Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	holy_a	nature_n	8,877	5	5.8462	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59808	The danger of corrupting the faith by philosophy a sermon preach'd before the Right Honble, the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen at Guildhall-Chappel on Sunday, April 25, 1697 / by William Sherlock.	Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707.	1697 (1697)	Wing S3280; ESTC R28137	15,328	30

of things must be made the measure and standard of true and false we must deny our Senses and Reason as well as our Faith and if we do and must believe our Sense and Reason beyond our Comprehension Why must we believe nothing that is Revealed any farther than we can conceive and comprehend the Nature and Reasons of it The Sum is this Humane Knowledge whatever the means of knowing be whether Sense or Reason or Revelation does not reach to the Philosophical Causes and Natures of things but only to their Being and Natural Vertues and Powers and as a Wise man who knows the measure of his Understanding expects no more from Sense and Reason than to know what things there are in the World and what they are as far as they fall under the notice of Sense and Natural Reason so we must expect no more from Revelation than the knowledge of such things as Sense and Natural Reason cannot discover But we must no more expect the Philosophy of Supernatural Truths from Revelation than we do the Mysteries of Nature from Sense and Reason Now since Human Knowledge is not a knowledge of the Mysterious Natures of things but only to know what things there are and what they are there can be no cantradiction between Sense and Reason and Revelation unless one denies what the other affirms not that one teaches more than the other teaches or that one cannot comprehend what the other teaches Reason teaches more than Sense teaches or can comprehend and Revelation teaches more than either Sense or Natural Reason teaches or can comprehend but this is no contradiction but only a subordination between these different kinds and degrees of Knowledge but as for Unconceivableness and Incomprehensibility that is no argument against any thing for Sense and Natural Reason can no more comprehend their own Objects than they do what is revealed And it is manifest perverseness to make that an objection against Revelation which we will not allow to be an objection against Sense and Reason This is sufficient as to the reason of the thing but as far as it is possible to remove mens Prejudices also against believing Mysteries I shall briefly answer two very popular Objections 1. It is thought very unnatural that when God has made us reasonable Creatures and therefore made Natural Reason to us the measure of Truth and Falshood he should require us to believe without Reason as we must do if he reveals such things to us as we know not and cannot possibly know the reasons of If we must believe with our Understanding how can we believe things which we cannot understand This were a reasonable Objection were it true for we cannot believe what we have no knowledge nor understanding of for Faith is Knowledge though not Natural Knowledge But do we not understand what it is we believe Do we not know what we mean when we say We believe in Father Son and Holy Ghost Nay do not our Adversaries understand what we mean by it How then come they to charge us with believing Contradictions and Impossibilities For if they know not what we believe they cannot know whether we believe Contradictions or not And if we do understand what it is we believe then we do not believe without understanding which is absolutely impossible if we know what it is we believe And we know also why we believe Our Faith is founded in Sense and Reason and resolved into the Authority of God which is the highest and most infallible Reason The Miracles which Christ and his Apostles wrought were evident to Sense and owned by Reason to be the effects of a Divine Power and the Answer the Blind man gave to the Pharisees when Christ had opened his Eyes speaks the true sense of Nature H●rein is a marvellous thing that ye know not from whence he is and yet he hath opened mine eyes Now we know that God heareth not sinners but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind If this man were not of God he could do nothing 9. John 30 31 32 33. And all Mankind own that the most absolute Faith is due to God and to those who speak from God and this as I take it is to believe with Reason But still we believe such things whose Natures we do not understand and cannot account for by Natural Reason and this is to believe without Reason We believe that God the Father hath an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit and that Father Son and Holy Ghost are but One Eternal God but this is what Natural Reason cannot comprehend nor give us any notion or conception of how God can have an Eternal Son and an Eternal Spirit really distinct from himself and yet with himself One Eternal and Infinite God Reason can give no account of the Eternal Generation of the Son nor of the Eternal Procession of the Holy Spirit and is not this to believe without Reason which a reasonable Creature ought not to do and which we ought not to think that God who made us reasonable Creatures expects from us And this I grant would be a material Objection were Reason the Judge of the Nature and Philosophy of things and did Reason require us to believe nothing but what we understand and comprehend But then we must no more believe Sense and Reason than Revelation for we do not comprehend the Nature of any one thing in the World how evident soever it is to Sense and Reason that there are such things Nature is as great a Mystery as Revelation and it is no greater affront to our Understandings no more against reason for God to reveal such things to us as our Reason cannot comprehend than it is to make a whole World which Reason cannot comprehend When we make it an Objection against any thing That it is without Reason or as we apprehend against Reason and contrary to Reason we must first consider whether it be the proper Object of Reason otherwise it is no Objection as it is no objection against Sounds that we cannot see them nor against Colours that we cannot hear them because Sounds are not the Objects of Sight nor Colours of Hearing Now no man pretends that the pure Natures and Essences of things or their Essential Reasons Properties Unions Operations are the Objects of Humane Reason for no man living knows any thing about them And yet this is all the Incomprehensibility men have to complain of in the Doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation That they cannot comprehend how God can beget an Eternal Son nor how Three Divine Persons should be so united as to be essentially One God nor how the Divine and Humane Nature can be united into One Person God-man All which concern the Essence and Essential Properties Operations Unions Relations of the Deity which a modest man

