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	reveal_v	revelation_n	1,705	5	9.2853	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36258	Two letters of advice I. For the susception of Holy Orders, II. For studies theological, especially such as are rational : at the end of the former is inserted a catalogue of the Christian writers, and genuine works that are extant of the first three centuries.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1672 (1672)	Wing D1822; ESTC R16080	115,374	358

Souls immortality by reason does not upon any rational pretence oblige us to question the existence of Revelations and supposing that the real immortality of our Souls is attested and revealed by God our own antecedent ignorance of it upon natural accounts cannot ground the least suspicion of the Divine Infallibility concerning it nay it is from our prime a●tions of such a being most certain that infinite truths are evident to him which are not obvious to our grosser observations and it cannot be disproved that this is one Supposing therefore that God has revealed the immortality of our Souls and that he is in this as well as in other Revelations veracious and that he certainly does though we do not know the truth even in this particular affair it must needs follow that we must be obliged to believe it upon account of such Divine Revelation though antecedently we could never have known it by natural discoveries This I have onely observed by the way to shew the no-necessity of insisting on such proofs and to let Atheistical irreligious persons understand how little indeed Religion is concerned in their weakness though I think I might have added that deserting this way of proof and insisting onely on Revelation in this case is not onely more secure but in many regards more convenient and more aggreeable with the principles of Christianity and better sitted for solving difficulties which are less intelligible on other principles But what I have to say to this purpose is both subject to be misunderstood and too tedious for my present design and therefore I forbear VIII But then for that part of Divinity that is Textuary besides the knowledg of the Tongues and Phrases which will be gotten by reading ancient Authors in their own words upon other occasions and for which your own experience will hereafter be your more satisfactory directory for the understanding of the doctrinals of the Old Testament which you will find very necessary for the New there being nothing pretended to be revealed in the New but what was at least mystically presigured in the Old and there being many doctrines at that time generally believed by the Jewish Church which were not so clearly expressed in the Old which as they seem to be connived at by our Saviour so they seem generally to have been received without any New Revelations by the Primitive Christians and yet the way is certainly as fallible in some instances as true in others and therefore ought to be accurately distinguished the onely way will be to examine the credibility of doctrines that pretend to be originally Jewish Traditions And for this you are not onely to trust the Rabbins both for their notorious fabulousness and their little Antiquity and their plain imitations of the Graecian Philosophers even before our Saviour's time upon occasion of their acquaintance with them by the Macedonian conquests whom yet together with Philo and Josephus I would recommend to you for the Historical Relation of those opinions and practices that afterwards prevailed and are frequently alluded to in the New Testament but that which is the main design of the primitive Christian Apologies what the Graecians had either preserved entire from the division of Babel or in after-Ages derived from the Jewes which yet are both more numerous and more ancient than those that are now extant of the Jewes themselves for by this means as you shall discover much of that truth which was mystically involved in the Old Testament though otherwise certainly intended where otherwise there is no clear mention of the Immortality of the Soul of the Resurrection of the Body or the future Judgment which are the very foundations not onely of Christian but of all rational Religion but also the Original of many errors both among the later Jewes and Christians For this therefore I conceive it convenient to read the ancientest Greek Poets together with their Greek Scholiasts and that you do not look on them barely as idle Romances but as grave Philosophers and Historians for such they were reputed not onely in their own times but also by all their followers as involving Divine and Natural and Historical notions of their Gods and Heroes under mystical and Parabolical expressions Thus the name was used for makers of Lawes for Establishers of Commonwealths for Discipliners of youth and women as you may see proved from the Testimonies of Homer himself and others by the excellent Heinsius in his Prolegom ad Hesiod Hence they were after imitated by the Oracles and accounted Sacred and Prophetical and inspired with a Divine fury as were easie to prove if I had leisure But yet because those things are related on the faith of much later Authors and are mingled with their own inventions and are expressed in dark and designedly-obscure resemblances therefore two things will be requisite to be inquired into First whence they originally proceeded whereby will appear both how far they are credible and what was after superadded by the Graecian affectation of vain glory and Secondly what was their distinct sense For the former I confess the ancient Graecian Barbarism their late incorporations into civil Societies their then it self being divided into little Republicks which could not chuse but continually allarm them with perpetual Factions and mutual jealousies of one another and leave little time for incouragement for Studies and their late invention of Letters or of any means for communicating Tradition to Posterity make me unwilling to advise you to trust them for any thing ancient that is Historical And therefore I believe your best way were to examine with what other ancient learned Nations they had commerce from whom they might probably derive their Philosophical or Theological learning and particularly concerning such notable Persons as were acknowledged to have had some especial influence in their improvement such were Orpheus for the old and Pherecydes Syrius for the later Theogonyes whether they were Indigenae or forreigners whether they travelled and to what Nations And because the ambition of the later Greeks has endeavoured to suppress those testimonies that might seem to make them beholding to other Nations for what they gloried themselves to be the first inventors of either by confounding forreigners of the same name with their own and by that means arrogating the glory of their actions to themselves or by deriving their Original from their Gods and those such as were Historically many or uncertain as they do with Orpheus when they make him the Son of Apollo and Calliope it were well to collect out of creditable Authors what is mentioned concerning them that so you may from other circumstances conjecture whence they did most probably derive their learning And there are three Nations especially who by reason of their undeniable Antiquity and their established government and their estimation of Learning and their encouragement and opportunities and publick deputation of some orders of men for that end might be very credible for the conveyance of

