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
A95658	A voyage to East-India. Wherein some things are taken notice of in our passage thither, but many more in our abode there, within that rich and most spacious empire of the Great Mogol. Mix't with some parallel observations and inferences upon the storie, to profit as well as delight the reader. / Observed by Edward Terry minister of the Word (then student of Christ-Church in Oxford, and chaplain to the Right Honorable Sr. Thomas Row Knight, Lord Ambassadour to the great Mogol) now rector of the church at Greenford, in the county of Middlesex.	Terry, Edward, 1590-1660.	1655 (1655)	Wing T782; Thomason E1614_1; ESTC R234725	261,003	580

extenuated by the multitude of offenders which live under the guilt thereof that nothing can more aggravate it With men commoness pleads for favour with God it pleads for judgment the Leprosie of the whole body being by far more loathsome then that which appears but in a part thereof and so much of this I will now proceed to take notice of other particulars which follow in this relation As SECTION XII Of their Language their Books their Learning c. THE Language of this Empire I mean the Vulgar bears the name of it and is called Indostan it hath much affinitie with the Persian and Arabian tongues but the Indostan is a smoother language and more easy to be pronounced than the other a language which is very significant and speaks much in few words They write it as we to the right hand It is expressed by letters which are very much different from those Alphabets by which the Persian and Arabian tongues are formed The Persian there is spoken as their more quaint and Court-tongue The Arabian is their learned language both written backward to the left hand like the Hebrew from whence they borrow many words which come so neer it as that he who is a good Critick in the Hebrew may very well guess at the meaning of much in both those languages The Persian is a language as if it consisted all of Guttur all letters as some in the Hebrew Alphabet are called filling the mouth in the Pronunciation of them for as the words in that language are full of sense so in their speaking they are full of sound For the Latin and Greek by which there hath been so much knowledge conveyed into the world they are as ignorant of them both as if they had never been and this may be one great reason why there is so little learning amongst them But for the people themselves they are men of very strong reason and will speak ex re natâ upon any offered occasion very exceeding well and doubtless they are a people of such strong Capacities that were there literature amongst them they might be the Authors of many excellent works but as the case stands with them all that is there attainable towards learning is but to read and write And here by the way let me insert this that I never saw any Idiot or natural Fool nor any deformed person amongst them in any of those parts For Logick and Rhetorick which are so instrumental the first to enlarge and the second to polish discourses they have none but what is Natural They say that they write some witty Poems and compose many handsome Annals and Stories of their own and other adjacent Countreys They delight much in Musick and have some stringed but many more winde Instruments They have the use of Timbrils likewise but for want of pleasing Airs their Musick in my ears never seemed to be any thing but discord Their Books are not many and those are Manuscripts That rare and happie invention of Printing which hath been the advancement of so much learning within Christendom is not known without it They have heard of Aristotle whom they call Aplis and have some of his books as they say in the Arabian tongue in which language they further say they have many books written by Avicenna that ancient Physician who was born in Samarchandia one of the most fam'd places within the Tartarian Empire the Countrey as they believe where Tamberlain the Mogols great Ancestor drew his first breath Some parts or fragments they have of the old Testament of which more when I shall come to speak of their Religion Many amongst them profess themselves to have great skill in judicial Astrologie that great Cheat which hath been very anciently and often put upon as the Sacred Storie witnesseth the people inhabiting the East and South parts of the world I call it a Cheat because there is and must needs be so much uncertainty in it all things here below being ordered and overruled by the secret and unerring providence of Almighty God which frustrateth the tokens of the Lyars and maketh Diviners mad that turneth wise men backward and maketh their knowledge foolish Esay 44. 25. First these Diviners are mad when things fall not out according to their bold predictions And secondly they have been and not without cause esteemed as mad-men in foretelling things which they could not know and much less bring to pass And therefore I have heard a great Master in and a publick Professor of Astronomie who could see as far into Constellations and observe as much from them as any other often say that he would go by the very selfesame rules that others did to predict things to come and would write that which was quite contrary to what they observed yet what he wrote should as often fall to be as true as what they 〈…〉 old Yet notwithstanding the truth of these premises the great Mogol puts so much confidence in his Astrologers that he will not undertake a journey nor yet resolve to do any thing besides of the least consequence unless his wizards tell him it is a good and a prosperous hour to begin and set upon such an undertaking and at the very instant he hath his directions from them he sets upon the thing he undertakes and not before It is strange to consider what ignorance or despair in this ●case may not put men upon may not put men into ignorance in that King thus besotted with an high opinion of his Astrologers So despair in Saul another King long before him who after he had lost the favour of God grew desperate and resolved that if God would not answer him Sathan should And therefore he said in his distress unto his servants 1 Sam. 28. 7. Seek me out one that hath a familiar spirit The condition of Saul was at this time exceeding sad as appears by his complaint v. 15. The Philistins make war against me and God is departed from me and answers me no more either by Prophets or Dreams and what shall I do I confess that the loss of God is the greatest of all losses For as his favour to a believing Soul in the want of every thing besides is enough because his loving kindnes is better than life it self Psal 63. 3. So the gaining of every thing the world can afford with the loss of Gods Countenance makes profit loss a Chaire of State uneasy an hereditary and much more a usurped Scepter so unweildy as that it cannot be managed with comfort Here Saul a King is so perplexed in his thoughts when as Almighty God had taken his loving kindnes from him that he asks the question what shall I do Not what thou did'st wretched Saul against the streame of thine own Conscience to seek unto those whom thou had'st but of late condemned and punished to take a course which thou knowest to be divellish Miserable Saul how couldst thou hope to find God at thy Command

