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	know_v	necessary_a	2,310	5	6.5393	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29780	Miracles, work's above and contrary to nature, or, An answer to a late translation out of Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus, Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan, &c. published to undermine the truth and authority of miracles, Scripture, and religion, in a treatise entituled, Miracles no violation of the laws of nature.	Browne, Thomas, 1654?-1741.	1683 (1683)	Wing B5062; ESTC R1298	42,132	76

rewards or punishes them here in this life Yet the demonstration of Gods Providence is not the proper and primary end of supernatural Effects but 4. A Miracle is properly intended to prove 1. Immediately the immediate power and presence of God Acting himself in an extraordinary manner in the working of it 2. By Vertue of this evident Demonstration of Gods immediate extraordinary presence the Divine Authority and Mission of that person whom God has been pleased to make his Instrument in the effecting of it at whose word or request the Order of Nature is suspended which we cannot suppose God would permit either for no end at all or for one so repugnant to his Sanctity and Goodness as to assist an Imposture Thus much therefore we may know by miracles not what God is in his Nature nor his Existence any better than we may know it by any Effect of Nature but his Providence his extraordinary presence and power and the Authority of that person whose Divine Mission it attests We are next to enquire whether his Arguments are more sufficient to disprove the authority of Miracles in this regard His arguments for the Truth of his second Proposition are from Reason and Scripture From Reason he attempts to prove it three wayes 1. Because the belief of the possibility of a Miracle does vertually introduce meer Scepticisme and consequently is so far from proving the Essence Existence or Providence of God that it takes away the certainty both of the existence of a Deity and every thing else 2. Because a Miracle is a work that transcends our Capacity to understand it and therefore what we understand not it self cannot lead us to the understanding of any thing else 3. Because a Miracle is a thing finite and therefore cannot be a fit Medium to prove the being of an Agent of infinite Power 1. The belief of the possibility of a Miracle virtually introduces meer Scepticisme and so takes away the certainty both of the being of God and every thing else This Argument strikes as much at the belief of Miracles themselves as of any thing else upon their Credit and Authority for there can be no Reason to believe any thing which to believe obliges me to doubt of every thing else as impossible to be certainly known The ground whereupon he asserts that the belief of Miracles leads us to Scepticisme is because it takes away the certain Truth of those Notions from whence we conclude the being of a God or any thing else that we know and that this it does in as much as it supposes a Power in God able to alter the Truth of these Notions for this too he must be able to do if able to change the course of Nature By these Notions may be understood two things 1. The Principles of Truth where upon we build all our knowledge 2. Our own Idea's and apprehensions of things The former are either the common Principles of Natural Light viz. Axioms evident upon the first apprehension of the Terms as That a thing cannot be and not be at the same time the whole is greater than any part c. Or 2. the definitions of things and propositions ascribing to them their Nature and Properties as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rationale Triangulum habet tres angulos aequales duobus rectis c. Or 3. Propositions containing the mutual respects of things as that Cruelty and Injustice are repugnant to the Nature of God Theft and Murder to the Nature of a sociable Creature c. Now these principles of Truth are all necessary and immutable and the Truth of them does not depend upon the being or order of Nature a possibility therefore of change in the order of Nature does not imply that by the same Power the truth of these Notions may be altered They are first necessary and immutable because it implies a contradiction for them to be false v. c. for the whole to be no greater than any part Man not to be a rational creature God to be cruel or unjust c. 2. They are true independently upon the being or order of Nature If God should destroy the whole frame of Nature yet it were true notwithstanding that the whole Body were bigger than any part If he should reduce Mankind into nothing it were still true notwithstanding That the nature of Man consists in the Vnion of a rational Soul and a Body endued with life and sense God may turn one thing into another and make the same Matter appear under a Form above or contrary to what it should have by the course of Nature but he cannot make it be and not be be of this Nature and of another at the same time He can suspend the Actions of his Creatures but yet cannot make them Act and not Act both together In short however God by his Power may alter or suspend the Order of Generations in Nature yet this Principle will hold true that in an order of successive generations of Men there must be some first Man and this first Man must have a Cause that is not Man