Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	king_n	write_v	year_n	5,160	5	4.8919	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51388	The Urim of conscience to which the author has had recourse for plain answers, in his own particular case (as every man living ought to do in his) to four questions of great weight and importance, viz. 1. who and what art thou? 2. where hast thous been? 3. where art thou now going? 4. whither art thou going? : together with three select prayers for private families / by Sir Samuel Morland.	Morland, Samuel, Sir, 1625-1695.	1695 (1695)	Wing M2785; ESTC R26850	73,650	220

retire a while into your private Closets and there make use of that reason and those Principles which were born with your Souls These would soon furnish you with sufficient Proofs and evincing Arguments Mark I beseech you in what significant Terms a heathen Philosopher rebukes you Mentiuntur qui dicunt non esse Deum etiamsi enim interdiu negant noctu tamen et sibi dubitant Which is hardly to be turn'd into English without losing a great part of its emphasis They lie who say there is no God! for though in the day time they deny him yet in the Night and being alone they doubt concerning Him How is it possible that it should ever enter into the thoughts of Men of Reason and common Understanding That those glorious Bodies of the Sun Moon and Planets together with that Numberless number of fixed Stars and those of such prodigious Magnitudes should all be produced by meer Fortune or Chance Vain man would fain be wise but which of your Leaders who darken their Counsels by words without knowledge can tell me how the great Bodies before-mentioned of the Sun Moon and the other Planets are suspended in the vast Expanse and by what extrinsick or intrinsick Powers they have performed their several and respective Motions and served for Signs and for Seasons and Measured time for so many thousand Years Is there any of you who knows the Ordinances of Heaven or can set the dominion thereof in the Earth Which of you can bind the sweet Influences of Pleiades or loose the Bands of Orion Or to come nearer to our own Terrestial Globe Who is he that gathers and holds the Wind in his fists Who is he that has bound the Waters in a Garment Who is that has established all the ends of the Earth What is his Name and what is his Son's Name if you can tell me Which of you can give a clear Account of those black and grisly Clouds when they seem to be rent and torn by the Thunder-Claps as if their substance were of molten Brass or the Lightning that shoots through the Hemisphere and in its passage tears and rends one sturdy Oak and leaves another untouch't Passes by one stately Edifice and takes away part of another and how it should pull out massy Barrs of Iron and again strike them into Stone walls to the Depth of many Inches with other prodigious Effects Of which I am sure you can give but very slender Reasons No more than of the Treasure of the Snow the Hail or Hoary Frost Or of Hurricanes Deluges or Earthquakes Alas poor dull Philosophers the wisest of you all know not how any grass pile or the least hair of your heads grows and yet are so presumptuous to dispute and question Divine Providence O foolish and perverse Atheists who hath bewitch't you to make mock of Moses and the Prophets to divide our blessed Saviour and his Apostles and to make the Holy Scriptures a meer Humane Artifice for Soveraign Princes to keep their Subjects in Obedience and to preserve to Ecclesiastick Prelates their vast Revenues and to Inferior Priests their Tythes and Maintenance In the first place we are as well assur'd that the Books of the New Testament were writ by the first Divulgers of Christianity which were soon afterwards Translated into Latin Syriac and other Languages and Copies thereof dispersed and publickly preach't in most parts of the habitable World and so transmitted to us without any notorious depravations as we are sure that in our Statute Books are faithfully Recorded the several Laws which have been Enacted in all the King 's and Queen's Reigns from William the Conqueror to this present Age and much more sure then you or any private Man can be of the Conveyances Hands or Seals of his Ancestors from time to time whereby he holds his Lands and Possessions We have no more reason to doubt that there was a Jesus born in Bethelem than that there was at that time a Herod at Jerusalem or an Augustus Caesar at Rome The wonderful Star that appear'd at Christ's birth is mentioned by Macrobius And a great Enemy to Christianity speaks of the coming of the Magi from the East to Jerusalem and Julian the Apostate Confesses the appearing of a New Star though he trifles about the manner of its appearing The Ecclipse at Christ's Passion was left upon Record among the Heathen As for the Writings of Moses and the Prophets and for their being most carefully preserved through-out all Ages till the coming of our Saviour Jesus at which time they were publickly read in all the Synagogues we need no better Evidence than the universal Consent of his Implacable Enemies the Jews We read in the 31st of Deuteronomy that when Moses had made an end of writing the Words of the Law in a Book untill they were finished That He commanded the Levites which bore the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD saying Take this Book of the Law and put it in the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God And we may reasonably judge that the rest of the Canonical Books when written were also here laid up Besides the King was to keep a Copy for his own use 17. Deut. 18. And the Priests that were to expound the Law must needs have Copies of it themselves So in an ordinary way it might be preserved by multitudes of Copies some of which might escape in the hands of good and pious Men in Idolatrous Times Whence it will follow That we have no reason to think that the Book of the Law which was lost for a great while and after the Captivity found by Hilkiah and by him given to Saphan the Scribe who carried it to King Josiah was the only Copy of the Law that was preserved 2 Kings 22. 8. During the Captivity those Books which were already written were undoubtedly in the hands of the Prophets and Priests some of whom as Jeremiah and Gedaliah staid in their own Land others as Daniel and his Companions were carried away Captives And we are sure that Daniel had these Books and out of them gathered the number of Years the Captivity was to last 9 Dan. 2. where it is thus written viz. In the first Year of Darius the Son of Ahasuerus of the Seed of the Medes c. I Daniel understood by Books the number of Years whereof the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the Prophet that he would accomplish Seventy Years in the Desolations of Jerusalem Josephus saith That Cyrus was moved to restore the Jews by reading the Prophesy of Isaiah where it is foretold 210 Years before his time that he should be raised up for that Work After the Captivity these Books were kept in a great number of Copies of which every Synagogue had one at least In this interval Ptolomy Philadelphus procured the Translation of the Seventy the authentick Edition of which was kept in the famous Alexandrian Library about the Year of

