Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	doctrine_n	miracle_n	wrought_v	1,703	5	8.8085	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30400	A rational method for proving the truth of the Christian religion, as it is professed in the Church of England in answer to A rational compendious way to convince without dispute all persons whatsoever dissenting from the true religion, by J.K. / by Gilbert Burnet.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1675 (1675)	Wing B5846; ESTC R32583	48,508	114

propagated as it was it could not have been made out that it was true and if so what must have been the strong Arguments used for it before it was so propagated Either these were convincing or not if they were not convincing then it being propagated by weak and unconcluding Arguments we cannot be bound to submit to it or believe it if these Arguments were convincing we either know them or we know them not if we know them not how can we judge they were convincing if we know them then we may be as well convinced by them as those were to whom they were at first proposed The great Argument the Apostles offered was that our Blessed Saviour wrought many Miracles in the sight of the Iews and that he being dead and laid in the grave was raised from the dead and after a long stay with them on earth they saw him ascend with great glory to Heaven of all which they were witnesses Now these being matters of Fact so positively attested by so many eye-witnesses who were men of great probity that could not be cast on the pretence of their being hired or bribed there being no interest could lead them to give that testimony but only truth all other considerations deterring them from it there was good reason then and remains so still to believe this true whether the world had embraced it or not And I will ask I. K. what if the Gentiles had rejected their testimony as well as the Iews did yet if these sacred writings had been with a most Religious care conveyed down to us had we not been bound to believe the Gospel certainly we had for the Apostles were men who upon the strictest tryal of Law must be admitted as competent witnesses they were well informed of what they heard and saw for a tract of three or four years they were plain simple men who could not in reason be suspect of deep designs or contrivances they in the testimonies they gave do not only vouch private stories that were transacted in corners but publick matters seen and known of many hundreds they all agreed in their testimony so that the fumes of melancholy could not lead so many into such an agreement of mistakes Their testimonies if false might have been easily disproved the chief power being in the hands of their enemies who neither wanted power cunning nor malice And in fine the truth of their testimony appears in their constant adhering to it from which neither imprisonments whippings tortures no not death it self could divert them From all which it is as evident as is possible any matter of Fact can be that their testimony was true and this discourse must hold good whether the world had received and believed their report or not Which was the more fully confirmed by the miraculous operations of the Apostles in the name of Christ by which they did cast out Devils and cure all manner of diseases and to this they appeal in their Epistles and Acts which were published at that time wherein had the matter of Fact not been true they had been branded as bold and impudent Impostors We have also a Series of Books in all Ages citing the Writings wherein these Testimonies are contained by which we know they were written at that very time And the Apologists for the Christian Faith in their Apologies appeal to the wonders that were still wrought for confirmation of the Faith nor can we imagine that men of common sense not to say Modesty and Ingenuity would have appealed to proofs that were slender and false in matter of Fact Thus we see that great confirmation of our Saviour from his Miracles is made good by another way of proof than by the propagation of it which I do not deny doth very strongly make out the truth of all yet is rather a consequent confirmation of what hath been said than an antecedent argument for proving it So though it be far from my thoughts to weaken this way of confirming Christian Religion yet it is plain that an extraordinary propagation will not infer the truth of the Doctrine though it be allowed it was done by Miracles since we cannot be assured these Miracles are wrought by a good Spirit till we first consider the Doctrines they confirm whether they be good or not It doth also appear that the truth of these Miracles is made out abundantly to us abstracting from the way of propagating them But in end we must a little examine what this way of propagating them was and we shall find that notwithstanding all the calumnies and lesser persecutions of the Iews of the derision of the Philosophers of the prejudice carnal lusts and appetites laid in the way and above all of the violent oppositions given it by the Roman Emperors who spared no cruelty for a Succession of three Ages and ten Persecutions that hell or hellish men could devise for destroying it yet it prevailed and in a few years did spread to the astonishment of the world and all other Religions were not only overthrown by the many Converts were daily flocking in to the Christian Church but by the ruine of these very Religions Judaism fell to the ground by the subversion of their Temple and the total ruine and dispersion of their State begun by Vespasian and Titus and compleated by Trajan and Hadrian nor could their attempts though cherished by an apostate Emperour succeed for the rebuilding their Temple Heaven and Earth combining to break off the work Heathenism did also receive a mortal blow by the silencing the Oracles upon the beginnings of Christianity which were the great supports of that Religion with the vulgar And the exemplary lives the heavenly Doctrines the mutual Charity and the noble Constancy of the first Witnesses and Martyrs of the Christian Faith wrought not a little on all that beheld th●m even on such as were very partial and byassed against them And the Christian Religion being thus universally received as it is a very full demonstration that these Miracles were no forgeries but known and approved truths So also it confirms in us a belief that there was an extraordinary presence of God in these beginnings of Christianity assisting and animating those Converts of all Ages Sexes and Qualities to adhere to it under all the discouragements and sufferings they were to pass through whether occasioned by the irregular appetites of their own carnal lusts or by the outward oppositions they met with And thus far I have considered how the truth of Christian Religion can be made out against the opposition of Atheists Infidels or Deists Hitherto I have waited on I. K. in the survey of these Truths about which we are agreed and I hope upon a review of what we have both performed he will not deny but I have strengthened his Positions with the accession of many more and better Arguments than any he brought So that if he be in earnest zealous for these four great Truths he will rejoyce to