and this Cause must either be it self or lead us at last to an infinite Supream Being So that the existence of a God may be deduced from certain and necessary Principles though the Order of Nature be capable of being changed by his Almighty Power The altering therefore of the course of Nature makes no alteration in the principles of Knowledg But does it not infer a Power in God to change our Notions and Apprehensions of them and of every thing else A Physical Power indeed it does as it proves him Omnipotent but this will not drive us to Scepticisme while we are certain that it is as much repugnant to his Veracity and Goodness as compatible to his Power barely considered For it is impossible that a Being infinitely Good and Holy should impose upon his Creatures and implant such Notions in their Minds as would necessarily induce them to believe a Lye or so alter their apprehensions of things as to make it impossible for them to make a true Judgment by the use of their own reason The belief of Miracles therefore does not lead us unto Scepticisme and so does not take away the certainty of the Being of a God but yet perhaps it may not be a fit Medium to prove either his Existence or his Proovidence or to declare bis Nature to us And this upon two Accounts 1. Because a Miracle is a Work that transcends our capacity to understand it and therefore what we understand not it self cannot lead us to the understanding of any thing else 2. Because a Miracle is a thing finite and therefore cannot be a fit Medium to prove the being of an Agent of infinite Power To the First a Miracle is a Work that transcends our capacity to understand it i. e. it is beyond the compass of our Knowledge to deduce it from natural Causes and good reason because

formed in his Brain of the Divine Will and Understanding This conceit he does not farther explain or make out in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and therefore to run up his Argument to the head I shall consult his Opera Posthuma for a Scheme of his Principles from whence to deduce it There in the First Part of his Ethicks which treats de Deo he has this Doctrine That there is but one Substance in the World and that is God That God is a Substance absolutely infinite i. e. a Substance endued with an infinite number of Attributes each infinite each displaying his infinite Essence two whereof are known to us Cogitation and Extension That from the necessity of the infinite Essence and Attributes of God do proceed as properties from an emanative cause infinite Modes wherein the Divine Nature and Attributes do subsist and act That Nature and all created Beings are only these various Modes wherein the Divine Essence and Attributes do necessarily display themselves In particular that all Bodies and finite Spirits are only various Modes of those two infinite Attributes in God Extension and Cogitation And from these Principles we may indeed deduce not only his conception of what it is in God to understand and to will but many other Consequences admirably agreeable to Religion and Right Reason As 1. That God is an extended Substance and extension infinite 2. That God is the emanative cause of all finite Beings and they therefore really and identically contained in the Divine Nature and the same with him 3. That God subsists in all Bodies and finite Spirits as a Substance under its necessary Modes flowing from its Essence and therefore both he himself material and bodily as being extended and every body in Nature a part of him So that now we clearly see the ground whereupon Spinoza asserts That nothing can happen contrary to Nature viz. because God and Nature are one and the same God Nature subsistent and Nature God modified And why he says That for God to will or decree any thing is for the thing to be contained in his Nature as an eternal truth flowing from the necessity of it viz. because his Will is only that of an emanative cause and every thing which we conceive produced by the Divine Will is so only in regard that it flows necessarily from his Essence as light in the Sun and heat in the Fire from their very nature And so likewise his understanding of the same thing is only that he sees its necessary Existence proceeding from the necessity of his own Nature Here we have a full discovery of his Sense and Scope in this Argument and it plainly terminates in one of these two Atheism or Idolatry For to make God and Nature the same thing is either to advance a Creature into the place of God or what Tully says of Epicurus Oratione relinquere Deum re tollere I shall not therefore prosecute his Argument so far as to confute him through the whole Set of his Principles nor take my self to be obliged in order to prove the possibility of a Work above Nature to go so far about as to prove first the Being of a God above it But his Argument may deserve a little Consideration setting aside his Principles and that only in order to state how far the Laws of Nature may be granted to be the Decrees and Volitions of God and whether and how far thereupon they involve eternal necessity and truth His Argument therefore is in form this Whatever God Wills or Decrees involves eternal necessity and truth The Laws of Nature are the Decrees and Volitions of God E. They involve eternal necessity and truth E. Nothing can fall out contrary to them The Laws of Nature may be considered as in Nature it self or