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
A51828	Two discourses the first, shewing how the chief criterions of philosophical truth, invented by speculative men, more eminently serve divine revelation, than either philosophy or natural religion. The second, manifesting how all the foundations of the intellectual world, viz. reason, morality, civil government, and religion, have been undermin'd by popish doctrine and policies. By Tho. Mannyngham, M.A fellow of New Colledge in Oxford, and Rector of East-Tysted in Hant-Shire.	Manningham, Thomas, 1651?-1722.	1681 (1681)	Wing M510; ESTC R216239	26,124	193

Neither could all the Armies Emperors or Persecutions all the Policy Malice of Earth and Hell destroy one Article blot out one necessary Truth but that same God who first inspired them has hitherto preserved them and we may with all devout confidence expect that his never-slumbring Providence will be their Eternal Massorah Having done with the Historical account let us Secondly consider Philosophical Truth in an accommodation and conformity to our Natural Faculties c. I. To our Sences Whose Testimony being managed by a superintendent Faculty is the most infallible certainty we can naturally have of sensible things which as to its Mode of Derivation whether it proceeds from real Qualities inherent in the Objects or Notions and Phantasms impressed on the Nerves and Brain it matters not since most men are sufficiently agree'd in their Representations or Relative Truth our Organs and Objects being rightly disposed and circumstantiated Neither is it to any purpose for any one to obtrude upon us the frequent illusions of Sight since those very Fallacies as they call them constitute an Art and are the grand Maxims of our Opticks Now although some have so deeply plunged into that degeneracy of Scepticism as to extract a Controversie from every Particle of the Universe and make their own existence a Problem yet has this been pointed at by the sober part of Mankind as the extremity of Folly and forlorn Sottishness The very Pyrrhonians were not guilty of this Excess who never deny their assent to the Passions and Representations of Sense but doubted whether the Natures and Internal Verities of things were from thence or by any other way sufficiently and infallibly known which is convincingly manifest from their grand probability 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bears no relation to the immediate appearances of Sence but is wholly concerned in Discourse Syllogism and the Consequences of Science and if at any time they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indulge themselves a sportive Captiousness about the familiar Objects of Sence 't was not so much to affront Truth as to persecute the haughty Dogmatist and torture his surly positions so that those few absurdities recorded of their great Master Pyrrho can be nothing but Fiction and Comedy as that he disbelieved all his Senses grew so callous and mortified with stupidity as that he had taught his very Nerves and Fibres to deny themselves so dead drunk with Apathy as to lye in a Carts way and at another time most unmercifully to doubt whether his Friend was in the Ditch or no. These I say and such like extravagant Relations which occur in his Life can be no other than the Burlesque of his Opinion like that of Epicurus's which from the pure abstracted Contemplations on Nature joyned with the most innocent delight of a Garden was by the viler Herd of that Sect corrupted into all gross Sensuality and the debauches of a City Diogenes Laertius affirms of Pyrrho that his suspension proceeded from a noble Generosity of mind and that in order for an undisturbed tranquility of Life he introduced a polite Genteel Mode of Philosophizing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if so such a Scepticism as this would be the best breeding a Scholar could pretend to 't would redeem the Learned from that snarle of Education which many have most unhappily contracted from their little Victories in Scholastick Contentions whence they become angry and sick at every suspence of Judgment in another so utterly impatient of contradiction and Argument that they vilify and defame all Humane Nature because the Age rebels against their Opinion Whereas on the contrary the modest way of humbly proposing our probabilities and allowing the same freedom to others would render Conversation sweet and easie all conferences pleasant and be a great instrument of advancing true Friendship in the World He that grows hot and turbid that elbows in all his Philosophick Disputes must needs be very proud of his own Sufficiencies or very ignorant of the vanity of the Science he stickles for and commonly the intemperate value of a speculation proceeds from the weakness of the Man for he that is passionate for a particular System now without doubt was so here-to fore for his Nuts and is in all likelihood of still following his Temper of being warm and obstinate in all the trivial concerns of Humane Society Neither would this generous method only give us easier seasons and softer moments of Converse but also a freer range to Fancy and a loss to new thought since in matters wholly Philosophical where Religion and Government are not