Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	holy_a	king_n	scripture_n	2,468	5	5.3009	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44763	The vision, or, A dialog between the soul and the bodie fancied in a morning-dream.	Howell, James, 1594?-1666.	1651 (1651)	Wing H3127; ESTC R11503	50,341	190

Pharoh and his army to a high spring tide The passing over of the Israelites to a low ebb and eddy water They admire not the raining of Manna in the wildernes because there is good store found in Calabria and other places They cannot believe that Lazarus was rais'd from the dead but they must be satisfied where his soul was all the while They censure the miracle of making the blind to see because he saw men walk like trees whereas he had never seen trees before having bin blind from his nativity They think it strange the● shold be a Tree in Paradise so soon in regard the text saies positively that the plants of the fields were not yet grown because it had not rain'd They question whether the handle of Goliath's spear was as big as a weavers beam and whether David had so many hundred thousand talents of treasure Moreover they cast blemishes upon Christian truth because general and great oecumenicall Councels did so clash one with another And that the Fathers of the Primitive Church in divers opinions were not only differing one from the other but dissonant to themselfs as among other positions in the computations which they make of the Yeers from the Creation of the world to the Incarnation wherin they are so discrepant Nay they wold derogat from the Dictats of the Holy Ghost himself touching som texts of Scripture because in the second of Kings we read Michal for Merah as may be perceived by comparing it with the first Book of the same History As also because St Matthew hath written Zachary for Ieremy chap. 27. Likewise that St Mark in the first chapter cites a passage out of Isaiah which is recorded in Malachy Moreover when he saith that our Saviour was crucified on the third hour whereas St Iohn saith Chap. 19. that he was but only condemned by Pilat the sixth hour So likewise where St Luke saith that Cainan was the son of Arphaxad and Salec the son of Cainan the place is contradicted in Genesis 23. where it is said that Salec was not Arphaxed's grandchild but his son no other generation intervening betwixt the two And when ●● is said Genesis the 11. that the Cave which Abraham bought was in Sichem being indeed in Hebron and that he bought it of the sonnes of Emor the son of Sechem yet Moses saith it was of Ephron the Hittite Moreover wheras he saith that Emor was Sichem's son it is said in Genesis 3● quite contrary that Emor was Sichem's Father and not his son Other supercritical spirits wold cast aspersions upon Christianity because Constantin the first Emperor of that Religion was a very lewd man Gildas accusing him to have bin a murtherer a perjurer the tyrannicall whelp of the unclean lionness of Dannonier's That likewise Clovis the first Christian king of France was as bad And that Henry the eight the first reformed king worse then either of Them Ther are others that have another kind of spiritual pride it being not only sufficient to Arrogat from the Holy Scriptures to pick ho●es in Christianity criticize so upon her but while they go about to magnify man they detract from the chiefest instruments of Gods glory and his principall attendants the blessed Angels by paraleling mans Creation to theirs and that they were made as all things els for man whom they cry up to be the Epitome of the world and that the principal ministerial function of the Angels is to gard him Such as these may be said to be possessed with a giddy kind of spiritual drunkeness or madness rather and touching those of this last conceit they are like the Cobler who drunk himself into a kingdom and thought himself a king while he continued in that humor Nor is Religion only troubled with such Critiques and Detractors but these times afford such in all sciences to magnifie their own fancies they slight all Antiquity they will not stick to call Plato a dotard and Hippocrates a quack-salver thinking that they have more sublime notions then any It is true that in some sense restraining it to saving knowledg a child that understands his primer may be said to be more learned then all the Philosophers that ever were as the least fly in regard she hath a sensitive soul within her may be said in som respects to be more noble then the sun because he is inanimat Soul It is too tru that the present times do swarm with such arrogant and over-curious spirits though they be full of doubts and still at a loss going after nothing els but more teaching still yet they seem to have such a peremptory certitude of their salvation as if they had seen their names registred in the book of life expunging thence all other but their own They cannot modestly beleeve the Creed but they must know the very track that our Saviour went to Hell they wold string the rainbow and be satisfied what kind of wood it is that the man of the moon carrieth on his back c. With a spirit much like this was Scaliger possessed who while he went about to amend the times and correct errors committed as gross ones himself as any one Author he condemns he makes Dagon a woman the Emperour of Habassia Prester Iohn what shallow conceits hath he of the depth of the sea and how poorly was he vers'd in Cyclometria how scurrilously he railes against whole nations and would understand nothing but what he liked Body Truly I have bin ever averse to raise frivolous quaeres in any thing specially in the essentialls of faith or enter into disputes and altercations or heat touching matters indifferent I was never of their mind that against a Cap and a Surplis would put on a Helmet and Armor I have bin contented to follow the first road I was put in towards heaven moving after the motion of the superior orbs that were plac'd in the firmament of the Church though not altogether in an implicit way I have always made Reson and other sciences to truckle under Divinity their mistress I have taken as much spirituall delight let all this be spoken without vanity or any scandall to other souls in other offices and holy duties of the Church as in Sermons which makes me reflect upon a saying of S. Lewis the French king to Henry the third of England who asking him in those times of implicit Faith whether he would go sooner unto the Eucharist or to a Sermon he answered I had rather see my friend then hear him only spoken of I have always inclined to love Order and degrees of respect to abhor confusion to love decencies rather then slut●isness nor I hope shall I be ever of their gang who to avoid superstition do fall into palpable prophaness Soul I like you humor well touching all these particulars nor will they offend I beleeve any one that is of a s●ne sober judgment concerning the last thing you spoke of it makes the

