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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	doctrine_n	faith_n	scripture_n	3,083	5	5.9043	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81228	A discourse concerning Christ his incarnation, and exinanition. As also, concerning the principles of Christianity: by way of introduction. / By Meric Casaubon. D.D.	Casaubon, Meric, 1599-1671.	1646 (1646)	Wing C803; Thomason E354_1; ESTC R201090	58,852	100

made known unto you If all these places being put together contain not a prophesie concerning Christ The Word of God the Son of God who was made flesh and came into the world as to redeem the world by the oblation of his own body so also to reveal the truth of God unto men if all these places I say being put together doe not amount to a prophesie I know not we may call a prophesie Sure we are there is nothing forged or supposititious in all this which of the Sibyls that collection of verses I mean which now goeth under that name and of Mercurius Trismegistus hath been proved For a close of this third point or principle I shall add a passage of Dio Chrysostomus a famous Oratour and Philosopher who lived in Trajanus the Emperour his days and was in great account with him whose words also because he was a great Platonist may be some light to those of Plato's All the discourses and all the devices of men are nothing to divine inspiration and revelation or authority For what traditions or doctrines soever concerning the gods and this Vniverse that are not void of wisdome and truth have been among men all such were begotten in the souls of men by divine will and by a speciall lot or luck Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as may bee knowne by them that were the first Prophets and Professors of Divinity such as Orpheus son to one of the Muses is reported to have been in Thracia and another certain Shepheard in Boecria taught by the Muses And whosoever they be that take upon them to vent any doctrine of their own abroad for true without divine rapture or inspiration their doctrine is certainly both absurd and wicked The fourth is IV. That those books of the Old and New Testament c. I said before I presupposed I had to doe here with Christians who were already satisfied concerning the truth of those books It is well known that such have been of old and are at this day too many who though they professe to admit and allow for divine the same Scriptures that we doe and pretend to the faith and doctrine therein contained as much as we yet do not beleeve of Christ as we doe I have no direct aim at them in this Discourse intended only for the further satisfaction and confirmation of Orthodoxe Christians in this main point no direct aim I say but as the handling of this argument upon Scripture grounds may prove a conviction of their impiety and infidelity As for them that professe against this ground of either Old or New Testament which we build upon they will not neither directly or indirectly come within our reach But how then may some object perchance can we as we first maintained give a rationall account of our faith and stop the mouths of Atheists and Infidels if we cannot prove the Scriptures to be the Word of God upon common grounds of humane reason and ratiocination To which we answer that although we doe not apprehend those grounds so evident and so uncontrollable as to oblige every rationall man to a present and ready assent and therefore not to be reckoned among those common notions though reducible to them and principles we have spoken of yet that the Scriptures by them that are learned may be maintained upon grounds of reason sufficient to convince and to convert an Infidel who with simplicity of heart without strong prejudice or worldly engagements to the contrary doth seek the truth we doe professe to beleeve and should be sorry were it our aim or argument if we could not make it good One argument onely I shall insist upon here which by ancient Christians as being both popular proper I mean for vulgar capacities and solid was much pressed and whereof they found good use The testimony of a known professed enemy or adversary hath always among all men been accounted a very pregnant evidence And what relation there is between the Old and New Testament is well known to all Christians and may soon be demonstrated to them that are not Now then what greater evidence of the truth of the Old Testament can any man require then the Jewes our greatest and most malicious adversaries Then the Jews I say who by a speciall Providence though scattered and dispersed through the whole world continue to this day a distinct Nation from all other Nations of the world and to this day so zealous for Moses and all other Scriptures of the Old Testament that in all places for testimony of the truth of those Scriptures they are ready if they be put to it to lay down their lives and to forgoe whatsoever is dearest unto them Whose predecessors also that too by a speciall admirable Providence have been of old so curious and so provident for the preservation of those Scriptures which they acknowledged that they devised an art of which art either for invention or accuratnesse there is no parallel in all the ancient learning of the Heathens how to prevent not the losse of it onely but the corruption also by any either addition or diminution or alteration in words or syllables yea letters and tittles How much this argument of the Jews testimony was made of by the ancients and of what consequence it then proved may appear by Saint Augustine who speaks of it in sundry places of his Works In the twelfth of his books against the Manicheans he saith Quid enim est aliud hodieque gens ipsa Judaeorum nisi quaedam scriniaria Christianorum basulans leges prophetas ad testimonium assertionis Ecclesiae that is For what to this day are the Jews but as it were the registers or record-keepers of the Christians bearing up down the Law and the Prophets with them for a testimony to the Church Saint Augustine in these words doth allude to the custome of the Jews who then in every Synagogue were wont and use it in most places I beleeve to this day to have sacred chests or desks wherein to keep their holy Bible not onely for its safety but in reverence to it also What Saint Augustine cals Scrinium Tertullian inditeth armarium in his De Habitumuliebri ch 3. And Epiphanius in his Treatise De Ponderibus mensuris where he treateth of the difference of Canonicalll books from others he useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such books saith he speaking of that which is called Wisdome and others of like nature are accounted by them usefull and profitable but are not in the number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Canonicall for which cause also they are not laid up with the Canonicall in the aron that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the chest or capse of the Testament Lamp Alardi Epiphyll Phiolog I wonder that any man could so mistake Epiphanius as though he had beleeved that the whole Jews Bible or Old Testament had been kept in the Ark where the two Tables containing