concerned Scepticism and Paradox may without Controversie be esteemed the purest Vehicles of Noble Wit and unattempted Sense It need not startle us that the Roman Writers do often insinuate a very contemptible regard for the Senses since all that is in order for the better colouring the contradictions of their Mass Hence a late French Author in his Researches after Truth having presented his Reader with a long tedious repetition of the invincible Illusions of the Senses such as a stick half in the Water and a square Tower at a distance most triumphantly concludes that they were given to Men as they are to Brutes only for the preservation of Life not as the Ports of Merchandise and Science but of Defence and Safety As if our sight serv'd us only for the conduct of our steps or for securing us from a Precipice whereas that almost unlimited Sense extends it's Royalty through the whole Universe purvey's for all the capacity of the Intellect and points at what it cannot perfectly discover For by the Visible things of the Creation the great Invisibles are Collected But we need not labour any longer in this point since those persons against whom our Discourse is chiefly directed are so vigorous for the evidence of Sense that they scarce allow any other but make the most sublimated Knowledge a Tumult of Phantasms all Thought Local Motion all Reason Mechanism and the whole Encyclopede of Arts and Sciences but a brisker Circulation of the Blood How ridiculous soever this Opinion is yet it sufficiently serves our purpose as it establishes Sense to be an undoubted Criterion of Truth as far as we contend or within its proper Sphere Let us now see the more abundant concern of this Criterion in matters of Revelation which will presently appear if we consider that this was the first and is the last Evidence of Divine Miracles on which all revealed Religion is established and that Tradition it self makes no Argument until 't is ultimately resolved into the certainty of the Senses Moses and our blessed Saviour made their constant appeal to them What we have seen and what we have heard was still the Apostles Logick and an Appeal to Miracles was the powerful Demonstration of the Spirit How solicitous was our Saviour after his Resurrection to give the senses their full satisfaction This made him condescend to heal St.

attributed its Prophesies to secret Combinations of Writers after the Fact or accommodated them to other Persons and Circumstances and to have ascribed all its Miracles to the force of Egyptian Magick and the operation of Devils Now all this was contrived in honour and vindication of the Platonic Philosophy so highly reverenced by the Sacred Order of the Alexandrian School Yet all these men have spent their utmost Venom done their worst and the gates of Hell have not prevailed For another succession of Gospel Adversaries we may with Candor enough reckon Aquinas and the School-men who have most deplorably undermined the Scriptures with the Principles of Aristotle and although accidentally yet they have been as really pernicious as any we have hitherto named Their intentions were doubtless innocent but we can never sufficiently lament their intolerable Leisure which occasioned them for want of better imploy to spin out all the strength of Divine Writings into nice and unprofitable Volumns Whatever the advices of those Persons may seem to the contrary who have spent so much time in those Studies already that they are bound for their Reputation-sake to recommend them to others who tell us those alone will make a man close and Argumentative quick and sagacious in discovering the Point and Knot of the Controversie which perhaps was ty'd only for the Trick-sake who would have us lie seven or eight years in a dark room that when we come abroad into the open day we may think we see clearer who though they themselves have miserably experimented the Cousenage yet still cry up and maintain the prodigy and to prevent a sawcy precociousness in Learning invite others to drudge in their methods to be vigilant and attentive on subtile Entities till they become like those deeper sort of Contemplators who never fix their eyes more steadfastly than when they see nothing notwithstanding I say all these large promises and encouragements for the reading of the Schoolmen there are altogether as observant persons who will not stick to affirm that 't is evidently owing to that Load and Corruption of our Libraries that men are generally grown so loose and ambiguous in their Reasonings that with little pains or art they can prove any thing or nothing and that most of those Religious Wars which at this day infest Christianity are chiefly owing to that fatal invention of School-Divinity that Gun-powder of Learning All this would be most amazingly dreadful but that there is somewhat worse to come There is still another Philosophy behind and that has opened another Gate in Hell and sent forth a piece of the blackest Sophistry that the Infernal Synod can dictate It s reputed Author Benedictus de Spinoza one who has run through a whole Amsterdam of Religions himself and obliged that Athens of promiscuous Worship with one more of his own Invention Where he has given them all the difficulties of Scripture-History and Chronology amass'd and enhansed all the Doubts and Controversies of Commentators positively determined on the worst side a Rapsodie of Illusions from Talmud and Alcoran and a Feature of Deformity borrowed from every Heresie Schism and Sect. 