Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	according_a	heart_n	word_n	1,814	5	3.8480	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60202	The deaf and dumb man's discourse. Or A treatise concerning those that are born deaf and dumb containing a discovery of their knowledge or understanding; as also the method they use, to manifest the sentiments of their mind. Together with an additional tract of the reason and speech of inanimate creatures. By Geo. Sibscota.	Sibscota, George.; Deusing, Anton, 1612-1666.	1670 (1670)	Wing S3748B; ESTC R203573	28,715	98

intire they may gain the Knowledge of all Visible things as visible and may frame those universal conceptions of them by the abstraction of the Mind as well in this case as where the Hearing is perfect Nay farther and these persons as well as all other men in general may proceed from things Visible by the light of the Understanding to the Knowledge of the Invisible mysteries of the Deity so that they are left inexcusable as well as any other persons whatsoever if they do not glorify God and return him thanks for Benefits receiv'd Of these the Apostle speaks Rom. 1. v. 20 21. 39. Furthermore if those that are Born Deaf are also Blind although they are depriv'd of the knowledge of many things which come within the compass of the Senses nor can arive at the knowledge of God by the outward Book of Nature as the other yet they may obtain the knowledge both of God and themselves by those notions that are grafted in their minds And it is very probable that those whose Intellects are less disturbed in Contemplation by the appearance of corporeal things the implanted Seeds that are in them of the Knowledge of Divine and immaterial Beings do easily break forth into action as we our selves are more apt for the search and Contemplation of Divine things the less we are distracted by outward objects and the fancies that result from them 40. Certainly it is not at all consentaneous to reason that the rational Soul or Mind is altogether unactive in such persons and lies as it were lurking in the lethargy of a benumm'd security or that they do not according to their capacity incline their minds to the Knowledge of the Deity by virtue of that innate light that is in them as well as the Celestial Angels and Divels since the Soul is to be reckoned in the number of Intelligences though perhaps placed in the lowest rank of Intelligences and in reality is not so deeply plunged in matter or matterial functions by reason of its defect of Sight and Hearing 41. But what is to be thought of those who are born Deaf as to their Knowledge in things that concern the Mystery of our Salvation These things as they are too sublime either for Universal Humane or Angelical knowledge cannot be found out or understood by those notions implanted in the mind And as Faith comes by Hearing according to the Apostle where this is wanting it may possibly seem very agreeable to truth that there can be no Faith and therefore no saving knowledge and the consequence is undeniable since no man can be saved without Faith 42. Oh this is indeed a very hard saying which shipwracks the Soul Truly since those that are born Deaf are no more guilty of neglecting the means of their Salvation than Infants concerning whom however the Sacred Pages advise us to be more charitable what reason I wonder can there be why we should think God less merciful to them who are also born of faithful Parents than to Infants We will leave the disquisition of their Faith or the manner thereof to Divines Hath God therefore who according to his Will hath elected some on t of all Mankind corrupted by the Fall to be Vessels of mercy and others Vessels of his wrath strictly registred all those that are born deaf in the number of those that are Vessels of wrath Yet God's Promise and Covenant belongs to these as much as to the children of the faithful 43. The Holy Ghost in truth is the chiefest cause of Faith who begets it in our hearts by the preaching of the Word and consequently by Hearing This is the ordinary way of God which he commands us to follow he that neglects this is excluded from Faith by his own fault Yet God is not wholly tied up to this one way of operation He hath extraordinary ways which we are ignorant of and he will not reveal to us Yet God made use of peculiar means to bring St. Paul to the christian Faith and made him of a Persecutor of the Church become an Apostle Acts. the 9. He proceeded after another manner to the conversion at least in part of the Eunuch of Candace the Aethiopian Queen Acts the 9. viz. By the reading of the Word of God 44. And shall we judge that no persons can be saved that live where there is no publike preaching of Gods Word and so by consequence where the mind gains no spiritual knowledge by Hearing May we not affirm that by diligent reading and co-operation of the Holy Ghost Faith may be engendred in the Souls of the Godly Now therefore if this means be without Hearing why may not God manifest other ways that so at least his operation may not be confin'd to the hearing solely 45. But let us examine whether there are not other means appointed by God by which those that are originally deaf may attain the knowledge of divine Mysteries sufficient for salvation There is no necessity why speech which is usually acquir'd by Hearing should precede writing but speech useth to be in the first place by reason of it's facility for those that have all their senses perfect are more apt to speak than write But where there is a defect of Hearing they may begin with writing and so by writing come to speaking as is manifrst by the fore-cited example out of Vallesius Now external speech is a kind Messenger or rather representation of the internal or of the intellect it self They therefore that are born Deaf may by writing inform their minds with the knowledge of those things which must be obtained by hearing in others whose senses are all perfect and so they may make use of writing in leiu of speaking which is otherwayes attained by Learning and they as Vallesius speaks in his third chapter de Phil. Sacr. Do gain the knowledge of Divine things by the sight which others do by hearing which I my self saith he can testify in those Scholars which my friend Peter Pontius undertook who first taught them that were born Deaf to write or to express the conceptions of their mind by writing and then to speak 46. The same reason there is for those that are born Deaf if Dumb also they may by writing understand things although no external writing is subsequent to speech for the speech in Man conduceth not to the gaining of knowledge to themselves but only to communicate the Conceptions of their own mind to others This is clear by an example taken out of Pel. Platerus who in the first book of his Observations pag. 118. reports that a certain person who was born Deaf and Dumb could with Chalk draw out his mind in a Table-book which he carried continually about him and understand what others writ therein 47. But as writing or the reading thereof may serve in stead of speech by which the Conceptions of the mind are laid open to the sight as well as they are by speech to the Ear so there may

