Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A35033
|
Some animadversions upon a book intituled, The theory of the earth by the Right Reverend Father in God, Herbert, Lord Bishop of Hereford.
|
Croft, Herbert, 1603-1691.
|
1685
(1685)
|
Wing C6979; ESTC R7650
|
60,658
|
228
|
Scripture Truth which we should be so zealous to retain and not suffer our selves to be delighted with any thing contrary to it For as S. Paul saith to the Thessalonians If we like not to retain the truth God shall give us up to strong delusions that we should believe a lye And truly we well deserve to be given up to any Delusions seeing we are so little concerned in all matters of Religion whether Papist or Atheist Turk or Jew we are very indifferent in all And certainly this Man hath not a little gratified both Papists and Atheists the Papists by his strange and forced Interpretations of Scripture making it as they Blasphemously call it a Nose of Wax to be shaped and fitted not only to their vain Superstitions but even to this Mans ridiculous Inventions The Atheists by making the Word of God whereon the truth of our Salvation depends so uncertain and questionable that no Man can find any assurance to depend upon seeing the first Principles of it so variously interpreted by this Man and from those Principles a Fabrick raised of a New World so different from that which all Believers from the beginning to this day have asserted Wherefore I shall now address my self unto the learned Men of the Universities and desire to know what Lethargy hath possessed them all that not one of them appears in Writing to confute the Fables of this Man For I have diligently enquired and cannot hear of any one yet come forth in Print If they answer me that they are so vain and extravagant in themselves that they need no other Confutation Iconsent unto them that it is true But if they prevail so far in the World as to get Reception and Applause the next step may be for ought I know to be approved and believed This hath engaged me tho now in the Eighty Second Year of my Age to put some stop to this Current and to awaken some younger abler and fitter Person to undertake this Man and encounter him in every point which I am not able to perform my Memory being much decayed my sight also being gone one Eye quite the other very dim so that I can neither write my self nor easily read the writing of another Yet I was resolved to shew my endeavour by this short Essay hoping it may raise the Spirit of some younger as I said and learned Person to set upon this business And lastly I shall address my self unto the Governours of our Church who sit at the Helm humbly and earnestly beseeching them to have a watchful Eye at least over this Person what he sets forth if they think it not fit to question him for what he hath published already for in this Book he sufficiently declares his intention of Publishing another part of such like discourse as this And you see by this how he wrests and forces the Scripture from its own sense unto his purpose beyond the Manicheans or Marcionites and how boldly he sets himself to maintain a new Hypothesis so contrary to all the World that were before him Heathens Jews or Christians And truly it may be well doubted whether he hath any great reverence or value for the Scriptures tho he makes use of them to gain some credit or at least toleration for his vain Inventions For I pray you look into him Page 270. at the lower end where speaking of America how it was peopled he there declares his Opinion That it is more probable that when Adam was removed from America into our Continent some of his Posterity was left behind and in the Deluge were saved some other way different from Noah tho not mentioned in the Scripture and after that encreased and multiplied to People that Nation And saith That tho he believes all Mankind proceeded at first from Adam Yet he is not bound to believe that all the People now in the whole World proceeded from Noah and his Generation and that he thinks it not a breach of any Article of Faith not to believe it I would ask this Man whether it be an Article of his Faith to believe the Scriptures and if it be I am sure he is bound to believe that all Mankind now in the whole World proceeded from Noah For it is repeated Genesis c. 7. four or five times over that all Mankind except Noah and his Family were destroyed in the Flood And 't is impossible he should pretend ignorance of this for he mentions several passages in that Chapter From hence 't is plain this Man hath the confidence to set himself against the whole World and to make good his own vain Fancy will oppose them all tho they bring Scripture never so plain and easie to be understood And when he hath thus abused and called all Men living Dunces he concludes his Book desiring Peace and Love with them all Thus I have shewed my endeavour desiring all my defects herein may be excused by my great Age and many Imperfections I Think it fit to inform the Reader That after my first reading of this Mans Theory I wrote unto Mr. Kettil by the Man that Printed it to enquire what kind of Person the Author was who it seems informed him of what I had written and he thereupon writes a Letter himself unto me concerning his Theory By which I understood how to address a Letter unto him and so began some correspondency with him in Letters hoping that I might thereby reclaim him from his Errours but found him so stiff and pertinacious in them that I was soon out of all hopes to do any good And in this our correspondency by Letters several passages came from him which are here and there mentioned in the following Discourse which the Reader may wonder at finding nothing of them in his Theory The following Discourse is divided into Three Sections I. Contains the Exposition of several Texts of Scripture mentioned in his Theory Page I. II. Contains the Narration of the Deluge p. 53. III. Contains the Fabrick of his New World p. 154. SECTION I. CONTAINS The Exposition of several Texts of Scripture mentioned in his Theory I. I Told you in the Preface that I had not meddled with this mans Theory unless he had given me great offence to see the Sacred Scriptures so abused as to be made props to support such a rotten tottering building as his Theory And therefore I think it fit before I enter upon the discourse of that to shew you wherein he hath abused the Scriptures by giving you a right interpretation of them lest you seeing with what confidence he cites them may from thence suppose they bear such a sense as he puts upon them and so inconsiderately pass over his Theory as a well grounded Truth II. He makes use of Moses sometimes but chiefly St. Peter and tells us often what they say in their Philosophy as if he did them a great honour in giving them that Title but truly they may well scorn the Title as too mean