'T is true indeed he allows the Bible to be Divine Revelation but with this Proviso that the Philosophers Reason is still a more infallible word of God that its Prophecies were accommodated to Prejudice Fancy and Temper Its Miracles the Wonders of the Ignorant its whole end and scope Political for the better security of Government and its popular Doctrine intended only for the Herd to square their gross Obedience by and all this because there occur some Expressions in the Scriptures altogether unworthy as he imagines of those clear and evident discoveries of Nature lately found out and Demonstrated by the Divine Cartesius whom he never mentions but with the greatest veneration imaginable with all the Eulogies that the most ravished invention can suggest whereas if at any time he confesses Christ 't is like the Devil in the Gospel with Horror and Reluctance and like him too he seems first Tormented to it The Existence of a Deity against the Atheist and the certainty of the Bibles Revelation against the Anti-scripturist have been in all Christian ages but especially of late so fully confirmed and established both from Pulpit and Press through all the possibility of Reasoning all the Amplitude of Topics whether Theological Metaphysical Physical Moral or Mathematical that were they handsomely collected and summ'd up they would without Controversie make a Compendium of the properest Logick yet extant and yet this Infamous Book presents our Reasoning Men with a farther scruple still where freely granting the Revelation of the Scriptures it notwithstanding concludes that the holy Bible is only a popular System of Pious Political Errors Regnum Devotionis non Veritatis Wherefore I shall endeavour at present only to make good this one Proposition viz. That the chief Criterions or Canons of Philosophical Truth which have been invented and allowed by speculative Men are much more abundantly convincing when applied to matters of Divine Revelation Now Philosophical Truth is capable of being considered but these two ways I. In respect of its Traditional or Historical account II. In respect of its accommodation to our Natural Faculties I. In respect of its Traditional or Historical account And here we have some late Authors very laborious in Transcriptions who have not scrupled to make Philosophy co-incident with Revelation it self deriving it in a continued Tradition from the Jewish Church and thereby conceiving it no other than the remains of a primary Revelation They make the business very short telling us that doubtless Adam was created with a perfect knowledge of Nature and that from him this Knowledge was transmitted by Methusalem to Noah from Noah and his Sons and Nephews to the Chaldeans from them to the Egyptians from the Egyptians to the Phenicians from Phenicia it sailed into Greece so to the Latins and from thence 't was propagated to these septentrional parts where we have the Genealogy of Philosophy as clearly and succinctly delineated as that of our King from William the Conqueror Now we cannot suppose that Adam transmitted that Knowledg of Nature which he enjoyed during the state of his Innocency and which he received either from immediate Infusion or connate Idea's of things Nay if he had he would have given his Posterity a false Philosophy since that whole Nature was afterwards forced to follow the Law of its Curse since Thorns and Bryars were not in the Scheme of Vegetables and the Serpent was to be new studied again But if he transmitted to us the Knowledge he had gathered from much Experience and a long Life after his Fall when perhaps his Faculties were not very much perfecter than ours and stood in as great want of a Logick for their better information I do not see any great benefit we could receive from such a Tradition and all that the Asserters of this Opinion can make good will

TWO DISCOURSES THE First shewing how the Chief Criterions of Philosophical Truth invented by Speculative men more Eminently serve Divine Revelation than either Philosophy or Natural Religion THE Second manifesting how all the Foundations of the Intellectual World viz. Reason Morality Civil Government and Religion have been undermin'd by Popish Doctrines and Policies By Tho. Mannyngham M. A Fellow of New Colledge in Oxford and Rector of East-Tysted in Hant-shire LONDON Printed for Will. Cademan at the Popes Head in the lower Walk of the New Exchange in the Strand 1681. To my very Worthy and Ingenious Friend Mr. Thomas Palmer one of the Honourable Members of the last and of this present House of COMMONS Worthy Sir I beg leave for these Discourses to appear under the Authority and Friendship of your Name as containing in them some general Remarks and Hints in Learning which I suppose may not be altogether unsuitable to your Genius to your natural Inclination for variety of Thought with some Decency of Epression The greatest part of what I now present you was the effort of my younger Years and therefore may appear to some to contain more of the