Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	faith_n	reason_n	see_v	6,880	5	4.6981	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67781	The tryall of true wisdom, with how to become wise indeed, or, A choice and cheap gift for a friend both to please and pleasure him, be he inferior or superior, sinful or faithful, ignorant or intelligent / By R. Younge ... ; add this as an appendix, or third part, to The hearts index, and, A short and sure way, to grace and salvation.	Younge, Richard.; Younge, Richard. Hearts-index, or, self-knowledg.; Younge, Richard. Short and sure way to grace and salvation.	1658 (1658)	Wing Y194; ESTC R39197	35,053	36

all hope of being wiser they had rather keep conscience blind that it may flatter them than inform it that it may give a just verdict against them counting it less trouble to believe a favorable falshood than to examine whether it be true So that it is impossible for fleshly minded men to believe what sots they are touching the good of their souls Wherefore when we see the folly and misery of those that serve sin and Satan and how peevishly averse they are to their own eternal salvation let us pity them as being so much more worthy our commiseration as they are more uncapable of their own misery And so much of the First sort namely Sensuallists Sect. 43. SEcondly There is another degree of Knowledge that is accrued or obtained by education and learning observation and experience called natural or speculative knowledge or reason improved For humane learning is as oyl to the lamp of our reason and makes it burn cleerer but faith and illumination of the spirit more than doubles the sight of our minds as a prospective glass does the corporal sight Matth. 16. 17. 1 Cor. 2. 7. to 17. Joh. 12. 46. For as the soul is the lamp of the body and reason of the soul and religion of reason and faith of religion so Christ is the light and life of Faith Joh. 1. 9. 8. 12. Act. 26. 18. Eph. 5. 14. Christ is the sun of the soul reason and faith the two eyes reason discerns natural objects faith spiritual and supernatural We may see far with our bodily eye sence farther with the minds eye reason but farther with the souls eye faith than with both And the Beleever hath the addition of Gods spirit and faith above all other men I am the light of the world saith our Saviour he that followeth me meaning by a lively faith shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life Joh. 8. 12. and more see two eyes than one yea the day with one eye does far more things descry than night can do with more than Argos eyes So that as meer sense is uncapable of the rules of reason so reason is no less uncapable of the things that are divine and supernatural Jer. 10. 14. 1 Cor. 2. 14 15 16. Eph. 5. 8. And as to speak is only proper to men so to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven is only propper to believers Psal. 25. 14. Prov. 3. 32. Amos. 3. 7. Now of natural and speculative knowledge the wicked have as large a share as the godly but of spiritual experimental and saving knowledge which is supernatural and descendeth from above Jam. 3. 17. and keepeth a man from every evil way Prov. 2. 12. the wicked have no part with the godly Whence all men in their natural condition are said to be blind and in darkness Matth. 4. 16. 15. 14. Eph. 4. 18 19. 5. 8. Whereas believers are called children of light and of the day 1 Thes. 5. 5. 1 Pet. 2. 9. Nor is this kind of knowledge any way attainable but by Grace from above No learning experience or pains in studdy and Books will bring them to it Ephe. 1. 17 18. 3. 19. except they become new creatures have hearts eyes and eares sanctified from above and that the holy Ghost becomes their teacher Deut. 29. 2 3 4. Psal. 111. 10. Joh. ●● 15. Rom. 8. 14 15. Nor is it saving knowledge that they seek after For though many of them be great seekers after knowledge great pains-takers to become wise yet it is not divine and supernatural knowledge that they labor for or desire Indeed wisdom in the largest sense hath ever carried that shew of excellency with it that not only the good have highly affected it as Moses who studied for wisdom and Solomon who prayed for wisdom and the Queen of Sheba who travelled for wisdom and David who to get wisdom made the word his counsellor hated every false way and was a man after Gods own heart but the very wicked have labored for it who are ashamed of other vertues as O the pleasure that rational men take in it Prov. 2. 3 10 11. 10. 14. Phil. 3. 8. Knowledge is so fair a virgin that every cleer eye is in love with her it is a pearl despised of none but swine Prov. 2. 3. 10. 11. whereas brutish and blockish men as little regard it they who care not for one dram of goodness would yet have a full scale of knowledge Amongst all the trees of the garden none so pleaseth them as the tree of knowledge And as wisdom is excellent above all so it is affected of all as oyl was both of the wise and foolish virgins It hath been a mark that every man hath shot at ever since Eve sought to be as wise as her Maker but as a hundreth shoot for one that hitts the white so an hundred aim at wisdom for one that lights upon it Eccles. 7. 