Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	believe_v	book_n	canonical_a	2,414	5	10.7996	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93889	Catholique divinity: or, The most solid and sententious expressions of the primitive doctors of the Church. With other ecclesiastical, and civil authors: dilated upon, and fitted to the explication of the most doctrinal texts of Scripture, in a choice way both for the matter, and the language; and very useful for the pulpit, and these times. / By Dr. Stuart, dean of St. Pauls, afterwards dean of Westminster, and clerk of the closet to the late K. Charles.	Steward, Richard, 1593?-1651.; H. M.	1657 (1657)	Wing S5518; Thomason E1637_1; ESTC R203568	97,102	288

danger Detestabilis est coecitas si nemo oculos perdiderit nisi cui eruendi sunt Senec. BLindness were a most accursed thing if no man were ever blinde but hee whose eyes are pulled out with tortures or burning bafons And if sickness were alwayes a testimony of Gods anger and a violence to a mans whole condition then it were a huge calamity but because God sends it to his servants to his children to little infants to Apostles and Saints with designes of 〈◊〉 to preserve their innocence to over●●ome tentation to try their vertue to fit them for rewards it is certain that sickness never is an evill but by our own faults and if wee will do our duty wee shall bee sure to turn it into a blessing If the sickness bee great it may end in death and the greater it is the sooner and if it bee very little it hath great intervals of rest if it bee between both wee may bee Masters of it and by serving the ends of providence serve also the perfective end of humane nature and enter into the possession of everlasting mercies However if all the calamities were true concerning sickness with which it is aspersed yet is it far to bee preferred before the most pleasant fin and before a great secular business and a temporal care and some men ●wake as much in the foldings of the softest beds as others on the cross and sometimes the very weight of sorrow and the weariness of sickness presses the spirit into slumbers and images of rest when the intemperate or the lustfull person rolls upon his uneasie thorns and sleep is departed from his eyes Solatium est pro honesto dura tolerare ad causam patientia respicit Senec. IN all sufferings the cause of it makes it noble or ignoble tolerable or intolerable For when patience is assaulted by a ruder violence by a blow from heaven or earth from a gracious God or an unjust man patience looks forth to the doors which way shee may escape And if innocence or a cause of Religion keep the first entrance then whether shee escapes at the gates of life or death there is a good to bee received greater than the evils of a sickness but if sin thrust in that sickness and that hell stands at the door then patience turns into fury and seeing it is impossible to go forth with safety rowls up and down with a circular and infinite revolution making its motion not from but upon its own center it doubles the pain and increases the sorrow till by its weight it breaks the spirit and bursts into the agonies of infinite and eternal ages If wee had seen St. Polycarp burning to death or St. Lawrence rosting upon his gridiron or St. Ignatiu● exposed to Lions or St. Sebastian pierced with arrows for the cause of Jesus for Religion for God for a holy conscience we should have been in love with flames and have thought the gridiron fairer than the marriage bed and wee should have chosen rather to converse with those beasts than those men that brought those beasts forth and have esteemed Sebastians arrows to bee the raies of light brighter than the Moon For so did those holy men account them they kissed their stakes and hugged their deaths and ran violently to torments and counted whippings and secular disgraces to bee the enamel of their persons and the oyntment of their heads and the embalming their names and securing them for immortality But to see Seja●us ●orn in peeces by the people or Nero crying and creeping timorously to his death when he was condemned to dye more majorum to see Judas pale and trembling full of anguish sorrow and despair to observe the groanings and intolerable agonies of Herod and Antiochus will tell and demonstrate the causes of patience and impatience to proceed from the causes of the suffering and that it is sin onely that makes the cup bitter and deadly Non est magnum audiri ad voluntatem non est magnum August BE not over-joyed when God grants thee thy prayer the Devil had his prayer granted when hee had leave to enter into the herd of Swine and so hee had when hee obtained power of God against Job But all this aggravated the Devils punishment so may it do thine to have some prayers granted And as that must not over-joy thee if it bee so if thy prayer bee not granted it must not deject thee God suffered St. Paul to pray and pray and pray yet after his thrice praying granted him not that hee prayed for God suffered that if it be possible and that let this cup pass to pass from Christ himself yet hee granted it not Tentemus animas quae deficiunt a fide naturalibus rationibus adjuvare St. Hieron LEt us endeavour to assist them who are weak in faith with the strength of reason though God hath not given the Minister a power to infuse faith into men yet hath God put it into his power to satisfie the reason of men and to chafe that wax to which hee himself vouchsafes to set to the great seal of faith And truly it is very well worthy of a serious consideration that whereas all the Articles of our Creed are the objects of faith so that wee are bound to receive them de fide as matters of faith yet God hath left that out of which all these Articles are to bee deduced and proved i. e. the Scripture to humane arguments It is not an Article of the Creed to beleeve these and these books to bee or not to bee Canonical Scripture but our arguments for the Scripture are humane arguments proportioned to the reason of a natural man God doth not seal in water in the fluid and tranfitory imaginations and opinions of men wee never set the seal of faith to them but in wax in the rectified reason of men that reason that is ductile and flexible and pliant to the impressions that are naturally proportioned unto it God sets to his seal of faith and therefore faith it self by the Prophet Isaiah is called knowledge Isa 53. 11. By his knowledge c. saith God of Christ i e. by that knowledge that men shall have of him Insomuch that it is not enough for you to rest in an imaginary faith and easiness in beleeving except yee know also what and why and how you come to that beleef Implicite beleevers ignorant beleevers the adversary may swallow but the understanding beleever hee must chaw and pick bones before hee come to assimilate him and make him like himself The implicite beleever stands in an open field and the enemy will ride over him easily The understanding beleever is in a fenced Town and hee hath out-works to lose before the Town bee pressed i. e. reasons to bee answered before his faith bee shaked and hee will sell himself dear and lose himself by inches if hee bee sold or lost at last Anima spiritualiter cadit spiritualiter resurge● August

