Selected quad for the lemma: life_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
life_n	believe_v	faith_n	jesus_n	9,847	5	6.2568	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37972	A brief vindication of the fundamental articles of the Christian faith as also of the clergy, universities and publick schools, from Mr. Lock's reflections upon them in his Book of education, &c. : with some animadversions on two other late pamphlets, viz., of Mr. Bold and a nameless Socinian writer / by John Edwards ...	Edwards, John, 1637-1716.	1697 (1697)	Wing E198; ESTC R21772	71,092	137

A Brief Vindication OF THE Fundamental Articles OF THE Christian Faith AS ALSO Of the Clergy Universities and Publick Schools from Mr. Lock 's Reflections upon them in his Book of Education c. With some Animadversions on two other late Pamphlets viz. Of Mr. Bold and a Nameless Socinian Writer By Iohn Edwards B. D. LONDON Printed for I. Robinson at the Golden Lion and I. Wyat at the Rose in St. Paul's Church-yard 1697. THE Epistle Dedicatory TO BOTH UNIVERSITIES HONOURED SIRS A Late Writer hath taken the confidence to make very Disrespectfull Indecent Rude and Scurrilous Reflections upon You and hath with that Scorn and Insolence which are peculiar to him and cannot be supposed to be in any other Man censured your Studies and Ways and Methods of Learning which are at this day own'd and practis'd by you They have always born the brand of Infamy who have shew'd their ill will to these Publick Schools of Education and Professed Seminaries of Arts and Literature Pope Paul the Second and Sixtus the Fourth who succeded him were infamous on this account for both of them were ob●erv'd to bear a Hatred to Universities and publickly to declare their abhorrence of Academick Men and Learning Mr. Hobbes is a Modern Instance who was wont to decry the University-Studies and Learning because he had espoused a Set of Notions which were destructive not only to Academick but all Religious Principles But a later Instance we have in one Mr. Lock who though he infinitely comes short of the forenamed Person in Parts or Good Letters yet hath taken the courage to tread in his Old Friend's steps and publickly to proclaim his dislike of University-Men and to remonstrate against the Methods they take in bringing up of Youth The Name of Publick Schools and Academies is as hatefull to him as that of Ath●nasius to a Socinian Nor is he pleas'd with our Old Christianity but hath offer'd a New Scheme to the World the same the very same in words as well as to the Thing with what Mr. Hobbes propounded as the Perfect and Compleat Model of Faith viz. To believe in Christ is nothing else than to believe that Jesus is the Christ and no other Faith besides this Article is required to Eternal life De Cive cap. 18. The belief of this Article Jesus is the Christ or Messias is all the Faith required for Salvation Leviathan Part. 3. Chap. 43. This is the Doctrine which is revived and furbish'd up in the pretended Reasonableness of Christianity and you see whence it is borrow'd When that Writer was framing a New Christianity he took Hobbes's Leviathan for the New Testament and the Philosopher of Malmsbury for our Saviour and the Apostles See how naturally a Man passes from arraigning and vilifying the Universities to affront and abuse Religion He had with pride and contempt trampled upon the former and now he attacks the latter and treads Christianity it self under his feet It may be few of you have taken notice of the Affronts done to your selves by this Bold Assailant as not busying your selves with such sort of Writers or as thinking such Reflections below your Resentments But I having had occasion to enter the Lists with this Gentleman it falls in my way to take notice of his Double Insolence i. e. to You and to Religion but more especially the latter which he hath miserably shatter'd and unsettled and almost reduced to nothing having baulk'd a great part of the Gospels and wholly laid aside the Epistles and renounced all Articles of Christianity but One as necessary to be believ'd to constitute a Man a Christian and having every where shew'd his disdain of the Ministry and Ministers of the Gospel especially the Clergy of the Church of England So that he deserves to be treated with Satyr rather than Argument And therefore if there be in the ensuing Papers a kind of mixture of the former with the latter I hope it will not be disrelish'd even by the most Serious and Iudicious Readers when they consider on whom it is bestow'd Gentlemen I have now an opportunity of vindicating the Honour of those Renowned and Learned Bodies to which you belong