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 old_a testament_n 6,574 5 8.1314 4 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A34926 The judgment of Archbishop Cranmer concerning the peoples right to, and discreet use of the H. Scriptures Cranmer, Thomas, 1489-1556. 1689 (1689) Wing C6827; ESTC R7153 13,150 23

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

January 22 1688. Imprimatur HEN. WHARTON THE JUDGMENT OF Archbishop CRANMER Concerning the Peoples Right to and Discreet Use OF THE H. SCRIPTURES LONDON Printed for John Taylor at the Ship in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1689. THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER IT my seem very strange to some in the World to consider the different Fate of the Holy Scriptures among Christians how very contrary their Affections are towards that Book yet I for my part do no more Wonder at the Fury of the Members of the Church of Rome against the Holy Bible than at the Protestants Zeal for it Since the learned part of the Church of Rome know that their present Religion and the new Articles of it are not to be found in that Book and the Unlearned part are told and believe That it is a very dangerous Book and therefore both of them not without great Cause as they think have Reason to be angry and violent against that Book But since Protestants do find to their infinite Satisfaction their Religion in the Bible they think they cannot express too great a Veneration for it and believe that their Honour and Zeal for it ought at least to be as great as the Papists Fury and Anger against it And yet as angry as those People are at the Holy Scriptures when they were about Converting us all here and the new Trade of Representing Popery was set up among us they had so much Wit as to perceive that abundance of Skill and Art must be necessary to get the Bible out of the Peoples Hands and that their best way was not to be too severe upon the Bible it self but to spend all their Pains upon disparaging Our Bible This was none of the worst Projects for if the Priests could but once have gained so far upon the People as to have made them out of Love with Our Bible and to have got it out of their Hands they needed not despair of gaining so much further upon them as to make them altogether careless of having any Bible at all and far from being desirous of having another Translation instead of ours The gaining of this Point was the Design of the Famous Popish Chappel in Lime street where it was the Jesuites Province to cast all the Dirt they could upon our Bible and to run down our Translation as nothing but a mere heap of Falsities And some of them Father Petre for example were so furious as not only to charge our Translation with such gross Falsities and Misinterpretations but our Clergy with knowing it to be so and yet not daring for filthy Lucre's sake to acknowledge it My Business shall not be to meddle with the Scandal which needs no other Confutation than to say It came from a Jesuite's Mouth and which is more from Father Petre's Mouth Brother to the late Jesuite-Privy-Counsellour I intend only to vindicate our Bible from those false Aspersions and Calumnies of the Jesuites by shewing that our Translation ought not to be objected against at all by any Church in the World much less by the Church of Rome but least of all by those People who have undertaken to do it so liberally in our own Nation Our Translation ought not to be objected against by any Church in the World because after the several Reviews of it and the vast Pains of so many very Learned Men upon it in King James the First Days we may without Vanity say That it is as Perfect and as Compleat as any Translation in use in any Church in the World. We do not pretend that it is perfectly free from Mistakes or the least Errour as no Translation of the Bible ever was so perfect So I believe none ever will or can as long as Men not Inspired have the Charge of Translating but this we say and challenge the World to disprove it That it is freed from all material Faults and that it is accurate as to Matters of Faith and Good Manners the Errors about which can only be Dangerous to Mankind And as no Church now in the World ought to accuse our Translation so much less ought the Church of Rome to do it whose Latin Translation of the Bible is so full of material Faults For not to insist upon those Numerous and Great Differences betwixt the two Bibles of Pope Sixtus Quintus and Clement VIII which yet both of them under the Pain of Excommunication are declared to be Authentick Isidore Clarius a learned Spanish Bishop does own That the Errours in their Vulgar Latin are almost numberless and he himself has observed eight thousand Places erroneous in it And which is more there are not only Literal Mistakes Omissions or Additions of single Words in their Bibles but in one Book of the Old Testament alone to wit in the Proverbs there are not fewer than eighteen whole Verses or Sentences which are not in the Original Hebrew So that the Church of Rome of all Churches should not charge us with Errours in our Translation And if their Church should not meddle with such things I am sure those Priests who undertook it in the Popish Chappel in Lime-street should of all Men have been excused from such