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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	world_n	write_n	year_n	121	3	4.4590	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35959	Truths victory over error, or, An abridgement of the chief controversies in religion which since the apostles days to this time, have been, and are in agitation, between those of the Orthodox faith, and all adversaries whatsoever, a list of whose names are set down after the epistle to the reader : wherein, by going through all the chapters of The confession of faith, one by one, and propounding out of them, by way of question, all the controverted assertions, and answering by yes, or no, there is a clear confirmation of the truth, and an evident confutation of what tenets and opinions, are maintain'd by the adversaries : a treatise, most useful for all persons, who desire to be instructed in the true Protestant religion, who would shun in these last days, and perillous times, the infection of errors and heresies, and all dangerous tenets and opinions, contrary to the word of God.	Dickson, David, 1583?-1663.; Sinclair, George, d. 1696.	1684 (1684)	Wing D1412; ESTC R3405	145,943	378

such as by good and necessary consequence are drawn from the Scripture They pass reckoning for number Let no man blame me for speaking somewhat for the Truth because another man hath spoken better If I have said little in defence if it I am sure I have said nothing against it as the Apostle says We can do nothing against the truth but for it If I cannot please all men I shall endeavour at least to please some And if I can please none I shall not displease my self I hope my friends will censure favourably if my enemies censure maliciously I expect as many Adversaries of one sort and of another upon my top as a travelling man hath midges and wasps about his head in a warm summer evening There are escapes in Authors whose knowledge is far beyond any thing I can profess No marvel then if a malicious Critick like a viper from the fire of contention fasten upon a mans hand For the Author being intent upon all cannot lay out his whole industry upon every line which a snarling Cur will bark at I shal take it as a favour to have Learned and Iudicious men to censure me Reprove one says Solomon that hath understanding and he will understand knowledge Some perhaps may look awry upon me because I have medled with some ticklish Questions and been too positive in my Iudgement If any such Questions are they have occur'd to me in the Road which I could not pass by without a Salutation But as all of them have been weighed in the Ballance of the Sanctuary so these likewise which some may call ticklish I durst not for a world have been positive if I had not judged them consonant to Truth Therefore let all men whatever perswasions they be of judge charitably for I have said nothing upon the account of fead or favour nor any thing which may cause division or offence For they that are such serve not our Lord Iesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Rom. 16. 18. But I wish all who profess themselves to own the true Protestant Religion were owning the sound principles of the Confession and were sutable and consequential to them in their opinions and practises and had not given too just cause and occasion to others to reproach all honest hearted men as being of seditions and disloyal principles It is probable I may be less noticed by the common Adversaries than by some who are so vain that they glory in injuring the Merit of a Book For as a Gentleman of great Parts and Learning says well in his reflections upon one of his late pieces the meanest Rogue may burn a City or kill an Hero whereas he could never have built the one or equaled the other As the method is plain and easy so is the stile I use only the common and plain Arguments Some perhaps might have expected a dilution or answering of the Adversaries Reasons It is hard to propose them to their Palate They complain their arguments are enervate and clipped Neither is it expedient to bring forth from the Devils Armory and Magazin his fiery darts In confuting the Adversaries I use no worse language than Do not they err Sometimes I treat the Quakers with such language as they use against others Though they look like Lambs yet gall them but a little and you will find them express the Matulent and Teen of their heart And as Cacus spouted fire against Hercules who persued him as a Theif so will they against all who persue them as Hereticks Anno 1662. I published a little Book intituled Tyrocinia Mathematica for the use of my Schollars and young Students which was dedicated to that great Hero John Duke of Lauderdail Anno 1669 I had a large Book printed in Holland dedicated to the Earle of Winton In the year 1672 a third was published intituled the Hydrostaticks Though some endeavoured to ruin the reputation of my Writings at home yet they were not able to do it abroad But least this peece may meet with the like welcome into the world I shall beg liberty to cite one passage of a letter from a most intelligent Gentleman in vindication of that Book intituled Ars Nova Magna against which so many flate contradictions were uttered which the other two likewise met with Ostend October 10. 1670. I must not forget to tell you a passage anent your late peece When we were at Breda we had occasion to see Collonel Lauther who fell in regrating that Scots Spirits were not encouraged And told he had seen a Book lately published by one Sinclar whereof he had a great esteem and that many others as well as he esteemed it highly For example he told of a Dutchman who is one of the French Virtuosi that said he had seen nothing on that subject comparable to it and it was esteemed so in France If you have any other thing to publish I pray you hasten it for it will not want acceptance This testimony was homologate afterwards by that famous Virtuoso and Mathematician Christopher Sturmius a German in his Book intituled Collegium Curiosum which some here have seen He hath gone thorow the Book diligently and gleaned the finest purposes in it and sent them abroad not as his own Inventions but as mine which he would never have done if the Experiments had been all of them either Untruths and Lies or not New and unheard off This testimony from a Stranger vindicates sufficiently The rest of my writings are likewise commended by Mr. Boile Sir Frances Hales Doct. Glanvil and others men of eminent skill and knowledge in such matters as I treat of In going thorow this Book you will find the Papists confuted upon threescore and fourteen several heads The Quakers upon thirty and two The Socinians upon fourty and seven The Lutherians upon thirteen The Antinomians upon as many The Anabaptists upon thirty and two The Arminians upon twenty and seven The rest are confuted some upon fewer some upon more heads and that only according to their chief and grand Errors For a man to confute all and every one of their false and absurd Tenets would be a task like the cleanseing of Augeas King of Elis his Ox-stall which none but Hercules was able to do Neither would it be worth the while seeing by the confutation of those mentioned you may the more easily confute the rest If any be too curious to inquire why the Author hath touched so many controversies in Religion and yet hath medled nothing with the great controversie of the time I answer I had been both officious and impertinent to have touched matters which lay not in my way For in all the Confession which is the onlie Road I walk in there is not one Mum or Syllable of the one Government or of the other The Book for Paper and Character may compare with many from abroad The Printer a Person of special

