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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	bind_v	key_n	loose_v	3,794	5	10.2737	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56385	A demonstration of the divine authority of the law of nature and of the Christian religion in two parts / by Samuel Parker ...	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.	1681 (1681)	Wing P458; ESTC R7508	294,777	516

upon such appeals and challenges as these that is an evident Demonstration of their undoubted truth and reality And this may suffice for the proof of the truth of Scripture-history supposing the Books of it were written by those Persons whose Names they bear Though beside this it is no inconsiderable proof of their Integrity that Eusebius has observed in their impartial way of writing Thus onely Saint Matthew himself of all the Evangelists takes notice of his own dishonourable Employment before his Conversion and Saint Mark who wrote his Gospel from the information of Saint Peter is observably sparing in those things that might tend to the praise of that Apostle and so could not with decent modesty be reported by himself but more exact than any other of the Evangelists in the description of his shamefull Fall Thus when Saint Peter had so frankly own'd our Saviour for the Messias Saint Matthew relates our Saviour's Answer with a high Commendation of him Blessed art thou Simon Bar Jona for Flesh and Bloud hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven And I say also unto thee that thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven Then charged he his Disciples that they should tell no Man that he was Jesus the Christ. Whereas in Saint Mark all these magnificent Expressions of our Saviour to Saint Peter are modestly omitted and all the Answer that is there made is no more than this And he charged them that they should tell no Man And so again though Saint Mark in all his other Relations is more compendious than any of the other Evangelists yet in the Story of Saint Peter's denial of his Saviour he is most of all circumstantial And whereas Saint Matthew and Saint Luke set off the greatness of his Repentance afterwards by saying that he wept bitterly Saint Mark expresses it more modestly onely that he wept Now when Writers pass by such things as make for their own praise and record their own Faults and Miscarriages that without their own discovery might never have been known to Posterity they are of all Men least to be suspected of falsehood and give the strongest proof in the World of their love to Truth and Sincerity So again granting that they would not stick at any falsehood to advance their Master's Honour and Reputation yet to what purpose should they forge Lyes of his Disgraces and Sufferings especially all those shamefull Circumstances that they have recorded of his Condemnation and Execution Now if we believe them in the black and tragical part of the Story why not in all For if they onely design'd to set off their Master's Greatness why do they so carefully acquaint the World with the History of his Misfortunes Why do they tell us of his great Agony before his Passion of his scourgings and Mockings of his purple Robe and reeden Scepter of the Contumelies and Reproaches that were thrown at him whilst he was hanging on the Gibbet of his being forsaken by all his Followers of his being abjured by the most zealous of them all and that without the application of Racks or Torments These things if not true to what purpose should they invent them nay if true why should they not doe what they were able to stiflle them if the onely design of their Romance had been to gain Honour to their Master So that if they were honest and faithfull in those sad Relations concerning him why not in those that carry Triumph and Reputation in them For if they had design'd to lye for his Glory they must have baulk't every thing that might any way offend the Reader And if they had design'd a Romance instead of that plain Story that they have recorded to Posterity they would have told us that Judas had no sooner given the treacherous Kiss but he was turn'd into a Stone that the Hand that struck him was immediately wither'd that Caiphas and his Accusers were struck blind that the Souldiers who supposed they had apprehended him had onely seised a Phantasm whilst he vanisht away that his Judges were befoold in all their phantastick Process against him whilst he stood invisible among them despising their Mock-solemnity In short was it in all humane Accounts much more becoming the grandeur and dignity of that Person that he pretended to be that he should not have been obnoxious to the common Miseries and Calamities of humane Life but that when by his Divine Power he had establisht his Kingdom in the World he should have return'd back to Heaven without any suffering and with all the Ornaments of Glory and Triumph This certainly had been much more proper matter for a Romance if they had design'd nothing but their Master's Greatness than to have fain'd those mixt Actions that are recorded of him in the Gospels and those that would have believed their other Reports would not have disbelieved these And therefore seeing they would not corrupt or suppress the Truth in the unpleasant part of the Story we have no ground to suspect them of the least falsehood in any other part of it howsoever in it self strange and miraculous when it is so evident that their design was real Truth and not their Master's Greatness § VIII But if we believe the Books of Scripture were not written by those Authours whose Names they bear then we must believe that either they were forged in their days or afterwards If in their days then they either own'd them as true or not If they vouched them they gave them the same Authority as if they had been indited by themselves If they disown'd them as containing Reports that they knew to be false then they themselves were obliged to discover the Imposture which having never done that is an undeniable evidence that if they were written in their time either they themselves writ them or at least approved of them But if they were written afterwards how came they to meet with such an early and universal reception in the Christian Churches We find them always own'd as the undoubted records of the Evangelists and Apostles in the most ancient Writers that lived after them nay some with them Now how is it possible that Books that contain in them matters so strange and wonderfull if they had been counterfeit and spurious and thrust upon the World after the death of those Persons whose names they pretend to bear should command such a catholick and unquestionable reputation If indeed they had pretended to have lain obscure for some time and to have been afterwards retrieved there might have been some ground of suspicion But when they are own'd as the most ancient and undoubted records of the Church

