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	church_n	interpretation_n	3,657	5	10.5181	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43976	Considerations upon the reputation, loyalty, manners, & religion of Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury written by himself, by way of letter to a learned person.; Mr. Hobbes considered in his loyalty, religion, reputation and manners	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1680 (1680)	Wing H2218; ESTC R6871	20,985	80

at the uncharitable censure of some of them but that I see a Relique still remaining of the venom of Popish Ambition lurking in that seditious distinction and division between the Power Spiritual and Civil which they that are in love with a Power to hurt all those that stand in competition with them for Learning as the Roman Clergy had to hurt Galileo do not willingly forsake All Bishops are not in every point like one another Some it may be are content to hold their Authority from the King's Letters Patents and these have no cause to be angry with Mr. Hobbes Others will needs have somewhat more they know not what of Divine Right to Govern by vertue of Imposition of Hands and Consecration not acknowledging their Power from the King but immediately from Christ. And these perhaps are they that are displeased with him which he cannot help nor has deserved but will for all that believe the King only and without sharers to be the Head of all the Churches within His own Dominions and that he may dispence with Ceremonies or with any thing else that is not against the Scriptures nor against natural Equity and that the consent of the Lords and Commons cannot now give Him that Power but declare for the People their advice and consent to it Nor can he be made believe that the safety of a State depends upon the safety of the Church I mean of the Clergy For neither is a Clergy essential to a Common-wealth and those Ministers that preached Sedition pretend to be of the Clergy as well as the best He believes rather that the Safety of the Church depends on the Safety of the King and the entireness of the Sovereign Power and that the King is no part of the Flock of any Minister or Bishop no more than the Shepherd is of his Sheep but of Christ only and all the Clergy as well as the People the King's Flock Nor can that clamour of his adversaries make Mr. Hobbes think himself a worse Christian than the best of them And how will you disprove it either by his disobedience to the Laws Civil or Ecclesiastical or by any ugly action Or how will you prove that the obedience which springs from scorn of Injustice is less acceptable to God than that which proceeds from fear of punishment or hope of benefit Gravity and heaviness of Countenance are not so good marks of assurance of Gods favour as cheerful charitable and upright behaviour towards men which are better signs of Religion than the zealous maintaining of controverted Doctrines And therefore I am verily perswaded it was not his Divinity that displeased you or them but somewhat else which you are not willing to pretend As for your Party that which angred you I believe was this passage of his Leviathan pag. 89. Whereas some men have pretended for their Disobedience to their Sovereign a new Covenant made not with men but with God this also is unjust For there is no Covenant with God but by mediation of some body that representeth Gods Person which none doth but Gods Lieutenant who hath the Sovereignty under God But this pretence of Covenant with God is so evident a lye this is it that angred you even in the pretenders own Consciences that it is not only an act of an unjust but also of a vile and unmanly disposition Besides his making the King Judge of Doctrines to be preach'd or published hath offended you both so has also his Attributing to the Civil Sovereign all Power Sacerdotal But this perhaps may seem hard when the Sovereignty is in a Queen But it is because you are not subtle enough to perceive that though Man be male and female Authority is not To please neither Party is easie but to please both unless you could better agree amongst your selves than you do is impossible Your differences have troubled the Kingdom as if you were the Houses revived of York and Lancaster A man would wonder how a little Latin and Greek should work so mightily when the Scriptures are in English as that the King and Parliament can hardly keep you quiet especially in time of danger from abroad If you will needs quarrel decide it amongst your selves and draw not the People into your Parties You were angry also for his blaming the Scholastical Philosophers and denying such fine things as these That the Species or Apparences of Bodies come from the thing we look on into the Eye and so make us see and into the Understanding to make us understand and into the Memory to make us remember That a Body may be just the same it was and yet bigger or lesser That Eternity is a permanent Now and the like And for detecting further than you thought fit the fraud of the Roman Clergy Your dislike of his Divinity was the least cause of your calling him Atheist But no more of this now The next Head of your Contumelies is to make him contemptible and to move Mr. Boyle to pity him This is a way of railing too much beaten to be thought Witty As for the thing it self I doubt your Intelligence is not good and that you Algebricians and Non-conformists do but fain it to comfort one another For your own part you contemn him not or else you did very foolishly to entitle the beginning of your Book Mr. Hobbes considered which argues he is considerable enough to you Besides 't is no Argument of Contempt to spend upon him so many angry lines as would have furnisht you with a dozen of Sermons If you had in good earnest despised him you would have let him alone as he does Dr. Ward Mr. Baxter Pike and others that have reviled him as you do As for his Reputation beyond the Seas it fades not yet And because perhaps you have no means to know it I will cite you a passage of an Epistle written by a learned French-man to an eminent Person in France a passage not impertinent to the point now in question It is in a Volume of Epistles the fourth in order and the words page 167. concerning Chymists are these Truly Sir as much as I admire them when I see them lute an Alembick handsomely philter a Liquor build an Athanor so much I mislike them when I hear them discourse upon the Subject of their Operations and yet they think all they do is nothing in respect of what they say I wish they would take less pains and be at less charges and whilst they wash their hands after their work they would leave to those that attend to the polishing of their discourse I mean the Galileo's the Descarteses the Hobbeses the Bacons and the Gassendi's to reason upon their work and themselves to hear what the Learned and Judicious shall tell them such as are used to discern the differences of things Quam scit uterque libens censebo exerceat artem And more to the same purpose What is here said of Chymists is applicable to

