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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
friend_n	write_n	write_v	year_n	67	3	4.4996	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42622	The genuine epistles of the apostolical fathers, S. Barnabas, S. Ignatius, S. Clement, S. Polycarp, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the matyrdoms of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, written by those who were present at their sufferings : being, together with the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, a compleat collection of the most primitive antiquity for about CL years after Christ / translated and publish'd, with a large preliminary discourse relating to the several treaties here put together by W. Wake ...; Apostolic Fathers (Early Christian Collection) English.	Wake, William, 1657-1737.	1693 (1693)	Wing G523A; ESTC R10042	282,773	752

Epistles as these could be so totally defaced as some pretend and new ones set out in the room of them and yet no Body know any thing of the doing of it But such Impossibilties as these must learned Men be content to please themselves and impose upon others withall who resolve to be wiser than any that went before them and to be able to know better at fiftteen hundred years distance what Ignatius wrote than those who lived within two Generations of him 14. FOR to press our Argument yet more closely Since it is allow'd that Ignatius did write some Epistles and I think sufficiently evident that St. Polycarp did make a Collection of them and send them together with his own to the Philippians I presume it will not be question'd but that he most certainly had the Genuine Writings of that Holy Martyr his dear Friend and Fellow-Disciple Now St. Polycarp suffer'd not according to the earliest Computation of our accurate Bishop Pearson till the Year of our Saviour 147. And others suppose it to have been yet later Hitherto therefore it is certain that the true Epistles of Ignatius continued in the Church It being by no means probable that they should have been changed whilst the Men lived to whom Ignatius wrote whilst Polycarp was living who collected them together and whilst those of the Church of Philippi remained to whom he sent them 15. TO St. Polycarp let us add his Scholar and Admirer Irenaeus and as himself professes a most diligent Collector of whatever fell from that Holy Man That he had the Epistles of St. Ignatius Eusebius assures us who particularly takes notice of his quoting several Passages out of them And one of his Quotations he mentions out of the Works of Irenaeus which still remain And of which though the Greek be lost yet the Old Latine Version as well as the Greek of Eusebius shews us that it was taken out of the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans where it still occurs in our present Copy of it And it must be allow'd that the other Passages of which Eusebius speaks were also to have been found the Epistles as he had them Because otherwise the Difference between what the one quoted and the other read in his Copy of those Epistles would presently have discovered the Fraud and shewn that his Epistles were not the same with those which Irenaeus mentioned 16. AND this puts the Matter yet more out of doubt For if Eusebius had the same Epistles that Irenaeus had we must allow one of these two things Either that he had a Genuine Copy of them as we affirm or that Irenaeus the Disciple and Contemporary of St. Polycarp had not which we think it very unreasonable to suppose 17. FOR not to say any thing as to this Matter that Irenaeus lived too near the time both in which Ignatius wrote and St. Polycarp collected his Epistles to have been imposed upon in this particular Seeing he himself tells us how careful he was to gather up whatever came from the Hand of the Blessed Polycarp and that he not only had the Epistles of Ignatius as appears by his citing of them but as himself declares had also the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians at the end of which the Epistles of Ignatius were subjoyned What can we conclude but that the Copy he had of both was taken from that of his Master Polycarp which being to be sure Authentick it must remain that Irenaeus's was so too 18. WERE it needful to add any thing yet farther to shew that Eusebius who is confessed to have had the same Copy of St. Ignatius that we have now had no other than that of St. Polycarp so often mentioned I might to the Testimony of Irenaeus before alledged add that of Origen who began to live some time before the other died Now this Father has not only spoken of these Epistles but has left us two Quotations to this day out of them and both to be found in our Copies which we suppose to be true and Authentick And from him to Eusebius was not above half a Century too little a while for so great an Alteration to have been made in Writings spread up and down into so many Hands read by all the Learned and Pious Men of those days and upon all these Accounts utterly uncapable of such a Change as is without the Authority of one single Writer only upon I know not what Conjectures supposed to have been made in them 19. BUT I enlarge my self too much in so plain a Matter and which I should hardly have thought worth the examining thus distinctly had it not engaged the Pens of so many Learned Men of the Reformed Religion that it might have seem'd too great an Omission in such a Discourse as this not to have given some Account of it As for what we find a late Learned Man advancing in Opposition to the Authority of these Epistles that our Copies though exceedingly more perfect than any that were ever extant before that those great Men Bishop Usher and Isaac Vossius set out the One the old Latin Versions the Other the Original Greek from the Manuscript which he found in the Florentine Library of it yet there may be reason still to suspect that they are not so free from all Corruptions as were to be wish'd I reply that if he means that the same has happen'd to these Epistles as has done to all other ancient Writings that Letters or Words have been mistaken and perhaps even the pieces of some Sentences corrupted either by the Carelesness or Ignorance of the Transcribers I see no Reason why we should deny that to have befallen these Epistles which has been the Misfortune of all other Pieces of the like Antiquity This therefore it has been often declared that neither do we contend about nor can any one who reads the best Copies we have of them with any Care or Judgment make any doubt of it But as for any larger Interpolations such as were those of the Copies before extant for any Changes or Mistakes that may call in question either the Credit or Authority of these Epistles as we now have them we utterly deny that there are any such in these last Editions of them nor has that Learned Man offer'd any thing to induce us to believe that there are 20. AND here I should have concluded these Reflections but that there is yet one thing more to be taken notice of and which must by no means be passed by namely that our most Learned Archbishop Usher himself though he agrees with us as to the Authority of the other Six Epistles here translated yet doubts whether the Seventh written to St. Polycarp be Genuine or no. Nor do's Isaac Vossius himself deny but that there are some things in it that may seem to render it suspicious though more to prove it to be Authentick For 1 st St. Polycarp expresly assures us that Ignatius had written to him