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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	world_n	write_v	wrought_v	183	4	7.8610	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61565	A letter to a deist, in answer to several objections against the truth and authority of the scriptures	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1677 (1677)	Wing S5600; ESTC R21879	39,694	152

of Matter or that he hath a Soul unless he can make it clear how an immaterial and material Substance can be so united as our Soul and Body are Or that the Sun shines unless he can demonstrate whether the Sun or the Earth moves Or that we have any certainty of things unless he can assign the undoubted criterion of Truth and Falshood in all things These things I mention on purpose to let you see that the most certain things have difficulties about them which no one thinks it necessary for him to Answer in order to his assurance of the Truth of the things but as long as the evidence for them is much more considerable than the Objections against them we may safely acquiesce in our assent to them and leave the unfolding these difficulties to the Disputers of this World or the Knowledge of another Is it not far more reasonable for us to think that in Books of so great Antiquity as those of Moses are written in a Language whose Idiotisms are so different from ours there may be some difficulty in the Phrases or computation of Times or Customs of the People that we cannot well understand than that all the Miracles wrought by Moses should have been Impostures and that Law which was preserved so constantly maintained with that resolution by the wisest of the People of the Jews who chose to dye rather than disown it should be all a cheat Is it not more reasonable for us to suspect our own Understandings as to the Speeches and Actions of some of the Prophets than to think that Men who designed so much the advancing Virtue and discouraging Vice should be a pack of Hypocrites and Deceivers Can any Man of common sense suspect the Christian Religion to be a Fourb or an Imposture because he cannot understand the Number of the Beast or Interpret the Apocalyptick Visions I could hardly have believed any Man pretending to Reason could object these things unless I saw them and were called upon to Answer them Therefore Sir my serious and impartial advice to you is in the first place to consider and debate the main point i. e. the proofs of the Christian Doctrin and not to hunt up and down the Scriptures for every thing that seems a difficulty to you and then by heaping all these together to make the Scriptures seem a confused heap of indigested stuff which being taken in pieces and considered with that modesty diligence and care that doth become us will appear to contain nothing unbecoming that Sacred and Venerable Name which the Scriptures do bear among us If therefore you design not cavilling but satisfaction you will joyn issue with me upon the most material point viz. Whether the Christian Religion were from God or from Men For if this be proved to have been from God all the other things will easily fall off of themselves or be removed with a little industry In the Debate of this I shall consider first what things are agreed upon between us and then wherein the difference lies 1. You grant an absolutely perfect and independent Being whom we call God 2. That the World was at first Created and is still governed by Him 3. That He is so Holy as to be the Author of no Sin although he doth not hinder Men from sinning 4. That this God is to receive from us all Worship proper to Him of Prayers Praises c. 5. That it is the Will of this God that we should lead holy peaceable and innocent Lives 6. That God will accept mens sincere Repentance and hearty endeavours to do his Will although they do not perfectly obey it 7. That there is a State of Rewards and Punishments in another World according to the course of Mens Lives here 8. That there are many excellent Precepts in the writings of the New Testament inducing to Humility and Selfdenyal and to the Honour of God and civil duty and honesty of Life and these in a more plentiful manner than is to be found in any other Profession of Religion publickly known The Questions then remaining are 1 Whether the matters of Fact are true which are reported in the Writings of the New Testament 2 Supposing them true Whether they do sufficiently prove the Doctrin to have been from God 1. Whether the matters of Fact were true or no And as to this point I wish you had set down the Reasons of your doubting more clearly and distinctly than you have done What I can pick up amounts to these things 1. That there can be no certainty of a matter done at such a distance of time there having been many fictitious Histories in the World 2. That it is probable that these things might be written when there was no one Living to detect the falshood of them and thus you say the Grecians Romans Egyptians and other Nations were at first imposed upon by some Men who pretended to deliver to them the History of their Gods and Heroes and the Wonders wrought by them 3. That these things might more easily be done before Printing was used and that there is reason to suspect the more because of the Pious Frauds of the Primitive Christians and the Legends of the Papists 4. That there may have been many more Deceptions and Impostures in the way of propagating false Revelations and Miracles than we can now discover 5. That we ought not to take the Testimony of Scripture or the Christian Writers in this case because they may be suspected of partiality and that the Testimony of Josephus is suspected by divers learned Men to be fraudulently put in by Christians 6. That there are susficient grounds from the Story it self and the Objections of Enemies to suspect the truth of it because of the contradiction and inconsistency of the parts of it the want of accomplishment of the Promises and Prophecies of it the obscurity and unintelligibleness of other parts the defects of the Persons mentioned therein St. Paul 's oftentation the jarrs between Peter and Paul and Paul and Barnabas 7. That from these things you have just cause to doubt the Apostles sincerity and you think they might have indirect ends in divulging the Miracles recorded in Scripture and that Men might be contented to suffer to make themselves heads of a new Sect of Religion and to rule over the Consciences of Men and that they had time enough to make a considerable interest before the Persecutions began This is the force of all I can find out in the several parts of your Papers towards the invalidating the Testimony concerning the matters of fact reported in the Writings of the New Testament In Answer to all these things I shall shew 1. That matters of fact done at such a distance of time may have sufficient evidence to oblige Men to believe them 2. That there is no reason to suspect the Truth of those Matters of fact which are contained in the History of the New Testament 3. That the Apostles

