Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	good_a	holy_a	scripture_n	3,042	5	5.5201	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51828	Two discourses the first, shewing how the chief criterions of philosophical truth, invented by speculative men, more eminently serve divine revelation, than either philosophy or natural religion. The second, manifesting how all the foundations of the intellectual world, viz. reason, morality, civil government, and religion, have been undermin'd by popish doctrine and policies. By Tho. Mannyngham, M.A fellow of New Colledge in Oxford, and Rector of East-Tysted in Hant-Shire.	Manningham, Thomas, 1651?-1722.	1681 (1681)	Wing M510; ESTC R216239	26,124	193

attributed its Prophesies to secret Combinations of Writers after the Fact or accommodated them to other Persons and Circumstances and to have ascribed all its Miracles to the force of Egyptian Magick and the operation of Devils Now all this was contrived in honour and vindication of the Platonic Philosophy so highly reverenced by the Sacred Order of the Alexandrian School Yet all these men have spent their utmost Venom done their worst and the gates of Hell have not prevailed For another succession of Gospel Adversaries we may with Candor enough reckon Aquinas and the School-men who have most deplorably undermined the Scriptures with the Principles of Aristotle and although accidentally yet they have been as really pernicious as any we have hitherto named Their intentions were doubtless innocent but we can never sufficiently lament their intolerable Leisure which occasioned them for want of better imploy to spin out all the strength of Divine Writings into nice and unprofitable Volumns Whatever the advices of those Persons may seem to the contrary who have spent so much time in those Studies already that they are bound for their Reputation-sake to recommend them to others who tell us those alone will make a man close and Argumentative quick and sagacious in discovering the Point and Knot of the Controversie which perhaps was ty'd only for the Trick-sake who would have us lie seven or eight years in a dark room that when we come abroad into the open day we may think we see clearer who though they themselves have miserably experimented the Cousenage yet still cry up and maintain the prodigy and to prevent a sawcy precociousness in Learning invite others to drudge in their methods to be vigilant and attentive on subtile Entities till they become like those deeper sort of Contemplators who never fix their eyes more steadfastly than when they see nothing notwithstanding I say all these large promises and encouragements for the reading of the Schoolmen there are altogether as observant persons who will not stick to affirm that 't is evidently owing to that Load and Corruption of our Libraries that men are generally grown so loose and ambiguous in their Reasonings that with little pains or art they can prove any thing or nothing and that most of those Religious Wars which at this day infest Christianity are chiefly owing to that fatal invention of School-Divinity that Gun-powder of Learning All this would be most amazingly dreadful but that there is somewhat worse to come There is still another Philosophy behind and that has opened another Gate in Hell and sent forth a piece of the blackest Sophistry that the Infernal Synod can dictate It s reputed Author Benedictus de Spinoza one who has run through a whole Amsterdam of Religions himself and obliged that Athens of promiscuous Worship with one more of his own Invention Where he has given them all the difficulties of Scripture-History and Chronology amass'd and enhansed all the Doubts and Controversies of Commentators positively determined on the worst side a Rapsodie of Illusions from Talmud and Alcoran and a Feature of Deformity borrowed from every Heresie Schism and Sect. 'T is true indeed he allows the Bible to be Divine Revelation but with this Proviso that the Philosophers Reason is still a more infallible word of God that its Prophecies were accommodated to Prejudice Fancy and Temper Its Miracles the Wonders of the Ignorant its whole end and scope Political for the better security of Government and its popular Doctrine intended only for the Herd to square their gross Obedience by and all this because there occur some Expressions in the Scriptures altogether unworthy as he imagines of those clear and evident discoveries of Nature lately found out and Demonstrated by the Divine Cartesius whom he never mentions but with the greatest veneration imaginable with all the Eulogies that the most ravished invention can suggest whereas if at any time he confesses Christ 't is like the Devil in the Gospel with Horror and Reluctance and like him too he seems first Tormented to it The Existence of a Deity against the Atheist and the certainty of the Bibles Revelation against the Anti-scripturist have been in all Christian ages but especially of late so fully confirmed and established both from Pulpit and Press through all the possibility of Reasoning all the Amplitude of Topics whether Theological Metaphysical Physical Moral or Mathematical that were they handsomely collected and summ'd up they would without Controversie make a Compendium of the properest Logick yet extant and yet this Infamous Book presents our Reasoning Men with a farther scruple still where freely granting the Revelation of the Scriptures it notwithstanding concludes that the holy Bible is only a popular System of Pious Political Errors Regnum Devotionis non Veritatis Wherefore I shall endeavour at present only to make good this one Proposition viz. That the chief Criterions or Canons of Philosophical Truth which have been invented and allowed by speculative Men are much more abundantly convincing when applied to matters of Divine Revelation Now Philosophical Truth is capable of being considered but these two ways I. In respect of its Traditional or Historical account II. In respect of its accommodation to our Natural Faculties I. In respect of its Traditional or Historical account And here we have some late Authors very laborious in Transcriptions who have not scrupled to make Philosophy co-incident with Revelation it self deriving it in a continued Tradition from the Jewish Church and thereby conceiving it no other than the remains of a primary Revelation They make the business very short telling us that doubtless Adam was created with a perfect knowledge of Nature and that from him this Knowledge was transmitted by Methusalem to Noah from Noah and his Sons and Nephews to the Chaldeans from them to the Egyptians from the Egyptians to the Phenicians from Phenicia it sailed into Greece so to the Latins and from thence 't was propagated to these septentrional parts where we have the Genealogy of Philosophy as clearly and succinctly delineated as that of our King from William the Conqueror Now we cannot suppose that Adam transmitted that Knowledg of Nature which he enjoyed during the state of his Innocency and which he received either from immediate Infusion or connate Idea's of things Nay if he had he would have given his Posterity a false Philosophy since that whole Nature was afterwards forced to follow the Law of its Curse since Thorns and Bryars were not in the Scheme of Vegetables and the Serpent was to be new studied again But if he transmitted to us the Knowledge he had gathered from much Experience and a long Life after his Fall when perhaps his Faculties were not very much perfecter than ours and stood in as great want of a Logick for their better information I do not see any great benefit we could receive from such a Tradition and all that the Asserters of this Opinion can make good will