Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n
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A18905
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An abstract of fayth grounded on Moses, and applyed to the common Creede; plainely and briefly. By Henoch Clapham, in the beginning of his third yeares bands.
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Clapham, Henoch.
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1606
(1606)
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STC 5328; ESTC S118540
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16,421
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46
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AN ABSTRACT OF FAYTH Grounded on Moses and applyed to the Common Creede plainely and briefly By Henoch Clapham in the beginning of his third yeares bands Heb. 11. 6. He that commeth vnto God must beleeue that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that seeke him Mark 9. 23. All thinges are possible to him that beleeueth Bernard Lib. 5. de Considerat Fides ambiguum non habet aut si habet Fidem non est sed opinio Fayth admits no doubt for if it do then it is not Fayth but opinion Printed 1606. TO THE THRICE-Excellent HENRIE Prince of Wales c. PArdon sweet Prince pardon my bold present The Hope we haue your Excellencie shall Proue to our Church a matchlesse Instrument For Gospels good and Superstitions fall That and some Grace vouchsafed to my bands Emboldens mee to giue this to your hands Some scandalized haue my Christian Fayth That so hood-winked Maiestrates may bee Though skils not much what Papal-mynor saith Yet duety mine to cause hood-wink't to see This may reproue such fore-heads as be flinted my faith b'ing such as Scotland somtimes printed Yea Priuiledged by our King An. 1595. 96. England's state haue licensed the same The selfesame faith sparsed throuhgout my bookes Which here I properly An Abstract name And vnto Moses for the tryall lookes The methode hath my prisond-sense for mensure But read sweet Prince then giue out your sensure Your Graces poore Orator Henoch Clapham AN ABSTRACT OF FAYTH c. TO the end that no soule in Court or Country be peruerted touching the trueth of my Fayth by the vnconscionable reportes of some incorrigible * Seorsiâ— ducentes Seducers I offer heere to Prince and People a summe of my Fayth with euident proofe from Moses for the groundes thereof And thus with Auncient Beleeuers I begin SECTION 1. ¶ I beleeue in God the Father Almighty maker of heauen and earth BEleife is manifold according to the thing beleiued be it true or false for false beleife it is compared to a man dreaming of Gold but being awaked he findeth a lye in his right hand As for true beleife it ouer-reacheth Fancie and Opinion and is a perswasion setled vpon Trueth as when one beleiueth rightly on God and the thinges of and from God And so Beleife or Fayth generally considered is a true assent to that which is be it a thing of Promise or Narration For much haue they erred that teach how all Fayth respecteth a promise a Heb. 11. 3 Through Fayth we vnderstand that the world was ordained by the word of God as Moses declareth in the first of Genesis which is a thing of Narration not of Promise seeing the world had his existence before man therefore could not be promised to man Touching Fayth apprehending a Promise it is twofold according to the nature of the Promise and that is Eternall or Temporary as it apprehendeth thinges of eternall abyding nature or things that be but momen taine b 2. Cor. 4. 18. This latter being of thinges visible such as Moses describeth in the sixe dayes creation The other of things inuisible and spirituall such as in the sacramentall Tree of life was taught to Adam in Gen. 2. When I say I beleeue in God for euery soule must beleeue for it selfe it is as if in moe words I should say I rest and build vpon God in all my thoughtes words and deedes The Latine therefore is not Credo in Deo but in Deum I beleeue vpon God Which God Moses deliuereth vnto vs in his first speach when he sayth God created the heauens and the earth in the beginning The Onenesse of his Essence he teacheth in the word Bara Hee created that is Hee the one God and in the Noune Aelohim of plurall Nomber signifiyng Mighties he insinuateth the Trinitie of Persons as if the words should run thus Hee the Mighties did create Which Trinitie was not obscurely represented in the three Angels repayring to Abraham the father of true Beleeuers and in the clearest Scriptures they be tearmed * Math. 28. 