these Heavens nor this Earth can declare unto us the glory of God or his Handy-work for this present Earth is a strange mishapen thing full of broken Rocks and Mountains Hills and Valleys Lakes and Seas the ruines only of a former Earth which carried a smooth spherical form a beautiful and rich Soil delicately adorned with Fruitful Trees and pleasant Flowers without Seas or Lakes and in a word all over a very Paradise The Heavens also were then of a temperate Serene Air no Storms or Tempests no Scorching or Freezing Weather but pleasant Seasons throughout the year fit to breed and nourish all things which now clean contrary is filled with boistrous Winds Storms and Hurricanes Heats and Colds distempered and infectious Airs so that men are now cut off in the beginning or midst of their daies or if they fulfil the whole number of them it doth not amount to half a quarter of their former longevity This he undertakes to set forth to us in a Book entituled the Theory of the Earth Which I shall now examine and pass some brief Animadversions upon it III. The whole Discourse of this mans Theory ariseth from the great dissatisfaction he had in two things the first was concerning the common belief we have of the Deluge that the Earth was wholly overflowed and quite encompassed with so much Water all at once as to extend to the tops of the highest Mountains and fifteen Cubits over fo so we understand Moses's description of it This seems to him a thing not intelligible and consequently not credible as we shall see hereafter The second thing that troubles him is the mishapen form of our present Earth as he thinks not becoming the Omnipotent Power of God who Created all things and after every Work affirmed that it was good which no man can say of this imperfect World for it hath scarce any thing in it of form or order but lies like a confused Mass of Ruins But tho the Creation was the first thing in order yet in his Book he puts it in the second place and begins with the Deluge as most to his purpose shewing the impossibility of it according to his Scheme of Philosophy for by that we are to rule our thoughts and words in all things appertaining to the Natural World as he calls it But the plain truth is both these difficulties are but pretended to bring in his new devised fancy of making another World very different from that which Moses describes in the Creation This is his beloved Darling which he would gladly compel us to receive by shewing us first the impossibility of such a Deluge in this World as now it appears And from thence he introduces a World of his own framing and shews thereby his admirable Wit and Parts as he conceives in its composure which we shall see when we come to it At present we will follow his method and begin with the Deluge the common opinion whereof he rejects because it is not Intelligible IV. He lays down this Rule That in all things appertaining to this Natural World which consist of matter and form we must not allow of any thing that is not agreeable to the ordinary course of nature which he supposes may be conceived in a rational way As for example That two material bodies cannot penetrate the one into the other this is against the Principles of his Philosophy And therefore we ought not to allow that the Blessed Virgin continued a Virgin in bringing forth our Saviour into the World And that Accidents cannot subsist without a Subject to support them this also is unintelligible and therefore we allow not the Popish Transubstantiation So likewise we reject their Purgatory because it is unintelligible how the Soul separated from the Body being a pure Spiritual Substance can suffer by material Fire and suchlike their Tenets Yet we believe the first that the Blessed Virgin continued a Virgin in partu that is in bringing forth our Saviour as well as in conceiving him because we have a sufficient ground for this in Scripture both in the Prophet Isaiah and in the Gospel A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son Her Virginity is jointly affirmed both of her conceiving and bearing And therefore all the Christian Church have ever affirmed it and say according to the Creed called the Apostle's born of the Virgin Mary But we find no compelling Scripture to make us believe the Popish Tenets we mentioned If the Papists could shew us as plainly in Scripture their Transubstantiation as we can that the Virgin both conceived and bare a Son we should as readily believe the one as the other Wherefore our Rule of Belief is the Scripture and whatsoever is plainly declared there we presently submit unto whether the manner of it be intelligible or not intelligible whether it relate to the material World or the Spiritual World for I know no reason why we should make that distinction of Material and Spiritual if Gods Word plainly declares it for by reason we are more assured that Gods Word must be Truth than that any material thing can be or can not be so Who doth understand the union of Mans Material Body with his Spiritual part the Soul Where the faculties of the Soul are lodged his understanding Will and Memory and how they are distinguished How material accidents of the Body work upon the Soul and disorder sometimes the understanding sometimes the memory Nay in things wholly material How little doth man understand or can give a reason why a dry yellow Seed of Wheat should spring up in a green moist Blade and that grow into an Ear and become Wheat again Or who doth understand the various flowings and ebbings of the Sea These are things our very Senses tell us are so yet our Reason doth not at all understand how they came to be so Shall man then who understands not himself nor the mean works of God by his shallow weak Reason examine and determine the great and wonderful Works of God God forbid V. But this man perchance will say that he hath found out an explication of Scripture in this business of the Deluge which never was found before and such as may accord as well with Moses's relation as that we commonly receive To this I answer If his way of interpreting the Scripture be extravagant Romantick and ridiculous in it self not any thing becoming the gravity of Scripture and also put a sense extreamly forced and even contrary to the words as they have been understood by the whole World hitherto we have reason to reject it And now let any knowing serious Person not light and giddy Persons who are pleased with any novelty consider and weigh the Arguments he brings and the Answers herein contained and then let him judg of the whole matter wherein we will now proceed VI. His first Chapter is only by way of Introduction to bring in the rest And in his second Chapter he endeavours to shew us