Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heart_n	apostle_n	believe_v	faith_n	3,458	5	5.3466	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67834	The wisdom of believing in two sermons preach'd at court, April 7, and 14. 1700 / by E. Young ...	Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.	1700 (1700)	Wing Y72; ESTC R517	27,122	76

consequence will any deny That Faith to what is Revealed is a Due which we owe not only to God for the Honour of his Truth but likewise to our selves for the sake of our safe Conduct And therefore there is like to be no Dispute whether Faith in general can make Men Wise The Dispute is only upon this Point What kind of Faith in particular it must be that makes Men Wise And we shall find that the Judgment of Mankind lies under a common Prejudice against what is true in reference to this Point For we may observe it to obtain in the World That the Faith adapted to make a Wise Man must be a Cautious and Reserved Faith because all Forwardness in Believing exposes Men to be deceived And yet in Holy Scripture we are taught clean contrary That God is only pleased with an Humble and Ready Faith and every Abatement of Forwardness is a Diminution of its Value Our Saviour in his Walk to Emmaus calls his Disciples Fools because they were slow of Heart to Believe And soon after he tells Thomas That the Tardiness of his Faith had robb'd it of its Blessing For Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed And because I am falln upon the mention of this Apostle I will choose to insist a little upon his Character which may serve both for an Example and an Illustration of the matter I am upon Thomas as far as we may learn by all the mentions made of him in Holy Writ was a Man Bold in Reasoning and extreamly Nice in Believing Which is a Character that by the standard of the present Age has Licence to pass for an Indication of Wisdom Joh. 14. 2 3 4. We have a Passage of Discourse wherein this Apostle was wholly concern'd There our Saviour says very obligingly to those about him In my Father's House are many Mansions I go to prepare a place for you And whither I go you know and the way you know To this obliging Declaration Thomas answers very peremptorily Lord we know not whither thou goest and how should we know the Way We see the Answer is directly contradicting to that which our Saviour alledged and yet no doubt but the Apostle thought himself to have Reason on his side for making such an Answer Let us imagine what that Reason might be 'T is possible he might form his arguing on this manner Lord Thou sayest Thou art going to thy Father's House to provide Mansions for us Now we know thy Father's House according to natural Generation is that of Joseph and Mary in which many Mansions are not to be had But if thou meanest a Father by any other kind of Generation or any other Inheritance which thou hast a Title to recommend us to This is what we do not understand and what we do not understand it is impossible for us to Believe And therefore say to us something that we may believe or in the mean time permit us to be Incredulous and to say We know not whither thou goest If I have in this Form Argu'd any thing contrary to the Sentiments of the Apostle I have whereof to Retract in reverence to his subsequent better Understanding But I fear I have said nothing that the present Age will require me to Apologize for Because they who set up for a leading Genius please themselves to argue in the very same Method to justifie a like Incredulity Thus runs the common Argument We cannot believe what we please we must comprehend both the Matter and its Credibility or else it were Rash and Foolish to believe it Joh. 11. We have another Passage wherein Thomas was wholly concern'd There verse 14. our Saviour says to his Disciples Our Friend Lazarus is Dead and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there to the intent you may believe This we see our Saviour urged expresly for an Encouragment of their Faith and yet Thomas his Reasoning turned it immediately into an Argument of Distrust As is apparent from what he said to his Fellow Disciples upon this Occasion verse 16. Let us also go That we may Dye with him The Key of his meaning in this Sentence we may take from the Narration in the beginning of the Chapter Where 't is sai'd That our Saviour being then in Galilee upon the News of Lazarus his Sickness proposed to go into Judea to visit him Whereupon the Disciples answer'd V. 8. Master the Jews of late sought to Stone thee and goest thou thither again Now this Thought made a deep Impression upon the wary Imagination of Thomas and therefore when he saw his Master resolved to go he wound up all into this sort of Reasoning Despair Lazarus is Dead and all his Pains and Fears are over and better it were for us if ours were so too The Jews Malice is bent upon the Destruction of us all and if our Master could not save his principal Friend from Death what hopes is there of his saving us Let us go then and meet our Doom as patiently as we can This is the natural Paraphrase of what Thomas meant by that Sentence Let us also go that we may Die with him And altho' nothing could be more contrary to the Faith he ow'd his Master or more affronting to the importance of what he had then said yet still he lookt upon this as sound Reasoning And indeed it was as sound as any other Man's is and brought forth as good Fruits as any other Man's does when it once takes Licence to Scruple what it ought to believe The last mention of this Apostle is in the Instance of the Resurrection He had been told that our Saviour was Risen from the Dead and the truth of it had been attested to him by Evidences beyond Exception Several Companies who had seen him and converst with him several times to whom he had expos'd the sight and feeling of his Wounds to whom he had Expounded the Scriptures concerning himself with whom he had broken the Sacramental Bread and conferr'd on them the operative Benediction of Receive ye the Holy Ghost All these with all these convincing Tokens had told Thomas that Christ was Risen But yet Thomas in pure Wisdom would not believe He was also called Didymus says the Text And I think that Allegation how casual soever it may seem is Argumentative to my purpose viz. Thomas had a Greek Name as well as a Hebrew one which is a probable Argument that he had had a Conversation with the Greeks and perhaps had learnt from them That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have a care of being Credulous was the grand Advice of one of their Sages and thereupon he resolved not to believe without farther Conviction than all this And no doubt but he conceiv'd Reason to be on his side for all this Behaviour Reason suggested that a wise Man ought to be cautious to the utmost least he be impos'd upon Reason suggested that when he had his Choice of several