Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	author_n	old_a	testament_n	1,997	5	7.8593	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88141	Elias redivivus: a sermon preached before the honorable House of Commons, in the parish of Saint Margarets West minster, at the publike fast, March 29, 1643. By John Lightfoote, preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange, London.	Lightfoot, John, 1602-1675.	1643 (1643)	Wing L2053; Thomason E99_11; ESTC R20324	33,230	56

either make John Baptist his going before Christ a patterne of Elias his doing the like whereas Elias in the Prophet and in the text is a patterne of John or else they make Elias who is to come no one can tell when the copy or paterne of the Baptist already come which is more then ridiculous Nor is it so much to be wondred that these men of corrupt judgements and minds should erre this same errour with the Jewes when we finde so many of the Fathers to have erred in the same opinion also and to Elias they have added Enoch and both these they say must come before the comming of Christ for these they hold to be the two witnesses in the 11. of the Revelation It is true indeed that some ones shall come in the spirit of Elias toward the end of the world according to that description in the Revelation but no expectation of Elias himselfe nor no description of Enoch at all The two witnesses in that place are plainely charactered and decyphered forth by the emblems of Moses Elias They have power to shut up Heaven that there be no raine vers. 6. Here is apregnant intimation of Elias They have power over the waters to turn them into bloud there is as pregnant a one of Moses These two men doe meete more then once mentioned together in the Scriptures They are named together in the conclusion of the Prophets Mal. 4. 4. Remember the Law of Moses my servant and in v. 5. Behold I send you Elias the Prophet They appeared together and attended our Saviour at his transfiguration Matth. 17. 3. They are thought on together in that description of the two witnesses as they also agreed together in this that the one was the giver of the Law at the first and the other the restorer of it when it was decaying the one was the great Prophet of the Jewes the other the great Prophet of the Gentiles as shall be touched anon When therefore the Jewes and the Gentiles shall be knit together into one Church upon the fulnesse of the one and the conversion of the other then shall God raise up a powerfull Ministery to them both united as in the spirit of Moses and Elias the time of their preaching is alluded to the time of our Saviours three yeares and a halfe and Antichrist shall rise up against them and persecute some of them to the death By the way as we goe it is not immateriall to be observed how things signifying and things signified doe often in Scripture beare one and the same name sometime the thing signifying is called by the same name of the thing signified As at the making of the first Covenant Exod. 24. 8. Moses sprinkled the bloud of the Covenant upon all the people Heb. 9. 19. That is upon the twelve Pillars which he had set up to represent the people vers. 4. as he had set up an Altar also to represent God For to besprinkle so many hundred thousands severally it was impossible in so short a time as he imployed in that worke And so in the second Covenant in the bloud of Christ the Bread and Wine that represent his body and bloud are called by the very names of his body and bloud Sometimes the thing signified is called by the name of the thing signifying as Hos. 3. 5. Afterward shall the children of Israel returne and seeke the Lord their God and David their King that is Christ their King which was signified by David And so in the matter that we have in hand the Prophet Malachi cals the Baptist Elias because he was so neerely represented and typified by Elias To them that hold that Elias shall personally come againe indeed we may justly propose these two or three queres First how shall a glorified bodie converse with bodies laden with corruption and mortality Observe at the transfiguration of our Saviour when the glorified bodies of Moses and Elias appeared to him the Disciples were so uncapable and unfit for conversing with them that some of them spake they knew not what Consider the disproportion that is betweene Angels and men if I may so call it in regard of converse the one spirits the other bodies how can these two be familiar together if an Angel take not on him a visible shape There is not so much distance indeed betwixt bodies glorified and bodies mortall yet is there so much as is sufficient to spoyle the converse of each with other Secondly What should Elias doe in his person here If to preach our Saviour hath told us that if men would not hearken to Moses and the Prophets they will not be perswaded though one rose from the dead And may we not inferre If men will not hearken to Moses the Prophets the Evangelists and the Apostles they will not beleeve though Elias came from heaven To Preach the Gospel If another then what was preached by Christ and his Apostles then is he accursed though he be Elias If the same why that treasure is carried in earthen vessels and not in vessells already glorified To destroy Antichrist This indeed is the common opinion but Paul hath told us that the Lord shall doe it with the Spirit of his mouth and the brightnesse of his comming Such questions as these might be proposed to that opinion that is indeed of much like nature with this but of farre more strangenesse namely that that would bring Christ from heaven againe to live personally on earth a thousand yeares First what should Christ that is in heaven blessed for ever doe a thousand yeares upon earth that is cursed The very first lesson that God taught Adam after he had taught him the lesson of Christ was this that he should not expect Christs kingdome upon earth for that he cursed Gen. 3. 17. Secondly how strange and improbable is it to conceive that Christ who in his humane frailty had a kingdome which was called and was the Kingdome of Heaven should now in his immortall glory come and possesse a kingdome on earth An opinion according to the censure of Eusebius raised upon the misconstruction of a place in the last booke of the New Testament as this about Elias was of a place in the last booke of the old For thus speaketh he concerning Papias the first father of this conceit The same Author also saith he sheweth that other things came to him by unwritten tradition which containe certaine strange Parables of our Saviour and new doctrines of his and some other things stuffed with legendary fables Among which he averreth that the kingdome of Christ after the resurrection of all flesh from the dead shall continue and endure upon this earth after a humane and bodily manner for a thousand yeares Which opinions I beleeve that he did entertaine because he misunderstood the Apostolicall interpretations which were delivered by them under hidden figures and obscure Parables For he

