Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	place_n	scripture_n	word_n	9,705	5	4.5641	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33231	Animadversions upon a book intituled, Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church, by Dr. Stillingfleet, and the imputation refuted and retorted by S.C. by a person of honour.	Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674.; Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699. Fanaticism fanatically imputed to the Catholick Church.	1673 (1673)	Wing C4414; ESTC R19554	113,565	270

the Rules and prescriptions which Mr. Cressy and some other of his Friends have taken upon them to give for rendring the same more perfect and exact And though the Doctor is more modest than to make his own judgment and understanding an argument to condemn what another man thinks very reasonable which is the syllogism the other out of kindness hath made for him yet truly I have so good an opinion of Mr. Cressy's understanding that if he should tell me that he had held a discourse upon matter of Religion with a man who entertained him for half an hour in a continued speech with many proper and in themselves very intelligible words which drew his best attention to what he said which was all pronounced in so grave a tone that he suspected his own understanding for not quickly comprehending what his meaning could be but that after all his intentness of mind he could observe nothing but a heap of words improperly mingled together without any coherence or context to make any signification I should presently conclude that what he had heard was unintelligible canting for what other definition can be given of unintelligible canting than a dialect of affected words which have no congruity and of which men of very competent parts and who hear patiently cannot collect any sence And I have always believed that men who cannot express their own meaning in words and a method that men of good comprehension do understand their meaning have not clear notions themselves of what they do deliver and if mystick Divines will express their conceptions of the most pure operations of the Soul her self and likewise of God upon the Soul in such terms and language as none but those of their own fraternity can upon hearing them know what they would have they must not take it ill if other men believe that they have a peculiar cipher between themselves which being in words is only sence to them and canting to every body else But without doubt Prayer and whatsoever relates to it should always consist of language so plain and easie that the meanest and lowest of the people cannot but know what every word signifies And as he is commonly very unhappy in his application of Scripture so he now prophanes S. Paul's name to a purpose so contrary to what he would apply it to that if there were no other argument to convince him of his error that Text alone would do it very amply S. Paul who he says was the greatest Master of Language that perhaps ever was yet for want of words could not describe the extasie he had been in nor the vision that he had seen but professed that no humane language could describe them nor humane fancy comprehend them and therefore Mr. Cressy says that according to the Doctors grounds S. Paul should be the greatest Fanatick that ever was yea the Father of all Fanaticks yet the Doctor dares not call him so whereas the Doctor only calls those Fanaticks who will not imitate S. Paul but upon an imagination that they have seen somewhat which few men believe they did see will needs describe it in words which no body understands and though that great Master of Language therefore forbore to mention what he had seen or heard because there were no words which would serve the turn he hath helped S. Paul to proper words to do it by and says that it cannot be denied to have been a passive union of S. Paul's Soul with God but since S. Paul could not tell what it was we are not bound to believe that Mr. Cressy knows better or can better express it and it were to be wished that his Friends if they have such apparitions as they cannot understand they will be as modest as S. Paul and not go about to describe them nor believe that they do understand themselves what they cannot make any body else to understand Since Mr. Cressy appeals from the Doctor to the indifferent Reader upon his sharp censure of some expressions in Sancta Sophia and takes much pains to make elucidations upon those difficult places which the Doctor thought hard to be understood and which he seems to believe will by the pains he hath taken appear very intelligible I cannot but take my self to be one of those indifferent Readers who is not by any prejudice to the man or to the matter uncapable of judging of the sence of what he reads And I must confess that by Mr. Cressy's favour and direction I had one of those Books of Sancta Sophia presented to me assoon as it was printed which I was the more impatient to read because he had recommended it to me as a Book worthy to be read by all Christians since it medled not with any Controversies but was the greatest help to devotion in general that had been yet published nor did he think himself concerned in the commendation since he always professed that he was not Author of any thing contained in the Book but of the method and marshalling the several discourses out of Papers and Notes not enough digested by the death of Mr. Baker who was generally esteemed a learned and devout