Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	believe_v	faith_n	revelation_n	2,830	5	9.5573	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53677	The church of Rome, no safe guide, or, Reasons to prove that no rational man, who takes due care of his own eternal salvation, can give himself up unto the conduct of that church in matters of religion by John Owen ...	Owen, John, 1616-1683.	1679 (1679)	Wing O727; ESTC R16357	32,804	52

Wherefore for men to suffer themselves to be inveagled their souls to be perverted and their Faith overthrown by a few captious Sophystical Reasonings of men of perverse minds pursuing their own secular Interest to turn aside from the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles in so plain evident and indisputable a case and Duty is such a folly in it self such an impiety against God such a contempt of the Lord Christ his Wisdom Authority and Care as must be eternally accounted for Thirdly The things for the most part which this pretended Guide proposeth unto and imposeth on the Consciences Faith and Practice of them who give up themselves unto its conduct are so unreasonable so contrary unto the common sense of Christians and the very first notions of the minds of men any way enlightened with the Doctrine of the Gospel so directly opposite unto the design of God in the Revelation of himself unto us and his commands concerning our Faith and Obedience that it is a thing astonishable how they should attain an access unto them who have any sense of these things But when once men have their ey●s bored out as they do it for themselves in the Resignation they make of their understandings and consciences unto the conduct of this Church they must grind whatever is brought unto them I shall briefly instance in some few things of this sort 1. The keeping of the Scripture from their daily and continual use I speak not directly unto them who being brought up from their infancy in that Church know nothing of the Scripture but that the Bible is an obscure dangerous Book unto all Lay-men which Hereticks make use of unto their advantage Such Persons can be contented to want it or be without it all their lives especially seeing it is full of Light and Principles inconsistent with their carnal Lusts and Interest But I speak of such who many of them like Timothy have known the Scriptures from Children and having been conversant in them have had some experience of their Power Unto such as these come Persons in the name and on the behalf of this pretended Guide And a compass of plausible words they will use fit to distract and amuse weak and unstable minds But the plain sense of what they say in this case is cast away this Bible this Book it doth but perplex you and disturb your minds with things that are above you which you cannot understand and is therefore an occasion of almost all the pernicious errors that are in the World Will not any such Person be ready to say hath God given this Book this alone as the only Revelation of his Mind and Will unto us as the Guide and Rule whereby we may come unto the eternal Enjoyment of him which you dare not directly deny hath he commanded me to Read Study Meditate and be conversant in it continually have I found the benefit of the Light counsel and consolation administred by it in my own soul and shall I now forsake it cast it away to betake my self unto your Guidance and direction shall I forsake God and Christ and the Holy Spirit all the Prophets and Apostles who daily speak unto me in and by this word to comply with you The very horror of the Proposal is enough to secure the minds of any who have the least spark of spiritual Light or Grace from a compliance with it Wherefore whether it be reasonable to leave the Word of God which is full of Light shining like the Sun in the Firmament to follow the glimmerings of this wandring Meteor which arose out of an horrible pit and there will end is left unto their consideration who take care of the eternal salvation of their own souls 2. The Sol●mn Worship of God by the Guides of the Church in a Tongue and Language which the people do not understand is another of their Proposals This they are bound to attend unto on pain of damnation But how any thing can be more contrary unto the common sense of them who know what it is to pray in a due manner no man can conceive As unto them who do not yet is it not hard to convince them where they are not obstinate on other prejudices how irrational this Proposal is how inconsistent with that reasonable service that God requireth of us Others will say that they find hinderances and difficulties enough from and in this Duty from the weakness of their Faith and instability of their Minds the suggestions of Satan with diversions from outward objects if you add thereunto that they shall not understand a word of what is spoken in Prayer and they know well enough they shall never pray at all And the Truth is did we not know whence they took occasion for this strange contrivance so contrary to the nature of all Religion and what advantage they make of it unto themselves it could never be sufficiently admired how such a sensless Imagination should befall their Minds I do not design to shew how contrary it is to Scripture Precepts and Examples to the practice of all the Saints under the Old Testament and the New with that of the Primitive Churches and on all accounts what an abominable Sacriledge it is so to rob the Church of its chiefest Treasure it hath been done by others sufficiently I only give it as an instance how unmeet this pretended Church is to be such a Guide as whereunto we are to make an absolute Resignation of our understandings and consciences in all concerns of Religion And there is nothing that can make them who have any regard unto their own souls to reject its Guidance with more detestation Shall they accept them for their Guide in Religion who under pain of damnation confine them in all the publick Worship of the Church unto the use of a Language that they do not understand That instead of praying with their understandings they must be content with a dumb shew with postures and gestures with Altars and Pictures the antick actings of a Priest and a noise of words whose sense they know not at al If a man would seek for an Infallible Guide to Hell it is hard to find one more likely and better qualified unto that purpose than is this Church of Rome 3. There is at the same instant proposed unto us by this Guide the Doctrine of Transu●stantiation with the Sacrifice of the Mass thereon depending This they say we must believe at least avow that we do believe on pain of eternal and temporal destruction also But herein they require of us that on the meer credit of their conduct we must renounce the use of our senses the exercise of our Reason and actings of Faith on Divine Revelations all things whereby we are either Men or Christians that we may become blind Idolaters But they who pretending to be our Guides in Religion do thereon impose this monstrous Imagination on our credulity with the Idolatrous Practice

