Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	church_n	faith_n	ground_v	2,659	5	9.9858	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A73882	The Christian's theorico-practicon: or, His whole duty consisting of knowledge and practice. Expressed in two sermons or discourses at S. Maryes in Oxon. By Robert Dyer, Mr. of Arts, late of Lincolne Colledge and Hart-hall in Oxon, now lecturer at the Devizes in Wiltshire.	Dyer, Robert, b. 1602 or 3.	1633 (1633)	STC 7393.5; ESTC S125218	27,164	126

affliction and judgement I might bee over-copious but I hasten Our blessed Saviour himselfe affirmes that eternall life consists in this endowment of knowledge Ioh. 17.3 This is life eternall that they might know thee the only true GOD IESVS CHRIST whom thou hast sent and the Prophet Isaiah in that sublime testimony of God the Father concerning his Son makes it equivalent to of the same nature with true saving faith Isa 53.11 By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justifie many See heere that happy worke of our Iustification attributed to knowledge which the Prophet Habakuk Chap. 2. v. 4 and the grand Apostle of the Gentiles in more then a full Iury of testimonies assignes onely unto saving faith Vid. Rom. 1.17 Cap. 3.28 Cap. 4.5.13 Cap 5.1 Gal. 3.11 5.6 You have the LORD himselfe often complaining of the defect of this Habit of knowledge in his people 2. Cor. 1.24 Ephes 2.8 Heb. 10.38 and many other places Isai 1.3 Israel saith he doth not know my people doth not consider and then followes that severe commination of the Almighty Ah sinfull Nation a people laden with iniquitie a seed of evill doers c. Intimating that all their impieties proceeded from the want of knowledge of their spirituall estate and consideration of their wayes And in the 5. of Isai verse 1. therefore my people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge So likewise by the Prophet Ieremy Chapter 4. ver 22. My people is foolish they have not knowne mee they are foolish children they have no understanding c. and by the Prophet Hosea Chapter 4. vers 6. My people are destroyed for lacke of knowledge because thou hast rejected knowledge I will also reject thee c. as if all the afflictions and judgements of the Iewes their Captivity rejection and utter desolation had proceeded onely from this defect of spirituall knowledge But what need I light a Candle to the Sun The Scripture condescending to the Capacity of the meanest doth almost every where implicitly compare the understanding to the Eye the Will and affections to the feete that directing these walking that conferring the Insight of good these the prosecution Now how vaine it were for a blinde man to undertake a journey how many dangers he must needs sustaine by the way yet never attaine his journeys end none can bee ignorant Pray we therefore with David that the LORD would enlighten our eyes that wee may see the wonderfull things of his Law that hee would make us to understand the way of his precepts and then we may add we wil run the way of his commandements for if we runne without this light of knowledge we cannot but fall into the ditch of Errors if not into the pit of perdition Ignoti nulla cupido was the Thesis of the Poet and 't is true in Divinity No man can affect the good he knowes not nor feare the evill whereof he is ignorant Arist 3. Ethic. The Philosopher in the third of his Ethicks assures us that that can be no vertuous action which is not done Volenter scienter constanter so that if it be casually performed and not out of the ground of praeelection and knowledge the action perhaps may be good for the substance but the agent no more conscious to the goodnesse thereof then Baalams Asse of what shee spake to her Master or Pilate of the salvation of mankind by delivering our Saviour to bee crucified In a word Scientia conscientiam dirigit conscientia scientiam perficit Our knowledge must bee the directory of our conscience in it's practise and our practise the perfection of our knowledge We must know to doe before we can doe what wee know Blush then ye grand Imposters startle yee mercilesse seducers who are not ashamed to take away the Key of knowledge from your silly flocke to plucke out the eyes of your Proselytes and withdraw the light of the Gospell from them and then send them that long and difficult journey to heaven How can the choose but erre who are thus extruded into more then Aegyptian darknesse and like the Sodomites Gen. 19. who were stricken with such blindnesse that they could not finde out Lots dore so are these silly ones so blinde in Ignorance