Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	hear_v	know_v	see_v	2,997	5	3.4266	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64062	B. Taylor's Opuscula the measures of friendship : with additional tracts : to which is now added his moral demonstration proving that the religion of Jesus Christ is from God : never before printed in this volume.; Selections. 1678	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1678 (1678)	Wing T355; ESTC R11770	78,709	214

you to be and therefore you must needs be in a greater danger than we can be supposed by how much sins of omission are less than sins of commission 11. Your very way of arguing from our charity is a very fallacy and a trick that must needs deceive you if you rely upon it For whereas your men argue thus The Protestants say we Papists may be saved and so say we too but we Papists say that you Protestants cannot therefore it is safest to be a Papist consider that of this argument if it shall be accepted any bold heretick can make use against any modest Christian of a true perswasion For if he can but out-face the modesty of the good man and tell him he shall be damn'd unless that modest man say as much of him you see impudence shall get the better of the day But it is thus in every error Fifteen Bishops of Jerusalem in immediate succession were circumcised believing it to be necessary so to be with these other Christian Churches who were of the uncircumcision did communicate Suppose now that these Bishops had not only thought it necessary for themselves but for others too this argument you see was ready you of the uncircumcision who do communicate with us think that we may be saved though we are circumcised but we do not think that you who are not circumcised can be saved therefore it is the safest way to be circumcised I suppose you would not have thought their argument good neither would you have had your children circumcised But this argument may serve the Presbyterians as well as the Papists We are indeed very kind to them in our sentences concerning their salvation and they are many of them as unkind to us If they should argue so as you do and say you Episcopal men think we Presbyterians though in errors can be saved and we say so too but we think you Episcopal men are Enemies of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and therefore we think you in a damnable condition therefore it is safer to be a Presbyterian I know not what your men would think of the argument in their hands I am sure we had reason to complain that we are used very ill on both hands for no other cause but because we are charitable But it is not our case alone but the old Catholicks were used just so by the Donatists in this very argument as we are used by your men The Donatists were so fierce against the Catholicks that they would re-baptize all them who came to their Churches from the other But the Catholicks as knowing the Donatists did give right Baptism admitted their Converts to Repentance but did not re-baptize them Upon this score the Donatists triumphed saying You Catholicks confess our Baptism to be good and so say we But we Donatists deny your Baptism to be good therefore it is safer to be of our side than yours Now what should the Catholicks say or do Should they lie for God and for Religion and to serve the ends of Truth say the Donatists Baptism was not good That they ought not Should they damn all the Donatists and make the rent wider It was too great already What then They were quiet and knew that the Donatists sought advantages by their own fierceness and trampled upon the others charity but so they hardned themselves in error and became evil because the others were good I shall trouble you no further now but desire you to consider of these things with as much caution as they were written with charity Till I hear from you I shall pray to God to open your heart and your understanding that you may return from whence you are fallen and repent and do your first work Which that you may do is the hearty desire of Your very affectionate Friend and Servant JER TAYLOR The II. Letter Written to a Person newly converted to the Church of England Madam I Bless God I am safely arrived where I desired to be after my unwilling departure from the place of your abode and danger And now because I can have no other expression of my tenderness I account that I have a treble Obligation to signifie it by my care of your biggest and eternal interest And because it hath pleased God to make me an Instrument of making you to understand in some fair measure the excellencies of a true and holy Religion and that I have pointed out such follies and errors in the Roman Church at which your understanding being forward and pregnant did of it self start as at imperfect ill-looking Propositions give me leave to do that now which is the purpose of my Charity that is teach you to turn this to the advantage of a holy life that you may not only be changed but converted For the Church of England whither you are now come is not in condition to boast her self in the reputation of changing the opinion of a single person though never so excellent She hath no temporal ends to serve which must stand upon fame and noises all that she can design is to serve God to advance the honour of the Lord and the good of souls and to rejoyce in the Cross of Christ. First therefore I desire you to remember that as now you are taught to pray both publickly and privately in a Language understood so it is intended your affections should be forward in proportion to the advantages which your prayer hath in the understanding part For though you have been often told and have heard that ignorance is the mother of devotion you will find that the proposition is unnatural and against common sense and experience because it is impossible to desire that of which we know nothing unless the desire it self be fantastical and illusive it is necessary that in the same proportion in which we understand any good thing in the same we shall also desire it and the more particular and minute your notices are the more passionate and material also your affections will be towards it and if they be good things for which we are taught to pray the more you know them the more reason you have to love them It is monstrous to think that devotion that is passionate desires of religious things and the earnest prosecutions of them should be produced by any thing of ignorance or less perfect notices in any sense Since therefore you are taught to pray so that your understanding is the praecentor or the Master of the Quire and you know what you say your desires are made humane religious express material for these are the advantages of Prayers and Liturgies well understood be pleased also to remember that now if you be not also passionate and devout for the things you mention you will want the Spirit of prayer and be more inexcusable than before In many of your prayers before especially the publique you heard a voice but saw and perceived nothing of the sense and what you understood of it was like

