Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	divine_a	faith_n	revelation_n	3,413	5	9.3938	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62640	Six sermons I. Stedfastness in religion. II. Family-religion. III. IV. V. Education of children. VI. The advantages of an early piety : preached in the church of St. Lawrence Jury in London / by ... John Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.; Sermons. Selections	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1694 (1694)	Wing T1268A; ESTC R218939	82,517	218

and to damnable Errors and Heresies And some good Men have upon the matter stood alone in the open Profession of the true Religion in the midst of this general Defection from it Elijah in that general Revolt of the People of Israel when they had forsaken the Covenant of the Lord and broken down his Altars and slain his Prophets and he only as he thought was left to stand alone I say in this Case when as he verily believed he had no body to stand by him he was very zealous for the Lord God of Hosts 1 Kings 18. 18. and with an undaunted courage stood up for the Worship of the true God and reproved Ahab to his face for his defection to the Worship of Idols And those three brave Youths in the Prophecy of Daniel chap. 3. did in the like resolute and undaunted manner refuse to obey the Command of the great King Nebuchadnezzar to worship the Image which he had set up when all others Submitted and paid Honour to it Telling him plainly If it be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery Furnance and He will deliver us out of thy hand If not be it known unto thee O King that we will not serve thy Gods nor worship the golden Image which thou hast set up v. 17 18. In like manner and with the same Spirit and courage Daniel withstood the Decree of Darius which forbad men to ask a Petition of any God or man for thirty days save of the King only Dan. 6. 7. and this under the pain of being cast into the Den of Lions and when all others gave obedience to it he set open the windows of his chamber towards Jerusalem and kneeled down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks as he did afore time v. 10. In the prevalency of the Arian Heresy Athanasius almost stood alone in the profession and maintenance of the Truth And in the Reign of Antichrist the true Church of God is represented by a Woman flying into the Wilderness and living there in obscurity for a long time insomuch that the Professors of the Truth should hardly be found And yet during that Degeneracy of so great a Part of the Christian Church and the prevalency of Antichrist for so many Ages some few in every Age did appear who did resolutely own the Truth and bear Witness to it with their Blood But these did almost stand alone and by themselves like a few scattered Sheep wandring up and down in a wide Wilderness Thus in the heighth of Popery Wickliffe appear'd here in England and Hierome of Prague and John Huss in Germany and Bohemia And in the beginning of the Reformation when Popery had quite over-run these Western Parts of the World and subdued her Enemies on every side and Antichrist sate securely in the quiet possession of his Kingdom Luther arose a bold and rough Man but a fit Wedge to cleave in sunder so hard and knotty a Block and appeared stoutly against the gross Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and for a long time stood alone and with a most invincible spirit and courage maintained his ground and resisted the united malice and force of Antichrist and his Adherents and gave him so terrible a Wound that he is not yet perfectly healed and recovered of it So that for a Man to stand alone or with a very few adhering to him and standing by him is not a mere imaginary Supposition but a Case that hath really and in fact happen'd in several Ages and Places of the World Let us then proceed to consider in the 2d place The due limits and bounds of this peremptory Resolution In all matters of Faith and Practice which are plain and evident either from Natural Reason or from Divine Revelation this Resolution seems to be very reasonable But in things doubtful a modest man and every man hath reason to be so would be very apt to be stagger'd by the judgment of a very Wise man and much more of many such and especially by the unanimous Judgment of the generality of Men the general Voice and Opinion of Mankind being next to the Voice of God himself For in matters of an indifferent nature which God hath neither commanded nor forbidden such as are many of the Circumstances and Ceremonies of God's Worship a man would not be singular much less stiff and immovable in his singularity but would be apt to yield and surrender himself to the general Vote and Opinion and to comply with the common Custom and Practice and much more with the Rules and Constitutions of Authority whether Civil or Ecclesiastical Because in things lawful and indifferent we are bound by the Rules of Decency and Civility not to thwart the general Practice and by the Commands of God we are certainly obliged to obey the lawful Commands of lawful Authority But in things plainly contrary to the evidence of Sense or Reason or to the Word of God a man would complement no Man or Number of Men nor would he pin his Faith upon any Church in the World much less upon any single Man no not the Pope no though there were never so many probable Arguments brought for the proof of his Infallibility In this Case a Man would be singular and stand alone against the whole World against the wrath and rage of a King and all the terrors of his fiery Furnace as in other matters a Man would not believe all the Learned Men in the World against the clear evidence of Sense and Reason If all the great Mathematicians of all Ages Archimedes and Euclide and Apollonius and Diophantus c. could be supposed to meet together in a General Council and should there declare in the most solemn manner and give it under their Hands and Seals that twice two did not make four but five this would not move me in the least to be of their mind nay I who am no Mathematician would maintain the contrary and would persist in it without being in the least startled by the positive Opinion of these great and learned men and should most certainly conclude that they were either all of them out of their Wits or that they were byassed by some Interest or other and swayed against the clear evidence of Truth and the full conviction of their own Reason to make such a determination as this They might indeed over-rule the Point by their Authority but in my inward judgment I should still be where I was before Just so in matters of Religion if any Church though with never so glorious and confident a pretence to Infallibility should declare for Transubstantiation that is that the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament by vertue of the Consecration of the Priest are substantially changed into the natural Body and Blood of Christ this is so notoriously contrary both to the Sense and Reason of Mankind that a Man should chuse to stand single in