that they cannot finde the gate of the heavenly pallace or new Hierusalem Ignorance with them is the mother of devotion but Saint Augustine stickes not to call her pessimam matrem a very bad mother and that of two as bad daughters August Pessimae matris Ignorantiae pessimae itidem sunt duae filiae falsitas scilicet dubitatio falsehood and doubting are the best of-spring that she procreates Scripture the onely meanes of saving knowledge with them is Inky divinity obscure a Nose of wax Albert. Pighius lib. 1 Eccles Hierar a shipmans hose the cause of many schismes errors and heresies and therefore the knowledge or perusall thereof forbidden the people This perhaps it may be to them that perish but to us 't is the savour of life and power of GOD unto salvation But ô the blasphemy of these miscreants good GOD that any wretch should bee so audacious thus to revile that word of his Maker by which at the last day he shall bee judged to make his GOD a Lyer and that word of his the cause of schismes errors and heresies which as the Sunne in the midst of his glory dispells the mists of all errors And here I might observe a pretty but lamentable contradiction of theirs The Scripture say they containes not all things necessary to salvation unlesse they add traditions and yet an Implicit faith shall serve turne for the multitude without the knowledge of either what 's this but flatly to deny them the meanes of salvation and to be more mercilesse to their owne people then the Divell himselfe for he but allures they by a consequence compell them to their destruction Great cause have wee beloved to praise the mercies of our gracious GOD who hath freed us from their tyrannicall Injunctions Saint Peter would have us bee ready to render a reason of our faith 1. Pet. 3.15 and of the hope that is in us but maugre their prime supposed founder this is no more regarded by them then the perusall of the Scripture an Implicit or infolded faith will content them if they beleeve with the Church though they know neither what the Church nor themselves beleeve they imagine they are in the right way to Canaan when they are led blindfold to Aegypt I deny not but that there are in the Church many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Babes in CHRIST and Children in faith and knowledge I confesse that an implicit faith may be in some cases tolerated so it be not imposed by a peremptory determination of the Church but grounded on the generall truth of Scripture when we want either faculty or meanes for the attaining of that knowledge which affords us a distinct

explication of the particulars But yet were this distinct knowledge farre more comfortable and beneficiall to a Christian and would make his faith both more apparent and reall Simil. Fire may be in the flint yet is it both indiscernible and improper till it be stricken out with a steele Aromaticall odors while kept close together have little or no smell at all but pounded or beaten fill a whole roome with the fragrance Costly Merchandize wrapt up in a bundle affects not the buyer but unfolded invites him to the procurement I need not make the Illation the slendrest Intellect may supply thus much for an Antapodosis that the grosse knowledge of this Implicit faith is very imperfect and hardly sufficient to impose the name of faith upon it unlesse it bee unfolded by a more evident view of it's particular objects Let their grosse Ignorance then who affect it reside within their owne territories never approach it our Sion let their confused knowledge bee their owne confusion but let us indeavour to cherish and perpetuate that light which is so happily sprung up and hath beene so long maintained among us And happy may we esteeme our selves in the fruition of so inestimable a benefit for so our Saviour would have his Apostles account it Matth. 13. verse 11. when he tells them to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdome of heaven Mat. 13.11 thus inviting them to gratitude by a commemoration of their gracious endowments And as severe a judgement was it for the unbeleeving Iewes to bee blinded with Ignorance Isay 6.9 10. that seeing they might see and not perceive and hearing they might heare and not understand Matth. Mat. 13.13 13. Aeschylus in Prometh consonant to that of Prometheus in the Tragedy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. So ignorant were they as if the faculty of their understanding and knowledge had lost their use and function and were now become rather privations then habits 'T was the greatest benefit of Christs propheticall Office