28. because they are mistaken in the thing For as Iacob in the dark mistook Leah for Rachael so many a blind soul takes that to be wisdom which is not like Eve who thought it wisdom to eate the forbidden fruit and Absalom who thought it wisdom to lye with his Fathers Concubines in the sight of all the people and the false Steward who thought it wisdom to deceive his Master And so of Josephs brethren of Pharoah and his deep counsellors of Achitophel of Herod of the Pharisees in their project to destroy Jesus and many the like All these thought they did wisely but they were mistaken and their projects proved foolish and turned to their own ruine Sect. 44. BUt take some Instances to prove that all sorts of Naturians are Fools in comparrison of the Godly I 'le begin with those that rep●●e themselves and are reputed by others the wisest amongst men And they are your profound Humanists and cunning Polititians wherein you shall see whether the most and greatest number are not grosly mistaken in their opinions and verdicts touching Wisdom First for profound Hamanists a man would think that they were incomparably wise for none so thirst after knowledge and wisdom as they to get it they are no niggards of their labor nor do they leave any thing unstudied but themselves They know all parts and places of the created world can discourse of every thing visible and invisible divine humane and mundane whether it be meant of substances or accidents are ignorant of nothing but the way to heaven are acquainted with all Laws and customs save the Law of God and customs of Christianity they are strangers no where but in the court of their own consciences Yea they build as hard and erect as high as did the Babel-builders but all to no purpose they never come to the roof and when they die they are undone They spend all their time in seeking after wisdom as Alchimists spend all their estates to find out the Philosophers

must be blown out of us before saving knowledge will be poured into us Christ will know none but the humble and none but humble souls truly know Christ Now the way to become humble is by taking a serious view of our wants The Peacocks pride is much abated when she looks on the blacknesse of her legs and feet Now suppose we know never so much yet that which we know is far lesse then that which we are ignorant of and the more we know the more we know we want Pro. 1. 5 7. Psal. 73. 22. And the lesle sensible we are of our blindness sicknesse deformity c. the more blinde sick and deformed we are Fifthly Thou must labour to get a true and lively faith For as without faith we cannot please God so without faith no man can know God Faith most cleerly beholds those things which are hid both from the eye of sense and the eye of reason John 12. 46. Unregenerate men that what faith are like blinde Sampson without his guide Or like Poliphemus who never had but one eye and that Ulysses put out For so does the pleasure and custome of sinne blinde the Sensuallist We must have mindes lifted above nature to see and love things above nature heavenly wisdome to see heavenly truth or else that truth which is saving will be to us a mystery Mark 4. 11. If it seem not foolishnesse 1 Cor. 2. 7 8 14. To them that are lost the Gospel is hid 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. Whereas the Believer discerns all things even the deep things of God 1 Cor. 2. 10. 12. 15 16. Yea God Giveth him a mouth and wisdome where against all his adversaries shall not be able to speak or resist Luk. 21. 15. These are the five steps which lead up to the palace of wisdome which all must ascend by that mean to enter If you have once attained this precious grace of saving knowledge you will as much as in you lies employ the same to the glory of the giver And so much to prove that he is the wisest man whose knowledge lies in the best things as the weaker vessel may hold the better liquor and that if men be never so learned except they have learned the Mystery of the Gospel and what it is to be borne again by their own experience which few with their great learning do indeed know they are in Gods account no better then fooles I come now to prove that the greatest Politician is a verier fool then the former 52. Secondly If we shall look upon the most cunning Politician with a single eye judge righteous judgement and not according to appearance onely we shall finde that the greatest Polilician is the greatest fool For he turns all his Religion into hypocrisie into Statisme yea into Atheism making Christianity a very foot-stool to policy I confesse they are wiser in their generation then the children of light and are so acknowledged by Christ himself Luke 16. 8. But why not that there is a deficiency of power in the godly but will for could not David go as far as Achitophel could not Paul shew as much cunning as Tertullus Yes surely if they would But because their Master Christ hath commanded them to be innocent as doves They have resolved in an heroical disposition with Abraham Gen. 14. 