Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	place_n	time_n	write_v	2,965	5	5.2112	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80008	The hinge of faith and religion or, a proof of the deity against atheists and profane persons, by reason, and the testimony of Holy Scripture: the divinity of which is demonstrated, / by L. Cappel, Doctour and Professour in Divinity ; translated out of French by Philip Marinel, M.A. and fellow of Pembroke-College in Oxford.; Piuot de la foy et religion. English	Cappel, Louis, 1585-1658.; Marinel, Philip.	1660 (1660)	Wing C482; Thomason E1845_2; Thomason E2265_1; ESTC R209659	84,739	200

time place and likelihood that they could be made to believe forged Tales and could he take them to witness those things which they never saw nor knew Will it be said That he never made this Sermon That we only suppose it to be so That he hath not writ these Books Or That these Writings so replenished of Fabulous Stories have been hid for a long time and have not been published of a great while after he was dead when the Memory of those things which happened at the going out of Egypt and in the Desart was past and abolish'd in this people which was very glad and content to receive and believe these fine Tales as tending to the Honour of their Nation Or else will it be objected That some body after his death hath framed and published these Books under his Name First This is objected without the least Colour Appearance or Ground in Reason Secondly This is against the Testimony of the most ancient Monuments of History which father these Books upon none other then Moses and accuse no body of having compiled them for him Diodorus Siculus writeth that Moses gave the Jews their Laws and that he received them from the God called Jaoh which is the proper Name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly The Authour of those Books doth not flatter that Nation but represent it to us as the most perverse and stiff-necked in the World Fourthly How could these pretended impostures have so universally in so many Ages taken so deep a rooting in the spirit of this Nation Fifthly The best part of their Laws and Political and Ecclesiastical Constitutions are grounded and have their Foundation upon these Narrations which these men do pretend to be fabulous These I say are wholy built upon them as the Pass-over the Feast of Tabernacles the Jubilee the year of Release c. Again The Tabernacle so splendid so ingeniously and artificially erected so divine and admirable by whose Model and Pattern Solomon that glorious and magnificent King hath afterwards builded his Temple that stupendious and wonderfull piece of workmanship to which the most sumptuous Buildings which the Vanity Power and Riches of the most potent Monarchs have erected is nothing comparable with all its Services and the Order of its Ceremonies which is so admirable where all the Mysteries of Christian Faith and Religion are seen pourtraied and as it were drawn to the Life as we know it by the Relation which the Sacred Writers of the New Testament do make and in their imitation the Fathers and Doctours of the Church could this be an Invention and Chimara of Moses's own fancying or of some body else after him Could he have divined so many Ages before all that our Lord Jesus Christ should do teach and suffer for the Salvation of men and accordingly erect this Tabernacle with all its Ceremonies and Appertenances which were so perfect and accomplished a Model of these things Now since there is no ground to doubt that Moses hath invented these things which he writeth of the Children of Israel's deliverance of their going out of Egypt or their going through the Red Sea of their Adventures through the Desart for the space of fourty years since he relates these things himself to a multitude of six hundred thousand men which could have given him the lye if he had forged these things Why should not he be believed in all those things which he recites to us in the Histories of Abraham Isaac Jacob and his Children of the Deluge of the Tower of Babel of Sodom and to go yet higher of the Creation of the World What is in all this more incredible then the History of the Children of Israel in Egypt and in the Desart The same may be said of all that which is recited to us in the Books of Joshua of the Judges and of the Kings for all this is not more incredible then this History of Egypt and of the Desart and it hath an indissoluble connexion with all the Narrations of Moses And why shall we esteem them past belief since they are represented to us as the Works and Effects of a God which is Eternal Infinite Almighty All-good All-wise Infinitely-exalted above Nature seeing it is he who hath given its being to Nature And that we have shewed by so many preceding Arguments that above this Nature there ought to be such a Deity the Cause and Rise of it Again It cannot be denyed but that Moses and the Prophets have promised and fore-told that the Messias should come and he came The Jews expected him they thinking that his time was come or near at hand For to this very day they are forced to confess that that time is past by above fifteen hundred years And when they are urged upon this Confession they have presently recourse to a pitifull and impertinent evasion to wit that this time hath been prolonged because of their sins and that the coming of the Messias hath been retarded upon this account although they are not able to shew what great sin they have committed that may have been the cause of this delay and of so signal a Desolation in their Nation And the Apostles and Christians do evidently prove that this promised Messias is come in the time prefixed by their Prophets and that this is Jesus Christ whom they have rejected upon no other account but that they falsly imagined to themselves that the Messias was to be a Great and Potent Monarch who was to free them from the slavery they suffered under the Romanes and give them Domination over all other People of the Earth An imagination quite contrary to the intention of the Spirit of God which the Prophets were inspired withall Neither can it be denyed but that Moses and the Prophets and Jesus Christ and his Apostles after them have fore-told the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple by the Romanes and that miserable Dispersion of the Jewish Nation wherein they have been for so many Ages their Rejection their Exclusion from the Covenants of God and the Vocation of the Gentiles in their stead and their being brought to the Service of the God of Abrabam Isaac and Jacob who is Creatour of Heaven and Earth with the utter abolishing of all the Heathenish Superftition All which hath came to pass since these sixteen hundred years as it was fore-told by them which is an invincible Argument that these Predictions were not made at adventure neither can they be any product of Humane Wit which cannot dive so far into Future Events nor foretell so certainly and constantly by so many different person those wonderfull Effects which so many Ages since have came to pass To these we might add the Miracles of Jesus Christ and of his Apostles which the Jews themselvs though they be their sworn enemies do not deny although they falsly and foolishly impute them to I know not what imaginary Virtue of the Name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

