Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	divine_a	reason_n	revelation_n	1,589	5	9.4988	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46966	A sermon preach'd before the Lord Mayor and aldermen at Guildhall-Chappel, on Palm-Sunday, 1679 and now published as it was then delivered / by Samuel Johnson ...	Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.; Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703. Second five year's struggle against popery and tyranny.	1684 (1684)	Wing J845; ESTC R2429	11,190	34

Scripture is that which undermines the whole Gospel all at once For it makes the Scripture but a Stale and gives the Pope's Interpretations all the Authority which of right belongs to the Scripture So that as Bellarmine says If the Pope call Vertue Vice or Vice Vertue he is to be believed and obeyed And this indeed is a short and compendious way of making all the Commandments of God of none effect for Men must observe them no longer than the Bishop of Rome thinks sit And thus much for the first thing which was to shew how contrary the Doctrines of the Romish Priests are both to Scripture and Reason and consequently that they have as much right to that Title of blind Guides or more than ever the Scribes and Pharisees had The second Thing is to shew you That they are attended by as blind and ignorant Followers And this is notorious to the World for Ignorance is industriously cherish'd among the common People to make them the better Catholicks according to that Proverb which has been a long time currant among them that Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion There is a kind of Contract of Error made betwixt them The Clergy are loth to have the People examine Things and the People on the other side are as ready to take Things upon trust that they may not be at the pains of examining And so they have right the Nuncio's Blessing Si Populus vult decipi decipiatur If the People are willing to be deceived let them Nay they have enslaved themselves to such Principles as will for ever keep them low and ignorant and which cut off all enquiry after Truth For they are made to believe that it is a mortal Sin to doubt of any part of their Religion And then it is another mortal Sin not to confess this to the Priest who questionless will take care to keep them from staggering and effectually prevent their Apostacy from the Church The Holy Scripture which is the best means of instructing them better is either lock'd up from them in an unknown Tongue or at least the free use of it is denied to them And yet they take this Injury so patiently that most of them are really and heartily perswaded that it is for their good and that they are thereby the farther removed from all danger of falling into Heresy They content themselves with that short Creed To believe as the Church believes with an implicit Faith that is with a Belief in another's keeping Or as Cardinal Perrone explains the thing It is to believe with the Faith of the Church or adhere to the Church which believes such things By the Faith of which Church says he they live as long as they continue in its Communion as Children live by the Nourishment of the Mother all the while they are in her Womb. Which is the fittest resemblance in Nature that can be found out for them By virtue of this Faith all the Embrioes of that Religion do believe that all these absurd Doctrines are contained in Scripture Nay that Transubstantiation it self is in the Apostles Creed For the Trent Catechism says expresly That it is not lawful for any of the Faithful to doubt but it is comprehended in these two Articles J believe in God the Father Almighty and I believe in the Holy Catholick Church The father Almighty is able to effect and bring it to pass and the Holy Catholick Church tells us he does effect and being it to pass and there it is Now if this be not blind Belief I would fain know what is III. The third thing I propounded was to shew you the Danger of both Parties engaged in this sensless course If the Blind lead the Blind they shall both fall into the Ditch And I shall chuse this way to do it First By laying open before you what a great Fault it is in the Priests Secondly In the People And then your selves may easily judg of the Danger First What a great Fault it is in the Priests And that 1. in advancing Doctrines contrary to Reason and common Sense whereby they go about as much as in them lies to extinguish that great Light which God has set up to enlighten every Man that comes into the World Reason is the only thing we have to trust to in the last issue and result of things And our very belief of Divine Revelations must finally be resolved into it Or else we shall very ill comply with St. Peter's Advice to be ready to render a Reason of the hope that is in us It is that which lays in us the Foundation of all Religion I mean a true Notion of God It teaches us due apprehensions of him and to conceive rightly concerning him It instructs us that we received our Being and all our Faculties from him that we cannot be deceived by them in those things which we evidently and distinctly perceive and that to think otherwise would be to reflect upon God Nay it teaches us that Omnipotence it self cannot make a clear Conception to be false It can indeed make something out of nothing but it cannot make something to be nothing These and such like Principles of Reason are the Rock upon which all Religion stands and if any Man will go wisely and orderly to Work he must be satisfied in these things before he can think of Revelation As for our Reasonable Faculties we know whence we had them and are assured that God has spoken to us by them But as for any Revelation we know not whence it is till we have tried and examined it Till we see how it agrees with our natural Notices of God till we find that it is worthy of God and becoming his Holiness Wisdom Goodness and Truth for then it bears God's Mark and Superscription upon it and carries along with it one great Evidence that it came forth from God When a revealed Religion and the Reason of Mankind do perfectly correspond and bear Witness to one another it is a sign they both proceed from one Author and were both given us by the same Hand If a Doctrine which pretends to come from God does teach us over again the first Principles of our Creation and the Eternal Laws of Heaven and Earth and nothing at all contrary to them who can reasonably doubt but this is the very Mind and Will of him who made the World However this is an undeniable Consequence on the other hand if any pretended Revelation contain in it things contrary to Reason such as we are able to prove false it cannot come from God it is immediatly convicted of Fraud and Imposture For whatsoever is false in Philosophy can never be true in Divinity If natural and supernatural Truths could be supposed to cross one another we should be bound to Contradictions and Impossibilities we should be engaged at once to believe and disbelieve the same things and in the self-same instance to act both as reasonable and