Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	bishop_n	church_n	see_v	3,056	5	3.9474	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44006	Of libertie and necessitie a treatise, wherein all controversie concerning predestination, election, free-will, grace, merits, reprobation, &c. is fully decided and cleared, in answer to a treatise written by the Bishop of London-derry, on the same subject / by Thomas Hobs.	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1654 (1654)	Wing H2252; ESTC R20187	27,647	98

embracing of wrong Principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things I must confess c. Certainly we have some reason to expect an effectual cure from this man since he hath so fortunately found out the disease Now if he in so few sheets hath performed more than all the voluminous works of the Priests Ministers and that in points of soul-concernment and Christian interest as Predestination Free-will Grace Merits Election Reprobation Necessitie and Libertie of actions and others the main hinges of human Salvation and to do this being a person whom not onely the aversness of his nature to engage himself in matters of Controversie of this kind but his severer studie of the Mathematicks might justly exempt from any such skirmishes We may not stick to infer that the Black-Coats generally taken are a sort of ignorant Tinkers who in matters of their own profession such as is the mending and sodering of mens consciences have made more holes than they sound nay what makes them more impardonable they have neither the gratitude nor ingenuitie to acknowledge this repairer of their breaches and assertor of their reputation who hath now effected what they all this while have been tampering about I know this Author is little beholding to the Ministers they make a great part of the Nation and besides them I know there are a many illiterate obstinate and inconvincible spirits yet I dare advance this proposition how bold soever it may seem to some That this Book how little and contemptible soever it may seem contains more evidence and conviction in the matters it treats of than all the volumes nay Libraries which the Priests Jesuits and Ministers have to our great charge distraction and loss of precious time furnished us with Which if so I shall undertake for any rational man That all the controversial Labors concerning Religion in the world all the Polemical Treatises of the most antient or modern shall never breed any maggots of scruples or dissatisfactions in his brains nor shall his eyes or head ever ake with turning them over but he shall be so resolved in mind as never to importune God Almighty with impertinent addresses nor ever become any of those Enthusiastical spiritati who as the most Learned M. White says expound Scripture without sence or reason and are not to be disputed with but with the same success as men write on sand and trouble their neighbours with their dreams revelations and spiritual whimsies No here is solid conviction at least so far as the Metaphysical Mysteries of our Religion will admit If God be omnipotent he is irresistible if so just in all his actions though we who have as much capacitie to measure the justice of Gods actions as a man born blind to judge of colours haply may not discern it What then need any man trouble his head whether he be Predestinated or no Let him live justly and honestly according to the Religion of his Countrey and refer himself to God for the rest since he is the Potter and may do what he please with the vessel But I leave the Reader to finde his satisfaction in the Treatise it self since it may be I derogate from it by saying so much before it This Book I doubt not will find no worse entertainment than the Leviathan both in regard of its bulk and that it doth not strike so home at the Ministers and Catholick partie as that did And yet here we must complain of want of sufficiencie or ingenuitie to acknowledge the truths or confute the errors of that book which till it is done we shall not count the Author an Heretick On this side the sea besides the dirt and slander cast on him in Sermons private meetings none hath put any thing in Print against him but Mr. Rosse one who may be said to have had so much Learning as to have been perpetually barking at the works of the most learned How he hath been received beyond Seas I know not but certainly not without the regret of the Catholicks who building their Church on other foundations than those of the Scriptures and pretending infallibilitie certitude and unitie in Religion cannot but be discontented that these Prerogatives of Religion are taken away not onely from Tradition that is to say from the Church but also from the Scriptures and are invested in the Supream power of the Nation be it of what perswasion it will Thus much Reader I have thought fit to acquaint thee with that thou mightest know what a jewel thou hast in thy hands which thou must accordingly value not by the bulk but the preciousness Thou hast here in a few sheets what might prove work enough for many thousand sermons and exercises and more than the Catachisms and Confessions of a thousand Assemblies could furnish thee with Thou hast what will cast an eternal blemish on all the corner'd caps of the Priests and Jesuits and all the black white caps of the Ministers to be short Thou art now acquainted with that Man who in matters of so great importance as those of thy salvation furnishes thee with better instructions than any thou hast ever yet been acquainted with what profession perswasion opinion or Church soever thou art of of whom and his works make the best use thou canst c. Farewell RIGHT HONOURABLE I Had once resolved to answer my Lord Bishops Objections to my Book De CIVE in the first place as that which concerns me most and afterwards to examine his discourse of LIBERTY and NECSSITY which because I had never uttered my opinion of it concerned me the less But seeing it was your Lordships and my Lord Bishops desire that I should begin with the latter I was contented so to do and here I present and submit it to your Lordships judgement And first I assure your Lordship I finde in it no new argument neither from Scripture nor from Reason that I have not often heard before which is as much as to say I am not surprized The preface is a handsome one but it appeareth even in that that he hath mistaken the question For whereas he sayes thus If I be free to write this discourse I have obtained the Cause I deny that to be true for 't is enough to his freedom of writing that he had not written it unless he would himself If he will obtain the cause he must prove that before he writ it it was not necessary he should 〈◊〉 it afterward It may be his Lordship thinks it all one to say I was free to write it and It was not necessary I should write it but I think otherwise for he is free to do a thing that may do it if he have the will to do it and may forbear if he have the will to forbear And yet if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to do it the action is necessarily to follow and if there be a necessity that he shall have

