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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	holy_a	scripture_n	see_v	3,267	5	3.5730	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A02497	A sermon preached at St Maries in Oxford vpon Tuesday in Easter vveeke, 1617 Concerning the abuses of obscure and difficult places of holy Scripture, and remedies against them. By Iohn Hales, Fellow of Eton Colledge, and Regius Professour of the Greeke tongue in the Vniversitie of Oxford.	Hales, John, 1584-1656.	1617 (1617)	STC 12628; ESTC S103638	21,539	44

that wee will not seeme to stand as cyphars to make vp the summe of other mens opinions being cause enough to make vs disagree A fault anciently amongst the Christians so apparant that it needed not an Apostolicall spirit to discover it the very heathen themselues to our shame and confusion haue iustly judiciously and sharply taxt vs for it Ammianus Marcellinus passing his censure vpon Constanti●● 〈◊〉 Emperour Christianam religionem absolutam simplicē saith he and they are words very well worth your marking Christianam religionem absolut●● simplicē anili superstitione confudit In 〈◊〉 scrutanda perplexiùs quàm componenda grauiùs excitauit dissidia plurima quae progressa fusiùs alu●t concertati●ne verborum dum ritum omnem adsu●●● trahere conatur arbitrium The Christian religion a religion of great simplicitie and perfection hee troubled with dotage and superstition For going about rather perplexedly to search the controversies then grauely to compose them he raised great stirres by disputing spread them farre and wide whilst he went about to make himselfe sole Lord commander of the whole profession Now that it may appear wherefore I haue noted this it is no hard thing for a man that hath wit and is strongly possest of an opinion and resolute to maintaine it to finde some places of Scripture which by good handling will be woed to cast a favourable coūtenance vpon it Pythagoras Schollers hauing beene bred vp in the doctrine of numbers when afterward they diverted vpon the studies of nature fancied vnto themselues somewhat in naturall bodies like vnto numbers and therevpon fell into a conceit that numbers were the principles of them So fares it with him that to the reading of Scripture comes forepossest with some opinion As Antipheron Ori●tes in Aristotle thought that every where hee saw his owne shape and picture going afore him so indivers parts of Scripture where these men walke they will easily perswade themselues that they see the image of their owne conceits It was is to this day a fashion in the hotter countries at noone when the sunne is in his strength to retire themselues to their Closets or beds if they were at home to coole shadie places if they were abroad to avoid the inconvenience of the heat of it To this the Spouse in the Canticles alluding calls after her beloued as after a shepheard Shew me O thou whom my soule loueth where thou feedest thy flocke where thou dost rest at noone The Donatists conceiting vnto themselues that the Church was shut vp in them alone being vrged by the fathers to shew how the Church being vniversall came on a suddaine thus to bee cōfinde to Africke they had presently their Scripture for it for so they found it written in the Canticles Indica quem diligit anima mea vbi pascas vbi cubes in meridie In which text meridies doubtlesse as they thought was their Southerne countrie of Africke where the shepheard of Israell was and no where else to feed his flockes I may not trouble you with instances in this kinde little observation is able to furnish the man of slendrest reading with abundance The texts of Scripture which are especially subiect to this abuse are those that are of ambiguous and doubtfull meaning For as Thucydides obserues of the fat and fertile places of Greece that they were evermore the occasions of stirres and seditions the neighbouring nations every one striuing to make it selfe Lord of them so is it with these places that are so fertile as it were of interpretation and yeeld a multiplicity of sense they are the Palastra for good wits to proue masteries in where every one desires to bee Lord and absolute A second thing occasioning vs to transgresse against Scripture and the discreet and sober handling of it is our too quicke and speedy entrance vpon the practise of interpreting it in our young and greene yeares before that time experience haue ripened vs and setled our conceits For that which in all other businesse and here likewise doth most especially commend vs is our cautelous and wary handling it But this is a flower seldome seen in youths garden Aristotle differencing age and youth makes it a propertie of