Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	according_a	signification_n	word_n	1,614	5	4.5156	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82274	A defence of Mr Toland, in a letter to himself		1697 (1697)	Wing D814A; ESTC R215012	11,003	23

A DEFENCE OF Mr TOLAND IN A LETTER to Himself A DEFENCE OF Mr TOLAND IN A LETTER to Himself LONDON Printed for E. Whitlock near Stationers-Hall MDCXCVII A DEFENCE OF Mr TOLAND IN A LETTER to Himself SIR I Have not the Honour to know you any other way than by your Writings and Character but from thence I have entertain'd such an opinion of you that I thought my self obliged to justify you to the World in such things as I judged capable of any defence and to desire you to undertake your own vindication where I found my self at a loss how to serve you Some time ago you obliged the World with a Book Entitled Christianity not Mysterious which I perceive has given abundance of offence here in England and has drawn upon you the censure of the Irish Parliament I have heard a great many violent things said against this Book by Men of all ranks and conditions and a great many Pens have been ingaged in Writing it down but notwithstanding this mighty dislike People have generally taken to it I am very much disposed to believe that if they had not been too much prejudiced to read it over with due care and attention 〈◊〉 wanted patience to stay for the other parts you promi●●● they would hardly have conceived such terrible apprehensions of your performance and consequently would have been more moderate in their resentments The chief complaint I have met with is against the Title and Design of the Book 'T is an impudent thing I am told for a Man to publish to the World in huge Capital Letters that Christianity is not Mysterious when all Sects and Parties of Christians have agreed to speak of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion and a design to prove this seems to give tholye to all the Fathers and Writers of the whole Catholick Church and to call them a Company of Ignorant Fellows that did not understand any thing of the Religion they profess This is a severe charge indeed but if you prove your point I think a very unjust one for errours are to be opposed and confuted be they never so ancient and venerable and never so well established in the World nay the longer they have stood and the wider they are spread the more Heroick is the Adventures who lays his Pen to the root of them and has the courage to give the first stroke towards their fall And therefore the main Controversy betwixt you and the two Nations depends entirely upon the proof you have given of what you undertook to demonstrate to the World If then it can be shewn that you have made good all you pretended to prove in your Book you will be in a great measure justifyed as to the design and substance of your Work and we will see what can be said for the management of it afterwards Now I must needs own notwithstanding there are so many eminent Names against me that you have gone a great way towards proving the point you proposed to establish in your Book Christianity not Mysterious is your Title and your profest Design is to make it appear that there are no Mysteries in the Christian Religion but then it is to be remembred that this Title belongs to the whole undertaking which is to consist of three Parts and 't is as certain as any Maxim whatsoever that the design cannot be perfected before the conclusion of the Work All that you take upon you to do in the first part of your Work which is out is to acquaint us with the two different significations of the word Mystery to shew that there are no Mysteries in the Christian Religion according to one sense of the Word and to assure us there are none in the other sense of it with a promise of proving it in the other Parts that are to come and all this with submission to better judgments I humbly conceive you have performed to a tittle For in the first place it must be allowed to be true that the word Mystery does commonly signify either something which we do not understand because it is not discovered to us or something that we cannot comprehend or fully know after it is discovered It is likewise as plain that there can be no Mysteries in Christianity in the first signification of the Word because the whole Christian Religion being Revealed to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament and there being no further Discoveries to be expected it would be very Absurd to say we do not understand any part of the Christian Religion upon the account of its not being Revealed to us and therefore for Men who have this Notion of Mystery to say Christianity is Mysterious is as much as to say Christianity is not Revealed which is so false and unwarrantable a Position and so fully proved to be so by you that I hope hereafter whatever Jews or Deists may say there will be no Christians to be found that will dare to maintain the Mysteriousness of Christianity in this Sense But if we consider Mystery in the other sense of the Word I must confess all the Christians I have hitherto had occasion to Read of or Converse with have thought that there were Mysteries in the Christian Religion Since therefore you appear to be somewhat Singular in your Notions upon this Point if you please we will take a more particular account of the Popular Opinion before we examine yours that so we may be more capable Judges of the difference betwixt them and of the present Controversie that has occasioned Now the common Opinion concerning the Mysteries of the Christian Religion as far as I understand it is in short this That there are a great many things deliver'd to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament which without Revelation from God we should have known nothing at all of and which as they stand there Reveal'd to us we know now but in part Some of them we look upon to be of such a Nature that we are not able in the present state of our Faculties to conceive beyond such a Degree and which we expect a further Comprehension of in another state of more Perfection such as are the Doctrines of the Trinity Incarnation c. others there are which are but in part Reveal'd to us and which we are capable of knowing further in this state if God had been pleased to give us a clearer and fuller Discovery of them such as are the Prophecies contained in the Revelations and other parts of Scripture This is the Vulgar Faith to which yours being directly oppos'd it must be this That there is nothing in Scripture but what is fully discovered to us and what we fully comprehend that we do not now see through a Glass darkly but that we perfectly know even as we are known This is your Opinion and since you have kindly purposed and intended to make it ours too I cannot imagine what reason any body should have to Condemn so