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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	bear_v	life_n	sin_n	5,504	5	4.4990	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65564	Two discourses for the furtherance of Christian piety and devotion the former asserting the necessity and reasonableness of a positive worship, and particularly of the Christian : the later considering the common hinderances of devotion and the divine worship, with their respective remedies / by the author of The method of private devotion.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1671 (1671)	Wing W1522; ESTC R38254	87,149	410

their Religion true must because it is the substance of what is contained in Scripture acknowledge the great things which Scripture contains to be true that is revealed or prescribed from above It remains then now only to prove that the Christian is the true Religion which were very needless did we intend to be large it having been infinitely better done by many hands than we can pretend to But in regard what we design is brief and we trust may be satisfactory such a proof will not be needless to such who it may be have not or cannot peruse larger and more elaborate works Sect. 2 I say then that the meer frame of the History of Christian Religion lieth so that no man can rationally disbelieve that that Religion came from God that is is the true Religion And this will distinctly appear if we consider what of History was extant touching Christian Religion before the time that Christ was born and then what the state of this Religion was under Christ and his Apostles and lastly what its progress and state hath been in the World ever since Within each and much more within all of these several periods there is so much of sacred story certain and undeniable as will beyond controversy evince the divine original of Christian Religion Sect. 3 First As to what of the History of Christian Religion was extant in the World before Christs coming thereinto It may possibly seem improper language to talk of the History of any thing not yet supposed in being such as Christian Religion which took its rise as well as denomination from Christ must be confest to be before Christs coming But if we consider that Christianity supposes Judaism once to have been the true Religion and builds upon and perfects it it cannot be said but Judaism being long before extant a great part of Christianity was so also The moral part of the Jewish Law Christianity only advanceth and reinforceth it addeth haply somewhat to it it disanulleth nothing at all Of the ceremonial part of the Jewish Law made up of certain typical observations and offices Christianity exhibits the real substance that is whatsoever truths were delivered of old to the Jew under shadows the Gospel plainly speaketh out So that even many of the Christian truths or doctrinals may have been said extant before Christ though in a different manner from that wherein they are now known These things therefore considered it is not unreasonable to speak somewhat of the History of Christianity extant before Christ Now that I say whatever it is delivers so much as makes up an undeniable evidence of the truth of Christian Religion I mean of its divine original First it cannot by any man of reason be denied but as there are at present a scattered race of men which call and profess themselves Jews so the forefathers of these were a very antient people and that both these and they have or had many odd customs and usages of living different from other Nations all which they have observed and in part still do with most religious veneration as pretending that they were enacted by a Law delivered from Heaven and consigned in certain Books by the hand of Moses their Lawgiver by divine direction It cannot secondly be denied that such a man as Moses a very long time ago did live and that amongst the first and most antient Monuments of all learning or letters is that arcane volume wherein Moses comprized that law For besides that we have the Book in our hands and the tradition of the Jews living in multitude of Books which we credit in other things we have mention of Moses and of his laws and the antient state and customs of the Jews Yea we find Moses Law translated into other tongues some hundred of years before the birth of Christ all which are arguments beyond contradiction of the truth of its being before extant Nor thirdly can it be denied that besides the Books of Moses the Jews had long before Christs time certain other Books which they did and their posterity still do believe to have been written by men commissioned and inspired by God to expound that law to them and acquaint them of other mysteries I mean they had the Books of the Prophets particularly of Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel the Psalms and the rest He that believes any thing of History that he reads cannot disbelieve this Now these things being granted if we compare Christianity the truths and doctrines of it with what is extant in those Books we must needs acknowledge what is contended for It is certain the Books of Moses did foretel that a Prophet God should raise a man as Moses was who should come with greater Authority than he did and must accordingly be more hearkened unto and regarded It is plain he specifies that Prophet should be of the seed of Abraham and that by Isaacs posterity and more particularly of the tribe of Judah but not born till the Scepter was departed from Judah The Prophets yet are more express they specifie the very place of his Birth Bethlehem the time of it a multitude of circumstances and actions of his life and then the time and manner of his death the destruction of Jerusalem and dispersion of the Jews on this occasion the success of his doctrine both in his life not to be regarded and after his Death to take in the whole inhabited World To instance in one particular Prophecy Daniel in express terms tells us that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince should be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks should the street be built again and the Wall even in troublous times And after threescore and two weeks should the Messiah be cut off but not for himself and the people of a Prince to come should destroy the City and the sanctuary and after the end of the War desolations were determined What is more plain than that the time of the restauration of the Jews of the Birth of the Messiah of his Death and perhaps its design of the destruction of Jerusalem and desolation of the Country is foretold If any one say this is in obscure and Aenigmatical terms I answer it is in such as all Prophecies of like nature use to be writ and that there is the same reason for the mysteriousness of prophetical language as God had for not making man prescient I do not here conceive needful to answer that old calumny of Porphyry that the prophecy of Daniel was writ after those things were done For we will suppose it must be writ either by a plagiary Jew or Christian Jew would not write what must be so much against himself as to make him and his Country-men the murtherers of the Messiah and had Christian writ it it would never have been received by the Jews as we know it both now long hath been and is I will only add one thing more before

