Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	church_n	know_v	write_v	3,089	5	5.4567	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23715	The divine aut[h]ority and usefulness of the Holy Scripture asserted in a sermon on the 2 Timothy 3, 15 by R. Allestree ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1673 (1673)	Wing A1112; ESTC R3384	26,983	56

when he calls it body he is instituting his Sacrament there 's all reason in the world he should mean Sacramentally since 't is the most proper meaning and by consequence 't is bread substantially as all waies of judging in the world assure us Here 's no stress on Scripture as there is no Principle to serve when as the other makes us differ not in Scripture only even where 't is plainest but tradition too For the most express and evident sayings of the primitive Fathers are on every head of difference as much the matter of contention as the texts of Scripture are as it were easy to demonstrate if that were my business So that it is meer deceit to lay our quarrels to defects in Gods word and particularly to its obscurity which a man would think were evident enough from this that Children knew it The last thing I am to speak to And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesus I cannot pass this that it is St Chrysostomes observation that Timothy was nurst up in the Scriptures from his childhood Yea and since his Father was an Heathen he must have bin taught them by his Grandmother Loïs and his Mother Eunice whose faith St Paul speaks of 2 Tim. 1. 5. Children therfore then and Women and they sure are Laics read the Bible Yea and since they knew it they must read it in a language which they understood and we know where that is unlawful now If we consider the first prohibition that appear'd in that Church with Synodical autority against such mens having any Bibles in their own tongue we shall find it was immediately upon the preaching of the Waldenses one of whose doctrines it was that the Scripture was the rule to judg of faith by so that whatsoever was not consonant to that must be refus'd This they preach't in France and over Europe in the latter end of the 12 Century and that Council which forbad their having of the Bible we find lately put forth by the frier D. Achery as held at Tholouse in the beginning of the 13th Century It seems they apprehended then their doctrines hardly would abide that touchstone And they therfore had no surer more compendious way for its security then to prevent such trial taking care men should not know what was or what was not in Scripture And it is not possible for me to give account why in their catechising they leave out all that part of the commandments Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image c. but this only that they dare not let the laity compare their doctrine and their practice with that Scripture But tho it is possible they might conceive some danger if the whole Scripture should be expos'd yet in those portions which the Church it self chose out for her own offices the little lessons and Epistles and Gospels those sure one would think were safe no not their Psalter Breviary nor their Hours of the Blessed Virgin must they have translated in their own tongue as that Council did determin And truly when the Roman Missal was turn'd lately into French and had bin allow'd to be so by the general Assembly of the Clergy in the year 1650. and when it was don it had the usual approbation of the Doctors and some Bishops and then was printed at Paris with the license of the Vicars general of their Archbishop Yet another general assembly of the Clergy the year 1660 whereat there were 36 Bishops upon pain of excommunication forbid any one to read it and condemn not only that present traduction but the thing in general as poysonous in an Encyclical Epistle to all the Prelates of the Kingdom and in another they say of him that did translate it and the vicars general that did defend him in it that by doing so they did take armes against the Church attaquing their own Mother namely by that version at the Altar in that sanctuary that closet of her spouses mysteries to prostitute them and in another Epistle they beseech his Holiness Pope Alexander 7th to damn it not in France alone but the whole Church which he then did by his Bull for ever inter dicting that or any other version of that book forbidding all to read or keep it on severest paines commanding any one that had it to deliver it immediately to the Inquisitor or Ordinary that it might be burnt forthwith Now thus whatever it be otherwise the mass is certainly a sacrifice when 't is made a burnt offering to appease his holiness's indignation when that very Memorial of Christs passion again suffers and their sacred offices are martyr'd To see the difference of times 't was heretofore a Pagan Dioclesian a strange prodigy of cruelty who by his edict did command all Christians to deliver up their Bibles or their bodies to be burnt 'T was here his Holiness Christs Vicar who by his Bull orders all to give up theirs that is all of it that they will allow them and their praiers also that they may be forthwith burnt or themselves to be excommunicated that is their souls to be devoted to eternal flames And whereas then those only that did give theirs up were excommunicate all Christians shun'd them as they would the plague and multitudes whole regions rather gave themselves up to the fire to preserve their Bibles now those only that have none or that deliver up theirs are the true obedient sons of that Church and the thorough Catholics I know men plead great danger in that book it is represented as the source of monstrous doctrines and rebellions I will not say these men are bold that take upon them to be wiser then Allmighty God and to see dangers he foresaw not and to prevent them by such methods as thwart his appointments but I will say that those who talk thus certainly despise their hearers as if we knew not Heresies were hatcht by those that understood the Bible untranslated and as if we never heard there were rebellions among them that were forbid to read the Bible For if there were a Covenant among them that had it in their own tongue so there was an Holy League amongst those men that were deni'd it While those that had the guidance of the subjects conscience were themselves subject to a forreign power as all Priests of that communion are How many Kings and Emperors have there bin that did keep the Scriptures from their people but yet could not keep their people from sedition nor themselves from ruine by it In fine when God himself for his own people caus'd his Scripture to be written in their own tongue to be weekly read in public to and day and night in private by the people and when the Apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost indited Scripture for the world they