as in the Author of it In Nature it self they signifie the determinations of Bodies to act in such or such a manner In the Author of it they signifie those Decrees whereby the Order of Nature is established and particular Bodies determined to act in such a particular manner In this Sense I grant that the Laws of Nature are the Decrees and Volitions of God And how they are so and how far thereupon they may be conceived to involve eternal necessity and truth may appear from these Considerations 1. That there is one grand Universal Law Decree and Purpose of the Divine Will whereby he eternally set down with himself the Order wherein to work all things This Conception is most agreeable to the simplicity and immutability of the Divine Nature To his simplicity that as his Nature so the Act of his Will should be perfectly one and not multiplied in infinitum in proportion to the variety of Effects ordained and regulated by it To his immutability that we should not suppose him to be daily enacting new Laws and Decrees but that he works all things by a Decree co-eternal to himself And this Conception is cleared by our parallel apprehensions about the Divine Understanding The Objects thereof are temporary yet the Act of his Knowledg whereby he sees them eternal they are manifold and various yet that simple and uniform Therefore as by one Act of his Understanding he sees ab aeterno all things future in their several times so by one Act of his Will he ordains them all 2. That in this universal Law are included Secundum nostrum concipiendi modum many particular Laws and Decrees establishing the Order of particular Events necessary and contingent natural and above Nature in their particular times and places 3. That these particular Laws and Decrees have each in subordination to the universal a limited and determinate compass of times places and events wherein they take effect 4. That yet each of them does certainly take effect within that determinate compass to which it is limited And therefore 5. That a Proposition declaring that such a Law and Decree will certainly take effect is true and the truth of it necessary and ab aeterno by vertue of that Law and Decree 6. That yet as the Law it self and the Decree is so is the necessary and eternal Truth of that Proposition viz. It is necessary and true ab aeterno that this Law and Decree shall take effect within that determinate compass of times places and events whereto it is limited and no further Now the Laws and Decrees by which the Order of Nature is established are such particular Laws and Decrees and such is their eternal Truth and Necessity For Instance The motion of the Sun is an Ordinance in Nature proceeding from Gods Will and Decree Yet so limited in subordination to his universal Law and Purpose to a determinate compass as not to take effect at some points of time within that period for which Nature is established I mean at that time when the Sun stood still at Joshua's word and when it went back so many degrees for a sign to King Hezekiah So that the

same universal Purpose and Decrees of God might settle the order of the Suns motion and thereupon it be necessary and true ab aeterno that the Sun shall move in this Order and yet withal ordain that at such times notwithstanding the Sun should stand still or go back and thereupon it be as necessary and true ab aeterno that at those points of time the Sun should go back or stand still The Laws therefore of Natural Agents may in this sense be the Decrees of God and involve eternal necessity and truth and yet it may be possible for some certain effects to fall out contrary to them viz. without that compass within which they are limited to take effect and no farther But if Spinoza will have it That whatever God wills to come to pass in such a time must therefore be always or that whatever Order God settles for such a determinate compass must because he wills and settles it hold eternally I deny that in this sense every Law and Decree of God involves eternal Necessity and Truth It is eternally necessary and true That whatever God Decrees to be shall be if he decree any thing to be and endure to perpetuity it is eternally true and necessary that it shall be perpetually if he decree it to such a compass it is ab aeterno necessary and true that it shall hold so long and his Decree or the truth and necessity of the Effect consequent thereupon is not violated if it hold no longer So much therefore may be said in Answer to his first Argument to prove that Nothing can happen contrary to Nature c. The Sum is That he mistakes the meaning of the Terms of the Question That he makes Nature the same with God and so besides his taking the word in a sense of his own he in effect rejects the Existence of a Deity in Order to overthrow the belief of Miracles Lastly That in the sense wherein I have considered his Argument it may be true and yet his Conclusion not follow from it His Second Argument is Because the Power of Nature is the power of God and therefore as infinite as himself E. Nothing can fall out without its compass or contrary to it His ground whereupon he proceeds in this Argument is to be sure the very same conception of the Divine Nature viz. That Nature is nothing but an infinite variety of Modifications of the Divine Essence and the power of it consequently nothing but the infinite fecundity of the Divine Essence determining