and likewise of asserting and defending the Cause of Christianity wherefore I thought I should be defective as to both these Concerns if I did not offer these Papers to You and humbly request You to take them into your patronage with the Author of them who is Most Learned Sirs Your entire Servant and Hono●●er JOHN EDWARDS The Author to the Bookseller SIR YOu know Books Printed at Cambridge are commonly Licensed by the University and accordingly when I designed the following Papers for the Press there I requested Mr. Vice-Chancellor and the Regius Professor of Divinity to peruse them which they did and then returned them to me with an Imprimatur and two other Heads of Colleges for I applied my self to no more were pleased to sign the same The Form was thus April 17. 1697. Imprimatur Hen. Iames Procan Io. Beaumont Reg. Theol. Prof. Io. Covell S. T. P. Io. Balders●on S. T. P. But since I found it necessary to be printed at London 〈◊〉 that I might not seem neglectful of 〈◊〉 ●avour and Kindness of the worthy P●●sons before mentioned And that you and the Reader may see that the Ensuing Undertaking was so far approved of by those Learned Gentlemen that they Licensed the Printing of it I have thought fit for their 〈◊〉 and yours to set down their Names Your humble Servant J. E. A Brief Vindication OF THE Christian Faith c. AFter I had observed the rude and surly Genius of a late Penman the Author and Vindicator of a Treatise which he entitules The Reasonableness of Christianity I had a mind to see what was his Humour in some other of his Productions and accordingly I look'd into his Papers of Education and there I soon discover'd that it was his settled Nature and Temper to Traduce all ranks of Persons and that he had taught his Tongue to Revel and that he can't write three Pages without thrice as many Calumnies and Falshoods and so I less wondered at his Rudeness to Me. There I found that he libels the most Learned and Celebrated Societies of Men in this Nation that he strives to blast the reputation of the most Useful Perso●s and to ridicule their Publick Employments and Statiens that with an ungovernable pride and disdain he discards some Arts and Sciences and laughs at the Professors of them And in brief I found that he imperiously flies at all and like some Barbarous Invader makes havock wheresoever he comes and spares no Sex Place or Quality of Persons Of which I will now give the Reader some particular Instances and undeniable proofs For I conceive it will not be expected that I should first endeavour to make it clear that the Author of the Reasonableness of Christianity is the same person that writ concerning Education for all his Friends and Admirers

therefore every man according to his apprehensions may make as many and as few Fundamental Articles as he thinks fit What think you now of our Tutor our Anti-Academian Is not this Man of One Article disposed to entertain the Twelve New Articles of Faith of the Council of Trent It is impossible to conceive how Great Mischief that person may do whose Head is stuff'd with such Notions as these especially if we consider he is always creeping into Houses and insinuating into Families and wheadling the Masters and Mistresses and infecting the early thoughts of young Ones with such Principles Such a one the Commonwealth is concern'd to have an eye upon for the safety of the Publick And though all this while I don't suppose him to be set on work upon any consideration of his extraordinary Skill or Ability as if I took him either for a Conjurer or a Jesuite yet he may be made use of as a very fit Tool as a Convenient Machin and as I said before he may serve to be an Under-hand Factor And if the Creature had not been some such thing it is impossible he should startle and stare and fling about as the Reader may observe he doth at the naming of Popery and Rome He conceals the resentment as well as he can but the Observing Reader may plainly discern it None would have been guilty of this but our Ridiculous Masker who in imitation of the Changling kind hides his face and then thinks no body sees him But notwithstanding all his Ar●ifices and Disguises he bewrays himself As they vulgarly say of the Fiend that when he appears in Humane Shape he can never dissemble it so well but he is some way or other discover'd there is some mark to discern him by A little after p. 229 230. he returns to the One Article again and upbraids me for many I have he saith a reserve of the Lord knows how many more p. 233. which is Irreverently and Prophanely spoken because he uses the Sacred Name so slightly and vainly By this we may guess what manner of Education