Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	holy_a	scripture_n	true_a	8,130	5	5.1204	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52616	The Trinitarian scheme of religion, concerning almighty God and mankind considered both before and after the (pretended) fall : with notes thereoupon, which notes contain also the unitarian scheme.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1692 (1692)	Wing N1509A; ESTC R41717	32,447	30

him and the English Reader to the Paraphrase of the late Learned and Pious Dr. Claget Our Opposers delight in marvelous Doctrines therefore as they pretend that Faith and Newness of Life are effected by God in us by Means so unsutable to the Qualities produced and to the Nature of our Souls as Water Bread and Wine so they assure us farther that the written Word and Word preach'd have no Efficacy toward begetting those Effects but 't is say they the inward Word which sometimes to some and in some measure accompanying the Word written or preach'd first convinces and then reclaims Sinners For my part I would gladly know what kind of thing an inward Word is I had thought all Words had been outward Words and that otherways they could not have been called Words But be that as it will Unitarians are well satisfied that the outward Word as our Opposers are pleased to Nickname the Holy Scriptures and the Word preach'd is sufficient and effectual by the Reasons it suggesteth and the Rewards and Penalties it proposeth to convince and reform our Reasonable Natures and that otherways they were not Reasonable but Brutish Natures This is not ours but the Doctrine of Holy Scripture and that in as express and clear Terms as can be devised First as to the Efficacy of the written Word 2 Tim. 3.15 Thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto Salvation Then for the Word taught after St. Paul had said Rom. 10.14 How shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher He makes this Conclusion at ver 17. So then Faith cometh by Hearing And is it not indeed a very strange Paradox of these Gentlemen that the Wisdom of God should make use of a Means that produceth they say no Effect If the outward Word produceth no Effect in him that hears or reads we might as well have been bid to tell twenty in order to the getting Faith and subduing our Lusts as to hear and meditate of God's Word And if that be indeed the case 't is very surprizing that God should expostulate after such an angry manner with lazy and negligent Pastors and should so heartily rouze up others as 't is undeniable he doth Isa 56.10 They are dumb Dogs that cannot bark sleeping lying down loving to slumber Isa 58.1 Cry aloud spare not lift up thy Voice like a Trumpet shew my People their Transgressions and the House of Israel their Sins 1 Cor. 9.16 Necessity is laid upon me and wo unto me if I preach not the Gospel What needed any thing of all this if the outward Word is nothing and 't is only the inward Word which is not in the least tied to the other that only can and does produce the desired Effect About interpreting Holy Scripture IF it be asked how it comes to pass that we differ so widely from the Hereticks about the Doctrines specified in the foregoing Paragraphs while both we and they pretend Holy Scripture to be our Rule and the sole Judg of Controversies and Questions about Religion The Answer is at hand even this That Hereticks being Men of some Wit and Learning and withal carnal are hereupon puffed up are too proud to submit themselves to God's Revelation but only as bowed and subdued to their Reason But 't is all Mens Duty in a Clash between Revelation and Reason whether real or only seeming to submit Reason to Revelation and not subject Divine Revelation to Human Reason 'T is unpardonable Boldness in any to dislike the express words or evident sense of Holy Scripture because our Reason cannot fathom the depths of that Divine Book If I would believe the Doctrine there set down were it not for the Contradiction made to it by Human Reason I am not a Christian otherways than in Name if I do not receive such Doctrine with an implicit Faith without seeking to elude or to correct it by Reason And it is upon this Hinge that all our Controversies with these Hereticks do turn whether we are to follow the express words and obvious natural sense of Holy Scripture or whether we are to interpret Scripture by Reason so as to fly to a Figurative Sense or even to a Catachrestical i. e. somewhat harsh Construction or Interpretation rather than admit any Doctrine that is contrary to Reason The Notes Unitarians think that a real Clash between Revelation and Reason is an absurd Supposition but if we must put that impossible case we think 't is clear that Human Reason must needs be subjected to Divine Revelation But where the Clash is only seeming that is where there are ways of reconciling them as by so interpreting the Revelation as to make it agree with Reason we think 't is as absurd to oppose as Trinitarians do these two Lights to one another we think in that case we ought to use the Expedient of Interpretation If the Interpretation