comfort in those their frequent performances in that great duty He answered that I needed not to trouble my selfe with that for they found as great comfort as they could desire in what they did And presently he would needs inferr this Relation There was said hee a most devout Mussleman who had his habitation in a great City where Mahomet was zealously professed and that man for many yeares together spent his whole day in the Mosquit or Church in the mean time he minding not the world at all became so poor that he had nothing left to buy bread for his family yet notwithstanding his poor condition he was resolved still to ply his devotions and in a morning when he perceived that there was nothing at all left for the further subsistence of himselfe and houshould tooke a solemne leave of his wife and Children resolving for his part to goe and pray and dye in the Mosquit leaving his family if no relief came to famish at home But that very day he put on this resolution there came to his house in his absence a very beautifull young man as he appeared to be who brought and gave unto his wife a very good quantity of Gold bound up in a white Napkin telling her that God had now remembred her husband and sent him his pay for his constant paines taken in his devotion withall charging her not to send for her husband for though he had taken such a solemne leave of her that morning yet he would come home to her againe that night and so he departed from her The woman presently bought in some necessaryes for her house for they had eaten up all before and further made some good provision for her husband against his coming home in the evening for so he did and finding all his family very cherefull and merry his Wife presently told him that there had been such a one there as before described and left so much gold behinde him with that fore mentioned message delivered with it Her husband presently replyed that it was the Angel Gabriel sent from God for the Mahometans speak much of that Angel and he further added that himselfe had nothing to bring home unto her but a little grett or sand which he tooke up in his way homeward and bound it in his girdle which he presently opening to shew her it was all turn'd into pretious stones which amounted unto a very great value in Money The Seventh part of which as of his gold likewise he presently gave to the poore for said he a Mussleman is very charitable and then inferrd that if we doe not neglect God God will not forget us but when we stand most in need of help will supply us Vnto which conclusion we may all subscribe leaving the premises which are layd downe in that story unto those that dare believe them The Mahometans say that they have the Bookes of Moses but they have very much corrupted that story in ascribing that to Ishmael which is said of Isaac Gen 22. as if Ishmael should have beene sacrificed not Isaac of which more afterward They say that they have the Booke of Davids Psalmes and some Writings of Solomon with other parcels of the old Testament which if so I believe a made much to vary from their original They speak very much in the Honour of Moses whom they call Moosa Calim-Alla Moses the publisher of the minde of God So of Abraham whom they call Ibrahim Carim-Alla Abraham the Honored or Friend of God So of Ishmael whom they call Ismal the Sacrifice of God So of Iacob whom they call Acob the blessing of God So of Joseph whom they call Eesoff the betrayed for God So of David whom they call Dahood the Lover and prayser of God So of Solomon whom they call Selymon the wisdome of God all expressed as the former in short Arabian words which they sing in ditties unto their particular remembrances And by the way many of the Mahometans there are called by the names of Moosa or Ibrahim or Ismal or Acob or Eesoff or Dahood or Selymon so others are called Mahmud or Chaan which signifies the Moone or Frista which signifies astarre c. And they call their women by the Names of Flowers or Fruits of their Countrey or by the names of Spices or Odours or of pearls or precious Stones or else by other Names of pretty or pleasing signification As Iob named one of his daughters Jemimah which signifies Cleare as the day the second Keziah which signifies pleasant as Cassia or sweete spice And the name of the third Keren-happuch signifying the Horne or strength of beauty Iob 42. 14. But I 'll return again to that people that I may acquaint my reader with one thing of speciall observation and t is this That there is not one among the Mahometans of any understanding which at any time mentions the name of our blessed Saviour called there Hazare● Eesa the Lord Christ but he makes mention of it with high Reverence and respect For they say of Christ that he was a good man and a just that he lived without sin that he did greater miracles than ever any before or since him nay further they call him Rha-how-Alla the breath of God but how he should be the Son of God cannot conceive and therefore cannot believe Perhaps the Socinians first tooke that their opinion from these which bids them to have every thing they receive as truth to be cleered up unto them by the strength of Reason as if there were no need of the exercise of faith And truly I must needs confess that to beleeve the Incarnation of the Son of God is one of the hardest and greatest taskes for Faith to encounter withall that God should be made a Man that this Man Christ should be born of a Virgin that Life should s●ring from Death and that from Contempt and Scorne Triumph and Victorie should come c. But Christians must bind up all their thoughts as to these in that excellent meditation of Picus Mirandula saying Mirandam Dei Incarnationem c. concerning that admirable and wonderfull Incarnation of Christ the Son of God I shall not say much it being sufficient for me as for all others that look for benefit by Christ to believe that he was begotten and that he was born These are Articles of our Faith and we are not christians if we believe them not It may seem very strange therefore that the Mahometans who understand themselves better should have such a very high esteem of our Blessed Saviour Christ and yet think us who profess our selves Christians to be so unworthy or so uncleane as that they will not eat with us any thing that is of out dressing nor yet of any thing that is dressed in our vessels There are more particulars which challenge a roome in this Section as their proper place but because I would not have it swell too bigg I shall here part it and speak