Revelation and which is therefore onely intelligible by reason it being commonly reduced to two main principles the Divine nature and existence and the Soul's immortality and the nature of its faculties and the manner of its operations in accommodation to which all the Divine Precepts and Auxiliaries are designed the former will be best advanced by Physical arguments drawn from the nature of the caelestial motions and the necessity of an universal ordinator of the second causes both to their own ends in th●se that are inanimate and at least to that of the Universe in those that are not c. which as they are evidently more perswasive and sensible and of a more general accommodation to ordinary capacities and such as we find principally made use of by St. Paul himself not onely in his popular discourses Rom. i. 20. but even in his disputes with the Philosophers Act. xvii 27. 28. and xiv 17. so I do really conceive them more strong than those Metaphysical ones that have been lately again urged and improved with the general applause of our late Philosophers by the famous Des Cartes And there is one Question which as I confess exceedingly intricate and yet omitted by most that I have seen of our late ingenious Authors that handled the argument at least not considered with that accuracy it deserved so I conceive it very necessary for the conviction not onely of Atheists which yet the unhappiness of our Age has rendred not altogether unseasonable but also of some subdivided Christians those especially of the Romane Communion and that is the distinction of true from counterfeit miracles which will require natural Philosophy wherein the notion of a true miracle by the confession of all requiring that it be above the power of natural Agents for the determining of that it will be necessary to shew how far that does extend and because it is yet farther agreed that all sensible effects of created substances must depend on matter and motion therefore this will require two things to be examined their utmost efficacy in general and then particularly the uttermost efficacy of those that are present at the production of the supposed effect that is to be tryed the knowledg of which I presume you are not ignorant to be the very design of natural Philosophy wherein notwithstanding you are not now to be confined to the Peripatetick Principles but may more ingenuously examine others and accept what you your self shall conceive most satisfactory But the investigation of the particular Divine Attributes will be best performed by Metaphysicks wherein all the terms requisite to this way of arguing are prosessedly handled the nature of Entity and Bonity in general the notion of those Perfections which are called simpliciter simplices and the examination of what are particularly such by their compatibility with others greater than themselves and which are not reducible to any other Sciences from whence it has even in Aristotle himself the name of Natural Divinity And from hence also depend all those terms whereby even supernatural Revelations are made reconcileable with natural Reason and upon which most of those objections depend that are indeed material and necessary to be answered for the whole force of these relyes on such Principles as are universally conclusive in all sorts of Entityes for otherwise the confessed Analogical participation of the same perfections in God and the Creatures will be sufficient to invalidate all Inferences drawn to him from particular experiments in other Creatures which are the uttermost that all other Sciences are able to reach And to these ends you will find the General Part very necessary and the particular where it goes no further than the perfect explication of their Nature and confines it self within it own most immaterial abstraction And therefore you may observe this Part most taken notice of by Protestants and you will find it most generally serviceable to the whole design of School-Divinity But then for the other Part that concerns the nature of the Soul and of its operations the supernatural assistances being proportioned to them it will be necessary to know them for the understanding this proportion And because some of these assistances are extended as well to the nature of their Acts as their Morality and the moral manner of the operations is most answerable to the nature of the Agent and accordingly best intelligible by its relation therefore it will be convenient to know them first Physically as they are handled in Aristotle's books de Animâ and there especially the rational and intellectual degree and others no otherwise than as they conduce to the better understanding their present organical dependent way of operation and that discourse de Animâ separatâ which you will find adjoyned at the end by some Authors and then Morally in Ethicks from whence you are directly to deduce all those obligations that are purely moral and the necessity and design of those that are positive and supernatural and generally all those universal Rules on which depends the prudential practice of Casuistical Divinity For Controversie Logick I mention nothing because I believe there is little in it necessary to your purpose but what is borrowed from Metaphysicks or some few things concerning Faith and Opinion and Demonstration which you will find sufficiently to your purpose discussed on the Summes and Sentences And as it will be thus serviceable in general to know the main design of those Sciences and their influence in Divinity for discerning the necessity of particular Questions how far they are reducible to it so in particular you may consider First whether it was first raised from any Theological occasion accordingly to the Rules formerly prescribed or whether it be capable of being used as a principle for the deciding any Theological Controversie and if it be then Secondly whether that Theological Controversie it self be of any moment and then Thirdly whether that Philosophical Principle be capable of any certain resolution and especially in that sense that is requisite for this decision But for the improvement of principles of this kind in proving the immortality of the Soul not now to reflect upon the piously-designed attempts of several ingenious persons in this regard for my part how convincing soever they may prove in the event I can discern no great necessity of having recourse unto them or relying on them For though indeed the existence of God cannot be proved by Revelation it being so antecedent to it as that he that doubts of it cannot admit of Revelation to prove it by yet is there not the same necessity here seeing the Soul may really be immortal though its immortality could not be made out from any natural appearances falling under our cognizance daily experience furnishing us with instances of most certain truths which are yet uncapable of being proved from such appearances in which case we may yet be assured of it by Revelation For our doubting concerning the proof of the