Selected quad for the lemma: land_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
land_n	abraham_n	call_v	canaan_n	1,554	5	10.1521	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49439	An answer to Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan with observations, censures, and confutations of divers errours, beginning at the seventeenth chapter of that book / by William Lucy ...	Lucy, William, 1594-1677.	1673 (1673)	Wing L3452; ESTC R4448	190,791	291

Parents asserted HE proceeds As also unbelief is not a breach of any of his Laws but a rejection of them all This was witty and a good way of arguing contrariorum eadem est ratio contraries do illustrate one the other But consider Reader is not the rejection of a Law a breach of a Law Suppose a man should think as some have that no supreme hath power ●o make Laws for life and death he steals and by the Law concerning Thievery is to be executed doth his rejection of that Law make his felony no breach of that law which is against it Certainly it is the greatest breach it tears the Law in pieces and is the greatest violation of it that may be To this purpose our Saviour most clearly John 3. 18. He who believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God So that according to Mr. Hobbs his Tenent here is a condemnation but no just one because not for the breach of some Law There mu●● be therefore some divine Law exacting faith which this infidelity doth break But then Mr. Hobbs would reply to our Saviour that faith is a gift and why dost thou puni●h me for the want of that which is only a gift Read the 19 verse and our Saviour doth answer him And this is the condemnation that light is come into the World and men love darkness rather than light the light is the light of faith and Gods graces which he gives to men by which they may apprehend divine truths which yet they do not because they love darkness rather than light love not this light of faith which discovers to them the obliquity of their sinful worldly desires So that it is apparent that although God gives this light his grace yet men preferring the world before it it is unprofitable This was the case of these Jews which our Saviour spoke to Iohn 5 44 How can ye believe which reci●ve honour from one another and seek not the honour which cometh from God So that mens preferring worldly things before the things of God causeth them not to receive or make use of Gods revelations But Mr. Hobbs hath Scripture for what he writes Gen. 17. 10. This is the Covenant which thou shalt observe between me and thee and thy seed after thee Now saith he Abrahams seed had not this revelation nor were yet in being yet they are a party to the covenant and bound to obey what Abraham should declare to ●hem for Gods Law It is true what he saith that Abrahams seed had not the revelation nor were yet in being yet they are a party in this Covenant But what can be deduced further from this than that which is the ordinary condition of contracts A man gives his estate to another and to his posterits for ever upon a condition that they shall pay such and such acknowledgments which if they perform that estate shall be theirs but if not the contract shall be void Yes saith Mr. Hobbs there is more they are bound to obey whatsoever Abraham should declare for Gods Law I see nothing in these words which enforce any such thing but only the observation of circumcision thi● God calls his Covenant being a sign thereof and this Covenant consisteth in this that God would be Abrahams God and his seeds after him and that he would give them the Land of Canaan for an everlasting possession The meaning of all which was that he would in near and dear respects favour and protect them as you may read in the 7 and 8 verses of that Chapter So that here in this is no more implyed but that if they observe circumcision God would bless them there is no mention of accepting for Gods Laws whatsoever Abraham should deliver and therefore he might have spared his following discourse which saith he they could not be but in virtue of the obedience they owed to their Parents who if they be subject to no other earthly power as here in the case of Abraham have soveraign power over their Children and servants This I say might have been spared for if the Covenant went no further than I have expre●●ed as without doubt it did not there needs no soveraign power to be forced to it But I am of his mind that they who are Parents where is no other established soveraignty have that supreme power over their children and servants which one conclusion will confute the whole body of his Politiques as I intend to shew hereafter CHAP. XXII SECT XVII The obedience of Abrahams Family to Gods Laws depended upon that to him as Father of the Family Mr. Hobbs his consequences drawn from this proposition not rightly deduced His constant varying from the English translation observed and censured Reason against former deductions The intire obedience of the Israelites to the dictates of Moses rather from the conference of his divine inspiration as a Prophet than his soveraign power The Authority of scripture depends not upon the declaration of the soveraign The worshippers of Baal not excused from the command of the King of Israel The reasons of Mr. Hobbs his former assertion disproved The commands of the soveraign justly opposed when contrary to the Christian faith Mr. Hobbs his Atheistical conclusions censured BUt he hath another piece of Scripture which you may read Gen 18. 18 19. Again where God saith to Abraham In thee shall all Nations of the Earth be blessed for I know thou wilt command thy Children and thy house after thee to keep the way of the Lord and to observe righteousness and judgment It is manifest the obedience of his family who had no revelation depended on their former obligation to obey their Soveraign Thus far Mr. Hobbs I answer 't is true that this obedience of Abrahams family to himself depends upon their filial obedience to him as their Father and his commanding them depends upon his soveraign power over them as their Father But what can it be collected hence that if Abraham had commanded dishonest things i. e. such actions as were against any will of God revealed any other way to them that they should have obeyed him Certainly no nay the contrary is here intimated for therefore God promised to bless him and his posterity because he did know that Abraham would command them vertuous things to keep the way of the Lord. But mark here Mr. Hobbs still varyes from the English lection and that to the worse for it is not what he writes to keep but he will command them and they shall keep the way of the Lord. So that the sense is because God foresaw his fatherly care and their filial duty in these righteous actions he would bless them He prosecutes this conclusion with another Scripture thus At mount Sinai Moses only went up to God the people were forbidden to approach on pain of death yet were they bound to obey all that Moses declared unto them for Gods Law