must be made either by a Figurative Sense or by somewhat Catachrestical harsh Construction yet 't is always better to strain Words than Things and there are particular Reasons why we ought so to do in interpreting Holy Scripture and all Interpreters of all Perswasions do it with Approbation of All. Yet this is a thing on which I will not here insist tho it deserveth great Consideration because this is not as Trinitarians pretend our Case or Quarrel with them or the Hinge on which these Controversies turn For we utterly deny that the express Words or the obvious natural Sense of Holy Scripture are on the Trinitarian side we never fly in these Controversies to a Catachrestical or harsh sense no nor have at any time need of a Figurative Sense as hath been sufficiently shown in the brief History of the Vnitarians Trinitarians indeed are forced to those Expedients I do not call them Shifts because 't is plain they must be sometimes allowed not only in interpreting Holy Scripture but in all other Writers and Writings But seeing themselves are forced to use very often those ways of interpreting especially in interpreting the Gospel of St. John and the most part of St. Paul's Epistles they have no right to object such kind of interpreting to Unitarians if indeed we had occasion for it The CONCLVSION THese things have not been said God is Witness to challenge much less to affront other Sects and Denominations of Christians and least of all the Church of England From which Church the Unitarians have not separated as other Dissenters for small and inconsiderable Causes have done We place not Religion in worshipping God by our selves or after a particular Form or Manner but in a right Faith and a just and charitable Conversation We approve of known Forms of praising and praying to God as also in administring Baptism the Lord's-Supper Marriage and the other Religious Offices we like well of the Discipline of the Church by Bishops and Parochial Ministers we have an Esteem for the eminent Learning and exemplary Piety of the Conforming Clergy For these Reasons we communicate with that Church as far as we can and contribute our Interest to favour her against all others who would take the Chair We would not therefore be understood to be Enemies to the Church or as seeking to undermine her Our whole Pretence is this to reform our FAITH by the Rule of Holy Scripture in consistence with evident REASON And the design of this Pretence or Endeavour of ours next to approving our own Souls to God our Judg is to vindicate the common Christianity from the Insults of Atheists or other profane Persons to take from such all just Exception against the most holy and wise Body of Laws that the World ever had or can have even the Christian Religion By making it appear to be a most rational and consistent System as well in the Credenda the Things to be believed as in the Ag●●●a or Things to be done We think this 〈◊〉 such a Design as ought not to be enterta●●●● with those Jealousies and aspersed 〈◊〉 those Calumnies and Clamours that are every day raised against us both by the Pulpit and Pr●ss We hope that the Reasons of our Dissent from the Church in these Doctrines being once known and well considered and the Honesty of our Design in publishing them apparent our Fellow-Christians will less regret our Difference with them about these Questions and will at length acknowledg that however we are mistaken yet we are well-meaning Brethren Thou Father who governest in the Kingdoms of the Children of Men continue to us All the Means of rightly knowing Thee and of living up to the Precepts of the Gospel that we may All at length receive of thee the Inheritance incorruptible undefiled that fades not away reserved in Heaven for us FINIS

meer Human Nature continuing and abiding a bare and meer Human Nature is a Divine Nature For in affirming it hath Infinite Dignity and Merit how much soever they may say in words 't is a bare and meer Human Nature they have in sense affirmed 't is a Divine Nature For what is Divine but as much as to say of Infinite Dignity and Infinite Excellence or Merit The third Wonder is That by Virtue of the Incarnation of a Divine Person in an Human Nature the Divine Person or God must be said to have been born in Time to have suffered and died and on the contrary the Humanity or Man Christ Jesus must be said to have been from all Eternity to be Omnipotent Omnipresent Creator of all things and whatsoever else is said of God But that our Opposers may not complain that they are misrepresented I must own this is only the fore part of the Prodigy the other end or hinder part is of a contrary Nature For tho you must say God was born God suffered God died yet saith their Doctrine farther you are not really to think God can be born in Time can suffer or can die and on the other hand you must say the Man Christ Jesus was from all Eternity created the World is Omnipresent and Omnipotent but you are not so to think The reason is because the Communication of the Properties of the Divinity to the Humanity and of the Humanity to the Divinity is not real