the Law allowed so severe a Trial in Case the Wife after admonition did not forbear such suspected familiarity but if you had looked on the Law as it is Num. 5. 12 13. c. you would have found that the design of it was to keep Women from committing secret Adultery by so severe a Penalty yet withall allowing so much to a reasonable suspicion for so the Jews understand it with many Cautions and Limitations that rather then Married persons should live under perpetual jealousies he appointed this extraordinary way of Tryal whereby Adultery was most severely punished and the honour of Innocency publickly vindicated which certainly are not ends at all unbecoming due Conceptions of God The last of the Jewish Laws which you quarrel with is the prohibition of Usury in several places of Moses his Law and the Psalms And from hence you fall into a long Discourse to prove the lawfulness of Usury But to what purpose I beseech you For you were to prove that God could never forbid it you might have spared your pity for Men as you think Blinded with superstition and cheated with New and Aëry Notions For by all that I can see by these Papers some pretended Enemies to superstition have no better Eyes than their Neighbours and are as easily cheated with groundless Fancies and Aëry imaginations The only thing to the business in that long Discourse is this That you cannot imagine that God should make a Law so much to Mans inconvenience and forbid him so nice and indifferent a thing as Moderate increase of profit by letting out of Money when it is allowed upon Lands Houses and Trade c. To this I Answer that the prohibition of Usury to the Jewish Nation was upon political Grounds peculiar to the constitution of that People as appears by the words of the Law Deut. 23. 19 20. Thou shalt not lend to Usury unto thy Brother Unto a Stranger thou maist lend upon Usury but none of the Laws which are founded upon common and Moral Reasons have such Limitations as this for God would never have said Thou shalt not commit Adultery with thy Brothers Wife but with the Wife of a Stranger thou maist But there was this particular Reason for the prohibition of Usury to the Jewish Nation It pleased God to fix their Habitation not upon the Sea-side as Tyre and Sidon stood but within Land where they had no conveniencies of Trading but the Riches of the Nation lay in Agriculture and Pasturage In which the Returns of Money are neither so quick nor so advantageous to make sufficient compensation for the Interest of the Money in the time they have it For the main thing valuable in Money is the advantage the borrower makes of it and where that is great it seems reasonable that the person whose the Money is should have a proportionable share of the advantage made by it but where persons borrow only for present occasions to supply their necessities there it is only an Act of kindness to lend and it would be unreasonable to press upon or take advantage by anothers necessities And this seems to have been the case among the Jews they were only the Poor that wanted Money for present necessities the Rich had no way to imploy it in Trading unless that they lent to the Tyrian Merchants which it was lawful by their Law to do now if they took Usury of their own people it must be of those whose urgent necessity and not hopes of a mighty increase by it made them borrow and therefore it was a very just and reasonable Law to forbid Usury among them which I believe he would never have done if he had placed the Jews upon the Coasts of Phoenicia where Trading was so much in request These are all the Laws which you have picked out of the whole Body of the Jewish Law to represent it unbecoming the Wisdom of God And now I pray Sir look back again upon them see how few how small how weak your Objections are and compare them with the weight and justice and prudence and piety expressed in all the rest and I hope you will find cause to be ashamed of speaking so harshly of those Laws so well accommodated to those Ages of the World and the Condition of that People for whom they were appointed 2. I now consider what you object against the story of the Bible 1. That passage of Moses Exod. 32. 32. Blot me out of thy Book which thou hast written Where your design is to shew that Moses prayed to be Damned and that this was a very irrational thing And savouring more of passion than of the Spirit of God But what if Moses meant no such thing as Damnation As there is not any word in the Context relating that ways but all the design of that Chapter is about a Temporal punishment which was a present Destruction of the People for their sins And the Book out of which he prayed God to blot him seems to me to be no other than the Roll of Gods chosen people who were to possess the Land of Canaan For so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies a Roll or Register Psalm 69. 28. We meet with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Roll of the living or the Book of the living we render it because all ancient Books were in the fashion of Rolls In that Chapter Moses intercedes with God on behalf of the People that he would make good his promise to them of bringing them into the Land of Canaan v. 13. and v. 30. He goes up to make an Atonement for the People i. e. as to the cutting them off in the Wilderness and therefore he desires rather than the People should be destroy'd that God would strike him out of the Roll that he might Dye in the Wilderness rather than the People And God gives that Answer to this purpose v. 33. Whoever hath sinned against me will I blot out of my Book the sense of which is the same with those words of the Psalmist he sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his Rest. Psal. 95 11. And according to this interpretation which is most natural and easie all your long Discourse against praying to be Damned comes to just nothing there being no pretence for it either in the Text or Context 2. The story of Ruth doth not please you as savouring in your opinion of a great deal of Immodesty but you would have a better opinion of it if you consider that the reason of her carriage towards Boaz in such a manner was upon Naomies telling her that he was one to whom the right of redemption did belong and by consequence by their Law was to Marry her Ruth 2. 20. And this Ruth pleaded to Boaz Ruth 3. 9. By which it appears that she verily believed that he was legally her Husband and Boaz we see speaks of her as one that was a vertuous Woman and known to be such in the whole