warmth of Temper and Imagination than of the cooler serenity of Reason and Judgment to discover rather a wild Range in Learning an Innocent Revelling in Philosophy than any mature Research into Principles and the Cognizances of Truth any compleat Victory and Final Triumph over Authors But let the Opinions of Men be what they please I hope they will not deter you from Patronising the success Though in relation to this former Discourse I may without much Vanity promise you some security since it has been already approved by much better Judges than perhaps are left to condemn it I am now Sir retiring from the World and that which always was its brightest Scene to me your delightful Conversation and am therefore willing to leave you and perhaps a few more of my Friends some little Image some faint Remembrance of me in the Essays of my younger Studies I must confess I have now another Tast of things than what I formerly had partly my experience in the World and partly the new Ferment of Humors in our Nation having taken from me all the Remains of an Innocent Ambition By the providence of God and the free unconditionate generosity of that Noble and Loyal Patriot Sir John Norton I am comfortably placed in an agreeable station in the Church and am now passionately desirous to collect my self to be known to few to be envy'd by none If ever I had any esteem among some either through chance or the Conspiracy of Friends I should now be glad to have my Name as Friendly neglected as it was first raised for I always accounted a great Reputation and a great Infamy to be equal Afflictions and the unknown untalk'd of Man to be only Blest Yet though I am entring into the solid Peace and Contentment of private life I leave you Sir engaged in the highest Sphere of Counsel and Action but I leave you under a deep sence of the Interest and obligation of the best Religion in the World a Religion out of which no good and wise Subject of this Nation can be desirous to live and in which even Repenting Atheists choose to Dye I leave you also guarded with the Hereditary and chosen Principles of Loyalty and Honour with all the Natural and Acquired Blessings of Temper and Improvement especially with that Law of Kindness in your Soul legible even in the outward characters of your Composure which will hardly ever suffer you to Err much either in a Publick or a Private Life it being very difficult for a person of large Affections of great Modesty in Conversation of sharp and quick Reflections in solitary thought ever to become Seditious in State or Habitually loose in private Manners And O! that such an amicable sweetness of Disposition as gently reigns through all your Actions and designs were every where mingled with the Policy of our Kingdom and that the Wisdom of our great Assembly were every where temper'd with such an Healing Meekness then Peace and Love and Union might distil like Balm upon our Nation then might we speedily recover our Secular Glory to the Admiration and Terror of our Forreign Observers then might we strike down our Errors in Religion as the Priests did heretofore the Sacrifices at the Altar not with the Hast and Fury of Anger and Revenge but with that deliberate strength that wise and solemn delay which proceeded wholly from a Conviction and Sense of Duty and Devotion then might our Magistracy govern by Love our Religion by Charity and all our Policies unite into the Everlasting securities of Peace and Friendship which is the hearty Prayer of him who desires to be known by no greater Title than that of Your most Faithful and most Obedient Friend and Servant Tho. Mannnygham A DISCOURSE Concerning TRUTH HE who has had the Curiosity to observe our Modern Scepticism and been any thing acquainted with those looser Doctrines which almost universally occur wherein restless Consciences have endeavoured with all the little Arts of specious Sophistry to work out to themselves a Stupefaction rather than a Quiet a Charm than a Satisfaction may readily reflect how Natural Theology erected chiefly on Natural Philosophy the great Diana of this Mechanick age is now become the only refuge of all those who pretend to establish their irreligion by Argument and Syllogism For downright positive Atheism has found but very few serious and declared Abettors has sometimes sprung from the fumes and madness of Wine and Lust has been the distemper of an Hour the Paradox or Rant of heated Conversation not an Opinion or a morning thought and for the most part has been rather sworn up than asserted Christianity had that Serpent Philosophy to deal with in its very Cradle and through all its strength of Centuries has received its fiercest assaults from that Monster By vain Philosophy so rigorously condemned in the Epistles the Learned generally understand the Gnostick Theology composed for the most part of Pythagorean Principles and that the Epicurean and Stoical Sects were as malitious as any in the Apostles times the Disputes of St. Paul recordedin Acts 17. v. 18. sufficiently inform us Not long after this that Man whom Origen so rationally and so perspicuously answered declaim'd against the whole Bible with all the Artillery of invective Eloquence and false reasonings deduced from a commixture of Barbarian and Grecian Placits Then Hierocles Julian c. but particularly their Ancestor Porphyry whom some of the Fathers counted it Religion to Curse sought by all the darkest methods of Hell to lessen and destroy the Authority of the Holy Bible For according to that imperfect account which we find of those fifteen Books he wrote against the Christians he is recorded there to have jeered at it for a mean simplicity of Style and for innumerable repugnancies to have

