Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A67834
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The wisdom of believing in two sermons preach'd at court, April 7, and 14. 1700 / by E. Young ...
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Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.
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1700
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Wing Y72; ESTC R517
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27,122
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76
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they thus to cease on a sudden if it were not from the design of Providence to make that event give Testimony both to Jesus and his Revelation To Jesus that he was one who had Power over the Devil and to his Revelation That it was Plenary and Consummate so that for the future Men needed not seek any farther to learn what is the full and acceptable and perfect Will of God When the Deist confirms his prejudice against the Christian Revelation from this Argument That all Religions do equally pretend to the fame Original that is to come from God I allow that Reason has Here a proper Province Let it therefore be call'd in Let Reason enquire and then Judge and say whether there is any other Religion so worthy of God as the Christian is Whether there is any whose Doctrines are so convincing And whose Miracles are so Demonstrative Nay whether ever there was any thing of Human Faith that came so attested as our Religion does and fail'd of Belief in the World And what singular Perversness is it then that this should not be believed Let any one say especially How the Gospel Truth that asserted it self so effectually in its beginning at that time when any possibility of fraud could best have been discover'd after it had asserted it self against all the Malice of Satan and the Opposition of all Worldly Powers can after 1600 Years be given up as a Fiction or be affected with any such discredit from the perfidiousness of a company of bold and loose and weak Deserters Let any one reflect upon theseConsiderations and he shall find that the Deists Opinion runs them upon a multitude of Absurdities besides all the fatal mischief of it's unconsidered Consequences The several Religions received among the Gentiles were so full of gross Superstitions and palpable Errors that many particular Men among those Gentiles of sounder Judgments and better Spirits than the common were scandalized at their Religions and had them in Contempt So that altho' for Decency's sake and Submission to the Laws they gave occasional countenance to the vulgar Rites of Worship Yet their private Religion consisted in forming to themselves a more rational Notion of God abstracted from all the received Idols And the Worship they deemed most suitable to such a God was placed in following Reason and reverencing their Consciences and cultivating their Minds in the study of Knowledge and Practice of Virtue And these were such as among the Greeks they first call'd Philosophers They whom we modernly call Deists are the Apes of those Philosophers and that they may be thought like them set up to treat Christian Religion with the same Contempt as those did the Vulgar Heathen But as it is observ'd of the Ape that altho' of all Creatures it most resembles Man yet it is the ugliest of all Creatures because the Honour of that resemblance is abated by many ridiculous Deficiencies So we may say of the Deists that they are the most absurd and foolish of Men because they Ape the wise under such great difference of Circumstances and such great deficiencies of Purpose For the Philosophers were such as in the Night of Gentile Darkness set up their Candle so Solomon calls the Spirit of Man The Candle of the Lord they strictly attended the improvement of their Minds and so set up their Candle and walked commendably by the Light of it Now these Men were truly Wise none under their Circumstances could possibly be Wiser But on the contrary the Deists are such as at Noon-Day shut up their Windows and keep out the Sun and then set up their Candle and say that That is the most agreeable Light and the best Guide to their houshold Business Now what can be alledg'd for the Wisdom of These There have been some carried away with this phantastical and mistaken Admiration of the Philosophers Religion in former times of Christianity but they were rare as Monsters and so accounted of But they never grew Numerous and in heart till of late since they took their Growth and Apology from the Conduct of the Socinians The second Party I proposed to instance in II. The Conduct of the Socinians was this They own'd the Scriptures to be the Word of God but would not abide by the received Interpretation of that Word nor admit that Explication of the principal Doctrines therein contain'd which had been delivered down by the Universal Church but instead of this usurped a Liberty of Interpreting all a-new at their own discretion and to make them speak their own prejudicated Sense In conformity to this Design Socinus after he had form'd his new Scheme of Divinity to make it pass upon the World with all the Advantage he could Introduces his Exposition upon St. John with this Sentence Multa sunt profecto in quibus Christianus orbis adhuc caecutit fortasse plura quam quis vel credere vel etiam cogitare possit i. e. There are undoubtedly many Truths and perhaps more than any one can either believe or imagine in respect of which the whole Christian World has been hitherto quite Blind and Ignorant Which Sentence and several such like accompanying it makes it appear That never any Man more fill'd up each Member of that Character which our Saviour gives of the Pharisee viz. Of thinking well of himself and despising others than Socinus did For it implies that altho' the Scriptures were the Oracles of God yet they resembled those of the Gentiles in this That they were Dark and of a doubtful Sense and of no authoritative Interpretation and that hitherto they had been quite mistaken till such time as this new Illumination had been vouchsafed to himself Now since this Imagination past upon Socinus from his Caution of being impos'd upon by the former Interpreters of Scripture Let us consider how palpably he must have impos'd upon himself before this Imagination could take place If he believed it himself can any one else in Reason believe That the whole Christian World had been Blind down to his days and Ignorant in the most important Truths which it was reserved for his honour to Reveal So that the Light of the Word had not yet enlightned Mankind till his Comments had dispell'd the Cloud that lay upon it Can any one believe with Reason that all the Assertors of our Religion in the Primitive Ages Men Holy Studious Learned Signalized and Distinguish'd with all the Gifts of God both Gracious and Miraculous had yet none of that Knowledge of the Mind of God as might now be learnt at the feet of Socinus Can it appear agreeable to the Providence of God and his good Will for Human Salvation after he had required Faith to please him as well as Obedience and that Faith in Doctrines as well as in Promises yet to let 15 Centuries pass without making it commonly known what it was he required Men to believe Can it appear consistent with God's Promise to his Church That