it necessarily to exert it self in all the infinite variety of the modes of its being I shall therefore onely give this Argument so much consideration as it may require setting aside his Principles The power of Nature is the force that natural causes have to act each in their several manners and the vertue and efficacy of the whole arising from the joynt concurrence of the several parts in their distinct Operations This to speak properly is all resolved into a Vismotrix impressed upon matter enabled to act by Gods Power and determined to do it by his Will This therefore certainly must be different from the power of its Author in as much as the powers must be different if the Subjects differ to which they belong But granting that the power of Nature is virtually and origionally though not formally the Divine Power exerting it self in Nature as its Instrument Yet it no more follows thereupon that the power of Nature must be infinite then it follows that because the motion of the Sun is the motion of Nature therefore it is of as great extent as the motion of the whole frame of Nature besides Or because the Power that moves the hand is the power of the Soul that therefore the whole Sphere of the Souls Power in the Body is no larger than the hand The Argument is from a particular to an universal Gods power though simple and indivisible is yet unlimited It may act far beyond that compass wherein it does and therefore infinitly beyond the limits of Nature It exerts it self both in a natural and supernatural way and both kinds of effects proceed from one and the same indivisible omnipotence which is no more multiplied by the variety of effects that flow from it than the power of the Soul as it moves the hands and the feet the eye and the tongue These are all the Arguments he brings for the proof of his first Proposition The rest is the Conclusion he draws from the whole viz. What a Miracle is That it being proved that all Supernatural Effects are impossible a Miracle can be only an effect inexplicable by our own observation or the Principle of Nature known to us Having therefore proved that supernatural Effects are not impossible and answered his Arguments for the contrary I may take leave to draw a Conclusion contradictory to his That a Miracle is not only what he says but an Effect beside above or contrary to the Order of Nature The second thing he undertakes is To prove that by Miracles we cannot know the Essence Existence or Providence of God but that all these may be better known by the fixt and immutable Order of Nature His Design in this seems to be to destroy the Authority and Credit of Miracles by shewing that they are not proofs sufficient of what they are designed for But in the framing of this Proposition he mistakes the end for which they are design'd For 1. The design of Miracles is not to make a discovevery at least immediately and by themselves of the Essence of God They are proper and meet evidences of the truth of any Revelation and if in that Revelation it please God to make any supernatural display of his own Nature then Miracles may be said mediately to discover to us the Essence of God otherways they demonstrate no other Attribute of God but his power viz. as it is able to suspend the Operations of Nature or to act above it 2. Neither do they tend in any peculiar manner to prove the Existence of a Deity but rather suppose it viz. That there is a Supream Being who is the Author of Nature who gave it such a Power and set it such Laws whereby to act which Power and which Laws a Miracle being either above or contrary to proves thereupon not that God is but that it is he who then acts by his own immediate hand and not Nature But for any proof it gives us of the Being of a God it is onely in the same way that every natural Effect demonstrates it by leading us to a first Cause 3. Miracles are indeed sufficient Evidences of the Divine Providence that God does take upon him and actually exercise the Government of the World that he does not leave Nature to her self but sometimes interposes and sets her aside That he does not sit an unconcerned Spectator of the Actions of Men but sometimes in a most signal manner

Saviour to the Eyes of the Blind and Tongue of the Dumb-man The mention whereof in the account of these Miracles if it prove that they required Natural Causes then these were the Causes requisite these they had and these immediately produced the Effects This they could not by the force of Nature therefore by Miracle and so his Argument destroys it self But farther what if many are produced without any Circumstances at all but purely at the Word and Will of the person that works them This he says we cannot be assured of from the Scripture because there may have been some though not mentioned there he refers to Exod. 14.27 compared with Ex. 15.10 But what if the Scripture does not only not make mention of any but in a manner declares there were none So in our Saviours stilling the Storm the very Reflection that his Disciples make upon that Miracle proves that it was wrought by his bare Word and not by the Application of any Means much less Natural Before he draws his Conclusion from these Arguments he answers an Objection from Scripture viz. That Famins are said to be caused by the sins of Men and the like and Rain and Plenty restored by their Prayers c. His Answer is that the Scripture does