so often recited and are so vulgarly known that it were labour in vain to give my self or the Reader the trouble of their Repetition Especially when they prove no more than what no Man can doubt of viz. That there was at that time such a Man as Jesus of Nazareth and that in a short time he drew great numbers of Disciples after him The first is certainly past question and the second is as evident meerly from the History of Nero's Reign under whom what vast multitudes of Christians suffer'd both Civil and Ecclesiastical Historians unanimously agree And therefore I shall pass over these more general Records and onely suggest two or three particular Narrations that relate not onely to the existence of our Saviour's Person but to the veracity of his Pretences § XIV The first is that known History of Phlegon Gentleman to the Emperour Adrian in his general History of the Olympiads concerning both the Eclipse of the Sun and the Earthquake at our Saviour's Passion And it is a Testimony so exactly agreeing with the Evangelical History both as to the year and the very hour of the day and the most material circumstances of the thing that had it not been for the vanity of Criticks it could never have met with dispute or opposition But those Men will not stick to move the Earth from its Centre rather than loose the honour of being the Father of one Criticism otherwise certainly this passage so considently appeal'd to by the Writers of the Christian Church as agreeing with the publick Records of the Empire together with that of Thallus another Heathen cited by that accurate Chronologer Africanus could not but have escaped their censuring severity And yet it must come under their lash because say they Phlegon speaks of it as a natural Eclipse But this they say out of their own heads for he onely records the matter of Fact but whether it were natural or praeternatural concerns not him either as a Courtier or an Historian And though it is demonstrable that if it hapned at that time that he says it did it was praeternatural and though himself expresly affirms that it was such an Eclipse that never the like hapned yet waving all this it is enough that he affirms that such an Eclipse hapned at the same time even to the very hour of the day and so it is rationally urged by Tertullian Eodem momento dies medium Orbem signante Sole subducta est deliquium putaverunt qui id quoque super Christum prozedicatum non scierunt tamen eum Mundi casum relatum in Archivis vestris habetis At the very moment of our Saviour's Crucifixion the Sun was darkned at mid-day and though they supposed it onely an Eclipse that knew nothing of its relation to the Passion of Christ yet this strange accident be it what it will you may find registred in your publick Records And if that be true it is all that can be desired in this case from an heathen Historian to vouch the truth of the Story And yet this is more for if it be true it is from thence evident that this Eclipse was miraculous and praeternatural in that it hapned at the full of the Moon § XV. The next heathen Testimony is of an higher nature and relates more immediately to the Divinity of our Saviour and that is the Opinion of Tiberius concerning him upon that Account and Narrative that he had received of his Life Death and Resurrection out of Palestine and that from Pilate himself Thus Tertullian tells the Governours of Rome in his Apology that Tiberius in whose time the Christian Religion came into the World having received an account out of Palestine in Syria concerning the truth of that Divinity that was there revealed brought it to the Senate with the Prerogative of his own Vote but that it was rejected by the Senate either because themselves had not in the first place according to form of Law approved of it or rather out of flattery to the Emperour because himself had refused that honour when offer'd to him by the Senate for the words quia non ipse probaverat are capable of either sense but though they denied this Title to our Saviour upon what account soever whether of State or of Courtship our Authour tells us expresly that the Emperour himself continued of the same mind Now though Tertullian be a Christian Writer yet he durst never have presumed to impose upon the Senate themselves with such a remarkable Story as this if he were not able to prove it and that he was is evident from Justin Martyr who often appeals to the Acts of Pilate concerning the History of our Saviour and requests the Emperours to satisfie themselves from their own Records concerning those things that were reported of him For it is a known Custom among the Romans for the Governours of Provinces to transmit an account of the most remarkable things that hapned under their Government to the Senate of old time and of later times to the Emperour And that Pilate had done so is evident from this Appeal of Justin Martyr for if there had been no such Acts scarce any Man much less such a Man as Justin Martyr could have been so foolish or so confident as to affirm a thing in which it was so very easie to convict him of falshood And if such Acts there were they are a great Evidence of the truth of our Saviour's Miracles when the Experour that was none of the best Men nor very apt to listen to such Stories was so surprised with the strangeness of them and that upon no less information than of Pilate himself and when Pilate upon a more full enquiry than it seems he was able or willing to make concerning the Works of Jesus at his Condemnation was so abundantly satisfied as to the truth of those strange things that were related of him as to think himself obliged to acquaint his Master with a Story so strange and wonderfull But here Isaac Casaubon endeavours to shrivle and criticise these Acts of Pilate into as little Authority as possibly he can and tells us that Justin Martyr does not call them the Acts of Pontius Pilate but the Acts under Pontius Pilate Though it is an undoubted thing that the Acts under Pilate reserved in the Imperial Archives were the Acts of Pilate that is they were compiled either by himself or by his command but transmitted by himself for the Emperours received no other Acts but from the Governours themselves and therefore the learned Man might have spared his Grammatical Criticism when it is certain from the thing it self that the publick Acts under the Government of Pontius Pilate must be transmitted by Pilate himself and so must be the Acts of Pilate Now that Pilate should give such an Account after our Saviour's Resurrection cannot seem strange if we consider his circumstances For setting aside the Relation of the Evangelists