yea makes him in effect to acknowledge that there is a Deity and Providence which seeth from above the wrongs that are done here below and takes notice of them to the end that they may be revenged and innocence defended For it would be a poor refuge and a small comfort to have then and in such a case recourse unto a false perswasion which should have no other foundation then the authority and institution of a man that should have invented and given for currant so gross a falshood such as the Atheists would have the opinion of the Deity to be It is true indeed that in things where we have no interest we are sometimes perswaded by those persons that are eminent either in learning or Authority and do believe things the falshood of which we cannot easily discover but in those things that do so nearly relate to us that are so important and that do excite in us so violent motions and passions we do not rest upon those perswasions that have so groundless a foundation By all this it doth appear that man hath not only an acquired but also a naturall knowledge of the Deity and Providence and of the reall and essentiall difference there is between good and evill vice and virtue his own conscience and reason dictating and perswading him both the one and the other Again experience shews us that man hath a natural knowledge and resentment of the Deity and his Providence for when he is surprized in a moment by a manifest evident and unavoidable danger of death as if a bouse falls upon him in an instant or that he sall into a precipice c. he lifts up presently his heart and minde towards Heaven and in this extremity and distress hath his recourse to the Deity and prays unto it that it would aid and succour him and casts himself in the arms of his protection as a child doth in the arms of his father Likewise the firmness constancy and quietness of minde of the truly-faithfull and Christians when they did depart from this World as also the constancy of the holy Martyrs of the Lord Jesus and the hope which they have of a better life is an evident testimony of this truth For then and in that place it is not a time to sooth ones self and feed ones hopes with Fables And how could the imagination of a meer Chimara cause in them so wonderfull a resolution and so great tranquillity of minde If the perswasion of a Deity did meerly proceed from Institution and Authority which should make us believe it without any ground of Reason it would not doubtless make so deep an impression in our Souls and would quickly vanish of it self at deaths encounter Chap. X The eighth Reason drawn from Wizards Magicians Enchantours and from all the Heathens Idolatry and Superstition IT is a certain thing which the experience of our days and that of all ages doth averr which the Monuments of History both antient and modern confirm and that the Writings as well of Heathens as Christians certifie That there are and have been at all times in the World Witches Magicians Diviners Enchantours and such like notoriously-wicked people that have a familiar communication and a frequent commerce with the Devils by whose help power they do many strange and prodigious things above and beyond all human wisdome All which consequently doth inferr that these things proceed from a supernatural and immaterial cause such as the Daemons be The Laws made and promulgated in all wel-governed States and Common-wealths as well that of the Jews by Moses as those of the Christians and of the Heathens themselves do evidence this to us The executions and supplices which justice doth frequently inflict upon such persons their Processes the Relations and Informations that are made about them do assure as of this and leave no doubt of it The damnable curiosity of many persons which every day have recourse to such as they to know see and do those things that cannot be done by any other means doth also confirm this The writings of the Heathens as well Greeks as Romans are full of instances of such persons and of their effects which are stupendious and wonderfull So that a man must wholly renounce his reason and believe nothing of those things that are done if he will not also believe that there are such persons which is true and manifest by all those kinds of Testimonies and Monuments which may induce us to believe any thing Now if there are any Witches Enchantours c. it necessarily followes that there are Daemons by whose help and power they cause these prodigious effects to come to pass which men do wonder at and look upon with horrour and amazement it being not possible that these things should be done by any humane Power The Histories therefore and writings of all Nations and even of the Heathen themselves are full of examples of the Devils apparitions and of their strange effects The Sybills so much taken notice of among the Heathen are a clear testimony of this seeing their Predictions could not proceed but from a Deity or from some Daemon that did possess them Now if there are any Daemons as cannot be denied it followes that there is a Deity above them which doth restrain them so as that they shall not overthrow all things by their might for they have strength and malice enough to do it The Sacred and Ecclesiastical History which is in this conformable to dayly experience teacheth us that there have been in former ages and that there are now persons possessed by Devils which is evident and clear and plainly appeareth by the strange effects which proceed from them This same Sacred History lets us know that there have been Magicians and Enchantours as it appears by the History of Moses and the Magicians of Egypt by the History of Saul who went to consult with a woman who had a Familiar spirit and by that of the maid of whom mention is made in the book of the Acts of the Apostles But of the truth recorded in these Sacred writings something may be spoken hereafter The books which since have been written of these Diabolical and Magical Arts and which are to be got too easily even among Christians whose damnable curiosityleads them to this The publique profession of such Magical Arts which hath been sometimes tolerated in some of the most samous Universities of Christendom to the great dishonour of Christianity The common distinction of black and white Magick which hath been invented by some antient Philosophers of the Sects of Plato and Pythagoras who would have found a way by which they might have subjected the good Daemons to them and reconcile them to themselves and which hath from them passed to the Jewish Cabalists and from them to the Christians are an invincible argument that there are Magicians and Daemons The certain and averr'd Relations of the Northern Countries and of both the Indies