the opposition of it and laugh at or rather pity the rest of the World that could be so servilely blind as seemingly to conspire in the belief of so monstrous an Absurdity And in like manner if any Church should declare that Images are to be worshipped or that the Worship of God is to be performed in an unknown Tongue and that the H. Scriptures which contain the Word and Will of God and teach men what they are to believe and do in order to their eternal Salvation are to be lock'd up and kept concealed from the People in a Language which they do not understand lest if they were permitted the free use of them in their Mother Tongue they should know more of the Mind and Will of God than is convenient for the common People to know whose Devotion and Obedience to the Church does mainly depend upon their Ignorance Or should declare that the Sacrifice of Christ was not offer'd once for all but is and ought to be repeated ten Millions of times every Day And that the People ought to receive the Communion in one kind only and the Cup by no means to be trusted with them for fear the Profane Beards of the Laity should drink of it And that the saving efficacy of the Sacraments doth depend upon the intention of the Priest without which the Receiver can have no benefit by them These are all of them so plainly contrary to Scripture and most of them in Reason so absurd that the Authority of no Church whatsoever can oblige a man to the belief of them Nay I go yet further that being evidently contrary to the Doctrine of the Gospel though an Apostle or an Angel from Heaven should declare them we ought to reject them And for this I have St. Paul's authority and warrant who speaking of some that perverted the Gospel of Christ by teaching things contrary to it Though we says he or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you let him be accursed As we said before so say I now again though an Apostle though an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel unto you than that which ye have received let him be accursed Gal. 1. 7 8 9. You see he repeats it over again to express not only his own confident assurance but the certainty of the thing And here is an Anathema with a witness which we may confidently oppose to all the Anathema's which the Council of Trent hath so liberally denounced against all those who shall presume to gainsay these New Doctrines of their Church which are in truth another Gospel than that which our B. Saviour and his Apostles taught And yet on their Side there is neither an Apostle nor an Angel from Heaven in the Case To give but one Instance more If Bellarmin shall tell me as he expresly does That if the Pope should declare Virtue to be Vice and Vice to be Virtue I were bound to believe him unless I would sin against Conscience And if all the World should say the same that Bellarmin does namely that this Infallible Declarer of Virtue and Vice were to be believed and followed yet I could not possibly be of their mind for this plain and undeniable Reason because if Virtue and Vice be all one then Religion is nothing since the main Design of Religion is to teach men the difference between Virtue and Vice and to oblige them to practise the one and to refrain from the other And if Religion be nothing then Heaven and Hell are nothing And if Heaven be nothing then an infallible Guide thither is of no use and to no manner of purpose because he is a Guide no whither and so his great Office ceases and falls of it self And now lest any should think me singular in this Assertion and that thereby I give a great deal too much to the single Judgment of private Persons and too little to the Authority of a Church I will produce the deliberate Judgment of a very Learned Man and a great Assertor of the Church's Authority concerning the matter I am now speaking of I mean Mr. Hooker in his deservedly admired Book of Ecclesiastical Policy His words are these I grant says he that Proof derived from the Authority of Man's Judgment is not able to work that Assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof and therefore although ten thousand General Councils should set down one and the same Definitive Sentence concerning any Point of Religion whatsoever yet one Demonstrative Reason alledged or one Testimony cited from the Word of God himself to the contrary could not chuse but oversway them all In as much as for them to be deceived it is not so impossible as it is that Demonstrative Reason or Divine Testimony should deceive And again For men says he to be tyed and led by Authority as it were with a kind of Captivity of Judgment and though there be Reason to the contrary not to listen to it but follow like Beasts the first in the Herd this were Brutish Again That the Authority of Men should prevail with Men either against or above Reason is no part of OUR Belief Companies of Learned Men though they be never so great and Reverend are to yield unto Reason the weight whereof is no whit prejudiced by the simplicity of the Person which doth alledge it but being found to be sound and good the bare Opinion of men to the contrary must of necessity stoop and give place And this he delivers not only as his own particular Judgment but that which he apprehended to be the Judgment of the Church of England I have produced these clear and positive Testimonies of so learned and judicious a Person and of so great esteem in our Church on purpose to prevent any misapprehension as if by this Discourse I intended to derogate from the Authority of the Church and her just and reasonable Determinations in things no wise contrary to plain Reason or the Word of God And beyond this pitch no judicious Protestant that I know of ever strain'd the Authority of the Church I proceed now in the Second place to vindicate the Reasonableness of this Resolution from the Objections to which this singular and peremptory kind of Resolution may seem liable as Obj. 1. First it may very speciously be said that this does not seem modest for a man to set up his own private Judgment against the general Suffrage and Vote And it is very true as I said before that about things indifferent a man should not be stiff and singular and in things doubtful and obscure a man should not be over-confident of his own Judgment and insist peremptorily upon it against the general Opinion But in things that are plain and evident either from Scripture or Reason it is neither immodesty nor a culpable singularity for a man to stand alone in the defence of the Truth Because in such a Case a man