Selected quad for the lemma: knowledge_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
knowledge_n	natural_a	reason_n	revelation_n	1,320	5	9.7973	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58795	The Christian life. Part II wherein the fundamental principles of Christian duty are assigned, explained, and proved : volume I / by John Scott ...; Christian life. Part 2	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1685 (1685)	Wing S2050; ESTC R20527	226,080	542

all the Duties of it must be morally that is eternally good and reasonable because those Doctrines are the eternal Reasons upon which they are founded and by which they oblige So that whatsoever is a Duty of natural Religion must oblige for ever because it obliges by an eternal Reason and so can never be dispensed with or abrogated 'till the Natures of things are cancell'd and reversed and eternal Truths are converted into Lies IN short therefore natural Religion hath only natural Reason for its rule and measure which from the Nature of God and things deduces all those eternal Reasons by which it distinguishes our Actions into honest and dishonest decorous and filthy good and evil necessary and sinful For it doth not make them good or evil by judging them so but if it judgeth truly it judges of them as it finds them and unless it finds them good or evil in themselves upon some eternal Reason for or against them its judgment is false and erroneous So that the objective goodness or evil that is in the actions themselves is the measure of our Natural Reason but our natural Reason judging truly concerning them is the measure of our choice or refusal of them for be our action never so good or evil in it self unless we have some eternal reason for or against it we cannot judge it so and unless we judge it so we cannot reasonable choose or refuse it but as soon as ever we have judged and pronounced it good or evil upon an eternal reason we stand obliged by that Judgment to do or forbear it So that right Reason pronouncing such actions good and such evil is the Law of Nature and those eternal Reasons upon which it so pronounces them are the Creed of Nature both which together make natural Religion And by this Religion was the World Governed at least the greatest part of it for some thousands of Years till by long and sad Experience it was found too weak to correct the errors of mens Minds and restrain the wild extravagancies of their Wills and Affections and then God out of his great pity to lost and degenerate Mankind vouchsafed to us the glorious Light of revealed Religion which in the largest acceptation of it includes all natural Religion as well the credenda as agenda the Doctrines as the Duties of it both which are contained in that Revelation of his Will which God hath made to the World to which it hath superadded sundry Doctrines and Duties of supernatural Religion BUT strictly speaking revealed Religion as it is distinguished from natural consists of such Doctrines and Duties as are knowable and discoverable only by Revelation as are not to be deduced and inferred by reasoning and Discourse from any necessary or natural Principles but wholly depend upon the counsel and good Will of God And where things depend intirely upon Gods Will and their Being or not Being lies wholly in his free disposal it is impossible that our natural Reason should ever arrive at the knowledge of them without some Revelation of his Will concerning them For in such matters as these where the Will of God is absolutely free Reason without Revelation hath neither necessary nor probable Causes and Principles to argue from and therefore can make neither certain Conclusions nor so much as probable guesses concerning them but must necessarily remain altogether in the dark till such time as God hath revealed to it which way his Will is determined and of such matters as these consists all revealed Religion strictly so called For tho God hath made sundry Revelations of his Will yet the subject matter of them was for the Main always the same viz. the Doctrine of the Mediation of Jesus Christ and the Duties that are subsequent thereunto which from that Promise which God made to Adam upon his Fall the seed of the Woman shall break the Serpents head to the last promulgation of the Gospel hath been the great Theme of all divine Revelation For what else was that Revelation which God made to Abraham in thy Seed shall all the Nations of the Earth be blessed but only the dawning of the Gospel which is nothing but glad tidings of the Mediator What was the Law of Moses but only the same Gospel shining through a Cloud of Types and symbolical Representations and what are all the succeeding Prophesies of the Old Testament but only the same Gospel still shining clearer and clearer till at last it broke forth in its Meridian brightness And were this a proper place I think I could easily demonstrate that from Adam to Moses from Moses to the Prophets from the Prophets to Jesus Christ the main Scope and Design of all Divine Revelation hath been the gradual Discovery of this great Mystery of the Mediation So that revealed Religion was for the matter of it always the same tho it was not always revealed with the same Perspicuity but clear'd up by degrees from an obscure Twilight to a perfect Day Wherefore Christianity which in strictness is nothing but the Doctrine of the Mediation together with its appendant Duties ought not to be lookt on as a new Religion of 1600. years Date for in reality 't is as ancient as the Fall and was then Preached to Adam in that dark and Mysterious Promise after which it was a little more clearly repeated tho very obscurely still in God's Covenant with Abraham and again after that it was much more amply revealed in the Types and Figures of the Law of Moses which yet like painted Glass in a Window did under their Pompous Shew still darken and obscure the holy Mysteries within them which were nothing but the Doctrines and Laws of the Christian Religion So that Judaism was only Christianity vail'd and Christianity is only Judaism revealed THUS The Religion of the Mediator you see was the principal Subject of all divine Revelation and this without Revelation natural Reason could never have discovered because the whole of it depended upon the free will of God For whether he would admit of any Mediator or no whether he would admit his own Son to be our Mediator or no whether he would deposit such inestimable Blessings for us or no in the hands of our Mediator was intirely left to his free Determination and there was no necessary cause either within or without him no nor any probable one neither that humane Reason could ever have discovered that could incline or determine him one way or t'other So that till such time as he revealed his Will to us we were left utterly in the dark as to this matter and had no manner of Principles to argue from or so much as to guess by This therefore is strictly the revealed Religion as it stands in opposition to the natural But since together with revealed Religion God hath put forth a second Edition of natural which was almost lost and grown out of Print through the wretched Negligence and Stupidity of Mankind and since