a Task They that would be medling with the Corrections of Translations ought to be perfectly skill'd in the Original Tongues in the Hebrew and Chaldee for the Old Testament in the Greek and Syriac for the New. Now how far Father Petre or the rest of the Lime-street-Priests were from being thus qualified for the Noble Province of bafling our Translation of the Bible the World is almost as well satisfied as their own Consciences I am persuaded That not only Hebrew Chaldee and Syriack are utterly unknown to them but that Greek is almost as unintelligible Popery has been a long time an Enemy to Learning and in our Days I am sure the Jesuites have approved themselves to be the best Papists that is the most ignorant Dunces Who upon this account ought not to meddle with Matters of Learning especially wherein great skill in Languages is so requisite After all I am fully convinced that all that Fury and Vehemence in the Lime-street Chappel was much more intended against the Holy Bible it self than against our Translation of it Their Church has taught 'em a new Faith and therefore since the Old Bible has it not in it they are for throwing it aside as Old and Useless especially to the People whose Right to the Use of that Holy Book is the Subject of this Tract of the most Venerable Martyr of Christ Archbishop Cramner to the perusal of which you are now invited The Judgment of Archbishop Cranmer concerning the Holy Scriptures Concerning two sundrie sorts of people it seemeth much necessarie that something be saide in the entrie of this Booke by the way of a Preface or Prologue whereby hereafter it may bee both the better accepted of them which hitherto could not well beare it and also the better vsed of them
contemplation and such as before haue clensed themselues aswell in soule as bodie or at the least endeuored themselues to be made cleane For it is dangerous saith he for the vncleane to touch that thing which is most clean like as the sore eye taketh harme by looking vpon the Sunne Secondarily not at all times but when we be reposed and at rest from all outward dregs and trouble and when that our heades be not encombred with other worldly and wandring imaginations as if a man should mingle balme and dirt together For he that shall iudge and determine such matters and doubtes of Scriptures must take his time when he may applie his wittes therunto that he may thereby the better see and discerne what is trueth Thirdly where and in what audience There and among those that haue bene studious to learne and not among such as haue pleasure to trifle with such matters as with other thinges of pastime which repute for their chiefe delicates the disputation of high questions to shewe their wittes learning and eloquence in reasoning of high matters Fourthly it is to be considered how farre to wade in such matters of difficulty No further saith he but as euery mans owne capacity will serve him and againe no further then the weaknesse or intelligence of the other audience may beare For like as too great noyse hurteth the eare too much meate hurteth the mans body heauie burdens hurt the bearers of them too much raine doeth more hurt then good to the ground briefly in all things too much is noyous euen so weake wittes and weake consciences may soone be oppressed with ouer hard questions I say not this to disswade men from the knowledge of God and reading or studying of the Scripture for I say that it is as necessary for the life of mans soule as for the body to breathe And if it were possible so to liue I would thinke it good for a man to spend all his life in that and to doe none other thing I commend the Lawe which biddeth to meditate and studie the Scriptures alwayes both night and day and Sermons and preachings to be made both morning noone and euentide and God to be lauded and blessed in all times to bedward from bed in our iourneyes and in all other workes I forbid not to reade but I forbid to reason Neither forbid I to reason so farre as is good and godly but I allow not that is done out of season and out of measure and good order A man may eate too much honie be it neuer so sweete and there is time for euery thing and that thing that is good is not good if it be vngodly done Euen as a flower in winter is out of season and as a womans apparell becometh not a man neither contrarily the mans the woman neither is weeping conuenient at a bride ale neither laughing at a buriall Now if we can obserue and keepe that is comely timely in all other things shall not we then the rather do the same in the holy Scriptures Let vs not runne foorth as it were wilde horses that can suffer neither bridle in their mouthes nor sitter on their backes Let vs keepe vs in our bounds and neither let vs go too farre on the one side least we returne into Egypt neither too farre ouer the other least we be carried away to Babylon Let vs not sing the song of our Lord in a strange land that is to say let vs not dispute the word of God at all aduentures aswell where it is not to be reasoned as where it is and aswell in the eares of them that be not fit therefore as of them that be If we can in no wise forbeare but that we must needs dispute let vs forbeare thus much at the least to do it out of time and place convenient and let vs entreate of those things which be