the man in the Gospel that was half blind he saw men walking like Trees and so you possibly might perceive the meaning of it in general You knew where they came to the Epistle when to the Gospel when the Introit when the Pax when any of the other more general periods were but you could have nothing of the Spirit of prayer that is nothing of the devotion and the holy affections to the particular excellencies which could or ought there to have been represented but now you are taught how you may be really devout it is made facil and easie and there can want nothing but your consent and observation 2. Whereas now you are taken off from all humane confidences from relying wholly and almost ultimately upon the Priests power and external act from reckoning prayers by numbers from forms and out-sides you are not to think that the Priests power is less that the Sacraments are not effective that your prayers may not be repeated frequently but you are to remember that all outward things and Ceremonies all Sacraments and Institutions work their effect in the vertue of Christ by some moral Instrument The Priests in the Church of England can absolve you as much as the Roman Priests could fairly pretend but then we teach that you must first be a penitent and a returning person and our absolution does but manifest the work of God and comfort and instruct your Conscience direct and manage it You shall be absolved here but not unless you live an holy life So that in this you will find no change but to the advantage of a strict life we will not flatter you and cozen your dear soul by pretended ministeries but we so order our discourses and directions that all our ministrations may be really effective and when you receive the holy Sacrament of the Eucharist or the Lords Supper it does more good here than they do there because if they consecrate rightly yet they do not communicate you fully and if they offer the whole representative Sacrifice yet they do not give you the whole Sacrament only we enjoyn that you come with so much holiness that the grace of God in your heart may be the principal and the Sacrament in our hands may be the ministring and assisting part we do not promise great effects to easie trifling dispositions because we would not deceive but really procure to you great effects and therefore you are now to come to our offices with the same expectations as before of pardon of grace of sanctification but you must do something more of the work your self that we may not do less in effect than you have in your expectation We will not to advance the reputation of our power deceive you into a less blessing 3. Be careful that you do not flatter your self that in our Communion you may have more ease and liberty of life for though I know your pious soul desires passionately to please God and to live religiously yet I ought to be careful to prevent a temptation lest it at any time should discompose your severity Therefore as to confession to a Priest which how it is usually practised among the Roman party your self can very well account and you have complain'd sadly that it is made an ordinary act easie and transient sometime matter of temptation oftentimes impertinent but suppose it free from such scandal to which some mens folly did betray it yet the same severity you 'l find among us for though we will not tell a lie to help a sinner and say that is necessary which is only appointed to make men do themselves good yet we advise and commend it and do all the work of souls to all those people that will be saved by all means to devout persons that make Religion the business of their lives and they that do not so in the Churches of the Roman Communion as they find but little advantage by periodical confessions so they feel but little awfulness and severity by the injunction you must confess to God all your secret actions you must advise with a holy man in all the affairs of your soul you will be but an ill friend to your self if you conceal from him the state of your spiritual affairs We desire not to hear the circumstance of every sin but when matter of justice is concerned or the nature of the sin is changed that is when it ought to be made a Question and you will find that though the Church of England gives you much liberty from the bondage of innumerable Ceremonies and humane devices yet in the matter of holiness you will be tied to very great service but such a service as is perfect freedom that is the service of God and the love of the holy Jesus and a very strict religious life for we do not promise heaven but upon the same terms it is promised us that is Repentance towards God and Faith in our Lord Jesus and as in faith we make no more to be necessary than what is made so in holy Scripture so in the matter of Repentance we give you no easie devices and suffer no lessening definitions of it but oblige you to that strictness which is the condition of being saved and so expressed to be by the infallible Word of God but such as in the Church of Rome they do not so much stand upon Madam I am weary of my Journey and although I did purpose to have spoken many things more yet I desire that my not doing it may be laid upon the account of my weariness all that I shall add to the main business is this 4. Read the Scripture diligently and with an humble spirit and in it observe what is plain and believe and live accordingly Trouble not your self with what is difficult for in that your duty is not described 5. Pray frequently and effectually I had rather your prayers should be often than long It was well said of Petrarch Magno verborum fraeno uti decet cum superiore colloquentem When you speak to your Superior you ought to have a bridle upon your tongue much more when you speak to God I speak of what is decent in respect of our selves and our infinite distances from God but if love makes you speak speak on so shall your prayers be full of charity and devotion Nullus est amore superior ille te coget ad veniam qui me ad multiloquium Love makes God to be our friend and our approches more united and acceptable and therefore you may say to God the same love which made me speak will also move thee to hear and pardon Love and devotion may enlarge your Litanies but nothing else can unless Authority does interpose 6. Be curious not to communicate but with the true Sons of the Church of England lest if you follow them that were amongst us but are gone out from us because they were not of us you be offended and tempted to impute their