but only nominal or in words Now Unitarians being but plain Fellows and having Country Consciences like not this juggling that we must say one thing and must think or mean another Yet because we ought to yield to hard things for Peace sake if our Opposers are content that we may do so also in the other Articles that is if they are content that we only say as is said in those Articles and may declare at the same time that we think the contrary and if Trinitarians will also so do in those Articles we will comply with them in this third Wonder or Mystery of the Incarnation And this is the only Composition that can possibly be agreed to in these Controversies without renouncing our Christianity our reasonable Faculties and our Senses Of Grace IT is true the Lord Christ God and Man in one Person paid down a more than sufficient Ransom for the Actual Deliverance of a thousand Worlds from the Imputation of Adam's Sin and the Consequences of that Imputation even the three Deaths yet the Ransom was not accepted for all but only for the Elect nor yet was it accepted for Deliverance from the whole Punishment but only from part of it For no Man is thereby delivered from such a share of Spiritual Death as to be able to do a good Action or think a good Thought without an immediate and particular Assistance or GRACE of God's Spirit beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in him and by him As hath been often defined and concluded in the Councils of the Orthodox in opposition to the Heresy of Pelagius revived by Vnitarians and Arminians The Notes After they have tried their Skill in misrepresenting and deforming the true Idea we ought to have of God and of his Perfections and Attributes our Opposers proceed to calumniate Human Nature the Image of God and will have it to be the Image of the Devil They tell us we come into the World so depraved in all our Faculties and Powers that we cannot do any good Action no nor think a good Thought without a particular and extraordinary Grace of God beginning continuing and perfecting such good Action or Thought in us and by us In sober sadness is this the Character of that sort of Creature of whom the Apostle saith be is made in the similitude of God James 3.9 Or is it the very Description of the Devil himself if at least it be not a Calumny even of him Will God own such a Creature as his Similitude as has a natural Impotence to all that is holy and good and a violent and perpetual Biass to Evil only and to every kind of Evil Yes they say our Likeness to God consists not in a Capacity to Holiness or ought that good is but in the Dominion we have over some Creatures in this lower World But by this account of our Likeness to God he that is most of all unlike to God is much more the Similitude and Image of God than Man is the Dominion and Power of Satan is incomparably greater and larger than Man's is therefore in their Hypothesis he is more the Similitude of God than Man is But as absurd as these things are I will not now insist on them but content my self to acquaint the Reader with some of the principal Reasons of the Vnitarians why they hold that Man is a free Agent as capable of doing Good as Evil nay more capable of the former because he has more reason for it than of the latter not the Slave to only one of the Contraries but at absolute liberty towards both 1. Our Blushes and Remorses for having acted at any time otherways than we ought are Testimonies and Witnesses of our certain and internal Consciousness that we could have done as Religion and Duty require of us that is could have forbore that Evil and have done the contrary Good 2. Deliberation and Consultation what and how we are to act argue also not only that we are free but that we are sensible we are so 3. We experience that our Piety and Vertue are our own Work by the Difficulty we feel and the slow Progress we are able to make in attaining those Habits and in subduing the contrary Habits 4. If Men are good not by a spontaneous Choice or Power of their own but only by an extraordinary and immediate Aid no tolerable reason can be given why we should not always be acted to Good or why we are but partially and imperfectly Good Is it credible that God should do his own Work in us after a desultory inconstant and impersect manner 5. What Piety or Vertue is it or how can God love or esteem any Person whether Him or Her for that well-doing or that abstinence from Evil which was not their own Choice Will or Discretion but the Work and Effect solely of God's Grace acting by them or in them 6. That every good Thought and Action is not an Inspiration or the Gift or Grace of God is confirmed by this that God doth sometimes disallow and forbid some good Intentions and Actions of his Servants Thus 't was a good Thought and Intention in David that he would build an House for the Lord a Temple for God's publick Worship and Service 't was so good a Thought and Purpose that it was rewarded with a Promise from God that God would build David 's House i. e. would establish and confirm his Family on the Throne of Judah and Israel But as good a