22. that the King of Sodome shall not make them rich No crooked or indirect meanes shall bring them in profit they will not be beholding to the king of Hell for a shoo-ty And hereupon the Foxes wiles never enter into the Lions head But to speak of them as they are These cunning Politicians in stead of being wise as serpents they are wise serpents They are so arted in subtleties through time and practice that they are neer upon as wise as that old serpent the Devill Indeed he hath one trick beyond all theirs for like a cunning fencer he that taught them all their tricks kept this one to himselfe namely how to cheate them of their soules But take a short Character of them They are such cunning dissemblers that like Pope Alexander the sixth what they thinke they never speak Why is this cast away saith Iudas Crafty cub he would have had it himself They are like a fellow that rides to the pillory they goe not the way they look They will cut a mans throat under colour of courtesie as Ulysses by gold and forged letters was the meanes of stoning Palamides even while he made shew of defending him And then to wipe off all suspition from themselves their gesture and conntenance shall be like Julius Caesar's who seeing Pompey's head fell a weeping as if he had been sorry for it when by his onely meanes it was cut off So like Rowers in a boat whilest in their pretence they look one way in their intent they goe the quire contrary As our Saviour found it to fare with the Pharisees and Sadducees Matth. 16. 1 3. which made him to conclude with O hypocrites Nor shall any man be able to determine either by their gesture words or actions what they resolve though like Hebrew letters you spell them backward Onely this you may be sure of that they do not intend what they pretend Like as in jugling feats though we know not how they are done yet we know well that they are not done as they seem to be Now if they can any way advantage themselves by anothers ruine and do it cunningly as Iezabel did when she killed Naboth by suborning false witnesse against him and proclaimed a Fast before the murther Though all such policy be but misery and all such knowledge ignorance Yet ô how wise they think themselves but they are grosly mistaken for wherein does this their great wisdom consist but first in being wise to deceive others as the Old serpent did our first Parents or secondly in the end to deceive themselves as the same serpent did which brought a curse upon himselfe for so doing Gen. 3. The crafty Fox hugg'd himselfe to think how he had cozened the Crow of her break-fast but when he had eaten it and found himself poysoned with it he wisht the Crow her own again Wealth got by deceit is like a piece of butterd spunge an Italian trick it goes down glib but in the stomack swells and will never be got out again The gains a man gets by deceiving at last he may put in his eye and yet see himselfe miserable Sin is the greatest cheater in the world for it deceives the deceiver §. 53 That it is so with them and all others who goe to Counsell and leave the God of wisdome behind them let their case be viewed in other persons What saith Pharaoh to his deep Counsellors Come let us do wisely when indeed he went about that which destroyed both him and his countrey The Scribes Pharisees and Elders took counsel against Christ as though they would most wisely prevent their own salvation Josephs brethren to prevent his

if men knew either God or Christ they could not but love him and loveing him they would keep his commandments Ioh. 14. 15. For hereby saith St. John It is manifest that we know him if we keep his commandments 1 Joh. 2. 3. But he that sayeth I know him and yet keepeth not his commandments is a lyar and there is no truth in him ver. 4. What saith our Saviour This is life eternal to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent Joh. 17. 3. But how shall a man know whether he hath this knowledge Answ. St. John tells you in those last words mentioned and so plainly that you cannot be deceived except you desire to deceive your own soul The knowledge of God that saves us is more than a bare apprehension of him it knows his power and therefore fears him knows his justice and therefore serves him knows his mercy and therefore trusts him knows his goodness and therefore loves him c. For he that hath the saving knowledge of God or of Christ hath every other Grace There is a sweet correspondence between every one where there is any one in truth As in the generation the head is not without the body nor the body without each member nor the soul without its powers and faculties so in the regeneration where there is any one grace in truth there is every one 2 Cor. 5. 17. If you will see it in particulars read Psa. 9. 10. Jer. 9. 24. 1 Joh. 4. 6. Joh. 4. 10. 1 Joh 4. 7 8. 2. 3. Joh 42. 5 6. 1 Ioh. 4. 7. which Scriptures shew that as feeling is inseparable to all the organs of sense the eye sees and feels the ear hears and feels the pallat tastes and feels the nostrils smell and feel so knowledge is involved in every grace Faith knows and believes Charity knows and loves Patience knows and suffers Temperance knows and abstains Humility knows and stoops Repentance knows and mourns Obedience knows and does Confidence knows and rejoyces Hope knows and expects Compassion knows and pities Yea as there is a power of water in every thing that grows it is fatness in the olive sweetness in the figg cheerfulness in the grape strength in the oak taleness in the cedar redness in the rose whiteness in the lilly c. so knowledge is in the hand obedience in the mouth benediction in the knee humility in the eye compassion in the heart charity in the