Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	church_n	faith_n	unity_n	1,807	5	9.0990	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42447	Some considerations concerning the Trinity and the ways of managing that controversie	Gastrell, Francis, 1662-1725.	1696 (1696)	Wing G303; ESTC R14599	33,473	64

only as a Tryal and Exercise of our Faith and the more implicit that is the fuller do we express our trust and relyance upon God Nay farther There are those who do not scruple to say the more Contradictions the better the greater the Struggle and Opposition of Reason the greater is the Triumph and Merit of our Faith But there 's no likelihood of suppressing any of our Doubts or Disputes in Religion this way For besides the Natural Propension of the Soul to the search of Truth and the strong and impatient desire we have to know as much as ever we can of what immediately concerns us 't is generally and very justly look'd upon both as the Priviledge and Duty of Man to Enquire and Examine before he believes or judges and never give up his assent to any thing but upon Good and Rational Grounds And therefore 't would be a very hard thing to perswade the World to stifle and restrain so many Powerful Motives of Action But should they be farther prevailed upon to go directly contrary to their Reason 't would be much more difficult to Conquer the uneasiness of the Reluctance And indeed 't is well the difficulties of subduing the Understanding are too great to be master'd For a slight Reflection will serve to convince us that the necessary Consequences of a blind Resignation of Judgment would be far more Fatal to Christianity than all our present Divisions What Blasphemies and Contradictions may and have been imposed upon mens belief under the Venerable Name of Mysteries And how easie are Villainous Practices derived from an absurd Faith This is matter of common Observation and has brought a just Scandal upon a large Party of Christians and given occasion to Men of light undistinguishing Capacities to deny and scoff at the Saving Truths of the Gospel because they were accompanyed with a ridiculous mixture of Errors No doubt therefore we may and ought carefully to Examine the Faith and Principles we design for the Rule of our Lives and endeavour to understand all our Religion so far as to be able to Justifie it both to our Selves and Unbelievers We ought indeed to proceed with all the Caution and Humility imaginable and take a just Estimate of our Task and Abilities But to deny us the Liberty either of using or obeying our Reason is a suspicious as well as an unjust Restraint 2. There are others who call the Doctrine of the Trinity an Incomprehensible Mystery and yet are at a great deal of pains to bring it down to a Level with Humane Understanding and are all very earnest to have their own particular Explications acknowledged as necessary Articles of Faith But the number and disagreement of the Expositors plainly discover the vanity of such Pretences This has proved so unsuccessful a way that instead of uniting the different Judgments of Christians in one Point it has broke the Controversie into a Thousand more For Zeal and Opposition raising up a great many Assertors of the Common Belief and every one looking out for some new Terms and Modes of Speech which should be fuller and more expressive than those in Question the Differences and Disputes were by consequence proportionably multiplyed For the Terms and Forms of Speech made use of being capable of several sences and each of them attended with other Accessory Idea's Mistakes must necessarily arise and divers new Thoughts be suggested to such whose Heads were employed upon the same Subject And thus it came to pass that Defences and Vindications of the Orthodox Faith produced more Heresies Wherefore in all such Matters as these which are too big to be grasp'd we had better sit down contented with what we have firm hold of than tire our selves with vain Endeavours to take in more 'T would certainly be the truest and the safest way strictly to confine our selves to Scripture Expressions and never speak of Supernatural Things but in the Language of Revelation which being the proper Standard of all other words that shall be used on these Occasions 't is in vain to shift the Measure when there 's never another to be found which can or ought to reach farther It may however sometimes be necessary to change this Method and introduce New Terms to secure the True Faith against the False Interpretations of such as pervert Scripture For if Hereticks will make use of New Expressions to contradict the received Doctrine we must have New Terms to express the same Truth in in Opposition to their Heresie And in this case the Church may very reasonably require her Members to shew their steady continuance in the Ancient Faith by the use of such Terms as plainly infer their denyal of any later erroneous Inventions set up against it 3. There are a Third sort of Men in the World who pretend That there is no Mystery proposed to us as an Object of Faith and in order to make this of the Trinity appear to be none they bring a Cloud over the whole Bible and with strange forc'd Criticisms and Allegories give the very plainest Texts such an unusual Mysterious turn as neither the Language will bear nor is any ways consistent with the Design or Character of the Holy Writers But this is a very odd preposterous Method of Explaining Scripture by darkening a great part of it to illustrate the rest and as ridiculous a Project of healing Divisions as pulling down a whole side of standing Wall to mend a Breach And after all the Socinian Hypothesis seems to me to have more of Mystery and Contradiction to Natural Reason in it than what is objected to the Catholick Doctrine I am not for clogging the Faith nor multiplying Mysteries yet we ought not presently to deny what we do not understand but soberly and impartially consider how much we are able to Comprehend and how far we are obliged to Believe what we do not The Method therefore I design to observe in the following Discourse shall be different from any of those now mentioned I shall not go about to press Men to a Blind Veneration or Presumptuous Belief of any thing without Examination or in Defiance to Reason I shall not offer to impose any New Arbitrary Explications of my own upon other mens Consciences but confine my self wholly to the usual warranted Forms of Expression I will not wrest and strain Scripture to help out a Private Notion nor do any thing to betray the Just Rights and Priviledges of our Common Reason but carefully endeavour to distinguish How far the Doctrine of the Trinity is a Mystery and how far a Mystery may become an Object of Faith From whence I hope to make it appear that nothing hard or unreasonable is required of us by our Church for the belief of this Article In order to which I shall rank all my Reflections upon this Subject under these Three Heads of Enquiry I. What it is that perplexes and obscures our Faith in the Trinity II. What is sufficient for

