passion he was to represent than he could have done by the saddest aspect he could have delineated because that veil which he drew over it did tacitly insinuate that the grief was not capable of being expressed so cannot we give a greater evidence of our owning the immensity of the Divine Nature than by our silent admiration of it For this shews the Divine Nature to be such as we can never hope to conceive and much less be able to express 3. Having premised thus much as a limit to our own enquiries and as a supplement to those imperfect discoveries we shall be able to make of the Divine Majesty proceed we according to our proposed method to the observation of so much as is knowable from the Scriptures concerning the Nature and Attributes of God And 1. First of all for the Nature of God the Scripture is express that it is spiritual for so our Saviour Joh. 4.24 God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth that is to say for this is the best description we can give of a spirutal nature he is such a substance as is exempt from the Laws and affections of bodies he is not capable of being divided or circumscribed Neither doth it make ought against this assertion that we find God frequently described with Eyes and Ears and Hands and other the parts of a body For as he who would explain any thing to a child or other weak person must

the chief and sometimes onely Motive to vow a Religious Life Which said I should now 5. Proceed to the Obligation of them as I did before in the matter of Oaths But because the Prophet Moses hath delivered the same Rules concerning the Obligation of them both and because what I have before said concerning the Obligation of Oaths may without any the least violence be accommodated to the Obligation of the other I will content my self with the proposing one onely Case concerning Vows which will find no Resolution from what was there said And that is Whether or no a Man having made a Vow of Single Life be not oblig'd to the keeping of it For though as was before said the making of such Vows be generally unlawful yet it follows not from thence that they may be broke when made because many things which ought not to be done are yet of force when they are For the resolution whereof the first thing I shall offer is That there is no doubt such a Vow obligeth those to the keeping of it who as the Apostle speaks have power over their own Bodies For a Single Life being not onely lawful in it self but where it is preserv'd inviolate a great opportunity of Religion there is no doubt a Vow concerning it is so far from being null that in that Case it ought to be Religiously observ'd But from hence it will follow secondly That he who hath so vowed ought to use all means possible to keep to that State which he hath so vowed For if as the Prophet Moses instructs us we are generally to do whatsoever proceedeth out of our mouth we are in reason to make use of all requisite Means to enable us to the performance of it he that is oblig'd to the End being ipso facto oblig'd to the Means because there is no attaining the End without them Neither will it suffice to say as perhaps it may be That a Single Life hath Temptations attending it and therefore rather to be discarded than continued in For inasmuch as there is no State or Thing which is without them if for that reason our Vow might be rescinded no Vow at all could oblige because there is nothing in the World which may not expose us to Temptations If there be any thing which may rescind such a Vow it must be some imminent danger of falling into Sin notwithstanding all our Endeavours to the contrary And in this Case there is no doubt a Vow so made ought to be broken with how much deliberation soever made he that forbids us a Sin consequently forbidding all those things which fatally incline us to the commission of it Care onely would be taken that Men pretend not imminent danger when in truth that is not the thing that moves them but the gratifying of their own Carnal Appetites For generally speaking Whosoever vows a vow to bind his soul with a bond ought for his Vows sake and the Honour of him to whom it is made to do whatsoever proceedeth out of his mouth 6. Having thus shewn all that concerns the Affirmative part of the Precept as to the Making and Observation of Vows nothing remains to the compleating of my Discourse concerning them but that I descend to the Negative and point out those Vows that are forbidden A Task which as I have in part already discharg'd so I am now qualified to compleat because having before shewn what is requisite to make them lawful For if as was shewn in my second Inquiry the Matter of a Vow ought to be good or conducing to the promoting of it those Vows must be unlawful the Matter whereof is neither such as are the greatest part of the Vows now made For what more ordinary than to vow that we will not come into such a House or use any Communication with such or such a Person Things which whether a Man do or no it matters not as to the Business of Religion and therefore not to be made the Subject of so Sacred a Tie as a Vow The same is much more to be said of such a Vow or Vows which have something sinful for the Matter of them that which is sinful being not onely different from the proper Matter of a Vow but directly contrary to it Lastly If as was observ'd upon the same Head the Matter of Vows ought to be weighty and important those Vows must be concluded to be unlawful which are made in trifling Instances and such as for the levity thereof are hardly worthy to be made the matter of a Promise As if a Man should vow to pare his Nails upon a certain day or not to take up a Straw that lay in his way Again If as was observ'd upon the fourth Head they who vow any thing to God ought to be of Years of Discretion and actually employ it when they have those Vows must be look'd upon as unlawful which are made by Persons before they arrive at it or rashly and without consideration by those that are Which makes it strange that the Church of Rome should admit to Vows of Single Life those that have attain'd to sixteen Years of Age As if that Age though not without the use of Reason were fit to judge what State of Life were profitable for them and what is possible for them to observe Lastly If as was insinuated in my sixth Head a Vow be of the same Obligation with an Oath if it oblige to all that is not impossible or sinful it must be look'd upon as in like manner unlawful to break those Vows we have made and dishonourable to the Divine Majesty to whom they are he that thus breaks his Faith to God supposing him either to have no knowledge of his Perfidiousness or to be a tame Spectator of the Affronts that are done unto him The contrary of which as we are assur'd of by him who commands us not to do dishonour to his Name so it will be much better for us to believe upon his Affirmation than venture the trial of For if God be but just to himself to be sure he will not hold him guiltless that any way taketh his Name in vain PART V. Concerning the Sanction of the present Precept What the importance of God's not holding a Man guiltless is and that it implieth not onely the punishing him but punishing him with severity What appearance there is both from Reason and History of God's executing what he hath here denounced particularly upon Blasphemers Common Swearers Perjur'd Persons and the Violators of their Vows The Conclusion II. IT being certain that though Laws oblige yet they prevail little upon the Conscience where they have nothing but the Authority of the Lawgiver to enforce them it hath pleased God not onely to fortifie the Body of his with Threats and Promises but sometimes also to annex them to particular Precepts lest haply whilst they are divided among so many they should prove lauguid and ineffectual and rather give a