1. Iohn 5. Father Sonne and Holy-ghost or Father Word and Spirit Which Moses deliuereth euidently inough if scales hung not vpon our eyes when he teacheth that one God to create heauens and earth by his Word and the Spirits motion vpon the face of the creature With curious Scholastique poynts touching the sacred Trinitie in vnitie Moses dealeth not to open view neither doth this auncient Creed of the Christian Church The first Churches were satisfied with that measure of Fayths-confession which our times will not admit So wrathfull vncharitable be our times learned of the man of Sinne. The first most notorious Schisme in the Church did grow from the curious search which curious spirits did make after the bottomlesse depth of this vnitie in Trinitie thereby adding to the Creed But the secret things sayth Moses in Deut. 29. 29. belong to the Lord and to the Lord I leaue the secrets of the Godhead as the auncient Church of God hath done before me Touching this one God it is to be beleeued first that he is a Father Secondly an Almighty Father His Fatherhood is twofold First as he hath Created man secondly as he hath Purchased man after his backsliding from the excellencie of his Creation Both these Moses doth remember in Deut. 32. 6. when as he sayth Is he not thy Father that hath purchased thee He hath made thee 2. Chro. 3. 17. and proportioned thee These two Fatherhoods are to be Pillers to euery Temple of the Holy-ghost as * Jachin signifieth Stablished and Boaz in strength Jachin and Boaz were Pillers to the materiall Temple The Almightinesse of God is taught of Moses in the very terme Aelohim as before and vnto Abraham he is called El-shadaj Almightie-sufficient because no soule ought to doubt as not of his goodwill seeing he is a Father so neither of his Might and sâ—fficiencie for bringing to passe whatsoeuer he willeth in heauen or in earth specially for mankinds good Whence it necessarily followeth that no part of my Fayth is to be fastned vpon Angell or Man or any other Creature be he as bigge as Behemoth Iob. 40. or as scaly as Leuiathan seeing the greatest might and strength of the creature is not so much as a Mite to a Mountaine as also but borowed of the Creator to be drawen backe as breath is out of the nosethrils euen at his pleasure * Hebr. 11. 28 29. Moses by Fayth in this willing Almighty-sufficiencie did ordaine the Pas-ouer and effusion of blood least he that destroyed the first borne in Aegipt should touch them of the Churche Exod 12. And his people by this Fayth passed through the Red sea as by dry-land which when the Aegiptians assaied to doe they were drowned Exod. 14. Nor doe I beleeue that our late passage through the Red sea of humaine blood mixed in conceipt with Fire and Gunpowder did
befall vs by other meanes then by such Fayth truly fastned vpon God the Father his willing Alsufficiencie In the lacke whereof our Romish Aegiptians deuisors of fast and loose for aduantage did perish * About 200. yeares they haue bin shut vp from deceiuing people as afore 800. years more insuing this present they must more and more be bridled My ground is S. Iohns Reuelation and more and more must perish although by their owne hand and owne inuentions In the beliefe of this I heretofore opposed in more then an ordinarie manner howsoeuer I haue been diuersly smitten for it the Lord lay it not to their charge and the same I am still howsoeuer I expect for that the more hard entreatie where Amalekes may preuayle But he that began that Faith augment it in mee and I eare long shal see the saluation of our God God hath layde the Axe now to the roote of that Tree I hope our high right honorable senate of Parliament will take the present occasion of cutting it downe Touching the Creation of Heauen and Earth Moses hath spoken plainely in the first and second of Genesis But there he hath briefly touched the Visible Creature Spheares and Starres aboue and the Earth with her Seas and continents below But afterwardes he reuealeth the Inuisible creature inuisible in the owne proper nature because Spirits namely the Angels appoynted of God for ministring spirits vnto the good of the heires of saluation as also for the execution of corrections and punishments vpon the transgressors So that for the good of the obedient the visible and inuisible creature is appoynted The Angels to pitch their Tabernacles of defence round about them and as * Iob 5. 