Thomas's Infidelity with a touch which immediately shed a strong Conviction through his Soul that straight way broke forth into a glorious acknowlegment My Lord and my God! Nay at his Ascention he chose not to vanish or suddenly disappear but gave the men of Galilee time to stand and gaze submitted his Motion to the Scrutiny of their Eyes whilst he was carried up into Heaven by Angels and Clouds in all the leisure of a Triumph II. We will consider Philosophical Truth in an Accommodation to our Understandings And this is the very diffinition of the Schools viz. A Conformity of the Object with the Intellect Here I dare not venture far In this Science or Mystery of Words a very judicious Abstracter would find it a hard task to be any thing copious without falling upon an Infinite Collection an Eternal Succession or some such like contradictious self-duelling terms True Metaphisicks is still a Desideratum in Philosophy for what we have hitherto received from the Scholasticks Jesuites and others appears only like the Ghost and Phantasm of separated Reason and departed Sense If we lanch into the vast expansion of their pure Abstractions we find but very little to terminate our Apprehensions but our contemplating Heads seem presently to swim in an Infinite Vacuum and all substantial thought by little and little to lessen and pass away into a strange Transcendency I could tell you of a Truth of the Object or Entity a Truth of Appearance another of Conception and one more of the Intellect and that without a Miracle all these may be one viz. an appearance or representation of the Object to the Intellect I could tell you likewise that besides the Truth of apprehension there is one of Judgment another of Discourse and these again either Mental or Verbal I could tell you from the Lord Herbert that there is an invincible Instinct of common Notions the same that Aristotle before him called an Intelligence of Principles that there are some Sacrosancta Principia as the forementioned Person stiles them which inform us that there is a God that he ought to be Adored but how and in what manner what will make our Worship acceptable our Sacrifices or our Prayers regarded here his Instinct Internal External Sense and Intellect with all their Analogies Conditions and Consequences can give us no better direction than the Finger of a Mercurial Statue when we are puzling in a dark and crooked Alley 'T is not my business to give you a Censure of that Noble Mans Labours Gassendus has done it already in an imperfect Epistle wherein he has utterly renounced the Genius of his Nation scarce allowing the Author one Epistolary Complement though 't is to be presumed that when the Lord Herbert sent him his Book he expected he should have returned the Applauses of a Gentleman and not the Animadversions of a Critick Yet so it often happens for another great Wit des Cartes met with the same Fate and from the same hand too He grew so confident and presumptuous of his Meditations that he sent out sportive Challenges to invite Objections from all his Friends till at last like one of his own Kings he was quite baffled and slain amidst his very Tilts and Turnaments After the Metaphysicians have quite tired themselves with their Divisions and subdivisions they are so modest as not to make Humane Intellect the adequate measure of Truth but ultimately resolve it into a Conformity with the Divine Understanding which a Platonist would after this manner explain That there is an Eternal mind that comprehendeth the intelligible Natures and Idea's of all things whether actually existing or possibly only that comprehends it self and all the extent of its own power together with an exemplar Platform of the whole World according to which he produced the same This being granted we are as much in the dark as ever for unless this eternal mind shall vouchsafe to acquaint us what is conformable to his Infinite unerring Understanding we can have but little certainty of Truth Now this is the peculiar Province of Revelation And that it may appear how natural this Medium is how suitable to the Universal consent of Mankind you may please to reflect that Revelation has been the true or pretended foundation of all Knowledge whatsoever No Religions no Policies imposed upon the World without conferences and retirements with God and Angels Not only Religions and Laws but all Arts and Sciences all noble Inventions have ever boasted of their Aegeria's their assisting Daemons too When the light of Nature that first Revelation was distorted and the unguided reason of the Idolatrous World had terminated all Divinity in the works of the Creation then did God speak at sundry times and in divers manners to the Fathers by the Prophets When the Gentiles would not learn of the Kingdom of Israel which was a