man and truly I believe he might be so and as I have heard for I never saw him nor did Mr. Cressy I think spent more time privately upon his own thoughts than in books or conversation I cannot deny but that I did then think that what was not very vulgarly said which was honest was very obscure and difficult to be understood which I did really impute to want of capacity in my self until I read many of the particulars to others much wiser and in all respects very competent judges of such discourses and when upon a full disquisition I found them of the same opinion and that they knew not how to make any thing that was said applicable to heighten their own devotions I begun to conclude too that what benefit soever others might attain by reading it for I met with some women who professed to have received much benefit by it I should get little in taking more pains to comprehend it and I remember it came out much about the same time that Sir Henry Vane published a book of the same subject of the love of God and the union with God which when I had read and found nothing of his usual clearness and ratiocination in his discourse in which he used much to excel the best of the company he kept and that the stile thereof was very like that of Sancta Sophia and that in a crowd of very easie words the sence was too hard to find out I was of opinion that the subject matter of it was of so delicate a nature that it required another kind of preparation of mind and it may be another kind of diet than men are ordinarily supplied with And I am now the more confirmed in that judgment by finding all Mr. Cressy's glosses which he hath taken the pains to make to

the care of their Souls is committed than him who is a stranger to them or if they have heard of him they ought the less to believe him Whoever knows the Doctor and Him or hath carefully perused their writings cannot be blamed for preferring the former before the latter But then how can these people who read the Scripture and appeal to it know that they have the true Scripture which is the word of God which is a worn-out question that hath been as often answered as asked The Church of Rome hath no other evidence of the truth of it than we have and the Tradition that hath derived it doth as much belong to the Church of England as to the other there is no difference between us in any particular that relates to Tradition where the tradition is as universal or as manifest as it is in that of the Scripture The Doctor is so far from saying or thinking that every Christian is to be a judge of the sence of Scripture that he doth not believe that every Church is fit to be a judge of it nor doth it appear that the Church of Rome it self which would be thought to be Catholick and instar omnium doth pretend to understand much less to judge of the sence of the whole Scripture and yet a very weak member of either may clearly understand the sence of those particular places which are necessary to be understood for his salvation as no man is so ignorant as not to know what the sence of Adultery and of Theft and Murder and the like which he is forbid to be guilty of and if he be so ignorant he will not be the more inclined to detest them by reading the School-men and if he be of the Church of England he knows whither to repair for advice and counsel in difficult cases and refuses not to submit to it But that no authority may be able to do us good he hath obtained a very extraordinary faculty to answer and avoid it and which is the nearest to smelling it out with his Nose that I have been informed of The Doctor to prove that the Christians in all times were indulged and exhorted to read the Scriptures besides many other arguments backs his demonstrations as Mr. Cressy confesses with an army of the ancient Fathers who are cited by him and their doctrine acknowledged by several late Catholick Divines of the most eminent account and which he himself confesses to be true but he says notwithstanding that no Catholick nor he thinks any other man in his right wits will grant that every Porter Cobler or Lawndress is capable to instruct themselves by reading the Scriptures alone or to clear the doctrine of the mystery of the Holy Trinity the Incarnation of our Saviour the Procession of the Holy Ghost c. In all which I do not know that he hath an adversary After he hath asked the Doctor a question or two of his own judgment concerning the Fathers concessions in those cases whether they did not suppose that they to whom they gave this license would for the sence of difficult points have submitted their judgments to the Church But then he undertakes to know that if there had been such an Architect of principles as the Doctor in the time of the Fathers they would not have been so zealous in their exhortations to a promiscuous reading of Scriptures For he says and hopes you will take his word for it that the Doctors principles do evidently contain the most pernicious Soul-destroying Heresie that ever assaulted Gods Church principles which banish peace charity humility and obedience utterly from the Church and State which if true as they could never have entred into the Doctors thoughts by reading the Scriptures so there can be no such antidote to expel those poysons as by the Scriptures for I will undertake to shew very plain places in Scripture of the sence whereof there is no doubt made for the confutation of all those principles and if he be of the Philosophers mind that more Syllogisms can be made for truth