whole body and soul piety Alas If men had the true knowledg of Jesus Christ it would disperse and dispel all the black clouds of their reigning sins in a moment as the Sun does no sooner shew his face but the darkness vanisheth or as Caesar did no sooner look upon his enemies but they were gone Egypt swarmed with locusts till the west wind came that left not one He cannot delight in sin nor dote upon this world that knows Christ savingly Vertue is ordained a wife for knowledg and where these two joyn there will proceed from them a noble progine a generation of good works Again as the water engendereth ice and the ice again engendereth water so knowledg begets righteousness and righteousness again begetteth knowledg It is between science and conscience as it is between the stomack and the head for as in mans body the raw stomack maketh a thumatick head and the thumatick head maketh a raw stomach so science makes our conscience good and conscience makes our science good Nor is it so much scientiae capitis as conscientia cordis that knows Christ and ourselves whence Solomon saith Give thine heart to wisdom Prov. 2. 10. and let wisdom enter into thine heart Prov. 4. 4. And when he would acquaint us how to become wise he tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom Prov. 1. 7. as if the first lesson to be wise were to be holy Again If it be asked Why the natural man perceiveth not the things of the spirit of God Saint Paul answers he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned 1 Cor. 2. 14 and indeed if they are spiritually discerned how should they descern them that have not the spirit For though the outward man receives the elements and rudiments of Religion by breeding and education yet his inward man receiveth them by heavenly inspiration 1 〈◊〉 2. 11 12 13. 12. 3. 8. Matth. 16. 16 17. Deut. 29 2 3 4 Psa. 111. 10. Luke 24. 45. Ioh. 15. 15. And this alone is enough to prove that no wicked man is a wise man for if God alone be the giver of it we may be sure that he will reveal his secrets to none but such as he knows will improve their knowledge to his glory and the good of others Even as the husband man will not cast his seed but into ground that will return him a good harvest Psa. 25. 14. Luke 24. 45. Mark 4. 34. Gen. 18. 17. 1 Joh. 4. 7. Sect. 47. BUt would these men any one even the best of them thus improve or imploy their knowledge Or do they desire it to any such end No but to some other end as I shall in the next place acquaint you Some men desire not to know some desire only to know Or rather thus Few men in comparison desire knowledge fewer that desire divine and supernatural knowledge fewest of all that desire to be the better or that others should be the better for their knowledge More particularly a world of men desire knowledg for no other end but to remove their ignorance as Pharach used Moses but to remove the plagues Others again study the Scriptures and other good Books only to make gain thereof or to be the abler to dispute and discourse as boys go into the water only to play and paddle there not to wash and be clean With Eve they highly desire the tree of knowledg but regard not the tree of life As I would fain know what fruit or effect the knowledge of most men produces in them except it be to inable them to dispute and discourse to increase wit or to increase wealth or to increase pride or perhaps to increase Athiesm and to make them the more able and cunning to argue against the truth and power of Religion Whether the utmost of their aim be not to enrich dignifie and please themselves not once casting the eye of their souls at Gods glory their neighbors good or their own salvation Whether their main drift be not purchasing of a great estate for them and theirs with out either fear of God regard of men or the discharge of their duty and calling Again whereas a godly man and a good Christian thinks himself as happy in giving light to others as in receiving it himself how many are there who as themselves are never the better I mean in regard of Grace for their great wisdom and learning so no more are others for commonly they resemble dark Lanthorns

having dominion over them as his dreames imported thought they had taken a very wise course in selling him to the Ishmaelitish Merchants which was indeed the onely meanes to effect it They murther Christ lest the Romans should come and by so doing their coming was hastned The Jews say Come let us kill him that the inheritance may be ours But in killing him they lost the inheritance and themselves too And so it always fares with our Machivillians in the end speed they never so wel for a time For let the Devil promise them never so fair suppose it be a Kingdome the up-shot will be but sad and doleful as it fared with Athaliah who having slain all the Kings seed that she alone might raign lost both the government and her life too Or as it did with Abimelech who slue seventy of his brethren that he might with safety enjoy the Kingdome lost both it and his life with it And many the like we read of Whence St. Ambrose observes that the plots of the wicked alwayes return upon their own heads As Pope Hildebrands servant by stumbling was killed with that stone he should have thrown down on Frderick the Emperour at his Devotions Or as Griphus