before men saith Christ to the Pharisees but God knows your hearts for that which is highly esteemed amongst men is abamination in the sight of God A thing which I see in the night may shine and that shining proceed from nothing but rottenness but bee not deceived or if you bee yet God is not mocked when hee comes to turn the bottome of the bag upwards as the Steward did Benjamins all our secret thefts will out all our collusions come to light His Law is a Law of fire Deut. 33. 2. His Tribunal of fire Ezek. 1. 27. His pleading with sinners in flames of fire Isa 60. 15. The trial of our works shall bee by fire and before God who is a consuming fire Happy are they that are here purged by that spirit of judgement and burning Bona res neminem scandalizant nisi malam mentem Tertullian GOod meats displease none but the distempered pallats and must the wholesome dishes bee barr'd the table because they offend the aguish No Scandal in this case is medicinable You know the Physitian offends the sick that hee may the more surely cure him If to do well cause discontent wee then offend not against men but their errors and in this regard wee are tender to the persons themselves when wee strike down their ignorance In Matth. 8. where our Saviour taught the abrogation of Jewish Ceremonies and that the worst meats could not defile us the text intimates the Pharisees were offended nay and his Disciples from hence seem to intreat his silence Master Seest thou not that they are offended But did our Saviour regard it Let them alone saith hee They are blinde leaders of the blinde Christ meant to teach us when men grow discontented at the truth it self the offence is taken onely not given and they be said then rather to make than to receive a scandal Which may serve to reprove too many in our Church who still cry out of weakness who sit not easie though on their mothers ' knees they complain her cloaths do offend their tender eyes her Rites say they are scandalous and they must bee relieved by that text in Saint Paul If meat offend my brother I will eat no meat while I live It follows then that for their weak sakes wee must forbear those weak ceremonies But is the reason the same to eat is a private action in common converse wherein each man is true Lord of himself hee may command his actions and therefore in this case to use connivency is still to be thought most commendable But wee speak of actions publick solemnly designed for our Religious meetings actions enjoyned by Laws and approved by the far more which is the rule of Laws should the Church give content to some few that dislike shee would displease multitudes that approve her Ceremonies and so instead of a pretended sleight offence shee should run her self upon a true gross scandal Non omne quod licet etiam honestum est Paulus Canonista IT is a Rule of the Canonists and they borrowed it from their own Innocentius In all our actions three things must bee observed Quid liceat Quid deceat Quid expediat What is lawfull What decent and what expedient Our actions must not bee lawfull only for hee that doth no more than hee is bound to is rather wary than good and hath learned only safe dishonesty how by keeping the Kingdomes Laws hee may abuse her people There is a difference between strict Law and honesty In rigour things may bee done which yet are neither decent in the actor himself nor expedient for the Common-wealth It s thus in the Church too Many things hath God here left in their own selves indifferent hee hath therefore not forbidden them because they may oftentimes bee done in safety and yet cannot wee bee free except wee become injurious Is there no way to shew our own liberty but in our neighbours destruction Grant these things to bee lawfull yet they may bee unseemly and shall wee shame our selves They may bee expedient too and shall wee endanger others It is not enough to keep the first Precept to forbear things unlawfull A Christian man must bee wary too in matters of indifferency Quae per rationem innotescunt non sunt articuli fidei sed praeambula ad articulos Aquinas TO behold this goodly Fabrick of the world may soon force a Pagan to confess that there is a Deity but to know that this God is both three and one or that of these three one was Incarnate Here nature is blinde and requires help from a clearer light To instance in the Resurrection to see the Grave open the Earth trembling the Angels attending did no doubt perswade the Watchmen themselves that Christ was risen but to beleeve that hee rose both God and man This proceeds from the Spirit alone who only can enlighten them that sit in darkness Our domestick abilities may some way prepare us to entertain faith when it is received they may perchance confirm or awaken it but wee must confess the authour of it to bee the Holy Ghost alone and the word his instrument Notwithstanding where thou mayest use these helps neglect not the benefits of such outward testimonies for though faith come by hearing yet let Christians bee spectators too and learn as well to see God in his Works as to beleeve him in his Scriptures though that hee that made thine eye as well as thy soul exacts a tribute no less from thy fenfe than from thy reason These lower powers are made for his glory and when they are imployed to viler ends remember that thou dost not more abuse thy self than wrong thy Maker Mors optima est perire dum lacrymant Sancti Seneca in Hypol. SOmething is to bee given to Custome something to Fame to Nature and to Civilities and to the honour of deceased Friends For that man is esteemed to dye miserable for whom no friend no relative sheds a tear or payes a solemn sigh I desire to dye a dry death but am not very desirous to have a dry Funeral Some flowers sprinkled on my grave would do well and comely and a soft showre to turn those flowers into a springing memory or a fair rehearsal that I may not go forth of my doors as my servants carry out the entrails of Beasts But that which is to bee saulted in this particular is when the grief is immoderate and unreasonable and Paula Romana deserved to have felt the weight of St. Jeroms severe reproof when at the death of every one of her children shee almost wept her self into her grave But it is worse yet when people by an ambitious and a pompous sorrow and by ceremonies invented for the ostentation of their grief fill Heaven and Earth with exclamations and grow troublesome because their friend is happy or themselves want his company It is certainly a sad thing in Nature to see a friend trembling with a Palsie or scorched with Feavers or