Aristotle shews de Anim. l. 3. c. 4. text 6. because that it is a kind of communicated image and represented as it were in the Mirror of the Mind so neither doth it use any organ in its operations according to Arist in the forecited place although 't is busied about outward appearances as the object of its operations and can understand nothing without them as Aristotle teacheth c. 8. text 39. And in truth that which he hath in the last quoted place belongs to this passive Intellect or rather to Man as he is of a sensitive nature adorned with an active Intellect that an Intelligent person must Contemplate upon outward Phaenomena according to that common saying Nihil est in Intellectu quod non fuerat prius in sensu Nothing can be in the Intellect that hath not been first received by the Senses 82. For this sensitive faculty in Man though illustrated with Reason understands nothing of it self but is like a blank Paper or Book that is susceptible of any inscription 3. lib. de Anim 4. text 14. for it is capable of all things that are cognoscible by virtue of that light which darted from the rational Soul whereby it is illustrated and extends it self to all material immaterial individual abstracted Mortal and Eternal objects For as it is sensitive it perceives v. g. the Water Fire Flesh Magnitude and the like and forms an imagination of them which is also common to Brutes as well as Men but since Flesh is one thing and the Essence of Flesh another Magnitude is one thing and the Essence of Magnitude another and so of the rest it doth by another part of it self or by it self in another capacity viz. not as it is sensitive but cogitative or as it partakes of Reason and is enlightned by the rational Soul distinguish the Essence from the things themselves which fall under our Senses 83. But the former Reason of Man or the genuine faculty of the rational Soul as it is altogether immaterial so it challengeth a Knowledge proper and natural to it self not any way proceeding from Matter or the Senses of the Body For there is not alwayes one and the same but a different reason of the supernatural Knowledge of Divine Mysteries or of those things which exceed our Human Capacity and want the support of Faith whilst in the interim it renders that very Knowledge which is drawn from the Senses and inferiour Reason far more illustrious and more clearly discerns the truth it self 84. For this genuine faculty of the rational Soul hath within it self the connate principles and seeds of all manner of Knowledge which do not involve Divine Mysteries or else is furnished with such an Understanding that it can extract the truth of things out of their Womb by discourse and ratiocination So also the knowledge of God is engraven in the minds of men yet not so as if every man did acknowledge a Deity or that the existence of God is as it were written in their minds so soon as Born of which opinion Anselm and Hieronymus were according to Suarez Disputation 19. S. 2. § 3. but that by Nature there are such principles of a Deity implanted in our minds and such an intellectual light connate with them that we may by the strength of our own Genius without any assistance from the Senses attain the knowledge of the Power and Divinity of the Supreme Deity Just as we do truly assert that Geometrical truths are connate in us though we do not originally understand the Elements of Euclid 85. And as the dull and rude Vulgar who use not to abstract the Mind from the Body and therefore have no other knowledge but what is exerted by the Senses and the dictates of inferiour or cogitative Reason understand and conceive the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World by Works so that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which may be known of God as our Version hath it in the first to the Romans may be understood by the very Plebeians so Philosophers and such as are conversant with more sublime Speculations or have learnt to free their minds from this terrene incarceration attain unto the knowledge of the Deity by the inward qualifications of their minds without being obliged to the testimony of Sense And really those very seeds that are naturally planted in the minds of men do sometimes so powerfully exert themselves into action that they bind the very Consciences of the most obstinate and such as deny the very dictates of Senses And herein we may affirm with Calvin in the first Book of his Institutes c. 3. § 1. That beyond all Controversy there is by a natural instinct a kind of sense of the Divinity in the mind of Man for God hoth endued all persons with the Intelligence of his Deity that no man should shelter himself under the pretext of Ignorance who by a constant recollection of his memory furnisheth him with fresh instillations 87. But as to the Reason of Brute Animals being it depends upon the sensitive Soul it is absolutely material and drowned in the Body it is altogether inseparable from it and perisheth with the Individuum and therefore is conversant with nothing but what is Corporeal and Mortal The same faculty is in all the species of Brutes imployed about some certain and determinate object to which all of them are hurried by a natural propensity and not as it is in Man indifferent to any thing So Nature instructs Swallows to build their Nests of Clay Beasts to get Coverts or Dens Dogs hunt the Hare and Cats watch for Mice which neither the Reason of a Cow nor an Ass prompts them to nor can they by Art be brought to it 88. And although probably some species of these Brute Animals are more freely exercised about various objects by raciocination than others as we find in Elephants Apes Monkies the Cynocephali and Dogs themselves and the like yet they are apprehensive of the objects themselves no otherwise than under the notion of singulars For they perceive the Water Fire Flesh Magnitude and the like and then frame some fantasms of these very things and these they either compound or divide and so judge or esteem of the species so receiv'd but Flesh being one thing and the Essence thereof another Magnitude one thing and the Essence thereof another c. as Aristotle speaks they cannot discern the Essence of things from the things themselves nor can they abstract individuals from universals So that their universal Reason consists in particular and material things and therefore they are incapable of Learning which is comprehended under certain Maxims and Rules 89. Besides if it could possibly be maintain'd that some Brute Animals have a kind of Sense of Divinity it is reported that that Idolatrous Religion consisting in the Worship of the Sun Moon and Stars did proceed from Elephants or that some faint image or shadow of Piety may be distill'd