youth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to suppose they knowe all things and to be bold in affirming and the heathen Rhetorician could tel vs that by this so speedy entring vpon action and so timely venting our crude and vnconcocted studies quod est vbique perniciosissimū praevenit vires fiducia a thing which in all cases is most pernicious presumption is greater then strength after the manner of those who are lately recoverd out of some great sicknesse in whome appetite is stronger then digestion These are they who take the greatest mysteryes of Christian religion to bee the fittest arguments to spend themselues vpon So Eckius in his Chrysopassus a worke of his so tearmed wherein he discusses the question of predestination in the very entrance of his worke tells vs that hee therefore enterpris'd to handle this argument because forsooth hee thought it to be the fittest question in which hee might luveniles calores exercere The ancient Masters of sence amongst the Romans were wont to set vp a post and cause their young Schollers to practise vpon it and to foine and fight with it as with an adversarie Insteed of a post this young fencer hath set himselfe vp one of the deepest mysteries of our profession to practise his freshmanship vpon Which qualitie when once it findes Scripture for his obiect how great inconvenience it brings with it needs no large discourse to proue St Ierome a man not too easily brought on to acknowledge the errours of his writings amongst those few things which hee doth retract censures nothing so sharply as the mistake of his youth in this kinde In adolescentia provocatus ardore studio Scripturarum allegoricè interpretatus sum Abdiam Prophetam cuius historiam nesciebam Hee thought it one of the greatest sinnes of his youth that being carried away through an inconsiderate heate in his studies of Scripture he advētured to interpret Abdias the Prophet allegorically when as yet hee knewe not the historicall meaning Old men saith our best naturall master by reason of the experience of their of●en mistakes are hardly brought cōstantly to affirme any thing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they will alwaies cautelously interline their speeches with it may bees and peradventures and other such particles of warines circumspection This old mens modestie of all other things best fits vs in pervsing those hard and obscure texts of holy Scripture Out of which conceit it is that we see St Austine in his bookes de Genesi adlitteram to haue written only by way of questions and interrogations after the manner of Aristotle in his Problemes that he might not for so he giues his reason by being over positiue preiudice others and peradventure truer interpretations that every one might choose

A SERMON PREACHED AT St MARIES 〈◊〉 OXFORD VPON TVESDAY IN EASTER VVEEKE 1617. CONCERNING THE ABVSES of obscure and difficult places of holy Scripture and remedies against them By IOHN HALES FELLOW OF ETON COLLEDGE and Regius Professour of the Greeke tongue in the Vniversitie of Oxford AT OXFORD Printed by Iohn Lichfield and William Wrench Printers to the famous Vniversitie 1617. 2. PETER 3. 16. Which the vnlearned and vnstable wrest as they doe the other Scriptures vnto their owne destruction THE loue and favour which it pleased God to beare our Fathers before the law so farre prevail'd with him as that without any bookes writings by familiar and frendly conversing with thē and communicating himselfe vnto them he made them receaue and vnderstand his lawes their inward conceits intellectualls being after a wonderfull manner as it were Figured and Characterd as St Basill expresses it by his spirit so that they could not but see and consent vnto and confesse the truth of them Which way of manifesting his will vnto many other gracious priviledges which it had aboue that which in after ages came in place of it had this added that it brought with it vnto the man to whom it was made a preservati on against all doubt and hesitancy a full assurance both who the author was and how farre his intent and meaning reacht Wee 〈◊〉 their of●●ng ought as St Chrysostome tells vs fo to haue demeand our selues that it might haue been with vs as it was with them that 〈◊〉 might haue had no need of writing no other 〈◊〉 but the spirit no other books but our hearts no other means to haue beene taught the things of God Nisi inspirationis divinae internam 〈…〉 ubi sine sonis sermonum sine elementis literarum eo dulciùs quo secretiùs veritas loquitur as saith Fulgentius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidorus Pel●siota for it is a great argument of our shame imperfection that the holy things are written in bookes For as God in anger tells the Iewes that