constant visible demonstration of the Power Providence and Goodness of God their Ignorance for some time was winked at till at last God was pleased more fully to declare his Nature and Will by his Eternal Son the brightness of his Fathers Glory and the express Image of his Person who brought Life and Immortality to light through the Gospel So that now the Bible is become the perfect Register even of Natural Religion too since all those excellent truths whith the Heathen World faintly hinted at rather wish'd than believ'd whether they concern matters of Faith or the Duties of Morality are infallibly assured to us by the supernatural Declaration of that God whose veracity is established by an infinite Knowledge whereby he cannot be deceiv'd himself and an eternal holiness whereby he can't deceive us And to take away all complaints about Error the obscurity of things and the imperfectness of our finite Understandings those bold Murmurs which reverberate on Heaven and Providence it self we are Promised and Assured that the Third Person in the Trinity will be with us to the end of the World to guide and direct us in all necessary Truth But Thirdly Cartesius goes farther than the Schoolmen He uncatechizes himsef thro' a long series of Dubitation invents an Art to stifle Education and Memory strips himself of all his prejudices only that he might put them on again in another dress and present us with a nicer Recollection a more splendid method of his Errors For 't is certain that most of them return'd upon him again not unlike to that which the Atomists observe that if you grind any matter into too minute a dust the little particles will cling again and reunite by reason of a too exquisite separation Wherefore after he had fanci'd the whole World a Faire-Land Life a meer Dream all Conscious and thinking Nature but the delusions of an evil Genius after all this enchantment he can find nothing that can ascertain to him any Truth but the Goodness of God which will not suffer our faculties to be imposed upon in their clear and

evident perceptions so that that which can give the best account of the Goodness of God justly claims the Advantage of this Criterion And that Revelation does so would be almost improper here to mention but that the method of my Discourse requires it I shall instance only in one thing but that the greatest the vast Astonishment of Heaven and Earth viz. that of the Second Persons Incarnation his taking our Humane Nature upon him to Converse with us to Dye for us for Us Sinners A Mystery of Love which gave the very Angels new Anthems a new Scene of Knowledg and consequently a new Heaven Now I would not be thought to speak against all Philosophy to declaim against all Learning any more than he that Preaches against a full Table or exhorts to Mortification would be thought to make Starving Orthodox and Self-murder a Gospel-Precept For since Philosophy is by most men allowed to be the requisie improvement of our natural Faculties since 't is commendably made the great Employ and Study of our younger years and the better Commerce of our more advanc'd Society since exalted and almost meriting Charity hath built us Schools and Colledges for our pleasant Recess and Meditation bequeathed us competent Revenues for the easie maintainance and tranquility of a Thinking Life nobly endow'd our Professors for more speedy advances in Arts and Sciences and since Christian Common-wealths with their prudent Laws and Constitutions have established to us our Universities certainly we ought not to entertain Philosophy with so cold a regard as the Phanaticism of some and the incapacity of others to attain so great an excellency is ready to prophane it with But yet if we take a farther prospect and view it in its ultimate tendencies we may with as equal reason blame its Adoration as its Contempt Philosophy was intended as our Colleges wherein 't is taught not to spend our our whole Age 60 years and 10 in it but to make it our passage to more solid attainments to equippe our selves for more substantial Knowledge 'T is but an Introduction a Ministring Accomplishment for Divinity and we are first taught the Elements of the World that we may better understand the Sacred Character 'T is but a Jewish Canaan Typical and significative of a more Spiritual Mansion and may under a judicious Management serve to shadow out to us though very imperfectly the infinite Treasures of revealed Wisdom So that the intent of my discourse was only to shew that whatever pretences Philosophy or natural Religion could make for Truth or Certainty yet Revelation there being such a thing granted by the Adversary laid fuller and more abundant claim to all those Rules and Measures of Truth But should I now reckon up all the incommunicable characters of Truth to Revelation it would require a Volumn I will only mention some few and those such as lye within the compass of Philosophical Reasonings then answer an Objection or two of the Natural-list and so conclude Whatever Philosophy or Natural Religion can truly arrive to in its best progress of Reasoning its highest exaltation Revelation has all the benefit and evidence of that Light besides a farther and infallible confirmation from Divine Testimony Moreover the