order therefore to form a determinate Act of Faith in this Point I must carefully examine my self what Notions I have of God of Vnity and Identity Distinction and Number and Person As to the Notion of a Deity 't is true indeed I have not a full and adequate Idea of God neither is my Soul capable of it but what Conceptions I have of his Nature and Perfections are according to my Apprehension so far clear as to enable me truly and justly to determine which of those distinct Idea's I have in my Mind are applicable to him and which are not And such a Knowledge of the Divine Nature as this is a sufficient direction of my Faith in any Proposition concerning God where I clearly understand all the Idea's attributed to him In the next place therefore I am to consider what Notions I have of Vnity and Identity Distinction and Number And here I confess I am at a Loss how to deliver my self these being some of our first and most simple Idea's which are so clear of themselves that I cannot find clearer to explain them by For this is certain that every Man is conscious to himself that he has a power of perceiving and comparing his Perceptions and consequently must know when any thing is presented to his Mind whether it be perceivable at one entire view and whether the Object have one uniform appearance or not He must be also sensible in a succession of Idea's when the same Appearances are repeated again and how often the Representation is varied However notwithstanding the Clearness of these Notions with respect to what passes in our own Minds we are not able to make true and distinct Judgments of the unity or multiplicity of things without us For it does not follow that what is represented to the Soul at once under one Idea or Appearance should according to the reality of things be one undivided nature neither can it be inferred that what is represented to the Soul under different Idea's are so many distinct real Beings For there are some Idea's purely of the Soul 's own making and not copied from any external Patterns where there are a great many particular real Beings of different kinds and natures comprehended under one Representation Thus all the Hills Plains Rivers Trees and Towns c. which the Eye can reach from such or such a Point we put into one Picture and call it a Landskip or Prospect Thus does the Soul enlarge its View to all the Works of God and Nature it takes in the whole Creation at a Thought and calls it World On the other side the real Natures and Essences of Things which are allowed to consist in a simple undivided Vnity are not conceivable by us at once but at different Views by different partial Conceptions which the Soul afterwards compounds and calls by one Name Thus when we endeavour to comprehend the Nature and Essence of what we call Man we form at different times several confused Notions of Substance Body Life Sense and Reason every one of which is a complicated Idea and to be resolved into a great many others more simple and distinct As for instance I must form a great many Idea's of particular Actions and the Modes Differences and Relations of them before I can have any tolerable knowledge of what Reason is and so for the rest All therefore that we understand of the unity of things without us is this When we perceive any Object in a continued Position bounded and fenced out from other things round about it all within such Terms and Limits we call One And then again observing a great many different Actions produced in and by such an Object we judge all these Actions and Operations to proceed from one common Principle in some such manner as Streams from a Fountain or several Lines from the same Centre And whatever we thus judge to be One tho' a great many Thoughts and Conceptions go to the forming of such a Judgment we endeavour as well as we can to represent to our selves under one Idea or Appearance tho' the Representation be often very confused and indistinct And this we do as supposing it wholly and uniformly conceivable at one single View were it not for the Imperfection of our Faculties Which Supposition is not without good Ground for this we have plain Experience for that when any visible Object is of such a magnitude or in such a situation that the Eye cannot receive the whole Image of it at once we take it in at different times from different points of Sight and yet for all this we find no more Reason to doubt of the real Unity of such an Object than of any other whose Image came into the Soul entire at one Act of Vision for we easily conceive there may be other Organs of Sight which would reflect the whole Object together And from thence we conclude further that there may be also some other Mind more perfect than ours which perceives that as one simple Idea which we cannot apprehend but by a union of several different Conceptions From whence it follows that the most perfect Mind which is God is the only true and proper Standard of all Unity and Distinction The Summe of all my Thoughts is this What is meant by one or more the same or different Idea's is better to be conceived by inward Reflexion than can possibly be explained by Words Such an Idea which is not distinguishable into different Appearances I call a simple Idea When I have any Thought or Perception which is resolvable into several Idea's I call this a complex or compounded Notion And hence I term any Being simple or compounded according as it is perceivable by some Mind under one simple Appearance or a complex Idea Whether my Idea's are agreeable to the real Natures of Things or those original Fatterns in the Mind of God I cannot certainly know but when they are the same and when they differ from one another I plainly perceive tho' I cannot always judge of the Identity or Distinction of Things according as they are represented to my understanding under the same or different Appearances For here I should be sometimes mistaken too as 't is plain I often must if I judged of the real unity or multiplicity of Things by my own Idea's The Notions we have of the unity of Things without us come the nearest that can be imagin'd to our Idea's of Point and continued Extension one of which represents simple unity the other compounded the one we apply to what we call spiritual Beings the other to material For 't is certain the Conception we have of Body can never furnish us with any Idea of simple Unity By a Spirit then we mean something without extension and consequently indivisible capable of performing some such kind of Actions which do in some manner or degree resemble those we are conscious of But what that is from whence I suppose such