and Delusions and Idolatrous Worship of divers kinds so as to make sure of them in the main and always hold them fast within his Clutches Thus in the foregoing Instance of the Tunquineses the Hermite Chacabout left behind him Ten Commandements which he enjoined his Followers to observe with all manner of strictness viz. First Not to Kill Secondly Not to Steal Thirdly Not to defile their Bodies Fourthly Not to Lye Fifthly Not to falsify their Words Sixthly To restrain their inordinate Desires Seventhly Not to do Injury to any Man Eighthly Not to be great Talkers Ninthly Not to give way to their Anger Tenthly To labour to their utmost to get Knowledge Besides all this They who designed to lead a Religious Life must renounce the Delights of this Life be Charitable to the Poor overcome their Passions and give themselves up to Meditation He taught moreover That after this Life there were Ten distinct Places of Joy and Torment and that the Contemners of these Laws should feel Torment proportionable to their Offences without any End of their Torments That they who endeavoured to fulfil his Law and had failed in any point should wander in divers Bodies holding Transmigration of Souls for the space of Three Thousand Years before they entred into Happiness But that those who had perfectly Obeyed his Laws should be rewarded without suffering any Change of their Bodies And that he himself had been Born ten times before he enjoyed the Bliss that he possessed not having in his first Youth been illuminated with that Knowledge which he afterwards attained Reflection As for his Ten Commands and his other Instructions immediately following one would think at first sight that this Impostor had collected them out of the Holy Scriptures save only that there is not a Word therein that has the least regard to a Saviour or Messias But alass that subtil old Serpent and Prince of Darkness who is so perfect a Hater of the Saviour of the World and of Humane Race makes it his principal Care and Caution to keep all his Subjects and Vassals from the least Knowledge of those divine Mysteries which relate to the holy JESUS For my part I am apt to believe altho' so many Ages have past since the Martyrdom of the blessed Apostles among the Pagans and Barbarians who undoubtedly converted very great numbers of them while they lived amongst them that some of these Converts left behind them many pious Instructions to their Children who also left the same to their Children and so from Generation to Generation which in process of time were corrupted by Satan's Artifices being confounded and intermingled with a great number of foolish and extravagant Traditions Of this I shall here take the freedom to mention one famous Instance There were about fifteen Years since as a Traveller assures me who was himself in those parts and probably are to this day living above Twenty thousand Families of a certain People who call themselves Christians or Disciples of St. John from whom they pretend to have received their Faith their Books and Traditions These people inhabit at present at Balsara about ten days Voyage from that place where the River Tigris divides it self into two Arms the one running through the ancient Chaldaea and the other towards Mesopotamia in view of which stands an old Wall of about a League in compass which the Chronicles of that Country say was the Ruins of the ancient Babylon upon which Wall six Coaches may go abreast being made of burnt Brick each Brick ten Foot square and three Foot thick These Christians of St. John anciently lived by the River of Jordan where St. John baptized and so from him they took their Name But since the time that Mahomet conquered Palestine although he had given them his Hand and Letter of Privilege not to be molested his Successors resolved to extirpate them ruining their Churches burning their Books and exercising all manner of Cruelties upon their Persons which obliged them to retire into Mesopotamia and Chaldaea and for some time they were under the Patriarch of Babylon from whom they separated about 175 Years since and then removed into Persia and Arabia and the Towns round about Balsara Their Creed is full of Fables and soul Errors They never Baptize but in Rivers and only upon Sundays But before they go to the River they carry the Infant to Church where there is a Bishop who reads certain prayers over the head of the Child from thence they carry it to the River with a train of Men and Women who together with the Bishop go up to the knees in Water then the Bishop reads again certain prayers out of a Book which he holds in his hand which done he sprinkles the Infant three times saying Beesme brad Er-rabi Kaddemin Akreri Menhal el Gennet Alli Koulli Kralek which is in English In the Name of the LORD first and last of the WORLD and of PARADISE the high Creator of all Things After that the Bishop reads something again out of his Book while the Godfather plunges the Child all over in the water after which they all go to the Parents house to feast If any tax their Baptism for insufficient in regard the Three Persons of the Trinity are not mentioned therein they give no reasonable Answer nor have they any knowledge of that Mystery only they say that Christ is the Spirit and Word of the Eternal Father They believe the Angel Gabriel to be the Son of God begotten upon Light yet will not believe the Eternal Generation of Christ as God although they confess he became Man to free us from the punishment of Sin and that he was conceived in the Womb of a Virgin without the knowledge of Man by means of the Water of a certain Fountain which she drank of They believe he was Crucisied by the Jews That he rose the Third Day and that his Soul ascended up to Heaven his Body remaining upon Earth but withal That Christ vanished when the Jews came to take him and that he deluded their Cruelty with his shadow In the Eueharist they make use of Meal kneaded up with Wine and Oil the Wine they make with Grapes dried in the Sun and casting water upon them let them steep a long time and with that they Consecrate the Cup The Arabians under whose Government they live not permitting them the use of ordinary Wine The Words of their Consecration are no other then long Prayers but make no mention of Christ's Body or Blood which they say is not necessary because God knows their intention After the Ceremonies are ended the Priest eats some of the Bread and distributes the rest to the people All their Bishops wear their Hair long with a little Cross wrought with a needle These People believe and say That the Angel Gabriel undertaking to create the World according to God's Command took along with him Three hundred thirty six Thousand Demons and made the Earth so fertile