here speak ad hominem and with the same Propriety as when it says that God is angry sorrowful repents or the like and that it is not true that any of these are the Causes of the Effects ascribed to them Here 1. Methinks he is wary in his Answer He might have granted that Famine is sent for the sins of Men and Rain and fruitful Seasons for a return to their Prayers and Repentance and yet have denied that either of these is wrought by Miracle For Nature is ordered and directed by the Wisdom and Providence of Almighty God as well as preserved and upheld by his Power and therefore his Wisdom may so direct it as often even by the Course of Nature to execute his divine purposes whether of Judgment or Mercy He sees our Actions and hears our Prayers from all eternity and therefore may as he has the whole Order of Nature before his eyes direct and determine the certain and necessary Events of it to their proper Seasons and make them Instrumental to the accomplishing of his purposes whether of shewing favour or executing wrath upon the Sons of Men. Thus therefore he need not be so strict as to deny any possibility of God's punishing us for our sins in the Order of Nature for fear lest it should betray him unawares to the concession of a Miracle Natural Causes indeed our Sins or P●ayers are not of these Effects nor yet Supernatural neither but moral only and meritorious as God upon view of either determines to punish or reward us But suppose it were not so 2. He gives but a very mean Solution of the difficulty that the Scripture speaks improperly here and in condescension to the Capacities and Opinions of the Vulgar as it does when it says that God is angry sorrowful or repents We grant the Scripture may be conceived to be obliged to speak in this manner concerning the incomprehensible Nature of God and such of his Perfections the modes whereof it is not necessary we should have explained to us how they are and act in him but yet it is not necessary that it should speak of every thing in the same manner or that every thing that it says should be shuffled off by this or the like suggestion Nothing is more natural and easie to be conceived than that God does punish or reward our good or bad Actions and that in this life and that his Justice and Wisdom will oblige him to do it as he takes upon him the Government of the World though it be very hard for the Vulgar to conceive how he does it without anger or displeasure and the contrary affections Therefore the Scripture may be conceived to speak of the one in condescention to our Capacities though yet no reason why it should be presumed to speak of the other in like manner I proceed to his fourth and last undertaking viz. To treat of the manner of interpreting the Scripture Miracles and what things are chiefly to be observed in the Relations about them Or as the Translator to shew that most Men have erred in their way of interpreting the Miracles recorded in the Holy Scripture To set us right he directs us in the reading of the Scripture-narrations about Miracles to enquire into two things 1. The particular Opinions and Prejudices of the Relator 2. The Idioms Phrases and Tropes of the Hebrew Tongue The first because generally all Historians relate the events they speak of suitable to their own Conjectures Opinions and Prejudices The other because otherwise we may from the Scripture-Style conceive some things to be related for Miracles which really are not For the first he instances in Joshua 10. v. 12 13. where the Account of the extraordinary length of that Day is given according to the common opinion of the Sun 's and not the Earth's motion For the Second in some allegorical places out of the Prophets Zachariah 14. v. 7. Isa 13. v. 10.48 v. ult By these two insinuations he would elude the force of all the clear and plain narrations about miracles in Scripture To the first and the instance he brings for it I answer the truth of the Miracle which Joshua relates is not at all prejudiced though it were true that the Earth moves and not the Sun for the course of Nature was stopped whether in the motion of the Sun or the Earth and therein consists the truth of the Miracle As to the relation of it it was not necessary either that Joshua should himself be so great a Philosopher or so far instructed by an extraordinary Revelation as to put up his request to God that the Earth should stand still and not the Sun or that the Account of it which he gives should be otherwise than according to the appearance of sense and the apprehensions of the Vulgar grounded thereupon To the second the truth of the Scripture-Miracles depends not upon any allegorical expressions in the Prophets but upon the naked Relations of matters of Fact in the Historical Writers so that though in the former we are to proceed with some Caution and not to take every thing for Miraculous which is spoken of in an high strain of expression yet in the latter we find no such danger of being imposed upon by the Tropes and Figures of the Hebrew Tongue all things being delivered in the Historical part of Scripture with the greatest plainness and simplicity I have run through the main of Spinoza's Chapter which consists in the proof of his four Propositions at first laid down What is behind is 1. An account of his different Method in this Chapter from that which he takes in his first and second Chapters about Prophecy and