holy holily and vpon those things that be mystical mystically and not to vtter the Diuine mysteries in the eares vnworthie to hear them but let vs knowe what is comely aswell in our silence and talking as in our garments wearing in our feeding in our gesture in our goings in all our other behauing This contention and debates about Scriptures and doubtes thereof specially when such as do pretende to be the fauourers and students thereof cannot agree within themselues doth most hurt to ourselues and to the furthering of the cause and quarels that we should haue furthered aboue all other things And we in this saith he be not vnlike to them that being madde set their owne houses on fire and that slay their owne children or beate their own parents I marueile much saith he to recount whereof commeth all this desire of vainglorie whereof commeth all this tongue itche that we haue so much delight to talke and clatter And wherein is our communication Not in the commendation of vertuous and good deedes of hospitalitie of loue betweene Christian brother and brother of loue betweene man and wife of virginitie and chastitie and of almes towarde the poore not in Psalmes and godly songs not in lamenting for our sinnes not in repressing the affections of the body not in prayers to God. We talke of Scripture but in the meane time we subdue not our flesh by fasting watching and weeping we make not this life a meditation of death we do not striue to be lords over our appetites and affections wee goe not about to pull downe our proude and high mindes to abate our fumish and rancorous stomackes to restraine our lust and bodily delectations our vndiscrete sorowes out lasciuious mirth our inordinate looking our insatiable hearing of vanities our speaking without measure our inconuenient thoughts and briefly to reforme our life and maners but all our holinesse consisteth in talking And we pardon eche other from all good liuing so that we may sticke fast together in argumentation as though there were no mo wayes to heauen but this alone the way of speculation and knowledge as they take it but in very deede it is rather the way of superfluous contention and sophistication Hitherto haue I recited the minde of Gregorie Nazianzene in that Book which I spake of before The same Author saith also in another place that the learning of a Christian man ought to beginne of the feare of God to ende in matters of high speculation and not contrarily to beginne with speculation and to ende in feare For speculation saith hee either high cunning or knowledge if it be not stayed with the bridle of feare to offende God is dangerous and ynough to tumble a man headlong downe the hill Therefore saith he the feare of God must be the first beginning and as it were an A. B. C. or an introduction to all them that shall enter into the very true and most fruitefull knowledge of holy Scriptures Whereas is the feare of God there is saith he the keeping of the commaundements and where as is the keeping of the commaundements there is the cleansing of the flesh which flesh is a cloude before the soules eye and suffereth it not purely to see the beame of the heauenly light Where as is the cleansing of the flesh there is the illumination of the holy Ghost the ende of all our desires and the very light whereby the veritie of Scripture is seene and perceiued This is the minde and almost the wordes of Gregorie Nazianzene doctour of the Greeke Church of whome Saint Ierome saith that unto his time the Latine Church had no writer able to be compared and to make an euen match with him Therefore to conclude this latter part euery man that commeth to the reading of this holy Booke ought to bring with him first and formost this feare of Almightie God and then next a firme and stable purpose to reforme his owne selfe according thereunto and so to continue proceede and prosper from time to time shewing himselfe to be a sober and fruitefull hearer and learner which if he doe he shall proue at length well able to teach though not with his mouth yet with his liuing and good example which is sure the most liuely and effectuous forme and maner of teaching He that otherwise intermedleth withh this Booke let him be assured that once hee shall make account therefore when he shall haue said to him as it is written in the Prophet Davuid Peccatori dicit Deus c. Vnto the vngodly saide God Why doest thou preach my Lawes and takest my testament in thy mouth Whereas thou hatest to be reformed and hast bene partaker with adulterers Thou hast let thy mouth speake wickednesse and with thy tongue thou hast set forth deceit Thou satest and spakest against thy brother and hast slaundered thin owne mothers sonne These thinges hast thou done and I helde my tongue and thou thoughtest wickedly that I am euen such a one as thy selfe But I will reprooue thee and set before thee the things that thou hast done O consider this ye that forget God lest I plucke you away and there be none to deliuer you Who so offereth me thankes and praise he honoureth me and to him that ordereth his conuersation right will I shew the saluation of God. God be praised FINIS Psa. 119. 105. Matth. 4. 4. Luke 12.49 The Couclusion The Kings highnesse hath allowed the Scripture as necessarie for vs. There is nothing but may be abused Rom. 8.