Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	divine_a	faith_n	revelation_n	3,458	5	9.7228	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39389	To en archy: or, An exercitation upon a momentous question in divinity, and case of conscience viz. whether it be lawfull for any person to act contrary to the opinion of his own consicence, formed from arguments that to him appear very probable, though not necessary or demonstrative. Where the opinions of the papists, Vasquez, Sanches, Azonius, &c. are shewed, as also the opinions of some Protestants, viz. Mr. Hooker, Bp Sanderson, Dr. Fulwood, &c. and compared with the opinions of others; the negative part of the question maintained; the unreasonableness of the popish opinions, and some Protestants, for blind obedience, detected; and many other things discoursed. By a Protestant.	Protestant.; Collinges, John, 1623-1690, attributed name.	1675 (1675)	Wing E718; Wing C5314_CANCELLED; ESTC R214929	62,722	96

Foundations of the Protestant Religion as it stands disting●●●●d from Popery This is that which Divines call The Judgment of Private and Practical Discretion Divines say there is 〈◊〉 ●●●●fold Judgment concerning Propositions of Truth 1. The first is Authoritative or Nomothetick This belongeth onely to God all the Men in the World all their Opinions and Arguments cannot add a Cubit to the stature of Truth nor make an hair of its Head either white or black 2. The Second is Ministerial and Declarative This belongs to the Church in the Scriptural Notion of it The Apostle therefore calls her the Pillar and ground of Truth She keeps the Sacred Records and when there is a doubt about any portion of them Ministerially declareth what is the Truth 3. The third Divines call The Judgment of Private and Practical Discretion This Protestants say belongs to every private Christian who by his own Conscience using the best means first which he can for the Information of it is to determine as to his own belief and Practice what is true and Lawful And indeed here lyes the great difference betwixt the Religion of Papists and Protestants The Papists will not allow the Private Christian to Judge of Truth with reference to his own Practice but Obligeth People To believe as the Church believeth and defendeth Blind Obedience to Superiours as Christians Duty They make it Lawful for Men contrary to their own Judgment and the Dictate of their Conscience from intrinsick Arguments to Practice according to the Opinion of one or more Doctors and necessary to Obey all the Decrees of the Popes and the Commands of Superiours if things be not apparently and demonstratively unlawful It may be one Adrianus or another or two may enter their dissent to this Brutish Doctrine but they do generally agree it and this is Fons Origo mali The very first thing to be taught their Prosilytes as silence was in the School of Pythagoras Hence their vernacular Bibles are burnt and all their other Doctrines are easily swallowed The necessity of an Infallible Judge is Concluded c. § 15. On the other side it is essential to a Protestant to be free and in Bondage to no Man nor as to his Practice to be guided by any but God alone and his own Conscience and his Superiours Commanding him what his own Conscience first perswades him to be necessary or at least Lawful He who denyeth this and pretendeth to hate Popery doth but abhor Idols and commit Sacriledge Nay he doth indeed but deny that in words which he owneth chuseth and preferreth nor is it possible there should be greater Factors for Popery in any place than those that perswade Men that it is Lawful for them under what Circumstances they can Imagine to Act contrary to the Opinion of their own Conscience and do what from which to them seem very probable seems utterly to swerve from that which is right to use Mr. Hooker's Phrase § 16. Now let any pluck up this Flood-gate of Private and Practical Discretion and tell us what should hinder most of the absurd Doctrines of Popery coming in upon us like an overflowing Flood if ever we should be so miserable which is not a thing impossible as in Future Ages to have a Superiour that shall Command the receiving of them or Practice according to them As to the falshood of most of them we have but a Moral certainty at least our perswasion must be Judged no more according to the Modern Divinity for how can we be Infallibly and demonstratively certain in things as to which so great a part of the World is of another mind and so many such Learned Men as Bellarmine Stapleton and an hundred more who dissent from us Besides as we shewed before we are told that in Disputable things we can have but an Opinion of one part And this we take to be a Meditation worthy of those Honourable Persons amongst the Nobility and