but by divine revelation therefore he who taught it had divine revelation I must not spend time in particulars look upon all the Prophecies in the whole Book of God so many as their time is expired we find them all fufilled the Prophecies made to Abraham of the children of Israels long captivity in Aegypt and their extraction thence and plantation in the land of Canaan of all the great transactions of the highest affairs of the world The erection and destruction of all the great Monarchies which were punctually foretold and accomplished and foretold long before could these be foretold by any other way than by divine revelation Certainly it could not be nor can the wit of man think how it should be done Jaddus the high Priest shewed Alexander his own story foretold by Daniel Let us consider how the Prophets long before prophesied of Christ how the Prophet Isaiah writ like an antedated Evangelist differing only in these words shall and did only in the time Let us consider how not only those great and remarkable passges of his birth his miracles his death his resurrection but even such little things as the piercing of his side the parting of his garment casting lots for his vesture his burial were foretold hundreds of yeares before Let Mr. Hobbs or any other heathen tell me how these could be foretold without divine revelation But perhaps he will say as before these were not true books nor prophecies but fained since Christianity No even the Jewes themselves yet remaining in the world do consent unto them and are preserved by God a glorious witness of these truths who are the greatest enemies of Christianity CHAP. XXII SECT III. The former assertion further proved from the piety of the doctrines taught in the scriptur●s and excellency of the matter contained in them The power of the word of God and efficacy of Scripture above the reach of Philoophie BUt then consider the doctrines taught here they are so full of religious piety to God so full of such excellent moral conversation betwixt men that the wit of man could not invent them there must needs be divine revelation in them there was never any thing delivered by men meer men without divine revelation that had not imperfections in it he who reads the Philosophers may find it I do not love to rake their Dunghills and shew their filth but the duties taught in this book are so divine and so like God from whence they came that they are able to make a man absolutely good if practised Wherefore as a tree may be known by its fruits as the heart of man by his language so these Books may be known to be Gods by the heavenliness of the matters delivered in them which have such a power of sanctity in them as is able to make such as receive them of a more Godly disposition than other men yea than themselves at other times before they received these doctrines I could treat of a strange Metamorphosis in Saul to Paul who was a persecutor a destroyer and when converted with this doctrine accounted it joy to suffer and be persecuted for this cause As also of King David who to hide the shame of his adultery committed Murther and slept securely in his sin yet when awakened from that stupidity he was in and taught his state by the Prophet Nathan he cares for no shame of this world so God be pleased cares for nothing but the shame of his sin and made his penitence for it to be chaunted out in all ages for all Churches in the 51. Psalm Se that there is a strange power and force in the word of God to turn men to godliness which no other hath And the great and mighty effects wrought by this scripture do fully evince it to be divine having divine power annexed to them Thus having shewed that the doctrines contained in scripture are fit for a man to believe they are divine and by divine revelation yea that they could not proceed from a pen which was not guided and assisted by the holy spirit we therefore may have assurance that they were such I shall come next to shew how we may be further assured from the manner of their delivery CHAP. XXII SECT IV. The second Argument from the difference of the Style of the Scriptures from the books of Philosophers The propositions and conclusions in Scripture not so much deduced from reason as asserted from the Majesty of God not disputing or endeavouring to perswade but commanding to do The rewards and punishments proposed in scripture of eternal truth impossible to be propounded or given but by God himself LEt a man look upon all the doctrines of the Philosophers concerning God his essence his attributes concerning the Creation we shall find that they laboured still to prove what they spoke and by reason to convince mans understanding Only I must confess Trismegistus in his Pomander makes his discourse which is most divine to be revelation and four ought I know it may be so much of it but otherwise they all go upon ratiocination and the reason is because such things ought not to be assented to which are not either proved or revealed by God which is the most invincible evidence that any truth can have But now Moses and those holy writers inspired by God in their compiling those holy Books only affirm this and this without arguing the reasons of it because they were divine not humane words likewise in all those moral duties which concern men they are writ with the majesty of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords Do this or this not disputing as Plato and Aristotle how it conduceth to the present happiness but exacting obedience It is true when the Prophets disputed with the Gentiles or Apostles with Jewes or Gentiles who believed not their report they confuted the one by reason or out of their own authors and the other out of the former Scriptures because all proofs must be made ex concessis and out of such premisses they would confirm these Conclusions God exacted a belief and this he doth with the greatest arguments and most forcing that are possible by Praemium and Poena reward and punishment but such as never King or Emperour either did or was able to propose by eternal happiness or misery which nothing can doe but God alone And this is done to those who will receive or not receive his word Well the words contained here are delivered with such an exaction as never man proposed the same truths in and required with such promises as never man did meet with nor could perform we must needs therefore be assured they are divine CHAP. XXII SECT V. The third Argument from the sanctity and integrity of the persons who delivered these truths The miraculous conduct of the Children of Israel by Moses The objection of his assertation of dominion answered The predictions of the Prophets not possible without a divine revelation The truth and