Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	know_v	read_v	time_n	2,668	5	3.4449	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23715	The divine aut[h]ority and usefulness of the Holy Scripture asserted in a sermon on the 2 Timothy 3, 15 by R. Allestree ...	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.	1673 (1673)	Wing A1112; ESTC R3384	26,983	56

does assert this on the very ground we mention'd for they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inspir'd by God they come from him All which must be made out in the next place That those Holy Scriptures which St. Paul first mentions those of the Old Testament were so and did contain sufficient revelation both of God and of the way of worship of the Jews that Nation did so perfectly believe that neither Sufferings nor Miracles could perswade the contrary neither the Roman persecuters that destroy'd their worship nor the Son of God that chang'd it could yet take them off from Moses and his Scriptures Now that this Moses led that Nation out of Egypt with an high hand and made himself their Prince and Law-giver multitudes of forreign Histories of the first times and the best account assure us whose relations we cannot question as deriv'd from themselves because they hated Jews beyond all possibility of such compliance But the Scriptures also tell us how in Egypt by strange wonders such as their Magicians could not imitate nor bear who tho they had permission to do some it was that so they might appear to be outdon the more miraculously themselves confessing Gods hand in those prodigies Moses wrought on the Egyptians to give leave the people should depart and how when yet notwithstanding that leave given they were pursu'd he made way for them through the Sea by Miracles which was a rampart and defence to them a ruine to their enemies How they were fed for forty years with Manna raining down from Heaven in the wilderness and that they might depend on Providence for their daily provision when he forbad them to take care or gather for the morrow whatsoe're their greediness or want of faith provided strait bred worms and stank except that on the Sabbath eve to keep off such cares from the day of their Religion they gather'd double which corrupted not How when they mutined for flesh would have variety Paradise in the desert such great plenty of Quailes flew to them as fed the whole Nation till their very lust was surfetted and they had no more will then hunger to them How Moses Rod did strike a living stream a River that suffic'd that people and their cattle out of a Rock How in the midst of lightning and thunder God himself promulgated his Law to the whole Nation audibly at once How his glorious presence shew'd it self in all necessities upon the Ark in which the Tables of the Law were laid up How the waters of the river Iordan fled from that Ark both waies flow'd upwards to give passage to the people into Canaan How the walls of Ierichó without any other battery any other force but that the Ark was there fell down before it But to name no more If these be true that power by which these were wrought was great enough to give that Law require obedience to it and reward it and to punish all transgression according to the tenor of these Scriptures that is it was God and he that wrote those Scriptures must have had communication with and bin inspir'd from God to write them But 2. Whether they were true or no according as they are recorded in those Scriptures that whole people from the greatest almost to the least must know because they are recorded as all don not only in the presence of them all but as the objects and the entertainments of their senses every one so that if they were forg'd not one of the whole Nation could be ignorant of it And then 3. If they knew them forg'd all that 600000 men besides their wives and families should endure this Moses having brought them forth only into a wilderness there to lay such a heavy Law and so severe a yoke upon them with such penalties annext to every least transgression and adjure them to observe it on the account of all those prodigies that had bin wrought among them and upbraid them with stiffneckedness rebellion and appeal to their own senses for the truth of all this and record all to posterity in this Scripture cause all to be read before them and that they should bear all this from him they knew so impudent a deceiver and conveigh that Scripture and the faith of it to their posterity ground their so strict so chargeable Religion on that book which they were certain had no word of truth in it this sure transcends belief and possibility 'T is certain therefore since the Jews of that age did perform the services requir'd and in performing them according as that book directs did teach their children the great works that God had don in their sight therefore they believ'd those Miracles and Scriptures And since it was impossible that they should be deceiv'd if they believ'd them they were true and their posterity receiv'd from them the faith of this and so deriv'd it on that neither Gods dread judgments nor mans cruelty can yet shake it Now had they not bin don and on that account conveigh'd when ever they were broacht and that book first appear'd the men of that age must needs know their Fathers never had perform'd such services had such a book read to them constantly nor told them of such Miracles that had bin wrought and therefore 't was impossible that they could have believ'd it had bin so from Moses if it had bin true that it had first begun to be taught in their own time or in theirs with whom they liv'd And this discourse must be of force concerning every age if we ascend until we come to that of Moses wherein all was effected Yet besides this they had also that perpetual Miracle in the High Priest's Pectoral the Oracle of Vrim and Thummim that did keep alive their faith and strengthen it and they had Prophets constantly foretelling as from God things that were somtimes suddenly to come to pass and somtimes not till many ages after the event of which depended often on the will of those that would not of some hundred years be born others on Gods own immediat will and hand and therefore none but God could look into foretel and bring to pass all those events Now such were Ieremies predictions of the taking of Ierusalem and the captivity of the people and the express number of years it would continue Esays naming Cyrus who was to release it near two hundred years e're he was born All Daniels prophecies particularly that most eminent one of the Messiah this Christ Iesus of whose Scriptures we are next to speak That that Iesus whom Cornelius Tacitus the heathen historian in the fifteenth book of his Annals calls Christiani dogmatis autorem the Author of the Christian Doctrine did work Miracles and prophesy both Jews and learned Heathens do confess But these Books tell us when he first began to preach he publicly cast out a Devil in the Synagogue on

when he calls it body he is instituting his Sacrament there 's all reason in the world he should mean Sacramentally since 't is the most proper meaning and by consequence 't is bread substantially as all waies of judging in the world assure us Here 's no stress on Scripture as there is no Principle to serve when as the other makes us differ not in Scripture only even where 't is plainest but tradition too For the most express and evident sayings of the primitive Fathers are on every head of difference as much the matter of contention as the texts of Scripture are as it were easy to demonstrate if that were my business So that it is meer deceit to lay our quarrels to defects in Gods word and particularly to its obscurity which a man would think were evident enough from this that Children knew it The last thing I am to speak to And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Iesus I cannot pass this that it is St Chrysostomes observation that Timothy was nurst up in the Scriptures from his childhood Yea and since his Father was an Heathen he must have bin taught them by his Grandmother Loïs and his Mother Eunice whose faith St Paul speaks of 2 Tim. 1. 5. Children therfore then and Women and they sure are Laics read the Bible Yea and since they knew it they must read it in a language which they understood and we know where that is unlawful now If we consider the first prohibition that appear'd in that Church with Synodical autority against such mens having any Bibles in their own tongue we shall find it was immediately upon the preaching of the Waldenses one of whose doctrines it was that the Scripture was the rule to judg of faith by so that whatsoever was not consonant to that must be refus'd This they preach't in France and over Europe in the latter end of the 12 Century and that Council which forbad their having of the Bible we find lately put forth by the frier D. Achery as held at Tholouse in the beginning of the 13th Century It seems they apprehended then their doctrines hardly would abide that touchstone And they therfore had no surer more compendious way for its security then to prevent such trial taking care men should not know what was or what was not in Scripture And it is not possible for me to give account why in their catechising they leave out all that part of the commandments Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image c. but this only that they dare not let the laity compare their doctrine and their practice with that Scripture But tho it is possible they might conceive some danger if the whole Scripture should be expos'd yet in those portions which the Church it self chose out for her own offices the little lessons and Epistles and Gospels those sure one would think were safe no not their Psalter Breviary nor their Hours of the Blessed Virgin must they have translated in their own tongue as that Council did determin And truly when the Roman Missal was turn'd lately into French and had bin allow'd to be so by the general Assembly of the Clergy in the year 1650. and when it was don it had the usual approbation of the Doctors and some Bishops and then was printed at Paris with the license of the Vicars general of their Archbishop Yet another general assembly of the Clergy the year 1660 whereat there were 36 Bishops upon pain of excommunication forbid any one to read it and condemn not only that present traduction but the thing in general as poysonous in an Encyclical Epistle to all the Prelates of the Kingdom and in another they say of him that did translate it and the vicars general that did defend him in it that by doing so they did take armes against the Church attaquing their own Mother namely by that version at the Altar in that sanctuary that closet of her spouses mysteries to prostitute them and in another Epistle they beseech his Holiness Pope Alexander 7th to damn it not in France alone but the whole Church which he then did by his Bull for ever inter dicting that or any other version of that book forbidding all to read or keep it on severest paines commanding any one that had it to deliver it immediately to the Inquisitor or Ordinary that it might be burnt forthwith Now thus whatever it be otherwise the mass is certainly a sacrifice when 't is made a burnt offering to appease his holiness's indignation when that very Memorial of Christs passion again suffers and their sacred offices are martyr'd To see the difference of times 't was heretofore a Pagan Dioclesian a strange prodigy of cruelty who by his edict did command all Christians to deliver up their Bibles or their bodies to be burnt 'T was here his Holiness Christs Vicar who by his Bull orders all to give up theirs that is all of it that they will allow them and their praiers also that they may be forthwith burnt or themselves to be excommunicated that is their souls to be devoted to eternal flames And whereas then those only that did give theirs up were excommunicate all Christians shun'd them as they would the plague and multitudes whole regions rather gave themselves up to the fire to preserve their Bibles now those only that have none or that deliver up theirs are the true obedient sons of that Church and the thorough Catholics I know men plead great danger in that book it is represented as the source of monstrous doctrines and rebellions I will not say these men are bold that take upon them to be wiser then Allmighty God and to see dangers he foresaw not and to prevent them by such methods as thwart his appointments but I will say that those who talk thus certainly despise their hearers as if we knew not Heresies were hatcht by those that understood the Bible untranslated and as if we never heard there were rebellions among them that were forbid to read the Bible For if there were a Covenant among them that had it in their own tongue so there was an Holy League amongst those men that were deni'd it While those that had the guidance of the subjects conscience were themselves subject to a forreign power as all Priests of that communion are How many Kings and Emperors have there bin that did keep the Scriptures from their people but yet could not keep their people from sedition nor themselves from ruine by it In fine when God himself for his own people caus'd his Scripture to be written in their own tongue to be weekly read in public to and day and night in private by the people and when the Apostles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost indited Scripture for the world they