Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	believe_v	faith_n	fundamental_a	1,746	5	10.1277	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61275	The perfection of Scripture stated, and its sufficiency argued in a sermon preached at the publick commencement at Cambridge, Sunday July iv, 1697 / by George Stanhope ...	Stanhope, George, 1660-1728.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5226; ESTC R16475	18,590	36

I hope the less needful for this Mixt Audience I beg Leave to confine my self to the Latter which the Church of England our Wise and Holy Mother hath thus exprest in her Sixth Article of Religion The Holy Scripture containeth all Things necessary to Salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any Man that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to Salvation If this be once acknowledged for Truth I do not see how any Man so persuaded can deny the Scripture's Ability of making us Wise unto Salvation and being a Compleat Guide in Points of Faith and Manners And such I shall endeavour to prove it by shewing I. First What manner of Perfection that is which Men ought to attribute to Scripture and are warranted to expect from it II. Secondly What general Arguments we have to ground this Opinion upon and III. Thirdly How the Scripture answers this Character in those particular Instances mention'd by my Text. I. First I am to consider What manner or sort of Perfection that is which we are allowed to attribute to and to expect from the Scriptures And This deserves to be the more heedfully attended to because the Liberty Some have taken of imposing other Guides and Rules besides the Scripture and the imprudent Zeal of Others who profess to follow this in every Thing and hang upon the Word and Letter of Scripture have given Birth to many extravagant Opinions and greatly disturb'd Christianity and good Order Now Scripture being in the Nature of a Medium or Instrument directed to a certain End the best and most regular Way of coming to a right Understanding in this Matter will be to take a short View of the Design of Scripture and what Degree of Perfection is necessary to answer that Design Or to keep close to St. Paul's Expression v. 15. To examine what is meant by Salvation and what is requisite to qualifie us for and make us Wise unto Salvation 1. First Salvation is but another Word for that Eternal Happiness which God hath appointed to be the Ultimate and Chief Good of Humane Nature This Happiness is proposed not as our Fate but as our Reward and since every Reward supposes some Works in Consideration whereof the Recompence is bestowed it implyes that Men must contribute something to their own Happiness and cannot reasonably hope to obtain it without attending to those Conditions upon the performance of which the Reward is suspended It implies farther that the Notices of these Conditions and the Right of appointing them must come from and are Originally lodged in Him who proposes and promises that Recompence And if our Expectations and Desires of this Happy State be Natural and Universal it will follow from hence too that Nature furnishes Mankind with some sort of Means and Abilities as well as Inclinations to aspire after it For the Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator is most eminently seen in This that he deludes none of his Creatures with vain Expectations nor infuses any such Desires into them as must of Necessity be disappointed These Abilities I take to have been given in those general Notions of Good and Evil imprest upon the Mind of Man at his First Creation Rom. II. 13 14 15. With regard to which St. Paul mentions a Law written in the Hearts of Those to whom the written Law was not imparted He observes the same pleasing Transports the same melancholy Misgivings to rise in their Breasts according as Their Consciences accuse or excuse them He declares that in the Last Great Day of Account They shall be judged upon this Issue Since then there was a Time when Man enjoyed no written Word at all since after some Parts of the World were blest with such Revelation yet Others were unfortunate in the Want of it Since even Those who had it not were yet Accountable for their Actions The Consequence is Plain and Necessary that the Holy Scriptures are not the Only Method whereby God hath been pleased to inform Men of their Duty They were not the First they were not the Universal and consequently not the sole and perpetual Instrument of all our Privileges and all our Obedience 2. But Secondly Whatever hopes Men could by Nature have these had no other Foundation than a just and punctual Performance and therefore Sin quite altered the Case and made a farther Revelation necessary What St. Paul says elsewhere of the Jewish Law may with great Truth and in a very good Sense be affirmed of All Scripture that it was added because of Transgression To Persons thus concluded under Forfeiture no Expectation justly could be cherished no Succour or solid Comfort could arise otherwise than from God's express Declaration that he would condescend to fresh Conditions and admit us to another and better Covenant such as our laps'd and guilty State would bear Hence sure it is that the present Methods of Salvation are term'd The Secret of the Lord The Mystery of our Redemption and the like because These are some of the the unsearchable Dephts of infinite Wisdom and Goodness such as no Humane Discourse could penetrate into no natural Conclusions could infer And because God was perfectly Free in this whole Matter he let Men into the Knowledge of it by such gradual Discoveries as himself saw fit and such as darkned and degenerate Minds were capable of This is the shining Ray then darted from above to give our Souls once more the chearing Prospect of Bliss Divine and Love Incomprehensible 'T is thus we are supported and assured that our Judge is not Irreconcileable that our Sicknesses are not yet unto Death provided We will lend a helping Hand and not obstruct our own Recovery But still all this was not a new Creation but a Cure and therefore like Other Remedies applyed only so far as the Disease required In other Respects it left Men as it found them and the Benefits of it will be still more distinctly understood if we be Diligent to observe 3. Thirdly That God in all his Dealings with Mandkind does not act so much in Proportion to his Own Fulness as to Our Wants And therefore we have Reason to look upon those Discoveries of his Will to be Perfect which revealed not all that could be revealed but all that Men had Occasion for In this Sense the more sparing Revelations heretofore were perfect in their Kind though in Degree and Measure short of Ours The Impressions of Reason at Man's First Creation were so in some Sense because that State needed no more So were the Private and Personal Discoveries after the Fall the Jewish Law and Predictions of the Prophets afterwards Each of which had their Day and proper Season as the Manifestations of the Gospel have Theirs Now which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last concluding Dispensation that which completes confirms and close up all the rest In judging