the ten Commandements were appointed to be laid which Ark before the said Testament was compleat ever since the Babylonian Captivity had been wanting Petavius himself a learned Jesuite that hath set out Epiphanius except he may be allowed to expunge those words as spurious the last refuge of venturous Criticks when they are plunged and cannot get out doth plainly professe to suspect this to have been the opinion of Epiphanius whereas we have more occasion to suspect of him that he did not understand him or had any thought of those passages of Tertullian and Augustine which would have made Epiphanius his meaning clear enough and as we conceive unquestionable I have now done with those grounds of common notions and principles of humane reason the consideration whereof I conceived would be proper and pertinent to the subject we are to treat of a subject of it self so sublime and so farre above the reach of humane understanding that whoever takes upon him to meddle with it had need to lay wel his grounds before-hand and carefully to circumscribe himself lest he fall into extravagances before he be aware Qui scrutatur Majestatem opprimetur à gloriâ whether that were Solomons meaning Prov. 25.27 or no may be controverted but a true sentence it is however and they shall be sure to find it true that proceed not in such arguments with much warinesse This method of proceeding by certain hypotheses laid for a foundation though it be most proper to Mathematicians yet it is not unusuall to other Artists and Writers It is the very method used by Plato in his Timeus the subject whereof is the Creation of the world of man particularly our subject is the restauration or regeneration of mankinde in Christ which of the two is generally accounted the greater work OF THE INCARNATION of CHRIST ANcient Philosophers that have written concerning the nature of this Universe observe this as a great mystery of nature and a singular evidence of the power and wisdome of God the author of nature that whatsoever is commonly said to dye or to perish is by this death or corruption which they more properly call alteration the cause of the production and generation of something else whereby the course of this worlds generation in generall is continued and maintained It may be applied in some kinde to this sacred subject and mystery of Christ his Incarnation The fall and miscarrying of the first Adam was the cause or occasion at the least of the second Adam Had not the first Adam the first fruits of mankind in whom the whole lump was either to be sanctified or polluted sinned and by his sin undone all that should come from him the second Adam Christ Jesus according to the flesh as the Scripture speaketh had never been born for there had been no need of him For as for the conceits of some either ancient Hereticks or later Schoolmen who have maintained a contrary opinion as neither grounded upon Scripture nor any probability of reason and generally rejected by the more sober of all sides I willingly passe by But on the other side though the Incarnation of the Son of God of all the works of God hath eminently the preeminence yet we may not say or think that therefore the first man sinned or was ordained to sin that the Son of God might be incarnated For so wee should make God the author of sin then which nothing either in it self can be more detestable or more contrary to true piety God indeed to whom all things past present future are equally present as hee foresaw from all eternity the fall of Adam and in him of all mankinde so did he from all eternity decree the Incarnation of his Son for the restauratiō of man Whence are those phrases of Scripture that Christ as a Redeemer a 1 Pet. 1.20 was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world that we were b Ephes 1.4 chosen or c 2 Tim. 1.9 saved in Christ before the foundation of the world or before the world began and again that Christ is the d Apoc. 13.8 Lamb slain from the foundation of the world though as for this last passage I rather embrace their interpretation such hyperbaton's as they call them being very frequent in the Scriptures who referre this from the beginning of the world to the book of life as Apocal. 17.18 rather then to the Lamb slain though I must professe against the reason that is given by some as Ribera the Jesuite upon the place as though there were any absurdity or incongruity in the speech being so justifiable by other parallel places of Scripture But this foresight of God did no ways occasion much lesse necessitate the disobedience of Adam who as he was created with perfect freedome of will so he might had not he been wanting to himself have resisted the temptation of the Devill and have continued in that innocency to which his happinesse and immortality was annexed But it so fell out that Adam used his freewill to his own and all that should be after him being descended from him their ruine and eternall confusion Better it had been for him certainly and better for all that had any dependence of him never to have been for I am not of their opinion that think any beeing better then no beeing then to see himself at once stript of his happinesse and innocency of the son of God become the slave of the Devill and besides his own personall misery the occasion of so much evill unto others Seneca De Clem. l. 1. Quanto autem non nasci melius quàm numerari inter publico malo natos how much more then quàm unum omnis omnibus mali causam extitisse Here a question offers it self though we would be very cautelous of moving questions of this nature where the Scripture it self is silent too much curiosity in this kind having been the occasion of sundry blasphemies and heresies yet because there is some ground for it in the Scripture we may not altogether passe it by The question is Why God would permit Adam to sin which he might many ways have prevented if he had thought fit The first answer is because it became God well if this be not too bold a speech to make good his own order and to maintain his owne work It had pleased God to endow Adam with a perfect free-will He was furnished with sufficient grace to continue innocent and to withstand sin but that grace was conditionall as be used it as he liked it he might either improve it or lose it If therefore we must make a question of it it is more proper to ask why God created Adam with free-will then why God did not hinder the sin of Adam being so created This very question much troubled ancient Philosophers who had the bare light of reason and nature for their guide Why God being so perfectly good as they did acknowledge him would suffer sin