Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	old_a	part_n	testament_n	2,968	5	7.9440	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

the World 3465. As for the Books of Moses they were in one entire Volume long before the Captivity and it is probable that the rest of the divinely inspired Psalms and Prophesies that were written before the Captivity were laid up with them After the Captivity the Jewish Historians relate that the great Synagogue of which Ezra was President and at which Haggai Z●chariah Malachi and Nehemiah assisted compiled the Books of the Old Testament as we have them now divided into three parts and as they continued in our Saviour's time who himself refers to the Old Testament as consisting of the Law of Moses the Prophets and the Psalms and of each of these three parts they appointed certain Sections to be read in their Synagogues every Sabbath day Now that their Collection contained the same Books the Old Testament now consists of 22 in number is clear from Josephus contra Appionem quoted by Eusebius That these Books were kept with a Religious care we have the celebrated Testimony of Philo the Jew who wrote a little after the Ascension of Christ who saith That a Jew would rather suffer an hundred Deaths than allow the least alteration in one Letter of the Law And Buxtorf tells us in his Comment Masoreth Of their particular care in numbring the very Letters of every Book In the next place our blessed Saviour's miracles were so numerous so openly performed and before so many thousand Spectators both of the Jews and other Nations of which many were his implacable Enemies who wanted neither Learning Subtilty nor Malice to have soon discover'd any fraudulent Practices and those Miracles being such as could not be perform'd by Men or Devils or any thing less than a supernatural and Almighty Power it being never known since the World was created that the Devil ever open'd the Eyes of those that were born blind or fed so many thousands of hungry Persons with five Loaves and a few small Fishes or with the speaking of two or three Words raise Men out of their Graves who had been dead and buried four days there will be lest no reasonable or plausible Pretext for any sceptical Unbeleiver to call in question his divine Power I do believe that the Devil is a Spirit of wonderfull knowledge and mighty power and able when ever God permits him to blind the Eyes of us Mortals and so to counterfeit real Miracles as for a while Pharaoh's Magicians did in appearance perform some of Moses's Miracles and that which is no small help to the performance of his Sorceries and Witchcrafts and other of his diabolical practices he has undoubtedly a perfect knowledge of the Sympathies Antipathies and secret vertues that are either in the Bodies of all sorts of Animals and Plants or else in Minerals and inanimate things which if they should be publickly known or divulged Humane Society would be very much confounded if not utterly destroyed Who can give a rational accout of Straws jumping to the jett Or the Dust of Iron to the Load-stone Or of the needles turning to the North. What reason can any Philosopher give why the bark of a Tree in Peru should be a ready Cure for a Fever or Ague Or why the Skin of an Eele or Snake should give present ease to the violent pain of the Cramp Or which is yet more wonderfull why a small bit of Wood being cut and taken at such a criticall hour or minute and being gently rubbed upon a fresh wound should immediately staunch the Blood though issuing forth with great violence and perform the Cure in a few hours space the Wound being only wrapt up close and kept warm without any chyrurgical Operations I my self have seen and practised many strange Experiments of other kinds which I think not at all convenient here to publish And look upon it as an effect of God's wonderful Providence Mercy and Goodness that the Books which Solomon wrote concerning Plants and Herbs were concealed from or at least not made common or publick in future Ages And that several Experiments which some later and learned Authors such as Paracelsus Agrippa and others have published to the World have either been misunderstood or not at all believed As for the Miracles done by Moses there are two things very considerable and worth our notice First though the Magicians by the Devil's assistance did in appearance turn the Rods into Serpents and Water into Blood and bring up Frogs upon the Land of Egypt yet it is manifest that they were in no wise able to undo Moses's Miracles or to remove any of the Ten Plagues which would certainly have been a most acceptable Service to K. Pharaoh who had so much a do to bring his hard and stubborn heart to intreat Moses to beseech the Lord his God for the speedy removal of the Frogs the Flies the Hail and the Locusts Again it is no less observable That the Magicians counterfeited no more than two or three of Moses's Miracles and when they attempted to proceed they were forced to desist and confess it was the power and Finger of God Neither was the Devil with all his Magick-Arts able to help them to produce so vile and despicable a Creature as a Lowse or to give them afterwards a Receipt to cure their Boils and Blains which Moses had fixt upon their bodies so that they were no longer in a condition to stand before Pharaoh and his Servants neither do we hear any more of their appearance in all those Transactions whereas Moses went on triumphantly with his Miracles till he had safely landed all the Israelites on the other side of the Red-Sea and left Pharaoh and all his Host overwhelmed with the returning Waters and become dead Carkasses Reflections If God should permit real Miracles to vouch diabolical Delusions or indeed suffer any of the Devil's Magick-Arts to stand in competition with his own Almighty works upon such extraordinary Occasions of either revealing or confirming any new Truth or Doctrine it would soon overthrow throw Christian Religion But we always find the contrary throughout the Holy Scriptures Pharaoh's Magicians were soon put to silence Their Rods were swallowed up by Aaron's Rod They were at a Non-plus in producing a Lowse and at last were forced to withdraw and disappear with shame and disgrace The priests of Baal though they cut and mangled their flesh with sharp knives and from morning to Evening made bitter Cries were not able to bring down Fire from Heaven upon their Altars The Sorcerer Elymas was by St. Paul struck blind at Salamis and St. Peter more than once publickly baffled the famous Sorcerer Simon Magus So that whatever was done by Pharaoh's Magicians which is one of the most remarkable Instances of the Devil's power and Enchantments or whatever was at any time after done by any of his Sorcerers does not in the least derogate from any of our blessed Saviour's Miracles or the Miracles afterwards performed by any of his Apostles or Disciples which

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