Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	believe_v	scripture_n	write_v	2,819	5	5.7819	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41499	Pleroma to Pneumatikon, or, A being filled with the Spirit wherein is proved that it is a duty incumbent on all men (especially believers) that they be filled with the spirit of God ... : as also the divinity, or Godhead of the Holy Ghost asserted ... : the necessity of the ministry of the Gospel (called the ministry of the Spirit) discussed ... : all heretofore delivered in several sermons from Ephes. 5. 18 / by ... Mr. John Goodwin ... ; and published after his death ...	Goodwin, John, 1594?-1665.; Venning, Ralph, 1621?-1674.	1670 (1670)	Wing G1190; ESTC R1174	629,135	596

and Virtue of Temperance Sobriety c. saith that young men are wont to speak of these things to utter them among themselves but they do not believe them In like manner many who are real Atheists in heart and soul may discourse largely that there is a God they may insist upon all those Arguments and Reasons that have been given by learned men for the proof hereof yea they may urge them with a great deal of stress and weight yet it is not necessary to suppose but that they may be in doubt whether they be true or no. The Fool saith David hath said in his heart there is no God Many may say this in their hearts while they are zealously and with a great deal of heat arguing that there is a God It is recorded of one of the Popes that in conference with one of his Cardinals about their great Revenues and Wealth they had gotten he spake thus unto him Quantum nobis profuit haec Christi fabula What a world of Wealth hath this Story or Fable of Christ brought in unto us Now this Pope and so many others may be devout in pressing and urging of the Gospel and many things contained in it and yet all this while have no manner of belief that there is any truth or any reality in the Gospel or in the things that are delivered there Many men have written very learned Commentaries upon many Books of Scripture yet it is not necessary to be supposed that they believe the truth of these things upon which they thus write and make Expositions Men may do the like upon any fabulous Books of the Apocrypha as of Bell and the Dragon they may draw from thence many good Conclusions and Doctrines and yet not believe that there was such a thing I heard not many years since this passage of a Preacher in England that coming to the house of another Minister of his acquaintance he was entreated to Preach for him on the Lord's day he consented and performed the Service very gravely and substantially the subject matter of his Sermon was to prove the Resurrection of the dead he insisted upon and pressed several weighty Reasons and Arguments to prove it Having ended his Sermon the Minister for whom he Preached being present gave him many thanks for his Sermon adding some words testifying his special approbation of it Why replied he that Preached do you believe what I said meaning concerning the Resurrection Believe it said the other what else Being somewhat startled at such a Question Truly said that Preacher for my part I do not Therefore to be able to plead learnedly and with acuteness of Wit or solidity of Understanding for any Truth or Subject doth not necessarily argue or prove that a man knows the truth or certainty of the being of that which he pleadeth for at such a rate Possibly men may be able to bring forth such Arguments which may be able to carry all other mens judgments before them and yet they themselves may be empty all this while of the belief of that whatsoever it is they do assert and prove The Scriptures themselves seem to hold forth a difference between knowing a thing and the believing of it Joh. 10.38 But if I do saith Christ to the Jews the works of my Father meaning the works that his Father had appointed him to do and such which are proper for him only to do though ye believe not me i. e. though you do not as yet think me a person worthy of credit or belief yet believe the works i. e. believe that which the works testifie of me that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him i. e. meaning that ye may have Arguments and Grounds not only which are sufficient to perswade and convince you of my Divinity and upon which you may argue that I am the same dialectically or with probability but by which also you may be actually and de facto perswaded of the truth and certainty hereof so as to believe it that you may know and not only so but that you may believe that you may not only have Arguments and Reasons to be able to discourse of it but that your knowledge may be rich and full of satisfaction in your own souls And so in that heavenly Prayer of his Joh. 17.8 a little before his death speaking of his Disciples For I saith he have given them the words which thou gavest me and they have received them and have known surely that I came out from thee and they have believed that thou didst send me Our Saviour seems to make a difference between these two their knowledge and their belief of him They have known 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. meaning they have upon sufficient and true grounds known i. e. apprehended and conceived that I came from thee yea saith he they have done somewhat more than this they have believed that thou hast sent me they have yielded up their hearts souls and consciences to the convincing power of these words which thou gavest me to speak unto them and have according fully believed that thou hast sent me So then that knowledge of God of his Attributes and Counsels which we affirm to be requisite to put you into a condition or capacity of an ample and large Communion with God must be a knowledge not simply of those things which are written in the Scriptures concerning God but a knowledge of the reality truth and certainty of them i. e. that God is really such an One such a Nature Essence and Being in all points as the Scripture representeth him to be that he is full of Mercy and full of Goodnrss c. Now this is that kind of knowledge of which we do affirm that when it is extensive and any whit large it giveth a capacity of the Communion we speak of Again Secondly This was signified unto you that that knowledge of God Sect. 21 of his Nature and Counsels which will advance you to an ample or rich Communion with him must be somewhat comprehensive and include a very considerable number of those things concerning God his Excellencies and Perfections his Counsels and Decrees c. which are declared and imparted unto the World by the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures They must be men in Understanding and not Children that shall be the Sons and Daughters of this high Prerogative we speak of yea they must be able not only to apprehend and conceive aright of the Mind of God in the Scriptures so far as the words in their Grammatical and next-hand sense will carry them but they must be expert to some good degree at least in the Logical sense of such Scriptures also My meaning is they must be able to build workman-like upon the Scriptures they must be able to find out the Will of God to understand and likewise to go along with many Principles and Grounds which the Holy Ghost hath laid down here

