Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	holy_a	person_n	trinity_n	2,662	5	9.6888	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56390	A free and impartial censure of the Platonick philosophie being a letter written to his much honoured friend Mr. N.B. / by Sam. Parker.	Parker, Samuel, 1640-1688.; Bisbie, Nathaniel, 1635-1695.	1666 (1666)	Wing P463; ESTC R18216	56,029	122

that is they that study onely the litteral sense are compared to Apothecaries who only prepare those Medicaments which the Physitian prescribes but the Cabbalistical Doctors to Physitians who understand their Natures Uses and secret Properties And therefore they leave the litteral and superficial sense of Scripture to the rude and ignorant People whilst they that are Learned dive into the mysteries and depths of the Law and by the help of Fancy fetch strange and wonderful secrets from Words Letters Points from their several Shapes Combinations Transpositions Abbreviatures Arithmetical Indications and the like And then with a frontless Impudence assert that they came Originally from Adam Abraham and Moses You may see enough of this Cabbalistical Trash in a thousand Authours but most Copiously in Reuchlin de Arte Cabbalistica and in that grand Thesaurus of Learned Trifles Kirchers Oedip. tom 2. Class 4. The first that produced them into the Christian World was the Earl of Mirandula in whose time the very word Cabbala was so unknown that as Hottinger relates out of Garzon it was taken for a Witch Vetula venesicits dedit● And the Earl himself relates in his Apology that one of his greatest Antagonists being asked what this Cabbala was replyed that he was a certain notorious Heretick that had opposed himself against Iesus Christ and that from him his Accomplices and Followers were named Cabbalistae The Earl when he had at a high price purchased some small fragments of it from the Iews thought himself Master of the most ancient and valuable Monument in the World The mistake was pardonable in him but unpardonable in those who since have had opportunity to examine its first rise and antiquity and cannot discern the least Traces of it beyond the Talmudical Rabbins Besides this I might overthrow the Cabbala from rational Arguments taken from the thing it selfe as that it would reflect upon the Wisdom of God that he should conveigh down such material and important Truths as are supposed to be contained in the Cabbala by so uncertain and questionable a way as Oral Tradition That it renders the Word of God ridiculous and useless and makes its meaning altogether doubtful and ambiguous and exposes it to the giddy and fanciful Conjectures of every warm Brain but the groundlesness of the thing it self makes all other confutation needless Some not unlearned men have urged the Consistency of the Cabbala with it self and the suitableness of the Allegory to the Text as no contemptible Argument of its Truth and Solidity But alas beside that most of their Analogies between the Mystery and the Text are sufficiently forced and uncouth there 's nothing more easie then for Fancy to find some Consonancy between the most distant things especially in such various and unlimited things as Allegories are If you should require it I think I could with an ordinary plausibility draw up a body of the Epicurean Philosophie out of the Writings of Iacob Behem and yet perhaps it would puzle you to think of any Hypotheses of a more distant Genius then they Such an Africa is Fancy that it can couple things of the most distant and contrary Natures And therefore I shall never think the prettiest Parallels Analogies and Similitudes to be any tollerable Arguments 4. Having thus evidenced the unwarrantable Rashness of deriving Platonick Notions from Iewish Traditions I come in the next place to give 1. A brief Account of the Rise of that seeming agreeableness between the Platonick and the Christian Trinity 2. To shew by what Principles and steps the Platonists happened upon their Triad For the first it seems to have its Original from those counterfeit and supposititious Authors which pretended to the greatest Antiquity but yet were really composed by the Gnosticks out of the Ethnick and Christian Theologie and ascribed to names of the greatest Antiquity and Veneration such as Hermes Trismegistus Zoroasters Oracles the Sybillan Prophecies now it were strange if in these Authors there did not appear some kind of Resemblance and Vicinity between the Platonick Philosophie and the Holy Scriptures seeing they had by all Artificial ways blended them together as by coupling their different terms to express the same thing for whereas the Scripture stiles the first Person of the Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Plato the first of his Trinity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they joyn'd them together and call him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and as the Second Person is in Scripture termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in these he is generally stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now they that knew nothing of the Imposture meeting with such an Artificial agreement between Platonick Notions and Christian Doctrines might easily imagine that it was natural The first Author of this mistake seems to have been Ammonius of Alexandria Father to that Golden Chain of Philosophers of the Sacred succession who being both a Christian and a Platonist lighting upon these Spurious Books in which the Platonick Notions and Christian Articles were blended and reconciled together might thence be easily induced to fancy a true and real Consonancy between them And therefore Patricius avers that he was the first that understood aright the notion of Plato's Threefold Principle and that he came by this knowledge by perusing the Books of Trismegistus And hence those Platonists that followed him might speak of the Trinity more consonantly to the Scriptures then perhaps they intended though not long after these Impostures were discovered by Porphyrie as himself relates in the Life of Plotinus For the second the Platonick Triad is widely different from the Christian for they intend by it so many Orders and Ranks of Intellectual Beings and frequently added a fourth which was the Humane Soul and set it at no greater distance from the Third by which they meant the Soul of this Universe then that was removed from the Second by which they meant the First mind or soul of the Immaterial world And their Progress to the knowledge of these Beings proceeded in this Method 1. They suppose all things to ascend by Scales to Unity as Plato endeavours to prove in his Parmenides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Unity is the Origine of all Number or all mix'd and compounded Beings must be at last resolved into some one simple and unmix'd Principle otherwise the resolution would be endless so that all blended and Heterogeneous Perfections both material and immaterial must of necessity exist somewhere simple and unmix'd And then all Immaterial Perfections being found blended together in the Humane Soul they concluded that as many degrees of Perfection as they could discover there that there were so many Ranks of superior and more homogeneal Beings in the Intellectual world The Soul therefore as they apprehended consisting of four parts must have the fourth Rank in the order of Intellectual Beings and by consequence there must be three superior Orders more simple and uncompounded which must by

