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	divine_a	revelation_n	3,126	5	9.6340	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30432	A sermon preached before the King & Queen at White-Hall, on Christmas-Day, 1689 by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5890; ESTC R19736	17,332	42

already become miserable past Recovery and Redemption God therefore as he resolved to offer a Pardon in the Gospel so thought fit to do it in such a manner as should declare his hatred of sin as well as his love to mankind and therefore he so ordered it that the Author of this Holy Religion after he had fully declared it to the World should be seized on by wicked Men and be by them cruelly put to death in the suffering of which as he offered himself up with all submission to the Will of God and bore every thing with all imaginable patience so he felt in his mind the most unconceivable sense imaginable of the sins miseries of mankind and of the offence done to God by sin which raised in him the vastest Agonies possible all which concurring to make his Sufferings most exquisite must have overset a human force if it had not been supported from a higher Principle And as it pleased God to accept this of him as a Sacrifice for the sins of the World and to Crown him in reward of it not only with honour and glory but by giving him all power both in heaven and on earth so he conferred on him an Authority of giving eternal life to all that should believe on his Name and receive his Holy Gospel and live according to it and therefore since the making mankind eternally happy was a design of so high a Narure it was suitable to so Glorious a Project that the Person in and by whom all this should be wrought should be raised up to the highest pitch of Glory possible Thus though it is always a bold Question to ask why were things so ordered by God Since if they are declared to us by him we ought to conclude without any further enquiry that they were ordered according to the best and most infallible Reason even tho' we should not be able to find it out yet here even we can discern a great sutableness in all these high Mysteries to the great Design of God in this Holy Religion IV. But yet in the next Place must be acknowledged that we ought never to be too easie in believing things that seem hard Impositions on us and that therefore there ought to be a degree of certainty and clearness in the Revelation of any such thing that is proportioned to the weight and the extraordinary nature of that which is proposed to us for as in the common affairs of life an ordinary degree of Evidence serves to persuade us of an ordinary thing but if somewhat that is very much out of the way is told us we then are in the right not to believe it till we find it is well attested to us and that by a very good Authority So in Divine matters such Precepts of Morality as agree with our Natures and the ends of human Society may be easily received as needing no extraordinary authority to recommend them to us but if Doctrines that are more above us are laid upon us we ought to examine well the authority upon which they rest that so we may not become too easie a prey to every one that thinks to subdue us with the terrour of the word Mystery Since then that the acknowledging that One who as to all his outward appearance was a Man like unto us was also the true and the great God or the Son of the living God carries such an uncouth sound in it that it naturally affrights and startles us it is necessary that though the possibility of this has been already considered yet that before we believe it we be sure that it is a Truth which is clearly revealed to us by God for a thing of this kind must appear in the Scripture if it is at all in it with such an Evidence as must put it past all doubt since it is not suitable to the design and ends of Divine Revelation that a thing which is both so dark and yet so important as this must be acknowledged to be should be revealed so as to be proved only by Hints Inferences or some Passages that are capable of a double meaning Now in pursuance of this we must observe two things 1st That there is nothing which is more expresly forbid in the Scriptures than the giving Divine Adoration to a Creature Idolatry is no other than the Worshipping those that by nature are not Gods and even the Old Testament for all the Compliances that were in it to sensible nature yet allowed of nothing that looked like Idolatry and this is much less to be imagined in the New that carries Religion in all respects to a higher degree of Sublimity and Purity than the Old did This then is to be laid down for a Principle that nothing is proposed to us in the New Testament as the proper Object of our Adoration but God himself In the next place it is no less plain that all the Acts of Worship such as Adoration Prayer Praises Faith and Confidence and in a word every Act by which we testifie our dependance on God and our Homage to him is declared to be due to Iesus Christ in the same words in which it is said to be due to God himself therefore when these two things are laid together the result of both is that either the New Testament is the most Incoherent and the worst composed Legend that ever was Writ in which one main and essential Point is contradict by another or that Iesus Christ must be truly God It is certain that he is either such or we Christians that pay him Divine Adoration in so ample a manner as we do are the greatest Idolaters that ever were And as this is contained in the New Testament in express words so the whole Doctrine that is revealed in it was attested in so eminent and so indisputable a manner as to leave no pretence to Infidelity so many Prophecies concurring in the Person of our Saviour to prove him the true Messias promised to the Jews many Ages before and so many Miracles appearing first at his Birth and afterwards in the whole course of his Life but above all at his Death his Resurrection and Ascension The Apostles published the History of all this soon after it was done and mentioned many Circumstances that were involved in it which if false might have been authentically overthrown by the Jews in whose Hands the Authority was lodged at that time and who had both Interest and Malice enough to set them on to make the Discovery One part of the Story was such that it is not possible to believe that it could have past upon the World if it was not true The Apostles pretended that after the Holy Ghost was poured out on them they not only wrought Miracles but had likewise the Gift of Tongues Now this was such a thing that if it was false it was in the power of every one of any strange Nation to make the Discovery and by so doing to