than against it he will not think the worse of reading the Scriptures for those principles yet he concludes that if the Fathers had foreseen these mischiefs they would never have given such advice yet he does confess that the four first general Councils never put any such restraint upon the reading the Scriptures for which he gives as good a reason as his answer concerning the Fathers because of the difference between the Heresies of those times and the Heresies of these times The Inventors of the ancient Heresies he says were great learned Prelates and subtle Philosophers and the object of their Heresies were sublime mysteries of Faith examined and framed by them according to the grounds of Plato ' s and Aristotle's Philosophy c. Hence he says it come to pass that in those days the Scriptures might be read freely enough by ordinary Christians without danger especially considering their intention of reading them was not to find out a new Religion but to instruct themselves in piety and to inflame their hearts in the Divine love pag. 161 162. But our modern Heresies he says are of a quite different complexion they are conversant about matters obvious to the weakest capacities as the external administration of Sacraments the jurisdiction of Superiors Civil and Ecclesiastical the manner of mens devotions the institution of Religious Orders the obligation of Vows the Ordinances of the Church touching Fasting Matrimony Celibacy paying of Tithes c. Or if about sublime mysteries men are taught to examine such mysteries by natural reason and the verdict of their outwardsenses Is not the English or sence of all this that towards the conviction of the highest and the greatest Heresies which ever were in the Church and which were only worthy of the name of Heresies and were condenned as such by the pure and strong evidence of Scripture the reading of the Scriptures might be permitted at least might be read without danger especially because the intention of reading them then was that men might be the better for it But that now in these modern Heresies upon the Sacraments and the institution of Religious Orders and Vows c. the reading the Scriptures are pernicious and serves only to find out a new Religion I can in truth collect no other sence than this from Mr. Cressy's distinction between the ancient and modern Heresies or for his conclusion that those godly Fathers who are cited by the Doctor and truly cited as he confesses had lived amongst us or if such Heresies had been then spread amongst their Disciples they would not have been so zealous in their exhortations to a promiscuous reading of Scripture I think they would because I am sure they would have had the same reason and would have wondered how any differences of opinion upon the Civil or Ecclesiastical jurisdiction upon the manner of mens devotions or upon the institution of Religious

orders or the rest come to be called Heresies And who had authority to declare them such If nothing that hath reference to any of these particulars was in practice in their time we have the less reason to acquiesce in the new invention of them and it will be the more worth our enquiry whether they who have put that brand upon them were not rather parties than judges and gainers by their determinations If those particulars can neither be confirmed by Scripture nor defended by reason we need not be troubled for their being called Heresies though there were no Scripture against them nor reason to confute them both which we conceive we have clearly on our sides let us examine them in order Concerning the external administration of Sacraments we take upon us to say that they rob the people of half that which our Saviour instituted and that besides the novelty of it for we say it was near if not full one thousand years before that violence was offered to Christianity they may as well defraud them of both as of either of the species and the answer they give to it can give no reasonable satisfaction to any for to that allegation that the body cannot be without the blood and consequently the bread contains both if our Saviour had thought so he would have instituted it in that manner the whole obligations of mystery depending only upon the institution then our Saviour well knew that in the sence they put upon it it would have been an institution directly contrary to the Law which our Saviour never violated for the eating the flesh with the blood was utterly unlawful and what was unlawful in the institution cannot become lawful since by any authority under Heaven and therefore they who cannot be suffered to receive it in both species are without the benefit of the Sacrament that was instituted by our Saviour and that is all I shall say of the external administration For the examination of the mysteries by natural reason and the verdict of their outward senses I shall only ask whether those outward senses are proper judges that that is bread and that is wine by their sight and their taste and their feeling it before the consecration which no body will deny How different the operation thereof may be after that mysterious action and the spiritual effect of it no man pretends to make a judgement by his outward senses but if he be admitted to taste both after the consecration why his senses should not be as competent discerners whether they remain still bread and wine as they were or are become flesh and blood which they were not before I cannot comprehend no more than why we should be bound