he himselfe would not goe before them as hitherto he had done to conduct them into the promised land but would leaue his Angell with them as his deputie so hath he dealt with vs the vnhappy posteritie degenerated from the ancient puritie of our forefathers When himselfe refused to speake vnto our hearts because of the hardnesse of them he then began to put his lawes in writing Which thing for a long time amongst his owne people seemes not to haue brought with it any sensible inconvenience For amongst all those acts of the Iewes which God in his booke hath registred for our instruction there is not one concerning any pretended ambiguitie or obscuritie of the Text Letter of their Law which might drawe them into faction and schisme the Divell be like hauing other sufficie● advantages on which he wrought But ever since the Gospell was committed to w●●ting what age what monument of the Churches acts is not full of debate and strife concerning the force meaning● 〈◊〉 those writings which the holy Ghost hath left vs to be the law rule of faith St Paul one of the first penmen of the holy Ghost who in P●●●dise 〈◊〉 wordes which it was not lawfull for man to vtter hath left vs words in writing which it is not safe for any man to be too busie to interpret No sooner had hee laid downe his penne almost ere the inke was drie were there found Syllabarum aucupes such as St Ambrose spake of qui nescire aliquid erubescunt per occasionem obscuritatis tendunt laqueos deceptionis who thought there could be no greater disparagement vnto them then to seeme to bee ignorant of any thing and vnder pretense of interpreting obscure places laid gins to entrap the vncautelous who taking advantage of the obscuritie of St Pauls text made the letter of the Gospell of life and peace the most forcible instrument of mortal quarrell contention The growth of which the Holy Ghost by the Ministery of St Peter hath indeavored to cut vp in the bud and to strangle in the wombe in this short admonition which but now hath founded in your eares VVhich the learned c. In which wordes for our more orderly proceeding we will consider First the sinne it selfe that is heare reprehēded wresting of Scripture where we will breifly consider what it is and what cau●●● and motioners it findes in our corrupt vnderstandings Secondly the persons guilty of this offence discipher'd vnto vs in two Epithets vnlearned vnstable Last of all the danger in the last words vnto their owne damnation And first of the sinne it selfe together with some of the especiall causes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They wrest They deale with Scripture as Chimickes deale with naturall bodies torturing them to extract that out of them which God and nature never put in them Scripture is a rule which will not fit it selfe to the obliquitie of our conceits but our perverse and crooked discourse must fit it selfe to the straightnesse of that rule A learned writer in the age of our fathers commenting vpon Scripture spake most truely when hee said that his Comments gaue no light vnto the text the text gaue light vnto his Comments Other expositions may giue rules directions for vnderstanding their authors but Scripture giues rules to exposition it selfe and interprets the interpreter Wherefore when wee wade in Scripture non pro sententia divinarum Scripturarum as St Austine speakes sed pro nostra ita dimicantes vt tam velimus Scripturarum esse quae nostra est When we striue to giue vnto it and not to receaue from it the sense when wee factiously contend to fasten our conceits vpon God and like the Harlot in the booke of Kings take our dead and putrified fancies and lay them in the bosome of Scripture as of a mother then are we guiltie of this great sinne of wresting of Scripture The nature of which will the better appeare if wee consider a little some of those motioners which driue vs vpon it One very potent and strong meane is the exceeding affection and loue vnto our owne opinions conceits For growne wee are vnto extremities on both hands we cannot with patience either admit of other mens opinions or endure that our owne should be withstood As it was in the Lacedaemonian army almost all were Captaines so in these disputes all will be leaders and we take our selues to be much discountenanced if others thinke not as we doe So that the complaint which one makes concerning the dissention of Physicians about the diseases of our bodies is true likewise in these disputes which concerne the cure of our soules hinc illae circa agros miserae sententiarum concertationes nullo idem censente ne videatur accessio alterius From hence haue sprong those miserable contentions about the distemper of our soules singularitie alone and