Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	faith_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	2,203	5	9.2236	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62735	Primordia, or, The rise and growth of the first church of God described by Tho. Tanner ... ; to which are added two letters of Mr. Rvdyerd's, in answer to two questions propounded by the author, one about the multiplying of mankind until the flood ; the other concerning the multiplying of the children of Israel in Egypt.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.; Rudyerd, James, b. 1575 or 6.	1683 (1683)	Wing T145; ESTC R14957	173,444	408

produced afterwards such admirable Spirits so far as I can discover But if the Masters were indifferently such as I have described what think you were the Men If it had so seemed good to God he could have set them all alike without blemish But he would rather take in all now than leave out one And so must we leaving them in the good Land of Goshen all the life of Ioseph and some time after for the Text saith that Ioseph dyed and all his Brethren and all that Generation before a new King Iosephus saith of another Race arose up over Egypt which knew not Ioseph And that the people were so encreased that Goshen could no more contain them but that the Land of Egypt was filled with them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS A LETTER In ANSWER to a QUESTION Propounded by the Authour viz. CONCERNING The multiplying of the Children of Israel in Egypt SIR SINCE You were pleas'd to request my poor assistance in the solution of the following Question to shew my readiness to serve You I set my self about it I confess at first I expected nothing but dry Arithmetical matter to work upon but upon farther consideration I found the Subject You had given me of a more extensive nature than so fit to be replenish'd with other more useful considerations and capable of a more noble improvement than I am able to bestow upon it yet such as that is here You have it Your Question is this How from seventy Males only in no longer space than two hundred and ten years as your Chronologer reckons wherein the Israelites sojourned in Egypt there could be produc'd at their first numbring in the Wilderness no less than six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty from twenty years old and upwards besides the Tribe of Levi which amounted to two and twenty thousand Males from a Month old and upwards and how the probability of this may be demonstrated so as to stop the mouths of such as Porphyry and Celsus without refuge to a vast multitude of Twins or a miraculous continuance of the power of generation in that people more than any other of which we have no mention in prophane Writers To this I doubt not but to return such an Answer as shall satisfie any reasonable man and your self in particular and having done that I think I shall have done all that You expected from me towards the silencing such as are of Celsus's and Porphyry's Creed in this matter if such as they may properly be said to have any Creed whose Faith revers'd consists in disbelieving Nor is this the only good effect of such undertakings if duly perform'd For although Christians believing the holy Scriptures to be from God who cannot lye do generally take God Almighty's word for the truth of those things that are there revealed without a strict scrutiny and examination of the things themselves yet if after assent given to the holy Scriptures as the word of God those amongst them who are qualified with abilities especially such as Your Self who serve at the Altar and whose lips preserve knowledge do search and dive into the particular Circumstances of any thing there related of an unusual and surprizing nature such as this seems to be at first view and when upon such search the thing appears upon rational grounds not only possible but very likely to be effected This not only puts to silence the ignorance of foolish men but highly confirms Believers themselves in their most holy faith and encourages them on other occasions to acquiesce and rely intirely on the truth of God's word when their limited finite faculties cannot fathom the reasons either of the thing or Command revealed Without any farther Preface therefore Give me leave Sir to affirm That in the matter before us there is no need of flying to an extraordinary multiplication by Twins I say Extraordinary for there is no reason to exclude it in the ordinary course of nature because we see it frequently happen amongst our selves and I believe 〈◊〉 might be more frequent among the Israelites even from natural causes such as the simplicity of their Diet above ours and the more fertile pregnancy of that Climate where Nature is more perfect and better digested by the nearer approach of the Sun who quickneth all things and is reputed by Philosophers to have a peculiar influence in the work of generation insomuch that it passes for an uncontrouled Maxim amongst them and a kind of Postulatum that Sol homo generant hominem And as little need is there of a miraculous power of Generation unless we will multiply miracles unnecessarily by styling every eminent Blessing by that Title which is sent in performance of a promise then indeed the great encrease of this people would pass for a miracle of the first rank For never was any promise oftener reiterated than this as if the Benediction vied in proportion and analogy to the nature of the Blessing it self which consisted in number Had the Israelitish Women been all old Sarahs nay had they been young Rachels or Rebeccahs and their Husbands confin'd to them nothing less than a miracle could have done it But as it is it holds no higher denomination than that of a very great Blessing which I look upon as a medium betwixt the ordinary course of Nature and a Miracle and much nearer of kin to the former than the latter because there is nothing in it either praeter or contra Naturam The several promises of encrease before mentioned being the foundation whereon I shall build my Superstructure it will not be amiss to take a transient view of some of them and the wording of them where we shall find a most remarkable exuberancy good measure press'd down and running over such as these Gen. 13.16 I will make thy seed says God to Abraham as the dust of the earth so that if a man can number of dust of the earth then shall thy seed also be numbred Gen. 15.5 And God brought Abraham forth abroad and said Look now towards Heaven and tell the Stars if thou be able to number them So shall thy seed be Gen. 22.16 17. By my self have I sworn saith the Lord That in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the Sea-shore And although we may think that this promise was partly made good in Ishmael and Abraham's other Sons and also in Esau from all which great Nations were descended yet that is a mistake for although they did seem materially to make good these promises of encrease yet formally they did not quatenus a promise but they were thrown in by God ex abundanti and on the account of other bye promises such as that to Hagar Gen. 17.10 11. and were mere Anomala's in respect of the main Promise Gen. 21.12 For in Isaac shall thy seed be called To whom

