Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A91516
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The right religion, reviewed and inlarged / by L.P. Gent.
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L. P., Gent.
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1658
(1658)
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Wing P74C; ESTC R181384
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42,130
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187
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Riches occasion dangers beget dropsie-like new longings rack the thoughts day night with care of keeping apprehension of losing Pleasures if they stay glut gone leave behind them sadnesse and remorse Health is beset on all sides contraries lying perpetually beating and knocking at the four humours to let in distemper Strength be it never so vigorous is at length weakened and jaded by motion and labour Beauty fadeth away Age the canker-worme of mortality gnawerh her sleek smoothness into roughnesse and wrinkles The faculties and habites live in dependence of action and action it self is not quite free being penned up and imprisoned within us All under God hath a mixture of ill carrieth in its honey a certaine sting that none draw neer but they meet with displeasure A forcible argument that the end of creatures abide out of themselves where all perfections abounding sweet conten and rest is to be found and that is God 3 In the supernaturall by reason here is greater lack of ayd more might and power required the effects being greater and of a farre nobler Kind And if God was so charie and sparing of his honour as not to let passe the ordaining of nature to himself much more grace Whence it is cleer all flow from God as streames from the sea and are indowed with an innate or ingrafted Propension to return back to him again Now the happiness of every thing consisting in content and rest and content and rest in the injoying of its end it followeth in man that there is a capacity of double happiness natural supernatural he being capable of injoying God as he is the Author and end of nature wherein consists naturall happinesse and as he is the Author and end of grace wherein consists supernaturall happinesse 4 But as nothing would have remained without Being Except God had stretched forth his omnipotent hand to bestow it so possessed of Being it s bent and inclination must take effect by his gracious leave appointment in regard he is to prescribe the means to an end that is the Author and cause of the desire thereof wherefore whosoever desires to arrive safely at the blessed port of happinesse must banish far all self-conceit and steer by no other Compasse than that God hath touchd ' so may they saile right els their course will be evermore crooked and desperate untill they doe run themselves upon the Rocks and Shelves of utter perdition CHAP. 2. Of the will of God PHilosophers assure it for a very truth that the first of every kind is the rule of the rest in the same kind and they are strongly back'd by reason for the nearer a thing draws in likenesse to its first the more perfect it is and so held to be Whence may be easily gathered that the known Will of God is the rule Paramount of all kinds as well natural and humane as supernaturall because it was as hath been proved before them all as Author causer thereof I said known in regard knowledg is so necessary requisite to the compleating of a Rule that wanting it hath not right to challenge compliance Now this knowledg coming from Propension instinct reason tradition or revelation Propertie of speech will yeild proof sufficient that Propension and instinct are the light of naturall things reason of humane tradition of revelation and revelation of supernatural forasmuch as none meaning to be understood will deliver themselves that the Elements hold their severall places by instinct that Beasts prosecute their ends by discourse that men attaine to what is past and to be believed without tradition and revelation Undoubtedly had not Christ revealed a consistencie of Trinitie with Vnitie a possibility of Hypostaticall Vnion and tradition brought this revelation down to us these Mysteries would have been as terra incognita not so much as ever dreamed of Quis cognovit sensum Domini Rom. 11. so as to speak intelligibly and with truth the will of God becomes known in things void of sense by propension insensible by instinct inhumane as to present action by reason as to action past by tradition in beliefe by revelation Alwayes provided concerning reason that it be cleer of passion and strong for in case of byas weakness every one is to submit to the wise and perfect it being but meet that they that see should have the Guidance of those who are in darkensse least the blind leading the blinde both fall into disorder It onely remaines there being an ordinary and an extraordinarie Will to determine how they are to be observed In short thus if they agree obedience ought to bee yeilded to both if not the extraordinary must take place Christ commanding the same with his father was equally to be obeyed the Israelites according to the extraordinary will immediately revealed unto them might lawfully destroy the Cananites all others were bound to observe the ordinary will of love and peace because God onely having the obsolute soveraignty can command at pleasure lives and fortunes CHAP. 3. Of the way to happinesse 1 SIth God hath manifested his power by creating Man and his goodnesse by willing him a double happinesse doubtlesse he hath not been backward to shew likewise his wisdome in contriving the meanes to bring it to passe and his providence in making the meanes discernable otherwise he had willed an impossibility and in vaine for an end is not possible without a meanes and a meanes is to no purpose unlesse it may be known Now the meanes to an end requiting proportion and fitnesse to the end it is ordained to as the end of man is twofold naturall and supernaturall the meanes whereby he is to attaine to these ends must be so to 2. Sutable unto which God hath appointed the meanes to mans naturall happinesse to be acts of his understanding will for by them he may seeke and finde out God as he is the author and end of nature by these cleave and unite and so injoy him To mans supernaturall happinesse to be a conformity of faith to the Church a conformity of hope to our Lords Prayer and a conformity of Charity to the Commandements A conformity of faith without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11. He that believeth shall be saved He that believeth not shall be condemned Mar. 16. To the Church Going teach ye all nations he that heareth you heareth me Math. 16. He that heareth not the Church let him be as a Heathen and a Publican A conformity of hope Hope in our Lord Psalm 43. Blessed is the man who hopes in him Psalm 2. To our Lords Prayer When you pray let it be our Father c. Matth. 6. Thus shall you pray Our Father c. Luke 11. A conformity of Charity If I give all to the poor and have not charity it profiteth nothing 1 Ioh. 3. To the Commandments This is the charity of God that we keepe his Commandements Ioh. 14. If ye love me keepe my commandements Ioh. 15