to give knowledge of salvation to his people for the remission of their sinnes Luk. 1.77 shame be it for us to reject this knowledge and frustrate the comming of our Saviour Increase wee then daily in knowledge and sith we have a triple portion of his grace offered us let a triple portion of his spirit bee multiplied in us 'T is reported of the Inhabitants of China that they were wont to boast that they saw with two eyes and all other nations but with one but we have a third super-added which they were destitute of to wit the eye of Faith and Religion For bruit beasts have the use of one the eye of sense the naturall man of two the eye of sense and reason but the Christian of three the eye of sense reason and faith And here might I enter into a perplexed controversie whether that eye of reason in a naturall man destitute of the light of spirituall knowledge of faith and religion bee sufficient to direct him the way of eternall happinesse Dr. Prideaux Lect. 8. de Salute Ethnicorum But that I am saved a labour by our Learned Professour to whom I referre you for satisfaction onely give me leave to add two or three words from those places of the Fathers before cited and I shall not be tedious Saint Augustine without any scruple is bold to affirme August vbi supra that simplex mera inscitia neminem sic excusat ut sempiterno igne non ardeat si propterea non credidit quia non audi vit omnino quod crederet sed for tassis ut mitius ardeat c. Simple Nescience doth so farre excuse no man no not though he never heard that hee might believe that he should not burne in eternall fire but onely perhaps that his torment there may be somewhat mi●igated for that of the Psalmist was not spoken without cause Psal 79.6 Powre out thine anger upon the Nations that have not knowne thee nor that of the Apostle 2. Thes 1.8 When the LORD shall bee revealed from heaven in flaming fire taking vengeance of them that know not GOD. And Saint Chrysostome questioning whether spirituall knowledge be to be required of a rustick or Barbarian makes this answer Non solùm ab Agricola Barbaro sed si quis barbaris ipsis barbarior so that if it be not in the Counsell of the Almighty to supply him with spirituall knowledge neither is it his pleasure to bring him to his spirituall Canaan the place of eternall rest The 18. Article of our Church which is not usuall with her proceeds against the oppugners of this opinion with an Anathema holding them as accursed who hold that every man shall bee saved by the Law or sect which hee professeth so hee frame his life according to that Law and the light of nature For holy Scripture sets out unto us onely the name of IESVS CHRIST whereby men may bee saved Act. 4.12 But I affect brevity that knowledge is the first act of faith yee haue heard and I suppose none doubt's it that without faith 't is impossible to please GOD Heb. 11.6 that hee that beleeves not shall bee condemned that whatsoever is not of faith is sinne Rom. 14.23 is as questionlesse as the authority of the Penmen is infallible We may as soone goe to the Indyes without a viaticum as to heaven without saving knowledge and faith in the onely Mediator betweene GOD and man This is it which seasons all our actions and makes them pleasing to the Almighty with it our greatest sinnes may be remitted and without it our meanest cannot Nay our best actions without this are turned to sin and are but splendida peccata sinnes guilded ouer with the shew of vertue for as excellently that divine Poet Omne probitatis opus nisi semine verae Exoritur fidei Prosper peccatum est inque reatum Vertitur sterilis cumulat sibi gloria poenam If sinne bee an impediment to salvation morall honesty or civill Iustice which is nought else without faith can no whit further us in the acquisition of felicity formally I say it cannot though perhaps dispositively it may for as the golden mouth'd Father affirmes that when wee endeavour the constant practise of morall vertue and diligently performe what wee can Chrysost in Roman GOD often in mercy supplyes what is wanting and so brings us to the knowledge of his truth as hee did Cornelius and the Eunuch in the Acts and whether Plato and Seneca with other Philosophers may not be examples hereof I will not determine though there want not authority to uphold it But I feare their Ignorance in divine affaires especially concerning saving faith countervailed both their knowledge practise in morall so Ignorant were they in the midst of all their knowledge This ushers in another Corrollary and leades me the trodden path of that common question how farre