are no farther concerned with them than with other Human Writings to believe what they teach agreeable to our own Reason Let these Men then either reject Faith and Scripture or confess That Revelation as to all Supernatural Truths must serve us instead of Sense and Reason I would gladly know of them Whether they would not believe such supernatural Truths as are not evident to Reason were they sure that God had Revealed them I guess they will not be so hardy as to say That they would not believe God himself should he Reveal such things as their Reason cannot comprehend and if they would believe God in such matters Why will they not believe a Revelation which they themselves acknowledge to be Divine in such matters For is there any difference between believing God and believing a Divine Revelation If God does know and can reveal such Mysteries and is to be believed when he does reveal them and such Doctrines are contained in an undoubted Revelation then the unconceivableness of them can be no argument against the Truth of the Revelation or that sense of the words which contains such Mysteries Let us then consider the natural consequence of this which is of great moment in this dispute viz. That we must allow of no Objections against Revealed Mysteries which we will not allow to be good Objections against Sense and Reason which is a necessary and unavoidable consequence if Revelation with respect to supernatural Truths stand in the place of Sense and Reason Now no man questions the truth of what he sees and feels or what he can prove to be true by plain and undeniable Reason merely because there are unconceivable difficulties in it as there are in every thing even the most certain and familiar things in Nature And if Revealed Truths are not more unconceivable than many natural objects of Sense and Reason Why should their being unconceivable be a greater Objection against believing a Revelation than it is against believing our Sense and Reason in matters equally unconceivable When God has Revealed to us That he has an Eternal and Only Begotten Son though we cannot comprehend the Mystery of the Eternal Generation Why should we not as firmly believe it as we do that Man Begets a Son in his own likeness the Philosophy of which we as little understand Nor can we any more conceive the Union of the Soul and Body than we do the Incarnation of the Son of God or the Union of the Divine and Human Nature in one Person And if we own the Authority of Revelation Why should we not as well believe what Revelation teaches how unconceivable soever it be as we do what Sense and Reason teaches though it be alike unconceivable All men are sensible that it is very absurd and foolish to deny the Being of any thing which they have certain evidence of because they cannot comprehend the Nature and Reasons of it The Man who rose up and walked before the Philosopher who was disputing subtilly against the possibility of Motion put a scorn upon all his Arguments by shewing him that he could Move And therefore we see that all men believe their Senses and Reason against all the difficulties in Nature and will never be persuaded by the subtillest Disputant That that is not which they certainly see and know to be Now for the same reason if men will allow the Authority of Revelation they must believe what is Revealed how unconceivable and incomprehensible soever its nature be for when we know that a thing is and this may be known by Revelation as well as by Sense as those men must confess who acknowledge a Divine Revelation no difficulties in conceiving it must persuade us to deny that it is This is very plain in it self though few men consider it That to disbelieve what is Revealed for the sake of any difficulties in understanding or conceiving it is to reject the certainty of Revelation For what other account can be given of that difference men make between the Evidence of Sense and Reason and of Revelation but that they allow Sense and Reason to be good and certain proofs of the being of such things as are evident to Sense and Reason how mysterious soever their Natures are but that mere Revelation is no certain proof of the being of any thing which is not evident also to Sense and Reason how plainly soever it be Revealed that is that Revelation alone can prove nothing for if Revelation it self could prove the certainty of what is Revealed the difficulties in Nature and Philosophy could no more disprove a Revelation than confute our Senses Now let any man judge whether this be not unequal usage to expect more from Revelation than they do from Sense and Reason and not to believe Revelation upon the same terms that they believe their Senses Should men resolve to believe nothing which they see till they could give a Philosophical account of the Reasons and Causes and Natures of all they see as they refuse to believe a Revelation any farther than they can conceive and comprehend the thing Revealed they must of necessity be as great Scepticks as they are Infidels For as for contradictions it is an easy matter to make or find seeming contradictions in what we do not understand for when we know not the Philosophical Natures of things nor how they act and yet will be reasoning and guessing at them all our false guesses may be full of contradictions and impossibilities because we know not the true Mystery of Nature It is this vain humour of Criticizing upon Nature which makes so many Atheists They go upon the same Principle with Infidels and Hereticks To believe nothing which natural Reason cannot conceive and comprehend now they cannot comprehend the Notion and Idea of a God which they say is made up of Contradictions and impossibilities and therefore they reject the Being of a God They cannot conceive a Creating Power which can give Being to that which had no Being before which they think a plain Contradiction to make Something of Nothing and therefore they reject the Creation of the World and either assert the Eternity of the World or at least the Eternity of Matter They can conceive no Substance but Matter and Body and therefore reject the Notion of a Spirit as Nonsense and Contradiction They will allow nothing to be wisely made which they understand not the reason and uses of and therefore they fancy a great many botches and blunders in Nature which cannot be the designs and contrivance of Wisdom but the effects of Chance and then the consequence is plain That the World was made by Chance not by a Wise Author Now I confess if this way of Reasoning be allowed it will be impossible to defend either Sense or Reason or Revelation against the Cavils of Atheists and Infidels for there are unconceivable and incomprehensible Secrets and Mysteries in them all and if to conceive and comprehend the Natures