23 c. Eliphaz noteth from the times of Genesis the stones beastes of the field c. to be at league with them Lord encrease my Fayth vnto obedience Section 2. ¶ And in Iesus Christ his onely Sonne our Lord which was conceaued by the holy Ghost borne of the virgin Mary suffered vnder Pontius Pilate was crucified dead buried He descended into Hell The third day he rose againe from the dead he ascended into heauen and sitteth on the right hand of God from whence he shall come to iudge the quicke and the dead AS the first part of Beliefe touched God the Father so the second toucheth his Sonne the Word by whoÌ„ he made all things Which Sonne is tearmed Jesus that is Sauiour and Christ or Messiah which signifieth Annoynted because he was of God the Father annoynted to be the Sauiour of Adam and his chosen-seed which in Adam had sinned through the meanes of Satan an Apostate Angell and so could not be saued but by him that could abace himselfe as low as Adam and the seed of his loynes had sinned hie seeing Contraries must cure Contraries Mankind had sinned highly in that being but earth he laboured proudly to be a God The cure then must be wrought by God on high humbling himselfe in the behoofe of man so low as the earth The Sonne of God did this first by assuming or taking vpon him the very nature of man body and soule Secondly by vndergoing the smart of our sinnes and dying in our nature for vs. Thirdly in rysing againe from vnder the decreed death Fourthly in ascending vp to the Father carying our sinnes captiue And fifthly by shewing himselfe the Iudge As the latter Scriptures being but commentaries vpon Moses doe plainely shew all this so Moses taught this as truly though not so openly 1 That the Sonne of God should assume our nature for such purpose Moses doth intimate in Gen. 3. 15. when he sayth That the womans seed should breake the Serpents head And of him the Apostle * Galat. 4 4. Paul expoundeth it As it is said The womans seed not mans because mans hand should not cut this Stone from the Monntaine it should triumph ouer the Serpent of Hell Dan. 2. which then had acted the Serpentine beast of the fielde So the Womans seed being onely passiue could not doe that otherwise then it should receiue life from some actiue power which if not Mans then needs it must be of God seeing Angels could not vndergoe the waight of that burden the Fathers infinite iustice being so to be satisfied in mankindes nature which had so offended Neither is such conception strange in Moses when as Sarah Arch-mother of beleeuers doth by vertue of the Lords promise conceaue and bring foorth Isaac after it ceased with her to be after the manner of women 2. 3. Neither any nature but that which is infinite namely God could so liue and die for satisfaction and rayse vp our assumed nature for our iustification All which Moses hath prophetically deliuered * Heb. 11. 19. in the parable of Isaac Gen. 22. There Abraham hy-father a figure of our Hy-father in heauen hath his onely Sonne Isaac one with our nature a seed according to Promise him he hath allotted vnto death The Sonne obayes The first day Isaac dyeth in Abrahams resolution and the will is accepted for the deed but after a sort he receiued him againe from death vnto life and that on the third day And his returne home againe was as an Ascension from the earth vnto glory 4 And as Isaac so returned in a parable from death to life so he became the Sonne of his right hand when Ismael stood on the left and that Foe was made his footstoole 5 Which Isaac shewed himselfe in time a Iudge of spirituall quicke and dead when he gaue a perfect iudgement according to the decree of Abram Malachi 1. 2. 3. Hie-father of heauen in separating betweene Esau and Iaakob Rom. 9. 23. this being chosen and the other forsaken though both of one bedd and naturall generation Through all Moses the doctrine of the promised seed shineth though encompassed with cloudes of Ceremonies the full reuelation whereof awayted the fulnesse of time * Heb. 11. 40. God prouiding that better thing for vs that they without vs should not be made perfect The Article touching the seconde person in the Godhead thus cleared some will aske me Where in Moses do ye find that Christ should Descend into Hell the place of the damned there to triumph in his soule I answere I finde it not in Moses neither in Doctrine nor Shadow for any thing I could euer obserue That dying he should descend to Sheol as the Creed in Hebrew speaketh or to Hades as the Greeke speaketh or to Inferos as the Latine speaketh I find in Moses seeing he as all the slaine Sacrifices his shadowes intended was to go the way of all flesh In which sense Jaakob sayth thus in Gen. 37. 35. * Cabalistically one mâ—ght say that the letters in Aeredh that is Aleph Resh and Daleth in Hebrew numeration 205 they might import the time of his seede being in Egipt being much thereabouts so many yeares From the word Reau descend