of Trismegist the Writings of Psellus and the Earl of Mirandula's Riddles with which he challenged all the Learned world will need no other proof of the Vanity of all pretences to the more abstruse and mystical Learning of the Antients I do not question but that great and honourable Personage I last mentioned was a Person of stupendious Parts and Learning yet I am sure that those Notions wherewith he made the greatest Noise in the world were but grand and pompous Futilities The Old Egyptian Learning was so Famous that the Spirit of God sets forth the Eminency of Moses's knowledge by his skill in it the matchlesness of Solomons Wisdom by its exceeding it And therefore I conclude that it was conversant about more generous and more useful Notices then afterwards such as Geometry Astronomy Policy Physick and other resembling Arts which either were perfective of their Rational Faculties or did minister to the uses and necessities of Nature as is generally reported by all Ancient Historians But had the Pristine Learning of Egypt been the same it was in latter Ages it had been as great a disparagement to Moses as 't is now justly reputed a commendation that he was accomplished in all the Egyptian learning and had amounted only to this that he was a vain trifling superstitious Fellow And what the Egyptian Priest objected to the Greeks that they were always Children might be more truly applied to themselves if it be the property of children to value trifles What childish fooleries their Hieroglyphicks were Learned Men now prove from the lost labour and fruitless industry of Kirchers Oedipus Aegyptiacus CertaSinly if they had design'd to abuse and debauch this humour they could scarce have contrived more fond and extravagant Emblems and indeed their courseness and unlikeness to the things they should resemble sufficiently discover them to have been but the rude Essays of a barbarous and undisciplined Fancy The truth of it is the Egyptians seem to have had onely knowledge enough to know that their neighbours had none at all and cunning enough to vaunt an Inspection into strange and abstruse Mysteries knowing that others by reason of their Ignorance could not controule them and by reason of their credulity would be very apt to credit them and thence they continually abused the credulous Grecians with Tales and Fables And surely the Egyptian Priest took not a little secret pleasure when he perceived Old Solon to entertain his Romantick and Legendary account of Ancient Times with so much greediness and satisfaction unless perhaps himself had been imposed upon by earlier Romancers for I fancy the Egyptian Priests to have been such another generation of men as our Monks were in the darkest times of Popery who believed as well as recorded those Legends which earlier Impostors had Coined So that if the ancient Sages of Greece had purchased no more knowledge by their Travels into Egypt then those few remainders of Egyptian learning still upon Record excepting a few Mathematical Theories they had spent their time and pains to as little purpose as the famous Traveller of Odcomb who footed most parts of the known world to no other purpose then to describe his Hosts Beard or Sign-Post I might here also give an account of the mean abilities of Orpheus and Pythagoras but I delight not to speak too hardly of any Vertuoso's Ashes and therefore I forbear For it is not my design by representing these Primitive sages as fools and dunces to rob them of that esteem and veneration with which they have been deservedly honoured in all succeeding Ages for though it be granted that their knowledge was much inferiour to that of latter Ages for Learning being then in its Infancy must needs be Childish but is since grown more solid and manly yet it is but reasonable they should be allowed bigger Proportions of Honour and Renown not only because they were very wise Men considering the rudeness and ignorance of the times in which they lived but because they were the first founders and discoverers of that knowledge which after Ages have but improved and the world surely is much more beholding to those that first invent useful Arts and Sciences than to those that onely improve them it is therefore just they should be allowed greater Glory though they had much less knowledge then their followers Besides Theological speculations met with the latest and slowest improvements and therefore those that might have considerable skill in other Theories might be as indeed they were barbarously ignorant in these 2. I perceive not any such clear Agreement between the Platonick Philosophie and the Sacred Scriptures as may give us any tolerable ground of suspecting the one to have been derived from the other For most of the Notions in which Plato speaks most consonantly to the Scriptures are so obvious and so universally acknowledged that it is easie to discern how he came by them without any acquaintance with the holy Writings such as are the Being of God the Immortality of the Soul the Essential differences of Good and Evil some general Rules of Natural and Essential Goodness Thus his Exceptions against the Grecian Idolatry and Superstition must by all means be transcribed from the Mosaick Writings and when in the Eighth Book of his Laws he enjoyns Solemn Festivals in honour of the Gods he must needs have it from the fourth Commandment of the Decalogue and when in the Tenth Book he declaims against Irreverence in Divine Worship he must by all means borrow it from the second Precept and when in his Eleventh Book he treats of honour due from Children to their Parents he must doubtlesly have read the fifth Commandment and the like in other Instances Whereas the natural reasonableness of these Principles is in it self so apparently clear evident that they could scarce escape the observation of any rational and inquisitive man and therefore Plato's lighting upon them is no more an Argument that he was conversant in the Mosaick Writings then is his saying that the Sun is the brightest Star in the Firmament And then as for their more hidden and abstruse mysteries where they seem to agree most their difference is greater then their agreement and it would not be difficult to shew how these Notions which have the fairest Consonancy to Scripture are derived from Hypotheses that have none at all as I shall anon evince in the Article of the Trinity And shall in the Interim shew the infirmity and vanity of this conceit by shewing the weakness of that Authority upon which it is grounded The first time then that I met with it was in Modern Authors who vouch'd the Authority of the Primitive Fathers for it betaking my self therefore to them I found some of them to aver it indeed with no small earnestness especially Clemens Alexandrinus Eusebius Theodoret but upon no better grounds then the naked assertions of two or three Iews especially Cleobulus and Iosephus and that when