which the kingdom of Satan is erected and by which it is upheld are Ignorance and Errour And the two great Pillars which support the Kingdom of Christ are Knowledge and Truth Therefore our blessed Saviour resolving to subvert the kingdom of Satan among the Gentiles tells the Apostle in his first Commission that he was about to send him to open their eyes namely their understanding by the Preaching and Knowledge of the Gospel and to turn them from darkness to light from natural blindness and worldly ignorance unto the right and true knowledge of GOD. This is the first step of our Manumission from that spiritual thraldom The Understanding is the Guide and Pilot of the whole man It is that faculty which sits at the helme of the Soul But as the most skilful Pilot may mistake his course in the dark so may the Understanding when it wants the light of Knowledge This is an accomplishment so desirable that the Devil knew not a more alluring bate to tempt our first Parents in Paradise Ye shall be as Gods sayes he knowing good and evil When the Lord had refer'd it to Solomons option what to choose he choose Wisdom and Knowledge When once the Devil understood that by the Preaching of the Gospel his kingdom was ruined he invents two new stratagems to overthrow Religion even in the infancy and beginning of it to wit Persecution and Heresie Open persecution began in Nero a very imp and graff of the Devil When this Hirricano and many others of that kind were past and when the Churches of Christ were once at rest he sends in a Deluge of Arianism which in a short time so prodigiously spread and over-ran the Christian World that it seemed to carry all before it an assault that did not strike at the uppermost boughs of Religion but at the Root and Beeing of Christianity But this second proved more sad than the first for where Persecution kills one thousand Heresie kills ten thousand The one is the Wild-Boar of the Forrest the other is the little Fox that eateth up the Grapes of the Lords Vineyard The one kills the bodies of Men and Women the other poisoneth the Souls of Christians In times of greater Light as these and former times have been reputed to be Satan comes not abroad usually to deceive with his gross forgeries and cloven foot for every one almost would discern his haltings but with more mystical yet strongdelusions and invincible chains of darkness wherewith he binds his captives the faster to the judgement of the great day And therefore the Watch word given in the bright and shining times of the Apostles was to try the Spirits and believe not every Spirit and take heed of Spirits who indeed were only fleshly and corrupt men yet called Spirits because they pretended to have much of the Spirit and their doctrine seemed only to advance the Spirit the fitest and fairest cobwebs to deceive and inveigle the world in these discerning times that possibly could be spun out of the poysonful bowels of corrupt and fleshly men for Heresie is a work of the flesh The times are now come wherein by the refined mystical divinity of the old Moncks all the ordinances of Christ in the New Testament are allegorized and spiritualized out of the world They reject the outward word because of an inward teaching They reject the outward Baptism because of the inward Baptism They reject the Lords Supper because of the spiritual bread from heaven the Lord Jesus They abolish the outward Sabbath because of a spiritual and inward Sabbath of rest in the bosome of Christ. This is very consistent with the observing the outward Sabbath But they wickedly sever and separat what GOD hath joyned together But as to what relates to the present Treatise I am not ignorant that many eminent and learned Divines far beyond whatever I could profess have beatten this path and travelled round the world of Polemick Divinity But their writings being so Voluminous and large that he who desires to have a full sight at one look of the chief controversies can no more have it than a man from the Peak of Teneriff can get a clear sight of the whole Globe of the Earth Which things though they be principally worth the knowing nevertheless for so much as their number and variety are an impediment to themselves and the multiplicity of matter makes the mind abruptly flit from one thing to another Therefore I have imitated Geographers who after they have surveyed the whole Globe of the Earth draw Universal descriptions thereof and comprehend the the whole image of that great Terra-queous Body within a narrow circumference of a Card or Mapp In so doing I may perhaps contribute some what towards the satisfaction of some who neither can nor are able to trace the wearisome foot steps of those eminent Divines who have written fully This Treatise being Historical none can expect but I must have consulted others and gleaned off their writtings what things were needful I cannot here as in writing Philosophy or any such like Science set up new Theorems or Axioms which have not been heard of before This were to make a new Religion a new System and Body of Divinity such as some giddy-headed Hereticks are thinking upon I must confine my self to the good old way and follow the heatten path-road wherein men of sound principles have walked before me This Book is not designed for men of knowledge and learning who are more conversant in such matters than I am but for the unlearned and new-beginners who need to be instructed with the sound principles of the true Protestant Religion I hope none will think I have done amiss in mentioning so many Religions which had been better unnamed some may think than named This might have some weight if there were no more Religions in the world at this time but one only to wit the true Protestant Religion But seeing I cannot name so many here as there are this day owned and professed in the Christian Church I cannot be to blame This Book will be useful for understanding the Confession and knowing the design of it For how many read it and commend it that never knew the nature of it Though there be a multiplicity of questions and many in number yet all of them to my best remembrance are taken word by word out of the Confession The answers are by Yes or No. To which are subjoyned immediately the proofs of the Confession These words which are often repeated Well then do not the Papists err are nothing els but sure Conclusions drawn from two manifest propositions The design of this Treatise is good The method is plain and easy The order of the Questions follow the order of the purposes in the Confession The probations are such as are made use of in the Confession and by the Orthodox Divines against the Adversaries They are either the very words of the Scripture in Terminis or