wherein it issues had need give us better security of their Divine Infallibility than the Angels in Heaven can do For if an Angel from Heaven should preach this Doctrine unto us we may safely esteem him accursed Gal. 1. 8. 4. The last thing I shall instance in of this kind is the Adoration or Worship of Images God saies concerning it expresly Thou shalt not make unto thy self any graven Images thou shalt not bow dow to them nor worship them They say contrary Thou shalt make unto thy self graven Images thou shalt bow down to them and adore them And in their use they make them the stage plaies in Religion wherewith the minds of ignorant unstable Persons are allured and seduced into all manner of superstitious practices and turned off from the simplicity of the Gospel For being once perswaded on the credit of their Guide that the making use and Adoration of them are lawfull there is enough in the carnal minds of men to make them dote and even be mad upon them Wherefore no less service is done unto the interest of sin and the Kindom of Satan hereby than if they should have taken off all sense of the Authority of God from the consciences of men in the Prohibition of those things which their sensual lusts are most prone unto Could they have dissolved the obligation of the commands of God against Adultery or Stealing and left men unto the guidance of their own lusts and inclinations it is evident what abominable excesses the generality of men would run into Neither do the lusts of the mind engage persons with less fierceness into the pursuit of their objects than do those of the flesh And thence the disannulling of this command of God hath been an inlet unto all abominable Idolatry But herein they will not allow those who give up themselves unto their conduct once to consider the direct contradiction that is between Gods commands and theirs but believe they must what their Church believes and practise accordingly which is the most intollerable Tyranny over the souls of men that ever was attempted Only they will tell us of Latria and Dulia and Hyperdulia of Religious Worship that is direct or reductive transient or terminated on this or that object and after a maze of the like insignificant Terms the conclusion is positive You shall worship graven Images There are also sundry other things wherein they do or would impose on the credulity of men in open contradiction unto their Sense Reason and Experience as well as unto all evidence of Truth from the Light and Guidance of the Scripture which are somewhat of another Nature than those foregoing I shall only mention some of them As 1. They would have us believe that we cannot believe the Scripture to be the Word of God but upon the Testimony and Authority of their Church All the evidence that a man is capable of in his own mind that he doth so believe it all that can be given in ordering our lives according unto it as the Word of God the assurance and Peace which multitudes of all sorts have in resolving all their interest in things eternal into the Faith of it the sufferings and martyrdomes which many have undergone in the confirmation of it the uncontroulable pleas that are made of the sufficiency of the Motives whereon we believe it so to be are nothing with them but we must say we cannot believe the Scripture to be the Word of God but only on the Testimony and Authority of their Church and therein both give our selves the lye as unto what we know and are assured of and judge millions to Hell who have lived and died in the Faith of it without any respect unto that Testimony or Authority 2. They will have us to believe what they do not indeed believe themselves As for instance Justification by our own works For practically many of them do for this end trust unto Absolutions Masses the Sacraments and Sacramentals of the Church with a reserve for the complement of it in Purgatory which are not our own works and some of the wisest of them do betake themselves at last to the only Mercy and Grace of God So would they have us to ven●ure our souls on that whereon they will not adventure their own 3. Papal Personal Infallibility was once a principal Article of their Creed and the generality of their Proselytes do receive it from them with no less firm assent than they do unto that of Christ himself But among themselves they have so multiplied their wrangling Disputes about it as makes it evident that they believe it only so far as holds proportion with their Interest and is subservient thereunto indeed not at all Their Disputes of a Difference between the Court of Rome and the Church of Rome of the Pope in his Chair and out of it in the use of help and advice of others and without this in a General Council and without it in a particular Council and without it in matter of Right and of Fact and the like make it evident that they know not in what sense to believe it and so indeed believe it not at all And whereas they do themselves confess that some of their Popes have been of the worst of men yea monsters for luxury uncleanness and violence that which they require of us is not only hard and unreasonable but impossible for any sober man to grant namely that we believe such Persons to have been infallible in the Declaration of all Divine Heavenly Mysteries so as that we ought to acquiesce in their Declaration of them 4. They would have us believe that the same Body of Christ which was once in the fulness of time made of a woman by the Power of God is every day made of a wafer by the Power of a Priest And what indignities are hereby cast on his Person hath been sufficiently demonstrated These are some of the Proposals which this pretended Guide makes unto all them who give up themselves unto its conduct to be believed with a suitable practice on the pain of eternal damnation But yet evident it is that they are all of them contrary unto the common Sense Reason and Experience of all Christians all that believe the Gospel as well as directly contradictory unto the Scripture and Example of the Primitive Church It is therefore left unto the Judgment of all sober Persons such as are not yet made drunk with the Cup of their Abominations to determine whether any thing but either profound Ignorance and spiritual Darkness or love of Sin with a desire to live securely therein or secular Interests or an hardening Judgment for the abuse of the Truth or a concurrence of all them can prevail with men to make an entire absolute Resignation of their souls and all their eternal concernments unto the conduct of this pretended Guide Fourthly The Way for the attaining the Knowledge of the Truth proposed by this Guide is