THE RIGHT RELIGION Reviewed and inlarged By L. P. Gent. John 24. No man cometh to the Father but by Me. Ezekiel 13. Woe be to foolish prophets that follow their own spirit they see nothing but vain things and divine lies saying The Lord whereas the Lord hath not sent them Printed at PARIS M.DC.LVIII TO THE CATHOLIKES OF ENGLAND THe old saying Truth purchaseth hatred is verified at this time wherein Truth is grown so loathsome and hatefull that whosoever goes about to tell it indangers displeasure It is strange that any can take distast at that all desire which is to know the truth Truth being the natural pleasing object of the understanding Neverthelesse such is the perverseness and vanity of some that they despise and maligne what ought most of all to be cherisht and loved of whom it is said They preferred darkness before light Joh. 3. Having then undertaken in this small Treatise to declare Gods revealed Truth I should be wanting to my self in so dangerous an enterprize if I did make choice of any other Patronage than yours Renowned Catholikes whose many and glorious sufferings for the said Truth have rankt you in the number of the best and greatest Conquerors Others hold dependence of Fortun you of Grace they surmount force and strength common to beasts you Reason and Will proper to men They overcome vanquish'd men you conquerors themselves their conquest is of others onely yours of others and your selves too In a word all the addition that is to be made to your greatness is a continuance of patience and constancy And this God hath in store and will give conditionally that you ask it heartily He that hath begun a good work in you desires no better than to perfect the same What need you fear your enemies may hurt themselves but want power to wrong you unlesse you will Nay their worst is your best taking away your estates your good names bereaving you of your Liberties your lives those bruta fulmina which render them so formidable begets you a richer and surer possession Heaven and Eternity All the pudder they keep in vexing you is but sowing your seed for you which undoubtedly will grow up to an hundred fold increase Let them hammer cut hew you till they are weary they do no more than carve and fit you for the walls of Heaven And who can justly say he is a loser that changes for better gets much with the losse of little Take a serious view of the B. Saints that passed as you do through a sea of calamites and troubles and are now at rest with God and amongst them all you will not discover one complaining The richnesse and magnificence of their reward hath so fully recompensed their forrows and losses that they wonder at the unwillingnesse and repining of some to part with and at the greedinesse and injustice of others to wrest from that which neither can long keep For the covenant betwixt birth and death stands firm and inviolable as that gives all things this must return all bare and naked This I know is meer folly to hardened Libertines that look not beyond the fading pleasures of this life but not to melting Christians who believe and are assured that Heaven is a Reward a Gole a Crown which are not to be atchieved by sitting still by leading a licentious and inordinate life but by flying evill overcoming temptations doing good and vertuous acts Take heart therefore brave Champions and be not daunted for your greater comfort and incouragement rest assured that God is with you yea marshalls the very field you fight in and when he sees it for your spirituall advantage he will either cause a retreat to sound that you may have a time of breathing in this world or crown you with victory that he may have just cause to reward you in the next Then your persecutors will be at a stand have no more to say to you and your troubles will be at an end your mourning out your cries and sighs cease your grievances heard and redressed your teares dried up the sweat of your browes wiped away and finding your excessive gain unspeakeable joy will seize your hearts and make you glad that you had the grace and courage to suffer for so good and gracious a God For my part I shall ever acknowledge your greatness admire your glory and from your goodness raise to my self a hope that you will dart a ray to quicken and cherish these my indeavours whereby you will add an obligation to my being Your devoted Friend and Servant L. P. To the Reader Good Reader OF many Religions professed in this land severall Writers men of approved integrity and profound learning have so clearly demonstrated that there is onely one true and that the Roman is it that I cannot but impute the ungenerall acknowledging of the same to prejudice or impatience of labor To prejudice in them that have read their works and yet do not believe accordingly To impatience of labor in others that will not bestow the paines to turn over great volumes The best remedy for that sort of men is to implore the Divine Goodness for cleane and unbiass'd hearts without which it is not possible to behold the radiancy of Truth For this J have endeavoured to draw Catholike Belief into a narrow room as a vast world into a small Map to the end that with a little travails much may be discovered Jn pursuance whereof J shew in the first place the end of man in the next the will of God and the means which he hath appointed to attain to this end Then I evince the weakness and vanity of such pretences as divers make to this and other means Lastly the true Church appears in her right colours And for as much as Truth shines brighter by opposition after the manne◠of contraries the mainest Objections of Adversaries are propose◠and solved By all which if Go◠prove to be glorifyed and you rea◠benefit I shall have the return 〈◊〉 desire and wish my aime being 〈◊〉 other than Gods Glory and you◠good THE Right Religion reveiw'd c. CHAP. 1. Of happinesse 1 THE severall knowledges of things within and above the reach of Reason are sufficient Evidences that there is a naturall and a supernaturall state in both which God is the beginning and end of all 2. In the naturall for who is so short-sighted that doth not see that what hath been is at this present existent and visible was not alwayes so That then it could not produce it selfe out of the void state of nothing and by consequence that it needed an active Beginning that never was nothing and ever something whereby to bring nothing to existence and being And who so stupid that doth not feele want or satiety in the possession of whatsoever is created or made Honours expose as Cedars on Hills to the boysterous storms of Envy and malice lift up high to make the fall greater