therefore the Perfection of Scripture we must ever attend to the Design it serves and its Sufficiency to compass that Design For Example In the Historical Part we are not to expect a full and just Relation of all that happened in the World at that Time no nor of all that happened to that People of whose Affairs it more professedly treats a Competent Quantity of the main and most significant Passages will serve the turn such as draw down a just Account of our Blessed Saviour and wherein the Law and Polity of the Jews were Types of Him or of the Christian Church So again The Prophecies do not foretell all that should happen under the Gospel nor every Thing to be done by our Lord himself but are contented with drawing the Principal Lines and giving Representations and Characters so like and lively as when the Son of God should appear in Flesh and Events came to be compared with Predictions might render Men exceedingly to blame if they did not accept and regard That Person as the promised Messias in whom those Descriptions so exactly center'd Nay even in the Gospel it self St. John makes no Difficulty to own that a World of remarkable and wonderful Things done by Christ are not however left upon Record but that Enough are left to build Men's Faith upon Now it cannot be deny'd but the All-wise God could under each of those Periods have inspired the Holy Pen-Men with all that are omitted or that he could if he had pleased have made but One Period and revealed all together But when he did not so we have Reason to conclude that the Measure of his Revelations is directed by the End of them that he intended not the Scripture for a Repository of all Truths in the simple and most comprehensive Sense of the Word But of all which were needful to make Men wise unto Salvation such as their present Circumstances required and what he intended they should be accountable for And as he would not be Niggardly in these Communications so neither was he Profuse Nay from hence I argue 4. Fourthly That even all Truths which may have any Tendency to direct Men in their Duty are not particularly and expresly to be found there nor is it all necessary or indeed Humanly speaking possible that they should And This directly meets with an Opinion unhappy in it's Consequences but entertained it is to be hoped out of an honest Zeal and well-meant Reverence for these Blessed Writings That I mean of Mens not being allowed to do any thing for which some express Command or Warrant or at least Example may not be produced out of Scripture I cannot now stand to shew the Danger and Uncertainty of governing our Lives by the Examples even of Good Men but shall endeavour to prove the unreasonableness of this Rule in general and to disengage Men from the many sad Suspenses and Snares which it is apt to bring unwary Consciences under by these following Particulars First Let it be remembred that our Obligation to obey the Scriptures does not arise from their being Written but from their being the Discoveries of God's Will and our Duty Consequently Whatever comes to my Knowledge as his Pleasure concerning me hath the same binding Power upon my Conscience be the Method of making it so known to me what it will The Authority of the Law-Giver and the sufficient Promulging of the Law These are the Things that induce the Obligation to Obedience And therefore if God who is the absolute and only Master of my Conscience have several ways of signifying his Pleasure the particular Manner of doing it is accidental and foreign to this Binding Power and makes not the least Difference in my Engagement to Submission and Obedience Now Secondly We may be satisfy'd that God not only did formerly but that he does still use other Methods of manifesting his Will besides that of the written Word There have been Times and Persons that knew no other Law but Reason And when God added a brighter Candle he did not put out the old one or forbid us to walk by it's Light so far as that is able to direct us The very Divine Authority of Scripture and the Being of the God from whence that Authority is derived are Principles arising from Common Reason And how absurd would it be to allow no Standard of Truth in Religion no Rule of Behaviour but Scripture when the Two Fundamental Truths of all Religion must be made out to us from other Principles and cannot with any Propriety of arguing be fetched from Scripture it self Thirdly The very Temper and Composition of Scripture is such as necessarily refers us to some other Rule For This is a System of mixed and very different Duties Some of Eternal and Universal Obligation Others Occasional and particular Limited to Times and Circumstances and when Those Occasions and Circumstances ceased the Matter of the Command was lost and the whole Reason and Force of it sunk of course This is observable more especially in the Jewish Dispensation but it is likewise true in sundry other Cases Now these Things being oftentimes delivered promiscuously and in general Terms Men must of necessity have Recourse to some other Rule to distinguish and guide them in making the just Differences between the one and the other Sort. And This is what Equity and the Reason of the Thing must do where the Word of God it self hath made no express Difference at all Fourthly The Scriptures as a Rule of Faith and Life do not concern us just as the Words and Syllables are set down there but according to the true Sense and Rational Meaning of the Text. And in Order to just Resolutions of this kind many Qualifications are requisite A Mind truly Honest and resign'd to the Will of God sincere and unprejudiced the being not only Content but Desirous to learn and ready to retract Errours and reform Vices when upon a Fair Examination they shall appear to be such To This we must add Diligence and Care and Skill such as may enable Men to compare and reconcile and form a Judgment out of the Scriptures to consider the Contexts the Occasions the Expressions the Genius of the Countries and Proprieties of Languages and to fix upon such Commodious Interpretations from hence as may never set one Scripture at Variance with another And where these Qualifications are not to be had there a meek and quiet Spirit an orderly Submission to honest and better Judgments and enduring to be Ignorant in Matters above one's Reach Now all this is the Work of a Man 's own understanding and Will assisted by God's Grace and all so necessary that without such Application and Appeals to fair unbyass'd Reason the very Word of God it self may misguide and prove a Snare to us Fifthly The Nature of Humane Actions puts it out of dispute that the Scriptures alone can never be a full and perfect Direction in Point of Duty For the Circumstances