Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	aaron_n	moses_n	rebel_n	40	3	9.4346	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53952	A discourse concerning the existence of God by Edward Pelling ...	Pelling, Edward, d. 1718.	1696 (1696)	Wing P1078; ESTC R21624	169,467	442

People from whom alone those advantages were to be expected if any advantage at all had been sought for Nay when he let those advantages go which he had already in his hands Whereas Men in Power endeavour to keep their Authority up and to transmit it to their Posterity Moses was content to let all that Power dye with him wherewith he was vested when he govern'd the whole Jewish Nation He appointed Joshua to succeed him in his Civil Authority The great Dignity and Advantages of the Priesthood he disposed of to his Brother Aaron and his Sons As for his own Children he left them in Subjection to the Priests to officiate under them in the ordinary and mean Ministrations of the Tabernacle not alloting them one foot of Land amongst all their Kindred All which shews that from the beginning to the end Moses designed nothing but the Honour of God and the Common good of his People And that no Honour or Interest of his own could possibly sway or tempt him to violate his Integrity And what could the four Evangelists propose to themselves that should move them to deceive the world and make their Relations incredible or suspected Honours they could not aim at unless men think it an Honour to be Dishonest Nor could Interest tempt them to impose fictions on mens Belief when they were sure beforehand to receive nothing in this world but Hardship Persecutions and Death for their Reward Very poor encouragements for men to invent and spread abroad idle Stories Or if it be said that 't was for the Credit and Propagation of their Religion they must be thought the oddest men in Nature that would coin Fictions for the sake of a Religion they believed to be false and yet they could not have believed otherwise of it if they had not known it to have been confirmed by Miracles for they were the only things that could give Evidence of its Truth beyond all Contradiction 3. This I have said to shew that however some Irreligious Men have the confidence to despise the Scripture-account of Divine Miracles to common human Reason it appears sufficiently credible from the certain Knowledge and manifest Probity of the Writers and consequently that we have as fair Evidence of the Reality of Miracles in that respect as can be had of any other matter of Fact that has been done in former Ages To which let us add in the next place this third ground of Credibility viz. that others who had reason to know and were able to know the truth of the matter were sufficiently satisfied of the certainty of it Here again we must return to Moses and First it is observable that the account he gives of Miracles done by him has continually past through a long succession of Ages uncontradicted which is an Argument that the Inquisitive and Knowing men in most Nations were well satisfied of the Reality of the matter For as the Mosaick Writings contain the most Ancient Records that are extant in the world so they seem to have been perused by the most Ancient Philosophers and Historians because the things related in them were spoken of and own'd generally by the whole Heathen world though sometimes not without a mixture of Poetical Fables as the Creation of the Universe the Sanctity of the Sabbaths the Story of the Deluge and of the Ark the Right of circumcision and the like as the Learned Grotius hath particularly shew'd in his First Book of the Truth of Christianity It is very probable that the general belief of these things sprang from the general persuasion which prevailed in the world of those Signs and Wonders that Moses had shew'd that made him so great a Person in the Esteem of Mankind There were thousands ready to have disproved the Relation if the Works had not been done nor is it in the least likely that of so many Neighbouring Nations round about the Jews which mortally hated the Jews and their Religion none would have discovered the Imposture had they not been satisfied that what Moses had written was true The Honour of having such great things done for them in the eyes of the world would have been thought too much for a despised hated People to have gone away with 2. But Secondly instead of Contradicting Moses's History the most Ancient Writers among the Egyptians and Greeks did own his Greatness Insomuch that the old Egyptians would have appropriated him to themselves pretending that he was of Egyptian Parentage and a Priest of Heliopolis by name Ozarsiph changing his name afterwards to Moses Some indeed of the other Heathens as Apuleius and Numenius the Pythagorean reckon him among the old Magicians and in particular among Jannes and Jambres the famous Magicians of Pharaoh but all lookt upon him as a very wonderful Person by reason of the Plagues he brought upon Egypt 3. And then Thirdly as for the Jews nothing can be more clear than that their whole Nation have all along acknowledg'd the truth of the Miracles done by Moses For their whole Constitution was founded upon the Credit of his Divine Authority and that depended upon the Credit of his Miracles And had any of them been unsatisfied in that point those Rebels who rose up against Moses and Aaron alledging that they took too much upon them would have alledged that they pretended too much also a great deal more than what was true Nor could those People who time after time Revolted from Moses's Law have had such another Plea for their Apostacies as this would have been that the Authority of the Law giver was not confirmed by Miracles as 't was believed I have said thus much of Moses to confront some in our days who have taken the confidence to deride the Writings which go under Moses's Name and the Miracles said to have been wrought by him that thereby they may with the greater boldness deny the Existence of God though if Men will take the evidence given of any matters of Fact done at a great distance of time from them it is impossible to find better evidence of any matters than there is of these of the certainty whereof those who had Reason to know and were able to know were fully satisfied I go on now in the next place from the same Consideration to prove the Reality of those Miracles which the Evangelists ascribe to Jesus Christ And who could think themselves more concern'd to enquire into the truth of them than those great Men who made it their business to oppose his Religion And yet that many notable Miracles had been done by him and by his Apostles after him was manifest to all that dwelt at Jerusalem and they could not deny it All that they had to say for their Infidelity was that Christ did those wonderful Works by the help of the Devil but matter of Fact they own'd Hence it was that soon after the Lord went out of the World divers pretended to a power of Miracles such as Simon Magus