and cut off their Garments to the middle and so sent them away That which Hanun did in this case reflected upon David and was an affront put upon him but the particular things done unto his Messengers cannot be truly said to be done unto David Hanun cannot be said to have shaved off the one half of David's beard or to have cut off David's Garment in the middle Take one instance more Paul styles himself 2 Cor. 6.4 and those who preach the Gospel the Ministers of God and elsewhere 2 Cor. 5.20 Embassadours meaning of God for Christ i. e. for Christ's sake to procure acceptance for him with men Now in case these Ministers or Embassadours of God be evil intreated by men in the World in one kind or other the evil that is done unto them God accounts as done to himself But however not in respect of the specifical or particular nature of the evils done to them but in the general as being highly affronted When men killed the Apostles as our Saviour foretold they would God doth not look upon himself as killed by them but highly injured and despised In like manner in case the Holy Ghost in Peter or other holy men were only a Messenger sent from God and men should lye unto him yet they cannot in this respect with any tolerable congruity or truth of speech be said to lye unto God but only in lying unto his Messenger to have dealt wickedly and unworthily by him So that what our Adversary layeth in by way of answer or reply to these passages of Scripture yet before us when it comes to be fifted and narrowly searched into vanisheth into smoke Another Text of Scripture Sect. 14 evincing above all contradiction the Deity of the Holy Ghost is 1 Joh. 5.7 For there are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You see it is expresly said that these three the Father together with the Son and the Holy Ghost are one If they be one then one in Nature one in Essence one in Subsistence otherwise there could not be that unity in any sense Now this could not be expressed in more emphaticalness of words and which better bear such a Notion as this Here again we have an evasion as indeed there is no end of these things Satan is an old Fox and hath his devices to keep men from the knowledge of all truths but more especially such which lie any whit remote from the common and ordinary thoughts of men such that men must take a long journey to come at such are these which we are now treating of Now Satan takes the slightest occasion to colour over and bedawb them knowing that there is not one man among many that will be willing to take the pains or undergo any hard travel to wipe off the colours that Satan puts on them And as in long journeys there are many bottoms and hills and Wood-sides and there you are in danger of Thieves and Robbers So there are some Doctrines some matters in the Christian Religion where you are to expect and hear of this great Destroyer of the Souls of men lying in wait to rob them of their spiritual Treasure by labouring to confound the World according to the state of things there for he well knows the state of it and how it goes from day to day But Now as to the business in hand several exceptions there are which being searched into vanish into nothing but air As one while the Adversary pretends that these words are wanting in some Greek Copies Now for that when there was no Printing in the World and consequently Copies of Books especially such great Books as the Scripture when it was written and translated they were but few in comparison of what they are now and if there were any Sect or any great Faction of men As for instance of the Arians when they spread the whole Christian World in a manner over like a Deluge Now during such a time the men of this Notion being very many they very well might and in all probability they did corrupt and falsifie Copies and that is the ground that you hear sometimes that one Copy reads it thus and a second thus and a third thus and a fourth different from all the former And it is not likely but that there should be such difference and variety of Copies We know that the Papists now have a great deal of the Christian World under their Jurisdiction and how they are wont and that of latter times the fruit is fresh in memory to take and to throw out what they thought good out of the Notes and Copies of the Fathers wherein we may see the very footsteps of the Pope There are Books extant which they call Indices expurgatorii which are Indexes or Tables of what Sentences are left out and what are put in and these are great Books and there are two or three several kinds of them Even so it might very well be that men of this Opinion I mean the Arians whilst it spread it self might expunge and put out such passages and such Texts of Scripture as these which they saw did bear so hard and with so mighty and strong hand upon their opinion but this Clause is found in one of the ancientest of all Writers that we know of in Cyprian who lived about two hundred and forty years after Christ Now then seeing we find that in his writings which are more ancient than all those Copies where it is wanting it is at least a very probable Argument that it was in the original Copies Again another Pretext he hath against this viz. in that the Apostle saith in ver 8. that these three agree in one meaning only that they did testifie and assert the same truth Not that they are one in Essence but as I said that they agree namely in their Testimony they avouch one and the same truth So now saith the Adversary the other three which bear record in Heaven are only one in their Testimony joyning together in asserting one and the same thing but it doth not follow from hence that these three are one and the same in Nature and Essence For answer to this we must know that the Apostle John doth make a very apparent and express difference in the expressing the one and the other As in the former verse where he speaks of three that bear Record in Heaven He doth not say that these three agree in one but that these are one but when he speaks of the three that bear witness on Earth He doth not say that they are one but that they agree in one So that as I said here is a signal and manifest difference between the expression of that unity or Oneness which is attributed to the three former and that which is ascribed unto the three latter Neither can the former union be understood of agreement and consent only unless

