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	old_a	testament_n	5,516	5	8.0329	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51743	Some considerations towards peace and quietness in religion. In answer to the question, whether the multitude are fit readers of Holy Scripture.	Manby, William.	1680 (1680)	Wing M389; ESTC R31159	11,498	26

incapacities he understood too well to require any such thing of them By Scriptures here he meant the Psalms the Predictions of Ezekiel Daniel c. the Mosaical types and figures of the Messiah which at that time the most learned Jews had enough to do to unriddle The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Search being a Metaphor taken from such as dig deep in the mines imports such an Enquiry as unlearned People who understand not the Original cannot be thought capable of The maternal language of Judea at that time and long before was Syriac and as learned men say the Vulgar Jews of that Age understood Hebrew no more than now Vulgar Italians do Latin But 't will be said The Law and the Prophets were then read in the Synagogues every Sabbath day Yes in the Hebrew tongue as at this day and interpreted by the Scribes and Jewish Doctors otherwise not understood by the common people The perfect Hebrew ever since the Captivity ceasing to be the Vulgar Language of the Jews The Reader may please to see a further account of this in Bishop Walton's Preface before his Introduction to the Eastern tongues Printed Anno 1655. The Old Testament was not then extant in the Vulgar that is the Syriac tongue nor perhaps any Chaldee Paraphrase Or if it were a Paraphrase is one thing and a Translation is another 'T is to me a little strange that our blessed Saviour if it were a matter of so grand necessity either left no injunction touching an intire translation of the Scriptures or that the Apostles recorded it not 'T is true the Old Testament was then extant in Greek which the Vulgar Inhabitants of Judea understood not But are not the Bereans commended Acts 17.11 in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so Yes Paul and Sylas went into the Synagogue at Berca and there preached to the Jews opening and alledging out of the Old Testament That Christ must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead Whereupon the Bereans as many as were capable of it consulting the Scriptures honestly and without prejudice were converted to the Christian faith Where it is to be observed That these Bereans by the Apostles Preaching and Expounding understood the Scriptures and never before though they read them and heard them read every Sabbath day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were of a more generous and docible temper than other Jews In all which there is not that I can perceive any contradiction to what I have said that the Multitude cannot of themselves and by their own Reading understand the Scriptures that is without the guidance of their Pastors But the Bereans examined St. Paul's doctrine by the Scriptures therefore the People are to examine their Pastors doctrine by the Scriptures It will not follow The Bereans were as yet no Christians but Jews and consequently He not as yet acknowledged for their Pastor The case is not the same between Christian Pastors and Jews as between Christian Preachers and their own flocks Christian people if they regard the Scriptures are not to judge but to obey and submit themselves to their own Pastors who watch for their souls as those that must give an account Heb. 13.17 We may talk of our judgement of discretion and mistake our own petulant humours for it What but confusion and distraction can be the consequence of this maxim that the Sheep may arraign the doctrine of their Pastors The Clergy therefore in case of erroneous doctrine are to be accountable to their own Superiors There are divers other Texts objected against the premises but none which the ingeni us Reader and to such alone I address this Paper may not easily answer That the Israelites were to meditate in the Law and teach it diligently to their Children is very often and very impertinently objected For the Law of God is one thing and the Scripture at large is another By the Law of God is meant not every passage in the Bible but the moral judicial and ceremonial Laws contained in the Books of Exodus Leviticus and Deuteronomy Which Laws the Israelites were first to be taught by their Priests Deut. 31.11 and afterwards to teach them their Children This is nothing to our case That Christian People are to know and understand Gods commandments no body ever doubted That they are bound I mean the unlearned to read or understand Ezekiel Daniel or the Revelations yea or St. Paul's Epistles is that which I deny and I would gladly see a pertinent Text to prove it As for S. Paul's commendation of Timothy that he had known the Holy Scriptures from a Child it 's no contradiction to what has been said Imagine Timothy a select Person an Angel of the Church understood all the Prophecies of the Old Testament from a Child will it follow that every Woman and Tradesman can be so happy Again by the Holy Scriptures cannot be meant here all the Prophecies of the Old Testament because divers parts thereof as the beginning of Genesis the Book of Canticles the first and last Chapters of Ezekiel were not to be read by the ancient Jews under thirty years of age as S. Hierom informs us in his Epistle to Paulinus In whose dayes the Scriptures being so profan'd by Vulgar hands mov'd him to this following resentment which the Reader will give me leave to transcribe out of that Epistle Agricolae Caementarii Fabri metallorum Lignorumque Caesores Lanarii quoque Fullones caeteri qui variam supellectilem fabricant absque doctore esse●non possant Quod medicorum est promittunt medici tractant fabrilia fabri Sola Scripturarum ars est quam passim omnes sibi vendicant Hanc garrula●anus han● delirus senex hanc Sophista verbosus hanc universi praesumunt lacerant docent antequam discunt c. That is to be a Smith or Mason or Carpenter or any other sort of Craftsman there is need of a Master only the Trade of expounding Scripture is a Mystery which every one arrogates to himself Here the Physician will be prescribing receits the Lawyer will be demurring and every handy-crafts-man will be handling the Word of God with impure hands This the pratling huswife this the old Dotard this the wrangling Sophister in a word this men of all sorts take upon them to have skill in and to teach what they never learn'd Thus he The Bible then in his dayes you will say had been translated into the vulgar tongue It was so and perhaps two centuries before and into Greek long before our Saviours time The question all this while is not whether the Scriptures may be read in the Vulgar Language no that which S. Hierome resented was the promiscuous and unlicens'd use of them by all sorts of ill dispos'd People Let the question therefore be whether the Church in prudence might not restrain such profanation of them or whether conduces more to