his Spirit should lead them into all Truth and yet for such a Tract of time the whole multitude of Christians should account it impious to believe That which now the Polish Catechism says It is damnable not to believe when it is propos'd So that if Christians were saved before that time in the Common Faith it was from the Apology of their Ignorance as their Ignorance was because they had not a Socinus to instruct them Say rather why the Deists may not as colourably Reject the Scriptures as the Socinians Own them with so many contradictions to God's Truth and Goodness In due Reverence to both these Attributes of God we are obliged to affirm that the Sense as well as the Letter of the Scripture in all Matters necessary either to be done or believed hath been the Depositum of the Church and Faithfully Preserv'd under it's Keeping That the whole Faith which as the Apostle says was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at once delivered unto the Saints had at the same time its Meaning delivered which from them has been derived by indubitable Testimony as the Matter of our uniform Belief That the different Opinions Sects and Factions in the World are no Argument against This Because as St. Peter has warn'd us They who diversifie the Common Faith do not Interpret but Wrest the Scriptures and as St. Paul has observ'd Divisions and Heresies spring not from Ignorance but from Carnality not from want of Light but want of Love Pride and Envy and Contention and Vanity and such contrarious Passions have in all Ages not been at a Loss for Truth but have been contriving and setting up somewhat they liked better And let us see in the next place what it was that the particular Affections of Socinus liked better than the received Interpretations He and his Party are pleas'd to take offence that there are any Mysteries in Religion They will have nothing for the Object of our Faith but what is plain to our Understanding and easy to our apprehension and altho' they will not affirm that Reason has the Measure of what is or what may be yet they resolve Reason to have the Measure of what ought to be believed Which I think is Absurdity sufficient They conclude thereupon that the Doctrine of the Incarnation that is of God Taking our Flesh and dwelling among us must not be believed because it is Irrational And as for the Doctrine of the Trinity it would be offensive to pious Ears to repeat those expressions of Reproach with which they load it They say that these Doctrines do justly scandalize Jews and Turks and hinder them from coming in to our Religion But as it is no Office of Civility to complement away our Faith so neither is it any Office of Charity in the Socinians to go off from the Foundation to meet Jews and Turks and to turn Half-Infidels that They may turn Half-Christians But after all when by the grossest wresting of Words and abuse of plain Sense they have shewed themselves as much Friends to Fancy as they are Enemies to Faith after that they have interpreted all Mysteries out of Religion and so made their new Hypothesis familiar and inoffensive and therefore Credible as they would have us imagine We must pronounce upon it what Minucius sometimes did in the like Case In Incredibili Verum in Credibili Mendacium Truth still lies on the Incredible and Falshood on the Credible side And to justifie this Censure let us confider That the Mystery of any thing or what is all one The Abstruse or Incomprehensible Nature of any thing is no Argument against our believing it This is a Rule I am sure that holds true in Nature and then with what Face can we deny it to hold true in Religion We surrender our Faith to the state of all Visible things without comprehending them and what Obstinacy is it then to refuse our Faith to the Things of God under the same Condition It would be an affront and calumny to Nature to affirm that Those things which are before us those Works of God which lie every Moment under our Senses are simply Credible that is such as our Reason would Perswade us could be if we had not seen them to be How short is our Plummet from Fathoming the Essence Mode Powers Operations Productions of the most common Beings Undoubtedly had we the Knowledge of this World we live in as we have that of its Maker only from a Book I say had we the Knowledge of this World we live in only from a Book we should be Tempted to treat that Book with as little Reverence as the Socinians or Deists have done the Holy Scriptures And conclude that most of the things that are in it were as Incomprehensible Impossible and therefore Incredible as they fancy any thing to be that God has revealed concerning himself Let me produce an Instance or two and those out of the Holy Scriptures to inculcate by the way That the Philosophical Truths we meet with there are Venerable as well as the Divine In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth says the Sacred History Where the Word Created is interpreted by all to mean That God made the World without any Pre-existent Matter to make it of Now this Production of the World we believe from the Authority of the Report and likewise because of the Absurdities that necessarily follow from the Supposal of the contrary And yet Human Reason could never form any Idea whereby to conceive the Possibility of such a Production And let any one say whether it be harder to believe That the Divine Essence did from everlasting emanate or flow into Three Social and Co-eternal Subsistences than to believe That in the Beginning of Time All things were made out of Nothing Or whether-Reason has more Arguments to plead for the One than for the Other Holy Job to exemplifie the Power of God pitches upon this Instance ch 26. 7. He hangeth the Earth upon Nothing or as his Expression points elsewhere He maketh it stand firm without a Foundation Now when we find it impossible for the utmost Art of Man to make a small Clod of Earth hang in the Air It is naturally Impossible for Man to conceive how the whole Mass should hang in the Air T is true when we see how things are we Pride our selves in assigning of Reasons why they must be so but all fall short of solving the Difficulty Center or Magnetism or whatever Notions have been espoused will not Solve it in the present Instance No Cause could make the Earth hang upon Nothing but the Omnipotence of that Will that ordered it to be so Nor could we ever believe it but from a Submission of our Faith to that Omnipotence Or from a Submission to our Senses even while they control and muzzle the Reluctancy of our Reason For another Instance of the Incomprehensible Works of God The Sea is alledg'd in the same Book cap.