Gentry of England who have shewed their Zeal so much of late against that Religious Pageantry of Rome If any doubt whether Christians have such a Priviledge given them by God as this of Private and Practical Discretion let them consider those Texts 1 Thes 5.21 1 John 3.1 usually quoted for it and but Read what Bishop Davenant in his most Learned Treatise De Judice Normâ fidei and all other Protestant Writers have said for it Whoever plucks up this Hedge we understand not if he doth not feel the Romish Serpent quickly biting him by the heel and we cannot but think that Man will be Cursed that goes about to remove this Land-mark of all Protestants and cry out to our Superiours in the words of Solomon Prov. 22.28 Remove not the Ancient Land-mark which our Fathers have set § 17. We might further add that the admission of this absurd and brutish principle that if a thing be not apparently and demonstratively sinful it is Lawful for Men to Act contrary to the Opinion of their own Consiciences representing it to them from Arguments which seem to them very probable unlawful All Books of Topicks as to Matters of practice all Argumentative Books in Divinity would be of no Use at all but noxious and mischievous rather Yea the Holy Scriptures themselves would be of very little or no use for the use of Argumentative Discourses in any Science or Discipline is to make a proposition either Demonstrative or Probable to us Yea this is the use of the Holy Scriptures as they inform us of Truth Things are Demonstrable to us upon the Evidence of Revelation Sense or Reason indeed the first is improper for the certainty arising from Divine Revelation is called Faith not Demonstration or Demonstrative certainty but it is quiddam majus what is certain to us upon a certainty of Faith or Demonstrative Reason is not so Ordinarily in a moment This Certainty is Ordinarily hatched out of Topicks and most Propositions even of Divine Truth usually at first appear to the Soul probable before they appear indubitably certain The Gray hairs of that other certainty which is distinguished from Moral Certainty rarely grow up in a Night This being granted which every one experienceth Suppose but a Convocation or a Colledge of Superiours to determine de Omnibus agendis of all things to be Religiously Observed and done To what purpose should any read or study any Books for the disquisition of Truth as to any part of a Proposition for when he hath done so long as the thing to be done appears to him but probably Lawful or probably unlawful which it must do before it appears to him indubitably and out of all Question the one or the other he is according to this Opinion bound in Conscience if he be by Superiours Commanded to do quite contrary to what he Judgeth Lawful if he be not indubitably certain it is unlawful What need he Read and study the Scriptures as to Matter of Practice When he hath found

Foundation of the Popish Religion which almost wholly owes it self to Blind Obedience Reader we shall not complement thee Read acquit or condemn us as thou seest cause upon weighing what we say and judge what is against us praeter merum imperium convitia Whether it be lawful to act contrary to an Opining Conscience CHAP. I. The Question shortly stated The terms Conscience and Opining opened The Various complexions of Conscience arising from the different mediums by which light shines into a soul about a Practical Proposition The terms of Faith Science Opinion Doubting Suspition Scruple opened The true notion of a Fixed Conscience an Opining Conscience a doubting and a Scruputons Conscience The Schoolmens Notion of an Opinion The Question fully stated The method propounded for handling it SECT I. THe question is shortly and plainly this Whether without sinning against God a man can act contrary to the dictate of his own Conscience though but Opining By Conscience not to trouble our Reader with the various Notions and Homonymies of it which have little relation to our intended discourse we mean That Judgement in man by which he determineth concerning good or evil as it relateth to practice according to the Dictate of Natural or enlightened Reason We think it well described by the Schoolmen Judicium quo aliquid bonum esse vel malum judicamus Sanehes in Op. mor. lib. 1. cap. 9.1 Reason is a noble faculty in man by which he discourseth Conclusions from Principles and these either Connate or Natural or acquired from exercise reading and comparing things with things Now the work of Reason is when a practical Proposition is exhibited to it to sit as a Judge upon it enquiring either upon the Truth or falshod of it by comparing it with these Principle hence it maketh up a Judgement whether the Proposition be true or false good or bad This Judgment Divines call