Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	age_n	write_v	year_n	1,957	5	4.7409	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60586	A sermon of the credibility of the mysteries of the Christian religion preached before a learned audience / by Tho. Smith ...	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1675 (1675)	Wing S4250; ESTC R10064	33,935	84

not a greater respect than Polybius or Livy not only upon the account of their Antiquity but for those excellent remarks they contain and the Theists of our Age may as well doubt whether there were such a man as Cyrus and Alexander as Moses and Joshua and question whether Cicero wrote those Orations and the other excellent Books that go under his name or Virgil those admired Poems as whether St. Mathew or St. John who were the known Disciples of Christ and conversed daily with him for above three years together wrote those Gospels which contain the History and Acts of his Life and Death Upon these evidences our assent is raised which make it rational and just our Faith is resolv'd into the testimony of God which is only the rule of it we believe nothing but what our Saviour and his Apostles taught for which we have the authority of their words and what the whole number of Christian People embraced and received as the just and true meaning of them Now because we cannot reconcile these express and clear Revelations of the Gospel laid down in plain expressions as that Christ is the son of God was in the beginning with God before the world was made God manifested in the flesh God blessed for ever and that he and the father are one not to descend to the other Articles which are laid down as clearly with our narrow conceptions of things is most irrationally to conclude against God in favour of our selves meerly for this only reason because we cannot tell or understand how it can or should be when he hath told us expresly it is so Hereupon they heap up strange and absurd interpretations of Scripture and which are impossible to be true they deny to words their proper and natural and genuine significations they fancy nothing but improprieties and ambiguities of expression and admit of absurd notions for all their high vaunts and pretences to reason which destroy the very design and institution of Christianity Thus our most blessed Saviour the only begotten son of God must be only so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God only by grace and favour and for the holiness and excellence of his life as Ebion and Arius and Paulus Samosatenus used to blaspheme of old or Deus Factus a Created God only such by Designation and Office as our modern Socinians impiously distinguish when not only the name but the essential Attributes of the Godhead are ascribed to him Thus the Doctrine of the Ever blessed Trinity which is clearly contain'd in the form of Baptism as might fully be made good against the exceptions and cavils of Wolsogenius and in St. Joh. v. 7. a Verse written by the same hand that wrote all the rest of the Epistle as it is most evident from the verses in conjunction with it which would be altogether defective and imperfect without it however it be omitted in the Alexandrine Manuscript rather by chance for that is not the only omission in that Copy than design as if it had favoured the Heresie of the Antitrinitarians this Doctrine of the Trinity I say must be exploded because they cannot satisfie their bold curiosity as why the emanation of the Deity stops at three Hypostases that is why the Divine Essence is not communicated to more than Three Persons and how it can be Communicated and yet altogether remain Vndivided and the like That this Article was explicitly believed in the very beginnings of Christianity may to omit at present other wayes of proofs be evinced hence that the Heathens of those times used to upbraid the Christians with the belief of so unlikely a Doctrine Thus Critias in the Dialogue Philopatris which if not Lucians was written however in Trajan's time whose victories and successes in the East and particularly in the taking of Ctesiphon and Babylon and other places from the Persians and in repressing the incursions of the Scythians as hapning just at that time are there mentioned when Triephon had expressed the belief and sense of the Christians about this Article by adjuring 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 makes a mock at it and replies with a great deal of impudent raillery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So far is that from having the least truth in it which the Enemies and Opposers of this Doctrine affirm without the least shew of Reason and Authority that it derives wholly from Pythagoras and Plato and was learned in their Schools and afterwards drest up by the Fathers who were admirers of that Philosophy and not heard of till the Third or Fourth Century So that upon the whole it will appear that the Christian Religion has just and sure evidences and therefore to fancy which is the only thing they can alledge in behalf of their Unbelief that nothing is or can be believed but what ought to be fully comprehended by the Understanding is so foolish so unjust so unreasonable a thing that nothing but intolerable Pride and Obstinacy can possibly suggest such a Thought and consequently that before any one can become an Arrian or a Socinian he must forego his Reason and forget that God is of infinite Perfection and forget too that he himself is a Man To draw towards a Period Christianity being a Great Mystery and necessarily such It is but a natural inference that all our enquiries into the Articles of it be sober and modest that we expect not a comprehensive knowledg of them that we be not too busie and curious in our Searches into the Secrets of God that being conscious to our selves of the defects and shallowness and weakness of our Reason in lesser matters how imperfect and untrue oftentimes our collections are of sensible beings to which our faculties may seem proportionate and to what errors and delusions we are subject by taking up false notions by fancy and prejudice we learn to be wise unto sobriety and not to think of our selves above what we ought to think It was nothing at first but an overbold curiosity not content with Revelation and with just proofs of it that raised in the mind thoughts of Disbelief but it stopt not here it soon improved into a proud conceit of mastering all the difficulties of Religion by the strength of Reason and to this we may justly impute the original and growth of all those Heresies and Blasphemies that have been vented from the very first Preaching of the Gospel to this day It is a vain thing to think to do this 't is a passing beyond the bounds which God and our own Nature hath set us a piece of Sacrilegious rashness as Salvian justly words it in his third Book De Gubernatione Dei speaking of the various dispensations of Providence Hoc ipsum genus quasi Sacrilegae temeritatis est si plus scire cupias quàm sinaris The Articles of Faith as they are not to be tried so neither to be proved by the Principles of Mathematicks or