liv'd till near that time who rose up with him at his resurrection when these books writ by the will of God to be the pillar and foundation of mens faith in after ages as saith Irenaeus in that age were also read in the assemblies weekly when not only those that did assemble were by Hadrian martyr'd but they put men to their oaths to find out whether they were Christians that they might massacre them And in the 3 d it was the like when Miracles they say were not yet ceast yet sure the greatest was the constancy of Christians in adhering to this book patience in suffering for it For they report the sands on the sea shore almost as easy to be numbred as the Martyrs of that age what by Valerian Decius Maximinus and Severus but especially by Dioclesian who put so many men to death for not delivering up their Bibles to be burnt and refusing to Sacrifice to his Gods as if he meant to have depopulated the whole earth And this is as notorious as that men do now profess that they are Christians and that these are holy Scriptures Therefore I shall need to go no further Now among so many myriads who on the account of all these Miracles whate're they were suffer'd themselves to be converted to the faith of Christ and then as if they car'd for nothing but Religion and their Bibles for them bore the loss of goods and life it self and engag'd their posterity to do so also that not one of these should know whether indeed any such miracles were wrought if any were restor'd to life or no for if they knew then they were true and that among so numberless a crow'd of teachers who by assuming to speak languages raise the dead work signs drew in those Myriads to Religion and the stake and went before them gave them an example both in faith and death that not one of all those should believe either the Miracles or himself that did them for if any one that did them did believe them since he knew who did them they must needs be certain but not one of them to know it sure is such a thing as neither could be don nor be imagin'd He therefore that requires strict evidence in things of faith which cannot bear it he that calls for Mathematical demonstration nor will believe on easier terms yet is so credulous and so unwary that he can believe so many things which by the nature and the disposition of mankind I have demonstrated not possible which yet must be true unless these scriptures be from God 't is plain he does not seek for certainty but for a pretence of not believing would fain have his Infidelity and Atheism look more excusable and is not fit to be disputed with but to be exploded But if these scriptures be from God then whatsoever they affirm with modesty I may conclude is true And therfore when St Luke Acts. 1. 1. declares his former treatise contain'd all that Iesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up since Christ before he did ascend taught every thing that was requir'd to be believ'd and don in order to salvation and more too therfore if his Gospel did contain all that he taught and did since it did not contain all absolutly it must needs mean it contained all that was necessary or it must mean nothing And since the same St Luke in the beginning of that Gospel does affirm he wrot it that Theophilus might know the certainty of those things wherein he had bin instructed T is plain he avers that the certain knowledg of all those things wherein the having bin instructed made Theophilus a Christian might be had out of that Gospel and when St Paul says here that the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesus and St John in his 20 chap. v. 31. that tho he had not wrot all the things that Iesus did yet those that he had wrot were written that we might believe that Iesus was the Christ the son of God and that believing we might have life through his name T is evident the Scriptures say that what was written was sufficient to work that belief which was sufficient to life and salvation as far as the credend● do concur to it And when St Paul in that verse that succeeds my text in most express particular words sets down the usefullness of Scripture in each several duty of a man of God or preacher of the Gospel both for Doctrine of faith for reproof or correction of manners and instruction unto righteousness and tells you Gods express end in inspiring it and consequently its ability when so inspir'd was that the man of God might be made perfect throughly furnisht unto every good work that belongs to his whole office t is most certain that what is sufficient for that office to instruct reprove correct and teach in must needs be sufficient to believe and practise in for all men i. e. what my text affirms they are able to make us wise unto salvation I might call in Tradition universal to bear witness to this truth for holy Scriptures if having once demonstrated that they are Gods word when that does affirm it and bears witness to it there were need of any other And this I dare boldly say that if the Scripture did say as expresly that the Pope had a supremacy or soveragnity over the whole Church or that he or the Roman Church were infallible their definition or the living voice of their present Church a most sure rule of Faith as it does say Scripture is able to make us wise unto salvation those Articles would suffer no dispute it would be blasphemy or sacriledg to limit or explain them by distinctions when those sayings of the perfectness of Scriptures are forc't to bear many Then we should have no complaints of the obscurity of those books if those articles were either in the Greek or Hebrew they would never say the Bible were not fit to be a Rule of Faith because the Language were unknown to the unlearned and they could not be infallibly secure of the Translation were they there they would account them sure enough who think them plain enough already there and that we must believe them because Thou art Peter Feed my sheep and Tell the Church are there And for him that shall affirm all necessaries that must make us wise unto falvation are not in the Scripture 't is impossible to give a rational account how it should come to pass that some are there the rest are not It must be either on design or else by chance Now 1. That God should design when very many things that were not necessary were to be written that the main and fundamental ones should be omitted and when of the necessaries most he did design for Scripture then He should not suffer