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	prophet_n	testament_n	5,085	5	8.1969	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39866	The history of oracles, and the cheats of the pagan priests in two parts / made English.; Histoire des oracles. English	Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757.; Dale, Antonius van, 1638-1708. De oraculis ethnicorum dissertationes duae.; Behn, Aphra, 1640-1689.	1688 (1688)	Wing F1413; ESTC R13813	80,690	254

one that has been an Eye-witness of all those things of which he writes unconcern'd by Interest and diligent But especially when Men write of such matters of Fact as have a Relation to Religion it is very hard not to savour according to the party of which they are a false Religion with those advantages that are not due to it or not to give a true one those false assistances of which it has no need And yet we may be assured that we can never add more truth to what is true already nor make that true which is false Some Christians in the first Age for want of having been convinced of this Maxim have suffer'd themselves in favour of Christianity to introduce suppositions bold enough which the sounder part of Christians have been fain afterwards to disown This Inconsiderate zeal has produc'd a great number of Apocryphal Books to which were given the Names of Pagan or Iewish Authors for the Church having to do with these two sorts of Enemies what was more advantageous to her than to fight 'em with their own Weapons by producing Books which tho' made as was pretended by their own party were written nevertheless very much in favour of Christianity But whilst they strained the point too far to draw from those counterfeit works some very great benefit to their Religion they gained none at all for the clearness of the manner in which they were written betray'd them and our Mysteries are therein so plainly unfolded that the Prophets of the Old and New Testament understood nothing in comparison of those Iewish and Pagan Authors And which way soever Men turn themselves to save the reputation of those Books they will find in their too great clearness a difficulty not to be surmounted If some Christians fathered spurious Books on Pagans and Iews Hereticks found the way of doing the like on the Orthodox There was nothing to be met with but false Gospels false Epistles of the Apostles and false Histories of their Lives and nothing but an effect of the Divine Providence could have separated the truth from so many Apocryphal Works as confounded it Some great Men of the Church have sometimes been deceived either by the spurious works of Hereticks fathered upon the Orthodox or by what the Christians father upon the Iews but oftenest by the latter For they seldom examine strictly enough that which seems favourable to Religion the heat with which they contest for so good a Cause not giving them the leisure to make a good Choice of their Weapons This is the reason that they have hapned sometimes to make use of the Books of the Sibyls or of those of Hermes Trismegistus King of Egypt We do not intend by this to weaken the Authority or to lessen the Merit of those great Men. For after we shall have examin'd all the errors into which perhaps they have fallen on some certain subjects there will yet remaine abundance of solid Reasonings and very curious discoveries which are worthy of our highest Admiration And if with the true proofs of our Religion they have left us others which may be suspected it is our part to receive that only which is legitimate and to pardon their zeal who have furnish'd us with more proofs than there was any necessity for I am not at all surpriz'd that this same Zeal has convinced 'em of the truth of I know not how many Oracles advantageous to their Religion which passed for currant in the first Ages of the Church The Authors of the Books of the Sibyls and those of Hermes Trismegistus were also probably the Authors of these Oracles at least it was more easie to feign them than to counterfeit intire Volumes The History of Thamus is Originally heathen and yet Eusebius and other great Authors have given it the Reputation of being believed It is immediately followed in Plutarch with a Relation so ridiculous that it will be sufficient wholly to discredit the other For Demetrius saies there that the most part of the Islands near England are desert and Consecrated to Daemons and Heroes and that he being sent by the Emperor to discover these Islands chanced to land upon one of those that were Peopled and that a little time after his Arrival there happen'd a Tempest and terrible claps of Thunder and Lightning which made the People of the Country conclude that some one of their Principal Daemons was dead because their Death 's were alwaies attended with something strange and horrible To this Demetrius adds that one of those Islands was the Prison of Saturn who was kept there by Briareus and was Buried in a Profound sleep which methinks should render the custody of the Giant very needless incompass'd with an infinite number of Daemons lying at his feet as slaves Has not Demetrius made a very curious Relation of this Voyage And is it not pleasant to see such a Philosopher as Plutarch coldly relate to us such Wonderful things It is not without reason that Herodotus is esteemed the father of History and all the Greek Writers of that kind are on that account his offspring and partake of his Genius They have somewhat of truth but more of wonderful and amusing stories But let it be how it will it were sufficient almost to refute the History of Thamus tho it had no other defect to have been found in the same Treatise with the Daemons of Demetrius But besides this it cannot receive a reasonable interpretation For if the Great God Pan were a Daemon could not the Daemons have sent one another an account of one of their Deaths without employing Thamus to that end Have they no other way of informing one another of news And on the other side can they be so imprudent as to discover to Men their Misfortunes and the weakness of their Natures God compell'd 'em perhaps you will say Then God had some design in doing so But let us see what follow'd thereupon there was no Person that was converted from Paganism by having heard of the Death of the great God Pan. It was declared that he was the Son of Mercury and Penelope and that it was not he that was acknowledg'd in Arcadia for supream God of all as his Name imports and therefore tho' the voice had named him the great Pan yet he was understood to be but the little Pan whose Death was of no great consequence and there did not appear any considerable regret for it If this great Pan were Iesus Christ the Daemons would not have told to Men news of a death so much to their advantage unless God had compell'd 'em to it But what 's the effect of all this did any one understand the Name of Pan in its true sence Plutarch liv'd in the second Age of the Church and yet no Person then knew that Pan was Iesus Christ who died in Iudea The History of Thulis is related by Suidas an Author who heaps up a great many things perphaps ill enough chosen