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
A57062	A sermon preached before the Queen, at White-Hall, on Sunday, Aug. 16, 1691 by Nathanael Resbury ...	Resbury, Nathanael, 1643-1711.	1691 (1691)	Wing R1132; ESTC R12711	11,474	32

submit our speculations of God to these lively oracles by which and by which alone he hath taken care we should know any thing of him we are safe from all the false flights of Superstition on the one hand Enthusiasm on the other hand and all the wandring misguided opinions concerning God on every hand Here we may set our foot and acquiesce in what we certainly meet with here tho we may not be carried into those heights to which some vain opiniastres think they could be soaring or tho there may be some mysteries which leave our reason behind them and call in for the assistance of Faith as believing that they are the certain matter of revelation which must therefore be true because revealed to us by the H. Spirit of God There are two things wherein the Socinians have seemed to lay a barr against themselves as to the soundness of their Faith 1. The loose conceptions about the Divine inspiration of the H. Scriptures 2. Their apprehension that they must believe nothing which their own reasons cannot comprehend By the former they let go that firm hold they ought to have of some first principles on which they ought to rest and depend and lay themselves open to a gradual Scepticism throughout the whole Occonomy of Faith And by the other they discard all mystery in Religion and would pretend to fathom the utmost depths of that while they are uncapable of solving a thousand difficulties in every thing which they see and handle and converse immediately with Hence their hesitating in the great mystery of our redemption by Christ Jesus and the satisfaction to divine justice effected by his death the deep and unfathomable doctrine of the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity They forget the authority that matters of pure revelation ought to have with our Belief and that where our reason cannot reach they must not therefore cry out of Contradiction and Impossibility because we cannot tell what is contradictory or what is impossible where we cannot understand the nature of that thing about which we are apt to suspect an impossibility unless it appear contradictory to something that is plainly revealed It is therefore a good Caution of the Apostles which he gives and that in a peculiarly smart turn of words which he has hardly us'd more than this one time throughout his whole writings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to think more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly Rom. 21.3 Let this be the measure we take in all matters of pure revelation first to satisfy our selves that this or that thing is unquestionably reveal'd and then how insuperable soever the difficulties may seem that attend it not to perplex our selves in nicely unfolding them but give Reason only the scope of arguing the necessity of believing what is reveal'd and after submitting the whole mystery of it to the obedience of faith And this will infinitely endear to us the H. Scriptures wherein we know is contain'd the whole compass of knowledge concerning God which we ought to aspire after in this world II. We may hence also infer how reasonable a thing it is for us to love one another in some differences of thought and opinion while we are on this side heaven Our knowledge of God is scanty and imperfect and in our imperfect way of thinking it is hardly possible not to think differently where therefore any differences in opinion have no influences to a bad life nor disturb the government nor lead to a necessity of throwing off the Authority of the Scriptures there our mutual love and forbearance whatever else is is a most undoubted command III. Last We may hence infer how justly the wise and the good mind may be longing after that state where their knowledge of God may be advanc'd to such unspeakable degrees suitably both to the nature of God and the capacious nature of our Souls Alas What is all this World in comparison but ignorance and mistake Where fancy chiefly proves the guide to reason and in recompence to all its travels in Worldly knowledge gives it little other satisfaction than cheat and delusion With what satisfaction can the wise mind linger and trifle here distant from home and a stranger to the interests and affairs of its own Country above Coopt up and confin'd to a place where so little light is conversing hardly with any thing but the shapes and images of things which a trivial fancy or a diseas'd eye is framing to it self It is in the other World only that the Soul can bath it self in the pure and clear streams of rational knowledge The Apostle tells us that we see but through a glass darkly and we know but in part i. e. it is but little we see at most and but uncertainly at best But when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away 1 Cor. 13.9 10 11 12. Then as to the nature and decrees and works of God We shall see all face to face and know even as we are known v. 12. That will be the land of Vision indeed where all things shall be seen as they are where all representations shall cease and metaphors prove useless Where every riddle shall be explain'd to the utmost satisfaction of greediest enquirers into the deep things of God Then tho the Divine Nature be so boundless and infinite that it surpasses the thoughts and comprehensions of Angels themselves yet will both Angels and Men so far comprehend the nature and being of God that they shall never entertain any unworthy or uncomely thoughts of him more They shall never frame to themselves any mean and wretched images of God but shall see him as he is and that so substantially and so much in reality that the very sight will in some measure transform them into his image and make them like him whom they thus view So S. John tells us Behold now we are the sons of God 1 Joh. 3.2 and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is We shall not then see the back parts only as it once pleas'd God to indulge to Moses in this world but we shall be able fully and substantially to contemplate his nature so as to acquiesce in the knowledge of him as a most sure and indissoluble bond of eternal Converse and Communion with him Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Matth. 5.8 And as they shall see him in his Nature so they shall see him in his Decrees too Then all the difficult knots of the divine foreknowledge shall be unty'd We shall then see how the liberty of mans will consisted with Gods praescience that this latter did not influence the former as to a necessity of the mans sinning and undoing himself but that he himself was the author and first mover in both S. Austin after