I sum up the evidence from this part of the History of Christianity And that is that Moses his law most plainly and by frequently repeated means foretells that the way for the expiation of sins must be by a bloudy sacrifice and the Prophets yet more expresly that it should be the Messiah who should make his Soul an offering for sin which thing is the principal Dogma of Christianity that by the Death of Christ all who believe obtain remissions of sins In sum then we see many hundred of years before the planting of Christian Religion by Christ and his Apostles was it represented in types and figures foretold as to some of the principal points of it in express words Christ himself described the time place and manner of his Birth specified the term of his life the manner and design of his death determined and lastly the consequents no less plainly set down All which as they could never have been done without divine inspiration or revelation so could they have no other design but to prepare the world for the belief of what in time was to be further revealed as the truth and will of God For that God should predict things for truth and by real effects according to the time foretold verify those predictions to the end a Religion not framed by him might be believed as delivered from him is not consistent with his justice and veracity Sect. 4 We proceed to the History of Christian Religion in and under its plantation by Christ himself and his first emissaries or Apostles And here we say there are so many things recorded touching him and them whose transmission to posterity under those eminent notorieties by which they have ever descended placeth them beyond all shadow of uncertainty as will abundantly suffice to evince the Divine Original of Christian Religion First It cannot be denied Debentur haec plurimum autori Anonymo in libro de Autorit S. Scripturae ca. 7. by any person except such who resolve to believe nothing but what they see a temper so unreasonable as would soon destroy humane Society that such a person as Jesus Christ did live and that he pretended himself to be sent from Heaven to instruct men what was the will of Heaven and in pursuance hereof partly vindicated a mistaken doctrine then in the World that of the Jewish morality and partly taught and promulged a new one of his own which is the Christian doctrine If any person should be so extravagant as to deny any thing hereof he will presently be convinced by temples and oratories soon erected to his worship and dedicated to his name by vast multitudes of men which even in heathen story he reads presently to have embraced his doctrine and died in the most cruel sort for its witness besides many Authours attest as much as we have yet said of him It cannot secondly be denied that the Country-men of this Jesus men most stubbornly tenacious of their Customs and zealous of the traditions of their Fathers enraged against him for his pretending power to alter their Customs and introduce a new Religion accused him of sedition and blasphemy and never desisted persecuting and impugning him till for these imputed crimes they had procured his crucifixion The primitive Christians so much glorying in and reverencing the Cross the Banners Statues and other representations thereof on a sudden so frequent in the Christian World besides the testimonies of Heathen Books and of some eminent Authours of their very own Nation speak as much Nay their posterity still in being acknowledge their Forefathers to have contrived and effected this matter and their City and Temple soon after destroyed their Nation dispersed insomuch that now the being of the far greater part of it is not by themselves known And themselves as their progenitours ever since wander and sojorn in the Countryes of Aliens despised hated scarce tolerated to live All which calamities though they are willing to refer to other feigned and imaginary causes it is certain their old and as they confess and we have seen undoubted records did foretell should befall them for their rejecting and putting to death of the Messiah All these evidences are plain matter of fact and so render that for which they are alledged undeniable Thirdly It is no less certain that not only Christ himself but other persons whom in his life time he instructed as Disciples and after his death commissioned as Apostles taught and promulged the doctrine called Christian and in the end most of them died for the testimony thereof both he and they having before in their life time wrought many strange things deservedly accounted miracles and exertions of a divine power to attest a divine truth Besides that we have the names of all the Apostles frequent in our sacred records which no one in this point will suspect of falsity we find the names of some of them even in Heathen Monuments the Sepulchres of some of them are to be seen at this day at least every where throughout the Christian World goodly fabricks and Temples dedicated to their memory Then as to their and their Lords miracles some of them are recorded by Heathen Writers others by Jewish both profest enemies to Christianity and they are generally confest in the writings of the most early adversaries of Christianity who by the way had best means by examining particular circumstances as of places where they were done c. to find out their truth or convict their falsity Those adversaries going about to assign other causes of them as it is a kind of confession of the matter of fact so if lookt into ingenders stronger belief that they were wrought by divine power Who can think all done by the power of Magick which the Religion by these miracles asserted destroyed And what more ridiculous than that the Cabalistical interpretation of a name should prove a charm able to effect miracles in so great number and variety These things then being thus certain to proceed we say Fourthly None will deny that the Apostles of Christ preached unto the World that their Lord after his ignominious and most direful death rose again and conversed with them several times Our records expresly tell us that they did thus preach and make the being a witness of the resurrection an essential part of being an Apostle nor is there any reason why we should doubt but they did assert what we are there told they did Now it cannot be thought they should have persisted even to death publishing and witnessing thus much except it had been really true that they had seen and conversed with him according as they affirmed The very talking of a resurrection as we read made them ridiculous even in the judgment of Philosophers It incensed against them both Jew and Heathen who for this reason amongst others imprisoned buffeted scourged and by all means tormented and persecuted them to death This their experience told them to be the great