to understand those few words literally which are so evidently contradicted by our senses which no other miracle ever was rather than many other metaphorical and allegorical expressions in which the Scriptures abound and which cannot be more controuled by the outward senses than this is For the jurisdiction of Superiors Civil and Ecclesiastical what Judge can there be but the Laws of that Kingdom where such jurisdiction is to be exercised and of that Church which ought to settle the publick manner of mens devotions For the institution of Religious Orders and the obligations of Vows the Bishop of Rome himself doth not pretend any power or authority to erect any Monastery Colledge or Religious House in any Kingdom or Province without the consent and approbation of King or Prince to whom the Soveraignty belongs and if they do admit such institutions to be made and such obligations by vows to be entred into as are prejudicial to the peace and happiness of their Dominions the institution is theirs and not the Popes and when their reason or their experience discovers any mischief or detriment to their other subjects to redound from those Institutions either in their original or by new orders and concessions or that the subjects under those Institutions are become less their subjects than their other fellow-subjects are and that they depend more on some foreign Prince than on them in their own Territories they may and ought to alter the form and institution or to suppress if they cannot reform the whole and if they cannot do this they cannot provide for the peace and happiness of the people committed to their charge And the like for fasting that is the observation of publick Fasts Celibacy paying of Tithes they can be no otherwise regulated than by the Civil and Ecclesiastical Laws of every Nation and Province and are so regulated and not in the same manner in all the Catholick Kingdoms and Provinces in Europe And therefore since that is the greatest objection Mr. Cressy makes against the reading of the Scripture that the contradictions which arise upon those particulars may be improved and inflamed into Heresies by the passion and humor of the Court of Rome we will rather acquiesce in the advice of the Primitive Fathers of the Church and believe that what the four first general Councils did not prohibit us to do we may lawfully continue the practice of and since the Church of England in conformity with the purest antiquity permits and enjoyns us to read the Scriptures we will obey its directions without caring what that of Rome forbids Mr. Cressy comes now in excuse of his just indignation against the Doctor 's Principles to discover a secret that his own unhappiness if not guilt gave the first occasion that those principles should be known and received into the Church of England and this discovery must be the more ingenuous because he is sure no man now alive knows any thing of it Then he tells you a story of his accidental finding and buying at a Book-sellers Shop Monsieur Dallies Book Of the true use of the Fathers which he shewed that night to his Noble Dear Lord Lucius Lord Falkland who reading a little of the Contents desired him to give it to him which he willingly did and that my Lord shortly after sent him a most civil Letter full of thanks both in his own and Mr. Chillingworth's name for that small present telling him that that little Book had saved him a most tedious labour of reading almost twenty great Volumes and then tells another story of Mr. Chillingworth and I confess when I read this notable discovery and knew that I was no great stranger to the transactions which had been in that time in that company I could not suddenly comprehend what his meaning or purpose was in making that relation but I quickly found that all his meaning was under the stile of his Noble Dear Lord as in truth he deserved from him the highest expressions of gratitude he could utter to traduce the memory of that incomparable Lord and to cause him to be thought a Socinian and I cannot enough lament that he hath found credit enough with two or three Persons of the Church of England who I am sure never knew I

bitterly inveigh against his Principles and all for the novelty of them that is he says somewhat that hath not been said before and which they are not provided to answer which is rather an argument that all disputing is to little purpose and that it is time to give it over because neither party is reformed than that what he says is easie to be answered there will be every day new Principles new Arguments to inform and convince and convert those who obstinately persist in old Errours They who are but moderately versed in the Controversies about the Substantial points in difference between the Protestants I mean which are common with all Protestants and the Church of Rome cannot but find that the Romish Champions have quite shifted the Scene in all their arguments upon the most material matters and have found new mediums to support their cause They are visibly weary all but the Iesuits of insisting upon the Popes infallibility you scarce meet with an argument from it in any Book that is Printed nor can you engage them in it upon discourse They are with great difficulty drawn into the matter of Transubstantiation but presently shelter themselves under the shadow of their Church and if they cannot avoid enlarging upon it they neither use argument or answer that ever Bellarmine relied upon being not satisfied with much he said