Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	scripture_n	write_v	2,669	5	5.3981	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36018	Protestant certainty, or, A short treatise shewing how a Protestant may be well assured of the articles of his faith	Dillingham, William, 1617?-1689.	1689 (1689)	Wing D1485; ESTC R1392	22,130	40

apart Now we assent unto all the Articles of our Faith by a Divine Faith and this Faith is firm and certain subjective But the Romanists pretend to give an infallible subjective Certainty of them and so by out-bidding us invite Men over into their Communion And it is to be considered whether our subjective Certainty be sufficient for saving Faith or an infallible subjective Certainty be required to it As for our parts we do not at all doubt but that God will infallibly in the event bring all his Elect unto true Faith and by it unto Salvation though he do not make them all infallibly perswaded of it in this Life A Subjective Certainty of what we believe is sufficient for adhering unto Jesus Christ and Obedience the Fruit thereof and for our own Comfort and therefore to bring us to Salvation without being infallibly certain Subjective of all the things which we do believe And one cannot readily give an account why any Men should so covet to be infallibly certain of their Belief and yet in the mean while take up and content themselves with a conjectural Certainty or certainty of Hope only concerning their own Salvation unless it were because it is the Interest of some Men to have others fully perswaded of their Doctrines of Purgatory Superogation Infallibility c. that so they may lead them by a blind Belief and Obedience to what they please but to keep them in the mean while uncertain of their Salvation that they may the more willingly take off their Masses Merits and Pardons and such like Commodities in barter for their Earthly Gold and Silver But let us come now to consider the first Proposition and how we are assured of it which is That the Holy Scriptures are the Word of God revealed by Him and committed to Writing by the infallible Guidance of the Holy-Ghost and contain the Doctrine of Christ and of his Holy Prophets and Apostles And that we may take our Rise a little backward That there is a God and he infallible in Knowledge and Veracity and that he Created Man after his own Image are Truths which the World hath been so long in quiet Possession of that I think I may take them for granted at least for the present and then it is a thing most agreeable to the Wisdom Goodness and Justice of God to believe that seeing God doth expect that Man should know worship and obey him according as Man's dependence on him and the Preparations which he hath laid in for it in the Fabrick and Furniture of his Nature do require and it seems necessary that he should have made some sufficient Promulgation of his Will and Pleasure unto Man as a perfect and certain Rule of his Faith and Practice according to which he may take an account of him hereafter For which purpose the natural Reason of Man in this corrupt Estate is not a sufficient Rule as woful Experience teacheth and therefore it was necessary that God should make some further Revelation of his Mind unto us to clear up and correct our natural Notions and to discover what further he doth require us to believe and do in order to Salvation And for the certainty of such Rule it is very consentaneous to the Wisdom of God in this shortness of Man's Life and multitude of the Persons concerned to commit such Rule to Writing rather than to intrust it to the conveyance of oral Tradition which all just and wise Law-givers have found it necessary to decline But however a revealed Rule there must be and there is nothing in the World which can with any Reason or Probability lay claim to it but only the Holy Scriptures and this they do accordingly For we often find them challenging to themselves this Prerogative Thus saith the Lord and I the Lord have spoken it Jesus answered and said and he taught the People saying and all Scripture is given by divine Inspiration Holy Men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost For tho' all the Books of Scripture were not then written when the Apostles wrote that yet all the necessary Articles of Faith were and many more Which claim had it not been a true one it would certainly have been the greatest Forgery Usurpation and Blasphemy against God himself that is Imaginable and then we might have rationally expected that the great and good God would have been so Jealous of his own Honour and Man's Salvation as in all this time by some signal Act of his Providence to disown it and discover the Imposture But since he hath not done any such thing but on the contrary hath made it his Work by his wonderful Providence to maintain and preserve it for so many Hundreds of Years and accompanied the Preaching of it for the Conversion of Souls unto himself and the Reformation of the World of Mankind What else can be thought but that he thereby owns it to be his Certainly such a Proof as this concerning any Man's Book would be a violent Presumption that he were the true Author of it and he would be thought a very unreasonable Man who should but call it into question But we have greater Certainty than this for the Matters contained in the Holy Scriptures I mean the Heavenliness of the Matter the Majesty of the Stile the Harmony of the Parts the Consent of the several Writers the design of the whole to lay Man low and to advance God's Glory in Man's Salvation These and such like Beams of divine Light are so agreeable to the Notion of God written in our Hearts that both of them do plainly appear to have been written by the same Finger of God and the one to confirm explain and perfect the other Which Heavenly Characters and claim have been owned and admitted and the certainty of the Holy Scriptures being the Word of God revealed by him and penned by the infallible direction of the Holy Ghost been thereupon believed and attested by all the Churches of Christ in all Ages notwithstanding other differences that were and are among them unanimoully by so many wise holy and learned Men in a matter which was of infinite concernment to them to be well assured of and wherein they could neither have any design nor opportunity of combining together for the deceiving of others Now this unanimous Testimony of the Church although it be but a humane Testimony and not infallible yet being corroborated by the aforesaid Considerations it is sufficient to give any reasonable Man a satisfaction and an assurance that the Holy Scriptures were revealed by God and penned by his infallible Guidance as great as any other matter of Fact and this is such can at this distance by humane testimony be capable of yea and a far greater For there is no Effect wrought by any Man that can verge forth so many Rays from the nature of the Act or thing done pointing at and singling out its Cause and owning its Original but that it