his mother was made to take that draught where-with she intended to poyson him Yea how little was Judas set by of the High Priests when once he had served their turn How did they shake him off in that pittiful distresse with look thou to it And so how poor are the witches that in confidence of these promises even sell their souls to the Devill See here in these few Examples you have the depth and solidity of our greatest and wisest Politicians and yet lewd men most ridiculously and absurdly call wicked policies wisdome and their successe happinesse But herein Satan makes them of all fools the superlative in mistaking villany and madnesse for the best vertues And what is the summa totalis of all but this Faux-like they project other mens over-throw purchase their owne Neither hath any man been wise to do evill but his wisdome hath had an evill end As ô the multitude of Examples that are recorded to give credit to this Doctrine Was not the wisdome of the Serpent turned into a curse the wisdome of the Pharisees into a woe the wisdome of Achitophel into folly the wisdome of Nimrod into confusion the wisdome of the unjust Steward into expulsion out of Heaven the wisdome of Jezabel into a shameful death c. So that in the issue their case proves but like the spiders that was weaving a curious net to catch thè swallow who when she came bore away both net and webb and weaver too Wherefore ô God make me but soul-wise and I shall never envy their knowledge that pity my simplicity Let me be weake in policy so I may be wise to salvation And I cannot but wonder to see how the most are mistaken in them But being thus discovered I hope it will appear that as love lust are not all one so a cunnning Politician a wise man are not both one As we have seen some that could pack the cards yet were not able to play well 54. True if men shall look upon them side-wayes as Appelles painted Antigonus that is upon their strength of ●rain and parts alone and not consider them whole and together their abilities with their deficiencies they will take them for wise men and so be mistaken But If you would know how to call them they are properly subtle persens as the Holy Ghost stiles Jonadab who gave that wicked and crafty counsell to Amnon 2 Sam. 13. 3 5. And the woman of Tekoah 2 Sam. 14. 2. And Elimas Act. 13. 10. as being rarely gifted to deceive and more crafty and wily then is usual But not wise men for this is rather wisdome backwàrd and to study the dangerous art of self-sophysiry to the end they may play wily beguile themselves and to plot self-treason then which there is no greater when the betrayer and betrayed spell but one man Again admit them the most they are not wise in good though they be wise to do evill Or if you will wise in goods not wise in grace For as that old Serpent seemed to boast that he was richer then Christ when he said All these are mine Matth. 4. 9. So the Politician may truly say for the most part I am wiser then my plain dealing neigbour by five hundred pounds So that in some sense it may be said of them as one speaks of women though partially that they are more witty in wickednesse then men Nor can I more fitly compare them then to Dats Night-crows Owles and Cats which can see better in the darke then in the light Their wisdome is like that of the Polipus which is a most stupid and foolish fish yet useth great skill in taking of other fishes Never the lesse yield them all that hath been mentioned this is the up-shot They are blinde and in darknesse as having their beginning from Satan the Prince of darknesse and their end in Hell which is the pit of darkness and because they are wise onely to evill their wisdome shall have but an evill end In the dialect of the wise man the greatest sinner is the greatest fool Prov. 1. 7. And David thinks there is no fool to the Atheist Psal. 53. 1. 49. 13. And Saint Austin tells us that the wisest Politician upon earth the most ample and cunning Machivillian that lives be he a Doctor in that deep reaching faculty is worse then a foole For if the Holy Ghost saith he termes him a fool that onely laid up his own goods Luke 12. 18 20. finde out a name for him that takes away other mens And though worldly men call the simple fools yet God calls the crafty fools Jer. 8. 9. Mat. 6. 23. And of all atheisis and fools which seeme wise there be no such fools in the world as they that love money better then themselves And so you have the wisdome of Humanists and Politicians desciphered together with the wisdome of Gods servants You see the difference between them and therein as I suppose that neither of the former are so wise as the godly man nor so wise as the world reputes them or they themselves I confesse the one speak Latine Greek and Hebrew the other Statutes History and Husbandry well enough to make their neighbours think them wise but the truth is they seem wiser then they are as is said of the Spaniard whereas the godly like the French are wiser then they seem The former are wise men in foolish things and foolish men in wise things Sharp-eyed as Eagles in the things of the earth but blinde as Beetles in the matters of heaven O that they had but the wit to know that when all is done Heaven is a brave place where are such joyes as eye hath not seene nor care heard neither hath it entered