OF LIBERTIE AND NECESSITIE A TREATISE Wherein all Controversie concerning Predestination Election Free-will Grace Merits Reprobation c. is fully decided and cleared in answer to a Treatise written by the Bishop of London-derry on the same subject By Thomas Hobs. Dedicated to the Lord Marquess of Newcastle LONDON Printed by W. B. for F. Eaglesfield at the Marygold in S. Pauls Church-yard 1654. To the Sober and Discreet Reader IT made S. Chrysostom tremble when ever he reflected on the proportion which those that went the narrow way bore to those which marched in the broad how many were the Called how few the Chosen how many they were that were created for and in a capacitie of eternal beatitude and how few attained it This consideration certainly would make a man look upon the holy Scriptures among Christiās as the greatest indulgence of heaven being all the directions it hath been pleased to afford poor man in so difficult a journey as that of his eternal bliss or miserie But when a man cometh to look into those transcendent writings he finds them to be the works of a sort of innocent harmless men that had little acquaintance or familiaritie with the world and consequently not much interessed in the troubles and quarrels of several Countries That though they are all but necessarie yet were they written occasionally rather than out of design and lastly that their main business is to abstract man from this world and to perswade him to preferr the bare hope of what he can neither see hear nor conceive before all the present enjoyments this world can afford This begat a reverence and esteem to them in all those who endeavor to work out their salvation o● of them But if a man not weighin● them in themselves shall consider the practices of those who pretend to be the interpreters of them to make them fit meat for the people how that instead of renouncing the world they endeavour to raise themselves into the greatest promotions leisure and luxurie that they make them the decoys of the people to carrie on designes and intriques of State and studie the enjoyments of this world more than any other people he will find some grounds to conclude the practices of such men to be the greatest disturbance burden and vexation of the Christian part of the world The complaint is as true as sad Instead of acquainting the credulous vulgar with the main end of their functions and the great business of their embassy what a great measure of felicitie is prepared for them and how easily it may be forfeited they involve their consciences in the bryars of a thousand needless scruples they spin out volumes out of half sentences nay out of points and accents and raise endless Controversies about things were men free from passion prejudice in themselves clear enough and when they have canvas'd their questions till they are wearie themselves and have wearied hearers and readers and all they have to do with every one sits down under his own vine and hugs his own apprehensions so that after all their pains bandings and implacable adhesion to parties the inconvenience remains still and we as far from any solid conviction as at first setting out The Controversies betwixt Rome and the Reformation are long since beaten out of the pit by other cōbatants of their own brood so that if we speak of Protestant and Catholick they are in a manner content to sit down with their present acquests for as to conviction he certainly is a rare Prosolite at whose conversion interest humour discontent inclination are not admitted to the debate But to come yet nearer our purpose Let us consider our own fractions of fractions of Religion here in England where if that saying That It is better to live where nothing is lawfull than where all things be as true in Religion as Policie Posteritie may haply feel the sad consequence of it What I pray is the effect of so many sermons teachings preachings exercises and exercising of gifts meetings disputations conferences conventicles Printed books written with so much distraction and presumption upon God Almightie and abuse of his holy Word Marry this It is the seminarie of a many vexatious endless and fruitless controversies the consequence whereof are jealousies heart-burnings exasperation of parties the introduction of factions and National quarrels into matters of Religion and consequently all the calamities of war and devastation Besides they are good lawfull diversions for the duller sort of Citizens who contract diseases for want of motion They supply the building of Pyramids among the Egyptians by diverting the thoughts of the people from matters of State and consequently from Rebellion They find work for Printers c. if the parties interessed are troubled with the itch of popularitie and will suffer themselves to be scratch'd out of somewhat by way of Contribution to the Impression Hence are the Stationer's shop furnished and thence the Minister's studie in the Countrey who having found out the humour of his auditorie consults with his Stationer on what Books his money is best bestowed who very gravely it may be will commend Cole upon the Philippians before the excellent but borrowed Caryll upon Job But as to any matter of conviction we see every one acquiesces in his own sentiments every one hears the Teacher who is most to his humour and when he hath been at Church and pretends to have sat at his feet comes home censures him as he pleases To be yet a little more particular what shall we think of those vast and involuble volumes concerning Predestination Free-wil Free-grace Election Reprobation c. which fill not onely our Libraries but the world with their noise and disturbance whereof the least thing we are to expect is conviction every side endeavouring to make good their own grounds and keep the cudgels in their hands as long as they can What Stir is there between the Molinists and Jansenists about Grace and Merits and yet both pretend S. Augustin Must we not expect that the Jesuits will were it for no other end but to vindicate that reputation of Learning they have obtained in the world endeavour to make good their Tenets though the other were the truer opinion Is Truth then retired to that inaccessible rock that admits no reproches or are we all turn'd Ixion's and instead of enjoying that Juno entertain our selves with the clouds of our own perswasions of which unnatural coition what other issue can there be but Centaurs and monstrous opinions To these questions I shall not presume to answer but in the words of this great Author who answering the charge of Impietie laid upon the holding of Necessitie says thus If we consider the greatest part of Mankind not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the studie of acquiring wealth and preferment or whom the appetite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash