Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	law_n	sin_n	write_v	2,956	5	6.2982	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26998	The Protestant religion truely stated and justified by the late Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter ; prepared for the press some time before his death ; whereunto is added, by way of preface, some account of the learned author, by Mr. Danel Williams and Mr. Matthew Sylvester.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Williams, Daniel, 1643?-1716.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1359; ESTC R1422	79,512	227

and many others tell us that for all that the Scripture is plain and sufficient Yea so it is in many Thousand particular Texts If this be not so let this Man tell us if he can how it cometh to pass that Papists Greeks and Protestant Commentators agree of the meaning of most of the Scripture perhaps of Nineteen Texts in Twenty if it be not plain But do Protestants say that there is nothing in the Scripture hard to be understood the Father of Lyes will scarce affirm this of them lest their Commentaries and Controversies shame him 2. But what Must the people be forbidden to Read Gods Word because some passages are dark Why not also forbidden to Read Statutes Canons Fathers Jesuits Fryars and the Loads of Papists Controversies Is there nothing hard in all these Volumes what not in all the Canons In all Chrysostom Austin Cyril c In all Lombard Aquinas Bonaventure Scotus Ockam Cajetane and all the Tribe In all Suarez Vasquez Huctado Albictine c In all Cajacius and his Tribe Why are not these forbidden Do but rub your Foreheads and tell me 1. Whether the Law was not darker than the Gospel and yet God charged them Deut. 6. and 11. To teach the words to their Children and that lying down and rising up at home and abroad and to write them on the posts of their Houses and their Gates And every blessed Man Psal 1. was to delight in the Law of the Lord and meditate in it Day and Night Read Psal 119. 2. Whether Christ did not Preach the words Recorded in the Gospel to the unlearned common people and Peter and Paul and all the Apostles to all the vulgar Jews and Gentiles 3. Whether they writ not their Recorded Epistles to the Vulgar even to all the Churches 4. Whether it is not Gods Word that we must all be Ruled and Judged by and is the Charter of our right to Heaven and should we be forbid to read it 5. Whether Hierom Chrysostom Austin and all the Fathers do not press Men and Women of all Ranks to read or learn and study the Scriptures 6. Whether he be not like Antichrist that will forbid Men to read that which God sent his Son from Heaven to Preach and Christ appointed Apostles Pastors and Teachers to communicate to all the World 7. Whether the Prince of Darkness and Pride himself would not be ashamed openly to say I have so much skill to speak Intelligibly and God so little that you must read my Books and not read his And whether Popes and Priests Volumes are not as unskilfully written as Gods and as like to draw Men to Heresie and Sin 8. Whether he that thus Condemneth God and his Law and extolleth Man's be like to make good his accusation at God's Barr Alas must such things as these be disputed by Men that would be our Infallible Rule 9. Either the knowledge of God's Word is needful or not If not why did God write part of it himself And send his Son to Preach it And his Spirit in his Prophets and Apostles to write and Record it Are blind Worms fit to accuse God of Folly and needless Work Can Men obey God's Law that know it not But if the knowledge of it be needful to our Obedience and Salvation ask common Reason whether the Difficulties should not rather oblige us to read and study it so much the more ●till we understand it rather than not to read it at all Do their ductile Followers that read it not understand it better than those that study it Day and Night The less we know of needless things the better and quieter we are If God's Law and Gospel be such what a God and Governour have we Can Heathens and Turks Blaspheme him more than to take him for so foolish a Governour of the World as to make a stir by his Son from Heaven and by Angels and Prophets to give them so needless yea pernicious a Law and Gospel as that Men must be kept from reading it lest it Poyson them with Heresie 10. Is it not essential to him that relatively we take for our God to be the Governour of the World and to be our Saviour and the Holy Ghost to deliver and Seal the Gospel as glad Tidings to all Nations And is it not by his Law that God Governeth and by his Gospel that Christ Saveth and the Holy Ghost doth illuminate and Sanctifie And doth not that Man or Clergy then put down God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and set up themselves in the stead who forbid the reading of God's Law and Gospel and Command the knowledge and observance of their own Canons and Dictates instead of them as more Intelligible and safe And is not this as Robert Grosthead told Innocent 4. next the Sin of Lucifer and Antichrist or rather plain Antichristianism it self 11. Is the Stage manner of Massing liker to make the people understand God's Law and Gospel by multitudes of Gestures Motions Crossings Ceremonies that need long Expositions that overwhelm the strongest Memories than the reading and study of the plain and full words of God in Scripture 12. Did this Deceiver ever hear Protestants say that the Apocalypse and Daniel and Ezekiel and the Canticles and the Chronologies of Scripture are all easy to be understood For if he have heard such a Fool did he ever read this in the Confessions of any Church Do not their Commentaries tell the difficulty And ask this Man or his fellow Creature whether the Infallible Pope or Councils have overcome all these difficulties to the Papists and made all this easy to them Or do not their Valuminous disagreeing Commentaries and Controversies shew that they are still as hard to them as to us 13. And ask them whether Pope or Council have ever yet written an Infallible Commentary on the Bible or all such difficult Texts If not is it because they cannot or because they will not And what the better then is their Church for their feigned skill and power infallibly to decide difficult Scripture Controversies What can be more shameless than this pretence in Men that will not do it nor ever did 14. And if still they tell you that the people were always bound to believe and obey the Churches Rites without dispute or Contradiction ask them whether it was not the Church Rulers that killed Christ and called him a Blasphemer and Deceiver and that Persecuted and accused the Apostles And whether the People were bound to believe them as Jewish Papists and whether all the Apostles and Christians were Rebels and Hereticks for not believing them And whether it was not for the Sins of Priests and Princes and the peoples complying with them that God by his Prophets reproved the Israelites and at last forsook them to Captivity 2 Chron. last Jer. 5 last 15. And if they tell you of the Peoples need of Teachers tell them that that is none of the Controversie But whether their Teachers

must teach them to understand God's Book or to throw it away May not the Teacher and the Book consist together Must School-Boys be forbid to Learn their Grammar because they must have a Teacher Must he teach them the Book or teach them without Book But all the Craft is to get all the World to take only such Cheaters as this for their Masters and then Bible or no Bible may serve turn 16. Is it not the Office of Teachers to Translate God's Word into known Tongues that the People may understand it This is the first part of Preaching it If not why do they use Translations in the Church of Rome the Septuagint and the Vulgar Latin And why did Sixtus 5th and Clem. 8. make such a stir to Correct the Latin And why do so many Comment on them And the Rhemists turn it into English But what is all this for but to help Men to understand the Book 17. Doth not all the Word of God cry down Ignorance and cry up Knowledge from End to End And what Knowledge is it but Divine of the Word and Law of God What else is the scope of all the first Nine Chapters of Solomons Proverbs and of Psal 1. 19. and 119 c. God saith Hos 4. 6. My People perish for lack of knowledge And Isa 27. 11. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not save them Ignorance and Blindness are made the common cause of Errour Sin and Misery But we are so far from taking all parts of Scripture to be equally necessary to be understood that we are more than the Papists for first and most diligently teaching them the Essentials the Creed Lord's Prayer and Commandments and Baptism and Church Communion and the Lord's Supper and lesser parts as they grow up what they must learn first their Teachers must instruct them 18. If he say as they still do that the Ignorant will misunderstand the Scripture and every one turn it to his own Fancy and Heresie I answer The way to prevent this is to teach it them diligently what else is the Ministry for and not to forbid it them Every Knave may pervert the Law of the Land to maintain his own ill Cause and must the Law therefore be forbidden them Reason is far more commonly abused than Scripture There is no Heresie or Error no Villany Perjury Cruelty Persecution Oppression or Injustice but Reason is pleaded for it Must Reason therefore be renounced Heresies are for want of understanding God's word and must be cured by understanding it 19. And if all the World must take the Popes or Priests words instead of Gods or for their Rule how shall those in Aethiopia Syria America or here know what the Popes Word is That never see him or any that hath seen him And how shall we know when above twenty times there have been two Popes at once which of them is the Right And when they contradict and Damn each other which of them must we believe And when General Councils accuse them of Errour and Condemn them which is to be trusted with our Souls Or if it be Councils that must be to us instead of Scripture when they Damn each other which must we believe And so abundance of them have done When the Pope and they agreed to depose Christian Princes and give away their Dominions and disoblige their Subjects from all their Oaths of Allegiance is it as true as the word of God that all Subjects must believe and obey them But how shall all the poor People know what the Pope and Councils say and hold They can neither read their Volumes nor understand them nor know which are authentick and true Must they all believe their Parish Priest What if he be as very a Deceiver as the writer of this Touchstone that doth but Cheat from the beginning to the end Yet must we take his word instead of Gods Or when other Priests or Fryars contradict him which of them must we believe What if his Parishoners know him to be ignorant or a common Lyar Yet must our Salvation rest on his word and God's word be forbidden us What if we obey him in Error and Sin will he undertake to be Damned for us Or will his undertaking or Damnation save those whom he mislead c. As to his Citation of Scripture against Scripture it is so palpable a perversion that I will leave any Man that will but Read the Text to his own ability to answer him Rev. 5.1 No Man in Heaven or Earth was worthy to open the Sealed Books that John saw in his Vision What then must no Man therefore open the Bible Or because the Revelation is hard must therefore the People be forbidden to Read it and the rest of God's word which was written for them as sufficient to make them wise to Salvation yea to make the simple wise Psal 19. And with as shameless a Face doth he cite the Fathers against the drift of all their writings and Labours and the Judgment of all the Churches of Christ for many hundred years of its purest foundest Primitive times The Fourth accused Point That Apostolical Traditions and ancient Customs of the Church not Founded in the written word are not to be received nor do oblige us Ans This is but more Deceit by confusion and false report The Reformed Catholicks hold 1. That Memory is not so sure a way to deliver any Laws and Doctrines to Posterity through many hundred years as writing is For it must lie on the Memories of so many Thousands in so many Ages and so many parts of the World Of so many Languages Kingdoms and cross Interests and Opinions in their quarrels and the things to be remembred are so many that this needs no proof with any but Fools or Mad-men What a Religion should we have had if instead of the Bible it must have all been brought us down by the Memories of all the Rabble of ignorant and wicked Popes yea or of the best and by the Memories of all the Prelates and Priests that have pretended to be the Church Why do they themselves write their pretended Traditions if writing them were not needful And why have we all our Statutes Records and Law-Books if the Lawyers and Peoples Memories would keep and deliver them without these When Men's Memories Wits and Honesty are so weak that we can scarce get one Story carried without falsifying through many Hands 2. We hold that God in mercy hath therefore considered Man's Weakness and Necessity and before the Apostles died inspired them to Record so much of his Law and Gospel and Will as was universally necessary for all his Subjects to know in order to Divine belief Obedience and Salvation And hath left nothing of this importance and necessity unrecorded in the Law of Nature God's Visible works and Scripture knowing that after Ages were not to have new universal Legislators to make such Laws for all the