Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	know_v	light_n	see_v	4,540	5	3.7084	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52615	The system of grace, and free-will as 'tis held in the Catholick Church, and the Church of England; proposed, and vindicated. In a visitation sermon. By Stephen Nye.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1700 (1700)	Wing N1509; ESTC R217852	12,408	33

THE SYSTEM OF Grace and Free-will As 't is held in the Catholick Church and the Church of England proposed and vindicated IN A Visitation Sermon By STEPHEN NYE LONDON Printed for J. Robinson at the Golden Lion in St. Paul's Church-yard and A. Bell at the Cross Keys and Bible in Cornhil 1700. The System of Grace and Free-will as it is held in the Catholick Church and the Church of England 1 Cor. xv 10. Not I but the Grace of God which was with me THE liberty or necessity of Human Actions hath been a warm Controversy a very doubtful and perplex'd Inquiry as well among Divines as Philosophers The Philosophers that said all our Actions are necessitated offer'd for their Opinion chiefly that as the Understanding always and necessarily imbraceth seeming Truth so the Will chooseth and cannot but choose what seemeth good and best In short the Will ever followeth the present Dictate of the Understanding what to the Understanding for the present seemeth Truth or good the Will cannot but approve and practice From these Maxims it follows that all Errors are involuntary and all our Choices necessary But more generally the Philosophers denied this fatality of Truth and Error of Good and Evil and some of them with a particular Zeal They are the words of Alexander Aphrodisiensis in his excellent Book de fato to the Emperors Antonini Si fatum tum non sunt laudationes vituperationes at si istae non sunt non est bonum vel malum morale si ista non sunt profecto nec Dii i. e. If there be Fate then there is neither Praise nor Dispraise but if these are not neither can there be moral Good or Evil and if not these neither truly are there Gods or a Divine Nature Therefore these Philosophers denied that the Understanding always affects or necessarily submits to TRUTH and much more that the Will necessarily imbraces apparent GOOD or what seems BEST It is too well known said they that we are so far from always seeking or necessarily submitting to Truth that we are even afraid ordinarily and very shie of being convinced of some unconvenient Truths And hence it is that 't is seen in daily Experience that Men as readily and easily shut the Eye of the Understanding against unwelcome Truths as they can shut the bodily Eye against Light and thereby exclude it I may add not only particular Men but whole Nations do this Can there be a more bright Truth than that a piece of Bread is not a human Body And yet against this so many Nations have shut the Eye of the Understanding believing that a consecrated Wafer is the real Body of Christ In short Interest or even only Prepossession often disposes Men to reject the very clearest Truths As to the other that the Will always and necessarily imbraces apparent GOOD and what seems BEST the Philosophers opposed it by divers Arguments Where-ever there is Prudence say they and Reason there is also a Power of deliberating and where Deliberation is there can be no Constraint no Necessity of any sort if there were there would be no deliberating And whereas some urge that after deliberating we always and also necessarily choose what seems GOOD or BEST That we always choose it if it were true yet were not to the purpose For I may always choose a thing and yet I may choose it freely and not as constrained or fatally But it is not true that we always choose what is Good or Best for sometimes only to show that we are free and not determined fatally by the Goodness or Excellence of an Object or Choice but by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an arbitrary or self-movement or out of mere Wantonness and Game we choose or do not what is Good or Best but what hath some unconvenience And if it were necessary to the Will to choose what for the present appears to the Understanding to be Good or Best we could never advise consult or deliberate at all for the Understanding sees at first view a Goodness in some things and in others that they are best in some respects It tarrieth for all that it suspends its Action and Choice it adviseth whether there be not something still better it may be the Consideration and Election is laid by for days or weeks or even for years which sheweth that the Goodness or even the Excellence of things doth not necessarily and inevitably dispose us to Choice or Action It seems impertinent to renew here the Exception that let the Consideration or Election be delayed never so long we shall at last necessarily choose what shall seem Good and Best for I demand why now more than before what seem'd Good and Best did not before necessarily determine me therefore neither can it now merely because 't is Good or Best Again the most perfect Being of all GOD who judgeth what is Good and Best unerringly doth not always choose the Best He could have made the World and every Creature in it more perfect than they are he could have made the World bigger Mankind more numerous and morally better He could have made us all impeccable as the Saints in Heaven are He could have provided that there should neither be Sin nor Misery in the World That he hath not chose these best things best as well to himself as to the Creature was from the Freedom of his Will And if thus the Will of the most perfect Mind is free to choose is not obliged necessarily by the Light in his Understanding much less are our less perfect Minds because having less Light in our Understanding our Understanding can but feebly influence our Will so far will it be from necessarily determining it As Philosophy has been always studied together with Divinity 't is obvious to observe that many Divines and very potent Parties of Christians have followed in the Question now before us the sense of the particular Philosophers or Sects of Philosophy whom they admired For some have contended for it that we have a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an absolute and arbitrary Freedom of Will to choose Evil or Good and to refuse While others have said on the contrary that all Men are under some such natural or if you will moral Impotence that we cannot choose or will Good without the Grace of God exciting us and assisting us by irresistible Acts. The first of these is Pelagianism the other hath had several Names but since the Reformation it hath been called Calvinism now more commonly Jansenism What I take to be the Doctrine of the Catholick Church and of the Church of England and is a middle between the Extremes of Jansenism and Pelagianism but is not very commonly observed or not so dexterously proposed I shall represent and vindicate by and by At present I observe only in general that the Catholick Church disapproves the Conclusions of the Philosophers as well of the one as the