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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	church_n	true_a	word_n	7,930	5	4.6550	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54460	A sermon preach'd before the King and Queen in Their Majesties chappel at Windsor, on Trinity-Sunday, May 30. 1686 by the Reverend Father John Persall ...	Persall, John, 1633-1702.	1686 (1686)	Wing P1651; ESTC R11064	11,103	35

Reason yet it confirms true Reason for Almighty God only exacts of us to believe when we have reason to believe then we must make Reason stoop to Faith when we have reason so to do We are to understand then that there is in us a twofold Reason one direct coming from the Objects we discourse on the other reflex reflecting upon Reason and considering how far it can go this often forces us to submit our direct Reason even to Humane Authority So an ignorant Peasant looking upon the Stars in a clear Night according to direct Reason rising from his Senses judges them not an Inch Diameter and that ten or twenty of them joyn'd together would scarce equal a Full-Moon but he hears all Mathematicians and Learned Men agree that each Star far exceeds the Moon nay and the whole Globe of the Earth he submits his direct Reason to this Authority and by reflex Reason discourses thus I who am an ignorant Man may well be deceived therefore these learned Men all agreeing I must in prudence yield So he submits his direct Reason even to Humane Authority and is taught so to do by reflex Reason and the very Light of Nature This is more evident in the Mysteries of our Faith Direct Reason tells us a Trinity in a perfect Unity is impossible but reflex Reason corrects this Errour discoursing thus My Vnderstanding is but Finite and Limited Almighty God is Infinite and would not be God if he were not in himself more than my weak and feeble Capacity can conceive If then I have a moral certainty that my Great God has reveal'd himself to be Three and One if his Holy Church which put into my Hands the Scripture it self assuring me that it is the Word of God interprets these Words These three are one St. John 's first Epist c. 5. v. 7. and these other I and my Father are one St. John's Gospel c. 10. v. 30. If I say this Church interprets these Words in a real strict sense which otherwise might bear a more easie Interpretation in a metaphorical or figurate sense I must and will believe it tho' it cost me the last drop of my Blood what seeming Impossibilities soever Sense and direct Reason objects against it and this I am taught by reflex Reason and the Light of Nature it self this is a Duty I owe to my Great God to acknowledge that I ought to believe more than I can understand From this Discourse I hope it appears clear enough how rational the Mysteries of our Faith are and how irrational it is to discredit them upon this account that we cannot understand them This is a Principle which ought to be the Ground of our Belief viz. That God can reveal more than we can understand and that many things to our Weakness seem impossible which to our Great God are very feasible this the Light of Nature teaches us and it must carry us through all the profound hard Mysteries of our Faith To deny a thing upon this account that it contradicts Sense and direct Reason is irrational injurious to Almighty God and destructive to Christianity It is irrational for Reason teaches us that our Senses and direct Reason are often mistaken How often do's the Mathematician and Natural Philosopher at first think that a Demonstration which afterwards he finds either by his own Study or anothers Discovery to be a Paralogism 'T is injurious to God because it limits his Omnipotency to our Weakness 't is destructive to Christianity because it destroys the two chief Mysteries of Christianity the Trinity and Incarnation both which seemingly contradict direct Reason I do not believe Christ to be a Natural Door tho' I hear him say I am a Door John c. 10. v. 9. nor a Natural Vine tho' I hear him say I am the True Vine John c. 15. v. 1. but God forbid I should deny either upon this account that I cannot understand how it can possibly be done but I deny it because the Church teaches me that I must understand these words in a Metaphorical Sense There have been Heresies from the Apostles times downwards to to our Age and many have died obstinate in their Heresie but I verily believe that both their Heresie and Obstinacy proceeded from a want of this Principle That God can reveal more than we can understand Let us then pay this duty to our great God an humble acknowledgment of our Weakness and his Power that he can reveal more infinitely more than we are able to conceive And so much for my first Part of the Trinity as it is the Object of our Faith Let us now lanch forth into a Sea of Love and consider this great Mystery as the thrice happy Object of our Affections The Almighty Architect created Man according to his perfect Image with intent to make him happy for an Eternity in the perfect Enjoyment of his God and therefore has imprinted in his Soul so violent an Appetite and Desire of that blessed Fruition that let a thousand Worlds joyn their Stocks together let Men and Angels and all that is created conspire to regale him his capacious Heart will never be perfectly satiated never at rest and quiet but in the Divine Embraces of an Omnipotent Immense Eternal Trinity the Fountain of all Beauty and Amability O you young Gallants of the World who spend your Time Fortunes Life and all in the pursuit of a fading Beauty a Rose surrounded with so many pricking Thorns of Cares and Solicitude a Flower so soon withered with Time so often blasted with Sickness so easily cropped by Death stop this your unadvis'd Career and know that you are far out of your Way if you pretend to look for Happiness in the Enjoyment of Mortal Beauty 'T is true your Souls were created to love and enjoy a Beauty but a True and Infinite one for an Eternity not a false Representation thereof for a Moment 't is the blindness of your Understandings and pravity of your Wills the sad Effects of Original Sin that make you thus mistake the Object of your Happiness and apply your natural or innate Appetite to Creatures which in reality seeks only the Creator One in Substance and Three in Persons Let us then raise our Thoughts as high as Faith can carry them to the Contemplation of this all-beatifying Object which will be our eternal Bliss if we make not our selves so miserable as eternally to perish First then Each Person is Omnipotent Eternal Immense All-knowing Infinite in Wisdom Goodness and all Perfections from the Complex of which arises so great an Amability and Beauty that no Rational Creature can behold it and not presently fall in love with it so far that whilst the happy Soul enjoys this Vision no created Beauty tho' never so exact and charming can make any Impression in her but only as she sees it clearly represented in the Divine Idea's and supereminently contain'd in the Object she above all admires and loves Nay