nature when the generality of Mankind attained but to fourscore and that with labour and sorrow Psal. 90. but by the extraordinary blessing and support of the God of Nature in whom we live and move and have our being nor is this to be lookt upon as any other than part of the recompence of reward to him who was faithful in all God's house Numb 12.7 Nay the kindness of God seems to extend even to his dead Body as well as to his living bearing it away as it were surreptitio●sly in his owns arms digs his Grave with his own hands and covers him with Earth thus bereaving the rebellious Tribes of the honour of his Interment to perform his Obsequies Himself Deut. 34. This longaevity therefore of the Patriarchs affording little or no advantage above the shorter lives but more early pregnancy of the latter Generations in Egypt I proceed to that which You will say was a great advantage indeed which is the second means that conduc'd to bring about the accomplishment of the Promise of multiplying the Posterity of Iacob exceedingly that is with more than the usual encrease of the rest of Mankind and that is The watchful Providence and protection of that God who promised And indeed I am apt to think that the vast encrease of the Israelites proceeded more from God's great care in the preservation of those that were born than from their own extraordinary fertility above all other people that had both Wives and Concubines as well as they For although the Promise contained fruitfulness as well as multiplication yet that was promised only as the means conducing to that end so that if their fertility sufficed for that both parts of the promise were exactly fulfilled though there were no exuberant Numbers of Super-numeraries as it were for food for those three great Devourers Famines Wars and Pestilences they being exempted from those three Calamities by the special Providence of God over them But lest this should be thought to be said gratis I shall therefore endeavour to prove it And in order to that it is worth observing That Moses who writes the History of this people from the very Creation dispatches that great interval of above sixteen hundred and fifty years from the Fall to the Floud in three Chapters viz. Gen. 4 5 6. whereas the rest of the Book which is no less than forty four Chapters is spent wholly on no longer an interval than to the death of Ioseph which is searce six hundred and sixty years and still the nearer he comes to his own times the more his History swells like great Rivers the farther from the Spring the larger they grow by the confluence of more streams For although his inspiration to write truth was equal throughout yet the Tradition which for the most part furnished him with the Subject matter of that truth was not equal the Tradition of the first Ages being very scanty and almost worn out as it were by passing through so many hands whereas those things which were transacted at a less distance of time could not so easily either be forgotten or corrupted so that these came in greater number more intire and certain and cloathed in their particular circumstances whereby it seems to me highly improbable that Moses should be ignorant of any considerable Calamity that besell this people that was of so late a Date as their coming into Egypt which was but about thirteen years before he himself came into the World and therefore the knowledge of it had been easily handed down to him from so small a distance without the help of supernatural revelation which he was also furnished withal to supply the defects of Oral Tradition in that History which he wrote Now if he could not be ignorant of it and yet concealed it I conceive this cannot be supposed without questioning his fidelity as God's own Historiographer who yet has this testimony even from God himself That he was faithful in all his house Numb 12.7 that is in all that wherewith God entrusted him whereof the penning this sacred History was a part But besides his fidelity his tender affection to this people for whose sake he quitted the glory and pleasures of the Egyptian Court refusing to be called the Son of Pharaoh's Daughter and afterwards in the Wilderness desires God to blot him out of his Book rather than they should be destroyed I say this tender affection could not suffer him to omit the recording any considerable calamity that befel their Community and that with as much commiseration and in as relenting a strain as he does the business of the Taskmasters And though they had fallen into the hands of God himself by some raging Pestilence and not of man as the other was yet doubtless his great piety would not have failed to have pointed out those sins which provoked that judgment nor to have celebrated God's mercy for saying to the destroying Angel It is enough This therefore being cleared That Moses could neither be ignorant nor silent of any considerable Calamity that besel this people in Egypt let us in the next place see whether he mentions or but hints at either Famine War or Pestilence As for Famine we read of none ●ave that which first brought them into Egypt and when Iacob and his Family came down to settle there it was to this very end That they might be preserved from the evil effects of that Famine which was in Canaan and in all those parts whereof there were five years yet to come Gen. 45.11 There is as little also said of their being oppressed by War or Invasion on their small Territory by the Neighbouring Midianites and Arabians or any others nor is it probable that the Kings of Egypt made any use of them in their Wars they being Strangers charitably sheltered for their Brothers sake under the protection of the Egyptians For when they were but few they could afford but sorry assistance and when they became many 't was no policy to arm a Province of Strangers in the Bowels of the Country and teach them the Art of War And when they began to multiply the Egyptians were so far from this that they grew jealous of them Exod. 1.10 lest when there fell out War they should join unto their Enemies and fight against them As for the Pestilence we find not one word of that neither That they were very subject to the Leprosie is very certain and though it be as certain that that was very in●ectious fore and noysome and called a Plague yet that it was frequently mortal seems to me very improbable ●or two reasons the first is Because we ●●ver read of any that dyed of it or 〈◊〉 least of any considerable numbers which is sufficient to my purpose The ●ther reason is Because the Law seems ●o suppose the recovery of those that ●ad it as much as it did Women in Child-bed because it appoints Rites and Offerings after recovery in both Cases and both