shaken and began to give in As it is reported of Socrates himself the wisest or at least one of the wisest men amongst them and withal the most vertuous and Worthy who being condemned to die and that by taking Poyson when he came to drink his Hemlock for that was to be his deadly Draught he looked pale and yet he never did before bewray any kind of fear but set his countenance so that he was not wont to change it So that that fearlesness of Spirit which was in some Philosophers amongst the Heathen was not compleat or full of power it did not so reign over all formidable Enemies but that when Death made her approaches this raised some fear in them But if it be here objected and said Sect. 9 but however many amongst them were fearless even of death it self as appears by the Examples and Stories of those who voluntarily devoted themselves unto death for the preservation and safety of their Country as the Decii amongst the Romans there were two of them the Father and the Son who in several Wars wherein their Country was in danger did rush upon the face of death And so Curtius another Roman who threw himself into a deep Chasm or opening of the Earth And some amongst the Grecians also were men of great resolution as Codrus Themistocles c. and did expose themselves to eminent and certain dangers of death only for the safety of their Country therefore such men as these were free from all tormenting fears and troubles But to this we answer First That none of these did purely or meerly voluntarily devote themselves unto death but upon very great occasions at least by them so apprehended viz. for the preservation of their Families Wives and Countries so that to expose themselves unto that which they did in this was but to chuse the lesser evil before the greater So that all that can be made of the sense that those had of death was that they apprehended it far better and more desirable for them to lose their lives than that their Wives and Families and Country should be destroyed Secondly To expose a mans self to danger or unto a certain evil doth not prove that he is free from the fear of the evil but only that he chuseth and prefers this evil before the other As when a man is under a great and eminent danger unless he attempts very desperately through if he shall make this attempt he is not certain he shall escape the danger he is in only he doth suppose less danger of the two in that course which he takes or attempts As in the case of the four Lepers at the Gates of Samaria there was n● safety for them to sit at the Gate there they must perish if they go into the City there they must perish likewise but if they should arise and go to the Army they could but kill them however in so doing they might escape Now therefore it doth not shew that there was no fear in them but that they knew there was was no possibility of escape in case they stayed at the Gate of the City Thirdly There is little question but that a man may so go to work and tamper with his heart and mind as quite to stupifie them and make them little other than sensless at least for a time in respect of any object whatsoever as the Scripture speaks of some whose hearts were as hard as brawn and whose consciences were seared as with a hot Iron Men do seldom make trial of their hearts what they can bring them unto and can hardly believe such a Doctrine as this viz. That men may bring their hearts to what temper they please if they will follow means that are proper to bring such a thing to pass Now it is no waies unlikely but that these at least some of them knew what considerations were apt to make them void of fear they being men of parts they knew how to deport themselves so as to make themselves fearless and dreadless If men will attend only upon the thoughts of the excellency and renown and grandeur of men that have died on such terms as of Achilles Epaminondas c. will feed upon the beauty and desirableness of their Names and Fames and then shall think that they themselves if they shall do such things shall be as famous as they and their names shall live If this course shall be taken for any considerable space of time and men shall but add hereunto other considerations which are apt to render their lives in this World less pleasing and less desirable no question but that they may harden their hearts and stupifie their senses that they may quite quench and destroy all impressions of fear which is naturally planted within them towards such formidable objects Fourthly Very possibly Sathan might stand at the right hand of such persons and help forward those who did devote themselves unto death he might blow the coals of vain glory when their hearts began to work and rise within them by casting in his incentives For we have heretofore shewed unto you he hath such a kind of operation upon the hearts of men and can joyn with their fansies and imaginative powers and put life into them by his injections This may be another means by which these Persons might attain unto this fearlesness and dreadlesness of spirit Fifthly and lastly for this Concerning that freedom from tormenting cares and fears if there were any amongst them that had part and fellowship in any such Priviledge upon such ground as the light of nature might afford them it may be thought that the Spirit of God was in the business we may safely say that the Spirit of God might be there and that it was his interposure For the Book of Nature is the Book of God as well as the Book of Scripture though this latter Book hath more in it than the former yet so far as that doth teach so far doth God own countenance and fall in with it And we know that the Scripture it self doth speak the truth of this and God is the God of Order and not of Confusion Therefore those things which are written in the Book of Nature do not cross any thing written in the Scripture The truth is that this Book I mean the Book of the Scripture is written to perfect that which is decayed blotted and blurred in the Book of Nature that we might come to the knowledge of God with the more ease Now in case there be any who want this Book of the Scripture and shall mind and consider that other Book of God the Book of Nature which Book requires many excellent things of men as well as the Scriptures do If they go so to work as they may if they will study the works of Righteousness which the Book of Nature teacheth and fall in with him who teacheth there that is God and still as light comes in walk up unto it all