pray on the Lords day and to pray on other dayes and it is to be a maine petition on this solemne day of humiliation that as the Lord hath put the Spirit of Elias into your hearts so that he would put the Power of Elias into your hands that as he hath made you willing so would he also make you able to turne the hearts of the Fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisedome of the Righteous The words of the text are the last words of the old Testament there uttered by a Prophet here expounded by an Angell there concluding the Law and here beginning the Gospell Behold saith Malachi Mal. 4. 5. I will send you Eliah the Prophet And hee saith the Angell shall goe before him in the Spirit and power of Elias And hee shall turne the hearts of the Fathers to the children saith the one And to turne the hearts of the fathers to the children saith the other Thus sweetly and neerely should the two Testaments joyne together and thus divinely would they kisse each other but that the wretched Apocrypha doth thrust in betweene Like the two * Cherubims in the Temple Oracle as with their outer-wings they touch the two sides of the house from In the beginning to Come Lord Jesus so with their inner they would touch each other the end of the law with the beginning of the Gospell did not this patchery of humane invention divorce them a funder It is a thing not a little to be admired how this Apocrypha could ever get such place in the hearts and in the Bibles of the Primitive times as to come to sit in the very Center of them both But to this wonderment there may be some satisfaction given namely because that these bookes came to them from among the Jewes as well as the old Testament and the new And because that the Jewes alone and alone so long had had the knowledge of Divinity and Religion among them the converted Gentiles could not but give their writings extraordinary esteeme And because the Talmud not being yet written the world was not acquainted with the vanity and straine of Jewish learning those insuspecting times did swallow these bookes as not tasting as yet how unsavoury that was nor distinguishing these to be of the same tast It is therefore more to be admired that when the Talmud was written and the impious and ridiculous doctrines and fables of the Jewish schooles laid open to the world that then these bookes which shew themselves to be of the very same stampe in many things should not onely not be refused out the Bibles and out mens good conceit but also get better and further footing in the same but to this wonderment some satisfaction also may be given namely that superstition begun then to grow in the Church every day more and more and it became a Religion to doe as their forefathers had done before and to retaine what they had retained be it whatsoever it would and of what ungroundlesnesse soever But it is a wonder to which I could never yet receive satisfaction that in Churches that are reformed that have shaken off the yoke of superstition and unpinned themselves from off the sleeve of former customes or doing as their ancestors have done yet in such a thing as this and of so great import should doe as first ignorance and then superstition hath done before them It is true indeed that they have refused these bookes out of the Canon but they have reserved them still in the Bible as if God should have cast Adam out of the state of happinesse and yet have continued him in the place of happinesse Not to insist upon this which is some digression you know the Counsell of Sarah concerning Ismael and in that she outstripped Abraham in the Spirit of Prophecy Cast out the bond-woman and her sonne for the sonne of the bond-woman may not be heire with the sonne of the free In the words of the text you may see your owne worke and taske and those two things that you have so long laboured under and that we have so long longed after Reconciliation and Reformation You may behold in a part of the text Reconciliation in these words To turne the hearts of the fathers to the Children and Reformation in the other and the disobedient to the wisedome of the just These are the two hands of our master which is in heaven or rather the two good things in his hands after which we his servants have looked so long and doe looke this day and cannot be taken off till he give them to us These are the hands of your two Houses or rather the two great gifts which we wait till God put into your hands to conveigh them towards us These are the two pillars Jachin Boaz Firmenesse and Strength that we long to see set up at the doore of that Temple that you are in building And these are the two twins for which the Tamar of our England is in travaile and is pained to be delivered if there be but strength to bring them forth These two things contained in the latter part of the text are set forth and illustrated by two circumstances in the former First by the party and the function of that party that must performe so great a worke those included in these words He shall goe before him Secondly the qualifications and indowments of that party for the function and for the worke that expressed in these In the Spirit and power of Elias The party rare the function honourable his indowments singular his worke divine He shall goe before him c. We will take up the words according to this Division but not according to this order for as in nature the agent is before the action and as in the text the workeman is named before the worke so are they fit to be considered and so will we take them into our handling and so shall we take them as they lie in the text and first of the first He shall goe before him Who are meant by the He and the him in this part of the text the dimmest eye that is will easily judge and discerne upon its owne reading namely John the Baptist and our Saviour Christ Two that were in a very neere relation one to another by nature for they were kinsmen according to the flesh but of a neerer and of a higher relation in regard of their function for they were they that began the Gospell or the one begun the other perfected they were they that were the two great Prophets of the new Testament or the one greater then a Prophet and the other greater then a man I cannot omit that which is not nor cannot be omitted by any expositor it is so plaine upon the him in this part namely that in the verse next before he is called the God of Israel He shall turne many of the Children to