Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A41378
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A reasonable word to the doctors of reason being some remarks on a nameless author in his pamphlet entituled The divine unity asserted : and some observations upon a short account of the proceedings of R.S., Bishop of a dissenting congregation in London ... : also a reasonable reprimand to Mr. Considerator for his foolish boasting in his letter to H.H. ... / by N. Goldham.
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Goldham, Nath. (Nathaniel)
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1699
(1699)
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Wing G1019; ESTC R27671
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57,116
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114
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People such as Masters of Reason Learning Scholarship and the like or else a Man may find more sound Reason among a few Men of the meanest Employments and meanest Capacities than in an whole Conclave of such Doctors as you are For I pray you Sir tell me without Heat and Prejudice and with solid substantial Reason what a kind of senseless lifeless something worse than nothing must you snppose God to be if you could suppose him to be without or before he acted Hath your great Learning spoiled your Memory so much as to make you forget that common Maxim that where there is Life there is Motion Sure that Cause must be very desparately defective and unreasonably bad that necessarily runs Men upon Atheism or something worse and so much the worse because they pretend to plead for Reason all that while Nay the Considerator in his Letter to H. H. is so confident but foolish enough God knows as to tell the World they were always too hard for the Trinitarians at these two Weapons Reason and Scripture But hitherto we have found them too short in their sound Reasoning we shall try what strength they have by the Scriptures in due place In the mean time it may not be an unreasonable Work to enquire what true Reason is that we may not be as Men beating the Air crying out great is Humane Reason and at the same time scarce know what true Reason is And if the Doctors of Reason would not be offended I would tell them what I take it to be It is a good Gift of God which he is pleased to bestow in some measure on most of the Children of Men whereby we are enabled to discern the Connexion or Dependancy that one thing hath upon another Hence it follows that Knowledge is not Reason neither can Reason work without knowledge any more than a Man can walk in the Air or a Carpenter can build a House without a Foundation Hence it follows that the greatest Scholars are not always the wisest Men as one of their own hath lately told us as good and as great a one perhaps as any this day living Saith he There are a great many Scholars who are carried only by their Books They know much and therefore can tell a great deal as you know every Fool can tell as he is told But for matter of sound Reason whereby they are inabled to draw just and Reasonable conclusions from known and certain Premises If it be never so little out of their Book Road and for which they have not as yet consulted an Author Truly a Man may let a great many of these Gentlemen alone hence it comes to pass for we are now discoursing about Reason it is a power of drawing just and right conclusions from known and certain Premises Hence it is that though Learning is in it self a very great and very good Gift of God and a great accomplishment to a Man and therefore to be highly prized by them that have it and to be honoured by them that have it not Yet great Scholarship cannot deliver some Men from being great Blockheads for Soveraign Pleasure will bestow his Gifts to whom and how he pleaseth to one a Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge by the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12. 8. How preposteriously then do those Gentlemen go to Work that would Measure the being and properties of the infinite God by their weak and imperfect Reason of which there are as many degrees it may be as there are Men in the World and which can no more Work of it self without some Knowledge to Work upon then an Artist can Work without Tools or Matter to Work upon And it is impossible for Man to have any saving Knowledge of God but by Revelation and there are but three Ways that ever God revealed himself by to Men they are his Works his Word and by his Holy Spirit and it is not our Reason as it is a Faculty or Power in us now corrupted that can gather any true or saving Knowledge of God as he is in himself or will be to us from his Works of Creation and Providence No nor from his Word neither without the Aid of his Holy Spirit and that in an especial manner We see this by the Heathen who were as great Masters of Reason as any of our present Pretenders and yet were far enough from a true Knowledge of God and how could they for who knows the Mind of God much less the Nature but the Spirit of God and he to whom he reveals him But let us consider the Knowledge that God gives us of himself by Creation and see what improvements Reason can make of it we see a visible World and therefore by the Apostles Argument in Romans 1. 19. 20. we may conclude that there was some being that gave being to those Visible Changeable things and that this being must be before all those things that do appear else he could not give them being Thus arguing by Reason from the Effects to the Cause we rise from the Men now in being to the first Man that was Made and so likewise of all other Created beings to the first of them And so likewise of the Heavens and the Earth and all that therein is whose very being declare they had a Maker who is God for he that Maketh all things is God Hence we may Reasonably conclude that this God is an Almighty Infinitely Wise God yea that he is a Merciful God for his Mercy is Written in visible Characters over all his visible Works and yet it must be acknowledged that all the Reason that the greatest Doctors of it ever had could never gather any Reasonable hope of the Pardon of their Sin or of Eternal Life by the Revelation that God hath made of himself by the Works of Creation and Providence If you tell me you may hope for Mercy because you are the Works of his hands his Mercy being over all his Works I Answer the Devils may as Reasonably hope for Mercy as you or I upon this Account for they are Creatures and so are we and they are Sinners and so are we So that there is a necessity for God to reveal himself to us by some more Clearer Light then that of Creation if you and I ever come to a true and saving Knowledge of him this necessarily leads us to consider what Revelation God makes of himself in his Word But Before I come to Consider that I would a little inquire what further improvements Reason can make of the Work of Creation to find out God and Counting things One by One to find out the Account as we have began we may come to know that God is an Eternal being without beginning of days or end of time and it is necessary he should be so else he could not give being to all other beings neither could such an Infinite being arise or spring out of nothing but he is a Self