Difficulty it is because their Powers are weak and not able to conquer without strugling the Resistances of the Objects upon which they operate but against perfect and infinite Powers there are no Objects can make such Resistance as to put them upon strugling and Labour so that to an omniscient and omnipotent Mind there can be nothing difficult to be known or effected and it is altogether as easie to it to know all things that are knowable and do all things that are possible as to know or do any one thing whatsoever because whatsoever it doth it doth perfectly How then can the Government of the World be difficult or uneasie to God whose Knowledg and Power are perfect and infinite and consequently can inspect and govern all the Beings in the World with as much Facility as if they had only one Being to take care of and if one Man can with Ease manage one Business which he perfectly understands why may not God manage all who understands all better than we understand any one and suppose the things of the World were infinite yet since Gods Knowledg and Power are infinite too there is the very same Proportion of Infinite to Infinite as of One to One. FOR it is to be considered that the natural Tendency of infinite Power is to Action of infinite Wisdom to Contrivance of infinite Goodness to Beneficence and how can we imagine that it should be any Disturbance to God to follow the Inclination of his own Perfections And therefore since it is equally easie to his infinite Power and Wisdom and Goodness to exert themselves in a larger Sphere of Action Contrivance and Beneficence as in a narrower why should it more disturb him to govern a whole World than one single Being It would doubtless be rather a disturbance to him to act nothing to contrive nothing and to do no good because this would be to cross the Inclination of his own Perfections but since it is as easie to him to exercise those Perfections about many things as about few to exercise them about a world of things must rather be a Delight than a Disturbance to him because the more he exercises them the more he complies with their natural Tendencies and Inclinations AND what though this World be a great and cumbersome Mass of things it can be no Labour to God to move and actuate it who as an universal soul is diffused through it and vitally present with every part of it for he moves it not as Bodies move Bodies by thrusting and pressure but as Souls move Bodies by Thought and Will and as our Soul doth move its Body and determine the Motion of its Members merely by thinking and willing without any material Pressure without any Machines or Engines even so God who is the great Soul of the World doth actuate every Part and regulate every Motion of it without any laborious heavings or thrustings merely by the all-commanding Influence of his own Almighty Thought and Will And if it be no Labour to our Soul to think and will and therewithal to move our Body why should we think it any Labour to God by the same Operations to move the World For suppose our Soul were clothed with a Body as large as the whole Vniverse and were but vitally present with every Part of it it would doubtless move it all with as much Ease and command it every way with as much Freedom as it doth the Body wherein it now resides how then can it be difficult to a perfect Mind which penetrates all through and coexists with every Part of this material World to move and actuate the Whole and moderate all the Motions of it according to its own Will and Pleasure III. IT is farther objected against a Providence that it is not consistent with the manifold Evils both moral and natural which we behold in this World If there were a just and gracious Providence over-ruling the World how can it be imagined that it should ever permit so many Irregularities as we every day behold in Mens Lives and Manners or suffer so many Calamities and Miseries to befall its Subjects Both which as I shall shew you are very fairly consistent with a just and righteous Providence FOR as for the first to wit the moral Evils or Irregularities of Mens Manners the Permission of them in the World is no more inconsistent with the Goodness of Gods Providence than his making of free Agents was with the Goodness of his nature For his Permission of sin is no more than his permitting free Agents to act freely and according to that Liberty to Good and Evil wherewith he framed and created them and why may he not as well permit them to act freely as create them to act freely But to be essentially determined to good so as not to have any natural Liberty to Evil seems inconsistent with the State of a Creature for there is no Will can be naturally and essentially determined to good which is not conducted by an infallible Mind for whilst the Mind which is the Guide may possibly err the Will which is guided by it must be liable to go astray Since therefore no Will can be essentially good but that which is guided by an infallible Mind and since no Mind can be essentially infallible but one that is omniscient it necessarily follows that to be free to Good and Evil is as natural to all reasonable Creatures as to be finite in Knowledge and Vnderstanding and accordingly our Saviour declares that to be naturally and essentially good is the incommunicable Prerogative of the divine Nature Luke 18.19 and if so then either God must have made us free to Good and Evil or not have made us at all and there must have been no such Orders of Being as Men and Angels which are the Crown and Glory of all the Creation and is it not much better that there should be such Beings than that there should be no such thing as Liberty to Good and Evil And if it were not inconsistent with the Divine Goodness to create free Agents why should it be inconsistent with it to permit them to act freely 'T is true indeed we are naturally more free to Evil than the Angels and some Angels perhaps were more free to it than others but what then Was God obliged in Goodness to make all Kinds of Beings equally perfect If so there must have been but one Kind of Beings in the whole Universe and consequently there must have been infinite Kinds of Beings that are capable of Happiness for ever unmade or for ever unprovided for Wherefore since the Goodness of God was so infinitely fruitful as to communicate it self in different Degrees of Perfection to all Possibilities of Being that so there might be no Kind wanting to compleat the Universe it was requisite that there should be a mean Degree of Perfection between Angels and Brutes otherwise there would have been a Gap and Chasme in the World not