much for the Adversity of another and rejoyce for his Prosperity as if it were our own we must redress the Necessity of another as much as if it were our own we must as earnestly concur to one anothers Preferment as to our own and rejoyce as much for it then Almighty God will look upon us as making one with his Servants and what our tepidity do's not deserve he 'll bountifully confer upon us for their sakes with whom Charity has united us But tho' you are endow'd with never so great Gifts and Vertues si charitatem non habuero if Charity be wanting if you make not One with all the Faithful Believers all is nothing Away then with all Piques all Misunderstandings all envious Practices let us all become one Soul by a perfect Love Our Great God Incarnate has so united himself to us that he takes as done to himself whatsoever is done to another and when he comes to judge will reward charitable Actions done to our Neighbour as done to himself and revenge all Injuries as offer'd to himself He will invite the Elect to an eternal Happiness not as having done charitable Actions to their Neighbours but to himself and condemn to eternal Torments the Reprobate as injurious to himself He will not say Come you Blessed because you gave an Alms to such a poor Man but because you gave it to me nor Go you Cursed because you refus'd to redress the Necessity of such a poor Body but of me If then Christ makes himself One with his Servants he who permits himself to be separated by Envy and Malice from his Fellow-servants doth in effect separate himself from Christ In the second place we must imitate each Person in their Proprieties The Father speaketh according to his Knowledge conforming his Speech to his Thoughts and expresses all in one only Word This must teach us Sincerity to speak what we think and no more than we know The Eternal Father is the Father of Truth the Devil his deadly Enemy the Father of Lies Chuse what Pattern you 'll follow Besides we must learn to avoid multiplicity and idleness of Speech The Eternal Father expresses all in one Word and that necessary let us use our selves to speak little for happy is he who exceeds not in Speech and many Words always involve an Offence of God From the Son let us learn to express things as they are in reality not as our inordinate Passions would have them The Eternal Word proceeds per Intellectum by the Understanding not per Voluntatem by the Will but our Words often proceed not from our Understanding from a certain knowledge of the thing but from our Will so if any Absurdity be done we presently lay it at their Doors we have a Pique against So in the Primitive Church the Heathens ascrib'd all Mischiefs and Mischances to the Christians as we read in Tertullian and others Those damn'd what you please did it From whence comes this Word from a knowledge of the Fact No but from the malice of our Will This is preposterous our Words must proceed as the Eternal Word do's from the Understanding from a perfect Knowledge of what we speak From the Holy Ghost we must learn what and how to Love The prime and final Object of our Love must be Almighty God other things we are to love only in relation to him he is the fountain of all good and therefore we must remember when we meet with any thing amiable that it is but a Rivulet flowing from that great Fountain and to be found in greater perfection there The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father speaking and the word expressing the Divine Being infinitely amiable Let all our Love proceed so not from a false delusion of our Senses making us fix on Creatures tho' very meanly amiable and that with an amability meerly participated and deriv'd from the Fountain of Amability As often as we feel our Hearts mov'd to a tenderness and kindness let us consider from what it proceeds is it from a word speaking the Creature amiable without meutioning the Creator O then it comes from a false from a lying Word 't is Illegitimate it must not inherit your Heart you must cast it out 't is a base servile affection ejice ancilam but the true Legitimate Possessor of your Heart must be a Divine Love proceeding from a word expressing the Divine Fountain of all Perfection But I must draw towards an end not to abuse your Patience we have then learnt in my First Part to believe what we cannot understand seeing that God would not be God could he not reveal of himself more than we can comprehend My Second Part has led us to the Fountain of all Amability and pointed unto us the true Center of our Hearts In my Third Part we have learn'd to imitate all three Persons in tending to a perfect Unity by Charity and each Person in their Proprieties the Father in being Sincere speaking what we know and in as few words as we can the Son in seeing that our Words proceed from Knowledge not from Affection from Reason not from Passion The Holy Ghost in loving God only as our End and all things else meerly in relation to him There only now remains that with the Tears of Penance Acts of perfect Contrition we wash away whatever deformed the Sacred Image of the Trinity in our Souls and beg Strength Light and Grace to keep it entire for the future O Omnipotent Father whose Power is without Limits give us strength to believe what we cannot understand to love what our Senses cannot reach to keep thy Image in our Souls entire against the World Flesh and Devil who endeavours to dis-figure it O Eternal Word Increated Wisdom Illuminate our Souls with thy Divine Rays that our Interiour and Exteriour Words may speak according to Faith and Reason prefere Eternity before Time Heaven before Earth the Creator before the Creature O Holy Spirit diffuse thy Grace and Charity in our Souls that we may all in a perfect Vnity be One as the Father Son and Holy Ghost are One that appearing in the last dreadful Day of Doom we may appear not separated but united with the Elect and be received into Eternal Happiness as carrying clearly Imprinted in our Souls the Characteristical note of a Christian grateful to Heaven terrible to Hell beneficial to Earth the Sign of the Holy Cross In the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books Printed for Henry Hills Printer to the King 's most Excellent Majesty for his Houshold and Chappel 1686. And are to be Sold next door to his House in Black-fryers at Richard Cheese's REflections upon the Answer to the Papist Mis-represented c. Directed to the Answerer Quarto Kalendarium Catholicum for the Year 1686. Octavo Papists Protesting against Protestant-Popery In Answer to a Discourse Entituled A Papist not Mis-represented by Protestants Being a Vindication of the