excellency of the Object peculiar to the matters of Revelation gains a freer admittance makes a stronger and more lasting impression on the understanding than any other common Motive whatever For no man needs any other Argument than his own Reflection to convince him that Assent ariseth more properly from the excessive worth of the Object than from the dry evidence of Apprehension and Perspicuity it self And that because however in Philosophy Truth and Goodness may seem distinct yet in Divinity they are all one and the most abstracted speculation there has a constant Morality annex'd to it which always superadd's the Recommendation of the Affections too And how magnificently soever men paraphrase on Reason Intelligible Ideas and Eternal Verities they are our Passions that must carry us to Heaven our Repentance and our Devotion our Love our Fear and our Hopes and our Reason and our Faith only as joyn'd with these 'T was the zeal of the Affections assisted by the Holy Spirit that reconcil'd Martyrdoms and rescu'd the Bible from the Dioclesian Flames There each holy Martyr would freely part with his Life but not his Bible That Sacred Depositum was all his Wealth his World his Eternity When his right hand was cut off he seized it with his left when that was gone too he fasten'd on it with his Mouth and amidst his Torments sang Hallelujahs out of it when his breath could no longer articulate his devotions his panting heart still retain'd it and when the Tyrant grasped that it fled away with his Soul Now search all the Records all the Catalogues of Stoicks those great Masters and Professors of Death and see if this can be parallell'd We have read indeed of a Philosopher that offer'd up an Hecatomb for the invention of a Proposition but he would never have Sacrificed himself for the Confirmation of it But the Naturalist tells us we have no sublime Notions of God in Scripture and that the Israelites only knew his Name whereas every Hebrew name of God is a pregnant Hieroglifick in his Theology and that one word Jehova is a Body of Divinity The Scriptures have acquainted us with so much of the Nature of God as may sufficiently inspirit our Obedience and those who have pretended to farther discoveries have only opened a way to Heresie Enthusiasm and even Atheism it self And we have reason to fear that those curious and subtil Discourses of late about the Idea of a God have done but little service to the Christian Religion What the understanding in things of this Nature like a clear Fountain would naturally reflect as it maintains its ordinary Current when once examined and stirred either defaces or distorts and I am apt to think that the Divine Nature and its absolute Attributes are best known by the modest reflection of the first Thought The most abstracting Metaphysitian that studies them farther does but think himself into amazement and with the delaying Philosopher only loses his God by a longer Procrastination But still the same Adversary urges that 't is strangely irrational to represent God Almighty with Passions and Senses which the Scriptures every where allow This is disingenious Sophistry for he that makes the Objection cannot be ignorant of the Figure That men should quarrel with the condescentions of the Almighty That when he is graciously pleased to speak to them they should dispute the Nature of his Voice when he says he has compassion on 'em they should ask where then are his Bowels when he revokes a threatned Judgment they should plead He cannot Divine Animal would'st thou be convers'd with in the Language of Eternity wouldst thou be treated with in the ineffable Dialect of Heaven Alass fond Creature thou art Elemented and Organ'd for other Apprehensions for

to make his Council still wiser by the experience of his Dangers and all Posterity amazed with the History of his protections The last Pillar and Foundation of the Intellectual World which the Romanists have disordered is Religion Having already manifested how the Romanists have corrupted Reason defaced Morality and undermined Government our last Topic Religion of which these three are no inconsiderable Branches may seem in a great measure to have been already handled but however there is a peculiar consideration reserved for this head which consists in charging them with those impious and intolerable Abuses which they have offered to Divine Revelation and the Holy Scriptures in general For what Difficulties Obscurities and uncertainties have they ascribed to that Easie Perspicuous and Infallible Rule that they might deter the Protestants from making it their Canon and advance their own unwritten Traditions into its place they esteem our Translated Bible to be only an Asylum for Hereticks and Schismaticks a Refuge for the Disobedient and Runagate where they may shelter themselves under doubtful Texts grow obstinate in their own Interpretations and revile the Authority of the Catholick Church It is reported that there was once held a Consult in Rome whether they should expunge all St. Pauls Epistles as being the noted Mint of Seperating Doctrines nay they account the whole Body of the Scriptures the most pernitious Engines that men could ever have been intrusted with and he who seriously considers those Indignities