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
B04263	A second part of Observations, censures, and confutations of divers errours in Mr. Hobbs his Leviathan beginning at the seventeenth chapter of that book. / By William Lucy, Bishop of S. David's.; Observations, censures, and confutations of notorious errours in Mr. Hobbes his Leviathan. Part 2	Lucy, William, 1594-1677.	1673 (1673)	Wing L3454A; ESTC R220049	191,568	301

do think that no man living can shew me faith where that faith was not wrought by God in his ordinary way of working and therefore one part of his distinction which he used before either by Gods operation ordinary or extraordinary might have been spared if applyed to the immediate operation I know the conversion of St. Paul may be objected and the like where God wrought his faith by a miraculous manifestation of himself to him yet consider that the conversion of St. Paul was produced immediatly by that miracle which was in a most setled course of Gods working b● hearing and seeing for hearing the word or reading it seeing some vision or miracle are most ordinate means by which God bestoweth that blessing upon his servants by preaching by visions by miracles And I do not believe that any man in the world can perswade me that he hath a right and religious faith who never heard or saw any thing which did perswade him to it Again consider that there are three things which make a gift profitable besides the giving the receiving and the right use of it the first only concerns God the two latter men Now suppose that the Sun which alone can do it should shine if men will remain in their prison keeping the doors and windows shut they shall not be able to see by that gift of light yea if he open the windows of his house and shut those of his body he shall not see Out of these ariseth the faultiness of infidelity that men shut out that means which God gives them to believe they will not hear or read the word of God they scorn his miracles and all those glorious revelations which have been made to his servants When the hands of God are open to give and the hands of men not so to receive and when he sows his seed of righteousness and the pleasures and the cares of the World choak it then the duty of faith is subject to a command although given by God CHAP. XXII SECT XVI Vnbelief the greatest breach of Gods Law St. John 3.18 and 19. explained The justice of God in the condemnation of men for want of faith The case of Abraham Genesis 17.10 elucidated The power of 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 to 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 must 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 punish 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 recieve 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 them 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 posterity 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 expressed 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

man the foundation of all his duty from whence it is derived that he owes God his being soul and Body that he should be humble who was taken out of the dust and to dust he must return that he that made him can destroy him and the like which God being pretended to do no where else it is most reasonable to think it is done here CHAP. XXII SECT II. The doctrine of the new Testament and particularly the incarnation of our blessed Saviour and the manner of it not possible to be known without a revelation The truth of the incarnation evicted from the miraculous Life and Actions of our blessed Saviour and the prophecies of the Old Testament and especially of Isaias The Jewes witnesses of the truth of the Books of the Old Testament SO then this being a truth fit for a man to know it being impossible for man to know it without a revelation a man may justly be assured that it was revealed by God and so I will pass to the New Testament where we will consider the conception of the blessed Virgin as related there and so not possible to be recorded but from a divine revelation Men might be assured from the Prophets who writ before of it that there should be such a thing and that it should be about that time but that it should happen now and that this should be the Virgin which should be the mother of our Saviour that none could tell but by revelation no not she her self It is true when she found her self with child she might wonder how that should come about since she knew not man as she answered the Angel who foretold it to her Luke the 1. and the 24. but that it should be so contrived and perfected as it was by the overshadowing of the Highest this she could not have known but by a revelation But I doubt Mr. Hobbs will answer this was not so his wicked wit seems to imagine such a thing I will prove it therefore by the glorious fruit of her womb which shewed it self to arise from such a stock and living and dying as he did he could not be less than descended from such a supernatural generation Well then he was so conceived as is taught and this could not be taught 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 passages 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 scriptures and excellency of the matter contained in them The power of the word of God and efficacy of Scripture above the reach of Philosophie 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 So 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