Judicium singulare or Judicium conscientiae practicum The Judgment of Conscience or Conscience it self Sect. 2. This Judgment is made up by certain Mediums or arguments which do not in all cases shine with the like degree of light upon the soul for as there is a difference in Propositions some are True some are false of those which are some are necessarily so So as it is impossible they should be false Some are contingently so which are true but it is possible they may be or might have been false as now That God is good is a Proposition necessarily true That Peter was good is true but no more than contingently so for he was bad So there is likewise a great difference in the minds assent to Propositions some it agrees to some it denieth Of those to which it agreeth There are some to which it agreeth firmly and fixedly without the least doubt of them Now these are either such as are Propositions of faith being things plainly revealed in the word of God or Matters evident to sense Thus every man will agree the fire is hot and that the Sun shines at noon day or else such which have a certain cause of their truth which we can see The Assent of the mind to the first is called Faith which is the minds assent to the truth of a Proposition upon the authority of God revealing it The Assent of the mind to the two latter is called Science Now there are other Propositions for which the soul can have no such Mediums as these to discern them by But either some Humane Authority or some probable Reason The Assent which the mind giveth upon either of these accounts is called Opinion which is but the Judgement of Conscience from probable Arguments usually called dialectick arguments for there are not many things capable of demonstration § 3. Hence the certainty of the Mind as to the Truth or Falshood of any proposition is 1. Either Supernatural from Divine Revelation or 2. Natural from the Evidence of Sense or Demonstration or 3. Moral from probable Authority or Arguments But now in regard of the differing Force of Arguments and the variety of them for or against the same proposition This assent is capable of various degrees and may variously be incumbred A Christian may give some Credit to a proposition yet have some scruples about it which like little stones in the shooe from whence the term is borrowed may trouble his Practice Or may have some doubts whether the thing be true or no Or I may have an Opinion that is verily judge the thing to be so or not so § 4. The Philosopher tells us that in Moral things a Moral certainty is enough to Act upon and indeed it must be so for as to most things of particular practice we can neither be Naturally nor Supernaturally ascertained Not Naturally because we cannot see the certain Causes Not Supernaturally for it had been impossible that God's Word should have set every individual Man a particular Rule for every individual Action In these Cases therefore as we said a Moral certainty is ground enough for Action which is or may be consistent with some Scruples or Fears For Example suppose this the Question Whether a Man be sit to Receive the Supper of the Lord It may be he cannot fully satisfie himself but he may have some fears and jealousies and Scruples of the Reasonableness of which he can give himself no very good Account but yet he finds so much ground to conclude he is that he is Morally certain In this case he is bound not to omit it Suppose one sick of a Quinsie or Pleurisie or some other Disease usually Mortal without timely Bleeding and application of means He is not Mathematically or Demonstratively certain that he shall dye if he doth not use such means his Natural strength may Conquer it but he may be Morally certain and so Obliged to Act. Whether a Man may be said to know that of which he is onely Morally certain is a little Velitation among Critical Philosophers Aristotle tells us that what falleth under Science considered as an Habit of the Mind must be something demonstrable but this is onely a strife about words § 5. Much in the present Debate depending upon the term Opining the fixing of the true Notion of an Opinion or at least such a one as we understand in the Question is of great Consequence It is sometimes used to signifie a sudden and rash assent of the Vnderstanding to a proposition But in this sence we have nothing to do with it 2. It is taken for the assent of the Mind to one part of a proposition as true yet not without fear of being mistaken 3. But Thirdly in which sence we use it It is also taken to signifie the Souls assent to a proposition upon probable Arguments That is such Arguments as do not demonstrate the thing to the Soul so as to put it out of all possibility of doubting but make it appear very like to be true Probabile est quod quum certum