were admitted to Composition some not They that Compounded though they help'd the Parliament less by their Composition than they should have done if they had stood out by their Confiscation yet they were ill spoken of especially by those that had no Estates to lose nor hope to Compound And it was for this that he added to what he had written before this caution That if they would compound they were to do it bonafide without intention of Treachery Wherein he justified their Submission by their former Obedience and present Necessity but condemned Treachery Whereas you that pretend to abhor Atheism condemn that which was done upon necessity and justifie the Treachery And you had reason for it that cannot otherwise justifie your selves Those struglings which happened afterwards lost His Majesty many a good and able Subject and strengthened Oliver with the Confiscation of their Estates which if they had attended the Discord of their Enemies might have been saved Perhaps you will take for a sign of Mr. Hobbes his ill meaning that His Majesty was displeased with him And truly I believe He was displeased for a while but not very long They that complained of and mis-construed his writings were His Majesties good Subjects and reputed Wise and Learned men and thereby obtained to have their mis-construction believed for some little time But the very next Summer after his coming away two Honourable Persons of the Court that came over into England assured him that His Majesty had a good opinion of him and others since have told me that His Majesty said openly That He thought Mr. Hobbes never meant him hurt Besides His Majesty hath used him more graciously than is ordinary to so humble a person as he is and so great a Delinquent as you would make him and testified His esteem of him in His bounty What Argument now can you draw from hence more than this That His Majesty understood his writings better than his Accusers did I admire in the next place upon what ground you accuse him and with him all those that have approved his Leviathan with Atheism I thought once that that slander had had some though not firm ground in that you call his new Divinity But for that point he will allege these words of his Leviathan pag. 238. By which it seemeth to me with submission nevertheless both in this and all other Questions whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures to the Interpretation of the Bible authorized by the Common-wealth whose Subject I am That c. What is there in these words but Modesty and Obedience But you were at this time in actual Rebellion Mr. Hobbes that holds Religion to be a Law did in order thereto condemn the maintenance of any of his Opinions against the Law and you that reproach him for them upon your own account should also have shewn by your own Learning wherein the Scripture which was his sole proof was mis-cited or mis-construed by him for he submitted to the Laws that is to say to the King's Doctrine not to yours and not have insulted for the Victory won by the power of the Law to which you were then an enemy Another Argument of Atheism you take from his denying immaterial or incorporeal Substances Let any man impartially now compare his Religion with yours by this very measure and judge which of the two savours most of Atheism It is by all Christians confess'd that God is incomprehensible that is to say that there is nothing can arise in our Fancy from the naming of him to resemble him either in shape colour stature or nature there is no Idea of him he is like nothing that we can think on What then ought we to say of him What Attributes are to be given him not speaking otherwise than we think nor otherwise than is fit by those who mean to honour him None but such as Mr. Hobbes hath set down namely Expressions of Reverence such as are in Use amongst men for signs of Honour and consequently signifie Goodness Greatness and Happiness and either absolutely put as Good Holy Mighty Blessed Just Wise Merciful c. or Superlative as most Good most Great most Mighty Almighty most Holy c. or Negative of whatsoever is not perfect as Infinite Eternal and the like And not such as neither Reason nor Scripture hath approved for honourable This is the Doctrine that Mr. Hobbes hath written both in his Leviathan and in his Book de Cive and when occasion serves maintains What kind of Attribute I pray you is immaterial or incorporeal substance Where do you find it in the Scripture Whence came it hither but from Plato and Aristotle Heathens who mistook those thin Inhabitants of the Brain they see in sleep for so many incorporeal men and yet allow them motion which is proper only to things corporeal Do you think it an honour to God to be one of these And would you learn Christianity from Plato and Aristotle But seeing there is no such word in the Scripture how will you warrant it from natural reason Neither Plato nor Aristotle did ever write of or mention an incorporeal Spirit for they could not conceive how a Spirit which in their Language was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in ours a Wind could be incorporeal Do you understand the connection of substance and incorporeal If you do explain it in English for the words are Latine It is something you 'l say that being without Body stands under Stands under what Will you say under Accidents Almost all the Fathers of the Church will be against you and then you are an Atheist Is not Mr. Hobbes his way of Attributing to God that only which the Scriptures Attribute to him or what is never any where taken but for honour much better than this bold Undertaking of yours to consider and decypher Gods nature to us For a third Argument of Atheism you put That he says Besides the Creation of the World there is no Argument to prove a Deity and That it cannot be evinced by any Argument that the World had a Beginning and That whether it had or no is to be decided not by Argument but by the Magistrates Authority That it may be decided by the Scriptures he never denied Therefore in that also you slander him And as for Arguments from natural Reason neither you nor any other have hitherto brought any except the Creation that has not made it more doubtful to many men than it was before That which he hath written concerning such Arguments is in his Book De Corpore Opinions saith he concerning the nature of Infinite and Eternal as the chiefest of the fruits of Wisdom God hath reserved to himself and made Judges of them those men whose Ministery he meant to use in the ordering of Religion and therefore I cannot praise those men that brag of Demonstration of the Beginning of the World from natural Reason And again pag. 238. Wherefore I pass by those Questions of