or writing such Characters as shall convey into the ears or eyes of others Corporeal Impressions from which they may judge of our thoughts which is a great way about and much more unintelligible though we are very sure it is true then that a spirit shall communicate its thoughts to our understandings which it may either do by such outward impressions on our senses as bring the thoughts of other men to our knowledge or without these outward objects may make the same Impressions on our Brain And like to this are the impressions made on us in sleep in which we imagine we converse with the objects of sense Or finally without the means of any Corporeal phantasms a spirit especiaally the supreme and soveraign spirit may immediately convey to our understanding its pleasure as well as our understandings do receive hints from gross phantasms which is a great deal harder to conceive than this Thus the Atheist can propose nothing that will prove there can be no Inspiration but there is great necessity of guarding this both from the juglings of Impostors and the more innocent though no less hurtful deceits of our heated fancies which may obtrude their Notions on us as Divine especially in some in whom the Spleen or hysterical distempers may produce strange effects therefore this must be well proved and warranted before others are bound to acknowledge or submit to it nor must the great heats and divine Raptures of the inspired person ingage our belief We know how the Sibylls were said to be inspired and with what Bacchick fury many heathen Priests delivered some of their Impostures and it is dayly seen what strange appearances of inspiration are in hysterical persons Therefore it must be accompanied with such other extraordinary Characters as can neither be the forgeries of Juglers nor the vapours of the Spleen or Mother and these are Miracles or Prophecies which are certain indications of some extraordinary and supernatural presence with the inspired persons And thus far I have helped I. K. to prove the necessity of Revelation for the ascertaining mankind of the Worship and Obedience that God requires and have met with the great objections which Deists and other enemies to Revelation bring against it But I now follow him to his fourth proposition about the truth of the Christian Religion CHAP. IV. It is considered if J. K. hath proved convincingly the truth of the Christian Religion J. K. goes on in his Series of truths and his next attempt is to prove the truth of Christian Religion And indeed the Atheism that hath of late broke out in the world and in upon us hath engaged so many excellent pens of all the parties and divisions of Christendom to stand up in vindication of our most holy Faith with so much closeness of Reason that it may be justly a problem whether that pestiferous contagion hath not occasioned as much good to Christian Religion by the many admirable Treatises have been writ for it upon that account as it hath done hurt by its own venome But to see I. K. manage so glorious a Cause so poorly and so faintly after all that light which these Books offer does justly raise Indignation and it is plain he was afraid to bring out the strongest proofs for it lest it should appear there was much more to be said for the Verity of the Christian Religion than can be for the Roman but I. K. being resolved to prove there was no more to be said for the one than for the other and therefore would manage this Cause faintly that he might maintain the other more strongly and so it seems cares not with how slender Evidence ●e assert the truth of Christianity so that the truth of the Roman Religion be but as undisputed His great Argument for its truth is That it hath been miraculously propagated which could not have been without true and real Miracles and these are manifest proofs of that truth which they confirm Now since Christian Religion though it contains Mysteries far above the reach of humane reason and severities contrary to humane Inclinations yet has been propagated without the help of Arms or humane enticements by men of themselves unfit for so great a work and hath overcome other Religions which were both well established and preached liberty and pleasures Then this was either done with Miracles or without them if with them it is confessed there were Miracles if without them such a propagation must be confessed to be a Miracle This is the substance of what I. K. brings for the proof of the Christian Religion But this alone cannot satisfie a considering mind For it is acknowledged by all who believe any Religion that the power of evil spirits is very great and far above ours so that Miracles cannot determine my belief since there must go somewhat previous to that Therefore Moses told the people of Israel that though a Prophet by a Sign or wonder did amuse them and upon that perswaded them to go after other gods they should not hearken to that Prophet but put him to Death And S. Paul tells us that if an Angel from heaven should preach another Gospel he must be anathematized So that Miracles or other extraordinary apparitions do not prove a Prophet Therefore the first and great Argument for the proof of the Christian Religion is the purity of the Doctrine and the holiness of its precepts which are all so congruous to the common Impressions of nature and reason and this must prove as our Saviour himself taught us that his Miracles were true ones and not wrought by the Prince of Devils since his Doctrine is opposite and destructive of his Interest and Kingdom And our Saviour also asserts the truth of what he said most commonly from this Topick that he came not to do his own will but the will of him that sent him that he sought not himself nor his own honour but his Father's Again our Saviour asserts his authority from the Prophecies of Moses and the other inspired persons of that Dispensation whose predictions of the Messias did all agree to him and receive completion in him And from these our Saviour often silenced the Iews and this is to us still a strong Argument that these Books which the enemies and blasphemers of our Religion have still kept as sacred and had among them for some thousands of years do give such clear and evident Characters of our Saviour as their Messias as must needs convince every serious and sober enquirer These are the chief and great proofs of the authority of our Saviour by which we are assured that all the mighty works he did were by the presence and wonderful assistance of a Divine spirit And for the Miracles themselves I. K. would resolve all our certainty concerning them into a miraculous propagation of Christianity So that if there be no other certain way to prove them then if Christian Religion had not been so