his Children and Nurslings have He that abuses that Holy Name himself will not check this fault in others Then in three pages together 232 233 234. he falls into his old Trot of telling me and desiring to shew and let him know c. Without any shame or remorse he continues to stuff whole pages with Reiterations of his former Writings Though he was lately not for telling but for weighing of money yet he hath other thoughts with respect to his Books for he reckons Number to be Weight Such Writers glory in the number of their Lines and think to be Voluminous is to be Argumentative Next p. 238 c. he runs back to Object against the Reason which I assigned why the believing of Iesus to be the Messias is so frequently mention'd in the New Testament And he busies himself with Wire drawing every word that I had said and scores up all along as he had done before what I must shew him and what I must prove and sets them down in distinct Figures And yet after all these little devices and pedantick tricks he hath not rais'd one Objection against me that hath any thing more in it than his Childrens Rattle And indeed it must needs be so and can't be otherwise when men have taken up false deceitful Notions and then labour to Vindicate them it is presently seen that their pretences of Arguing are mere Sound and are nothing but Childish and Noisy Amusements In no less than 20 pages afterwards he busies himself in hunting for Objections and Cavils against what I had said and at last resolves to admit but of a single Article as necessary to be believ'd in order to the making a man a Christian But will not that Sermon of St. Peter in Acts 2. evidence that there are more Fundamental Points than that one Iesus is the Messias Are not our Saviour's Passion Death and Resurrection particularly mention'd in ver 23 24 and are they not Fundamental Articles of Faith Can you believe Iesus to be the Messias without believing him to have suffer'd died and rose again To this it is answer'd p. 268. that these Articles were not proposed by St. Peter to the unbelieving Iews as Fundamental ones and consequently they are not to be reckon●d as Fundamental Articles for it is certain that the Holy Apostle proposed them as they were I request the Serious and Judicious Reader to take an estimate of Mr. Lock 's Reasonableness of Christianity from this one thing viz. his denying the Articles of our Saviour's Suffering Death and Resurrection to be Articles of the Foundation i. e. such as are necessarily required to be believ'd for the costituting a man a Christian. That he deni●s this is plain because he tells us that St. Peter propounded not these Articles as Fundamental and because according to him there is but one Fundamental Article If there be but One then these are no Fundamental Propositions unless you will say that three added to one make but one Which I think he will scarcely assent to unless his Arithmetick be proportionable to his Christianity Besides in an other place p 233. he is Positive as to this matter for his words are these The Death and Resurrection of Christ are recorded by the Spirit of God in Holy Writ but are no more necessary to be believed to make a man a Christian than any other part of Divine Revelation that is than any Inferiour Truth mention'd in the New Testament as that Christ rid upon as Ass. This he declares to be as requisite to make a man a Christian as that Christ died and rose again But stay we must not think the day is our own the Adversary begins to rally and pushes upon us with his strong Reserves as thus p. 268. Those Articles of the Crucifixion Death and Resurrection of Christ were not propos'd here as the Fundamental Articles which St. Peter principally aim'd at and endeavour'd to convince them of And afterwards They are not the Principal thing aim'd at p. 269. but only brought in by the bye A Wager on it that he is good at Push● pin None but such a Trifler as the Vindicator could have been so shameless as to offer this to a Reader of any sense and consideration for it is evident in this Sermon that our Saviour's Crucifixion and Death and Rising again are equally urged with his being Lord and Christ And the Apostle mentions his Resurrection again v. 32. This Iesus hath God reised up and therefore exhorts his Country-men and Brethren to imbrace this Iesus to believe that he suffer'd and laid down his life and took it up again for the Good of the World But our New Modeller of Christianity tells us that these are Articles occasionally brought in here by St. Peter and only as Arguments to perswade the Jews but were far from being Fundamental and Necessary Points of Christian Faith