in that point or Purgatory or some other matters which he hath handled more at large insomuch that it hath been observed these many years that Bellarmine's Controversies are so gathered up that they are not easie to be procured amongst the greatest Book-sellers and if they are ever reprinted they will pass a severe expurgation In these varieties and lawful changes of the method and order of disputation amongst learned men which cannot but be administred by the often saying and repeating the same things which are often evinced by a new medium after it hath been long unmoveable by an old why should it only be unlawful or incongruous in the Doctor or any other Writer in defence of the Church of England to introduce new principles if they will better contribute to the maintenance of old truths and which it is plain doth stagger them and forces them to fall upon the Person and decline the matter yet I am contented for the ending all disputes which are full of obstinacy and uncharitableness to concur in the reference and how ill soever Mr. Cressy and I have agreed from the beginning of his Book hitherto I am intirely of his mind in the matter and very words of his conclusion That there is a horrible depravation in the minds especially of Ecclesiasticks which depravation can now only be cured by the wisdom and power of the Civil Magistrate and to his wisdom and severity I leave it I have now waited upon Mr. Cressy to the end of his Book and I think have not left any clause in it of any importance unanswered and before I conclude I shall observe Cressy's own method in giving him some Counsel and Advice without taking much notice of his Post-script in which there is little addition of new matter but from the same temper of spirit some variety of bitterness with some new very ill words He wishes that if the Doctor thinks not himself obliged in Conscience by breaking all Rules of piety and humanity to do all manner of despight to his Catholick fellow Subjects he would hereafter please to abstain from reviling and blaspheming Gods Saints or traducing the most divine exercises of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven Alas the Doctor wishes and desires that all the English Roman Catholicks against whose corrupt opinions he hath with much strength of reason and very little passion writ very weightily but never against their Persons would be his Fellow-subjects give that evidence and security of and for their fidelity as their Fellow-subjects do That they would disclaim all kind of subjection to any other Soveraign and which till they do and which the Catholick Religion cannot hinder them from doing they cannot reckon themselves nor be accounted by others his Fellow-subjects And I do heartily wish not without some apprehension that Mr. Cressy hath not by breaking all rules of modesty and discretion brought more prejudice upon the Persons of his fellow-Catholicks than all the Doctor 's want of humanity hath done It was a little too soon to awaken all the Protestants of England that they might discern in what an ill condition they must be in if that Catholick spirit that discovers it self unwarily in him and others of his fraternity should have any prevalence or much countenance in the State To his blaspheming and reviling Gods Saints so absurdly charged upon him enough hath been said before nor is there evidence to induce the most charitable man to believe that all those are Gods Saints which stand in Mr. Cressy's Calender of Saints and it was very unadvisedly done that only one single line was not expunged if there was no more that gave the occasion of mentioning Saints and Miracles and Enthusiasmes which extorted from the Doctor all those animadversions which put the other into so much rage and fury that for the support of that one onely line he hath writ this whole Book that in every line is full of nothing but Miracles and Saints and divine exercise of contemplative Souls which by his favour is as new a Principle to defend the Romish Religion by as any the Doctor hath introduced against it and surely contains more of that kind of Learning than all the Books of pure aud solid Controversie that have been written since Luther begun his Separation as if he had a mind to put the verity of the Lives of the Saints in issue and to be strictly examined from which affectation I suppose his Superiours will divert him that they and their Miracles may be left to their own repose And for his most divine exercise of contemplative Souls more perfectly practised only in Heaven which is another new principle and which and the like must unavoidably be examined by new methods and argumentations it would be much better to leave those obscure contemplations to the Persons who delight in them and find relief by them which we may charitably hope is better understood by them than comprehended by us but if they will not keep their Cipher privately to themselves for their mutual correspondence and conversation but will constitute a new language in old words for the information and amazement of other men and will be then offended and shortly after condemn them for being without the effects which pious Souls naturally produce they should not take it ill if men who patiently hear what they say do in truth believe that they themselves are without any clear notions and can draw no sence out of that mist of words in which it is concealed Mental Prayer which they would fain make their imaginations understood by is a faculty every devout