and Invectives which they have cast upon those Sacred Volumns will be apt to believe that some of them at least are scarce agreed among themselves whether their Original was from Heaven or from Hell What Provocations what Warrants are such hints as these to a vitious Age What confidence and security will the Anti-Scripturist assume when he shall reflect how those who pretend to have had the sole Custody of the Scripture-Canon and to have been the great Guardians of Revelation ever since the Apostles times shall be found to slight Contemn and Blaspheme those reverend Truths what havock of Christian Religion must that Man make in whom Original Sin shall chance to be improved and made bold by Education Custom Habit and the applause of Vice be made powerful and Eloquent by the advantages of Wit and Parts and especially when he shall have his Argument recommended to him by the Learning and Merits of a Cardinal by the Authority of the Romans See! If we now look back and take a Survey of those Ruines which I have only pointed at what a Landskip of Deformity will the Intellectual World appear such a Confusion such a Chaos as nothing but an Almighty Wisdom can bring it to the beauty of Order again nothing but a Civil Creation can re-establish it and altho we cannot but acknowledg it a just Judgment of God upon us yet I hope I have demonstrated how the Papists have been the immediate Executioners as the Devil himself is said to be subservient to the ends of Providence in those very Actions wherein he intends nothing but his own Malice and if ever we hope to settle the Foundations of the Intellectual World amongst us we must with true Courage and Zeal with Heart and Soul renounce all manner of Popery not only that which is openly professed in their known and Common Doctrines but also that which is secretly disguiz'd in Sects and Factions Yet let this dismal Survey which I have now given be no objection to the goodness of God and the Promises of Christ for suffering the little Remnant of his Religion to be almost devoured and undermin'd by the Tyranny and Craft of Anti-Christ whilst by the Coutroversies of the Church our Saviour only examines the soundness of our Faith and by the Afflictions of it the Sincerity of our Love For God be praised we have still some amongst us who can and dare assert the just Prerogative of Reason and maintain its ample subserviency to Religion both to make void the necessity of an Infallible Chair and to curb the extravagancies of Enthusiasm the Clamors and Noises of Sceptical men have only taught their Reason its surest guard brought it out of its Eclipse and awakened it into a fuller Orb of Evidence Also the pure and immaculate Rules of Moral Righteousness still shine in our practical Divinity where the Precepts of Christ are faithfully interpreted to their utmost Perfection and their utmost perfection is made our Rule and Duty Government has its peculiar Royalty in the Doctrines our Church it has a Title in other Places but a true Empire here in our Constitutions tho not in our Practices Religion and Loyalty go hand in hand Righteousness and Peace embrace each other Here the true Church of Christ is our Established Center and Oh that the Civil Power were its just Circle of Defence Here lastly Divine Revelation enjoys its full Splendor and Reverence in its translated Form 't is a Pillar of Fire a Cloud without any Darkness the Immediate Presence of the Lord both to conduct us and secure us Victory by this alone we can hope to withstand the Fury of the Nations the Gates of Hell and Plots of Papists FINIS Books Printed for and sold by Wil. Cadman at the Popes Head in the lower walk of the New-Exchange in the Strand Folio AN Institution of General History or the history of the World by Wil. Howel L L. D. in two Volumns Historical Collections or an exact Account of the Proceedings of the four last Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth of famous Memory Pharamond a Romance compleat in English Clelia a Romance in English Parthenissa a Romance in English An Historical Heroick Poem on the Life of the right Honourable Thomas Earl of Ossery with his Picture neatly engraven on a Copper plate written by Elkana Settle Quarto An Historical Relation of the first Discovery of the Isle of Madera The Protestant Religion is a sure Foundation c. by the Right honourable Charles Earl of Denby The Jesuits Policy to suppress Monarchy by a Person of Honour A Warning-piece for the unruly in two Visitation Sermons at Preston by Seth Bushel D. D. The great efficacy and necessity of good example especially in the Clergy in a Visitation Sermon at Guilford by Tho Duncomb D. D. A Sermon Preached before the King by Miles Barns Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty A Sermon Preached at the Assizes at Lancaster by Henry Pigott B. D. Two Discourses the first shewing how the chief Criterions of Philosophical Truth invented by speculative men more eminently serve Divine Revelation than either Philosophy or Natural Religion The Second manifesting how all the Foundations of the Intellectual World viz. Reason Morality Civil Government and Religion have been undermin'd by Popish Doctrines and Policies The Temple of Death with other Poems by a Person of Honour