c. The Roman Catholicks though they Invoke Saints and pray for the dead c. All these with sundrie sorts of Christians besides all the while they have the Symbole of saving Faith and same Apostolical Creed with me all the while they have the Decalog and holy Scriptures I have so much Charitie to hold that they differ from me not as much in Religion as in Opinion Now Opinion is that great Ladie which sways the World therefore I wish that they might go up the same scale of bliss with me Nor are the Swi●s and Gritons to be hated because they permit the Lutheran to preach in one end of the Church and the Calvinist in the other yet in thei● moral civilities and negotiations they live peaceably together To conclude this discours touching common Charitie and Love 't is tru my Fellow-cretures my Kindred and Friends have a great share of it but I reserve the quintessence thereof for my Creator and Saviour the one being the sea the other the spring of all felicitie I love my Creator a thousand degrees more than I fear him which makes me praise him more often than pray unto him and for matter of fear as I displayed my self elsewhere I fear none more than my self who am indeed my greatest foe I mean those obliquities and depravations which are my inmates whereof the ill spirit takes his advantage ever and anon to make me run into aberrations so that I may say I stand more in fear of my self than of the devil or death who is the king of fears Now touching this Elixer of love that I reserve for my Creator it melted one morning into these Stanzas As the parchd field doth thirst for rain When the Dog-star makes Sheep and Swain Of an unusual drowth coplain So thirsts my heart for Thee As the chac'd deer doth pant and bray After some brook or cooling bay When hounds have worried her astray So pants my heart for Thee As the forsaken Dove doth mone When her beloved mate is gone And never rests while self-alone So mones my heart for Thee Or as the teeming Earth doth mourn In black like Lover at an urn Till Titan's quickning beams return So do I mourn mone pant thirst For Thee who art my last and first Soul I am glad beyond measure to hear these discourses drop from you first that you make so good use of the objects of this Inferior world as to study your Creator in them proceeding from the effects to the search of the cause which is the method of Philosophy whereas the Theolog proceeds commonly from the cause to the effect The Pagan Philosophers by the twilight of nature soard so high that they came to discover there was a primus Motor an Ensentium an optimus maximus they came to know that he was ubiquitary and diffus'd through the Universs to give vigor life and motion to all parts as I do in that bodie of yours though invisibly if I may be so bold as assimilat so incomprehensible a greatness to so small a thing Now there is no finit intellect can form a quidditative apprehension of God no not the Angels themselves There may be negative conceptions of him as to say he is immortal immense independent simple and infinit c. Or there may be relative conceptions had of him as when we call him Creator Governor King c. Or there may be positive conceptions of him as the chiefest Good a pure Act or he may be described by an aggregation of Attributs as Mercifull Wise Pious c. But for the comprehensive quidditie of God it cannot be understood by any created Power Among all these one of the best wayes to describe him is by Abstracts as to call him goodness it self Justice it self Power Pity Piety it self He being the rule of all these some of those ancient Wisards among the Egyptians and Grecians came by reach of natural resons to the knowledge of one Incomprehensible Guide and conserver of the Univers specially Tresmegistus and Socrates but they durst not broach their opinions publiquely for fear of the fury of the Peeple among whom there was a kind of zeal in those dark times Plato flew as high as Socrates his Master in Divinitie and among other Passages throughout his Works there is one that is very pregnant for Writing to a friend of his he saith When I write to thee seriously I begin my Epistle with God save thee when otherwise The Gods save thee Aristotle Plato's scholler courted Nature onely groping her secrets a great Philosopher he was and no less a Sophister he was the first that entangled Philosophy with subtilties coin'd words and Paralogisms as the Classicans did first distract divinitie so that it was no improper Character which one gave That Aristotles school was a great skold Touching the celestial bodies I love you the better that you are affected with them so much that you sometimes speculat and spel your Creator among the stars Now some of the Rabbins hold that the word Iehovah which is the highest name of God Almightie and pronounced publickly in the Synagog but once a year may be plainly made up among the Oriental stars Nay they affirm that all the Hebrew letters may be found in the firmament which letters were the true characters of the constellations before the Egyptians came with their Hieroglyphicks that the Greeks hois'd up such monsters so near the throne of God as Bears Bulls Lions Goats Rams and Scorpions together with pitchers and planks of rotten wood They hold moreover that the fate and periods of Monarchies may be read not onely in Comets but in those fixd stars that are vertical over them When Medusa's head was vertical to Greece there were divers that presaged her destruction Ierusalem's ruin was read plainly among the stars some years before Nay Postel a Christian writer takes God and Christ to witness that in the Hebrew characters among the stars vidit omnia quae in Rerum natura constituta sunt he saw all things that were constituted by nature Doubtless that toung which was spoken in Paradise and by the Almightie himself may have some extraordinarie priviledge and mysteries in it nor was Postel lunatic when he broke out into such a protestation But the Authors of this opinion add unto it this caution that he who will be a schollar and a proficient in this sydereal school to spel the stars and studie this book for the Heavens are calld so in holy Scriptures must be an extraordinarie pious patient and prudent wel-wisd man so he may find old Orpheus words to be tru when speaking of God he sings {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Thy certain order doth run immutable commands aong the starrs Now touching those ancient notaries of Nature it may be well thought those large Ideas of knowledge they had were illuminations from Heven whence every good and perfect gift