Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	world_n	worthy_a	zeal_n	19	3	7.1687	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30629	Cavsa dei, or, An apology for God wherein the perpetuity of infernal torments is evidenced and divine both goodness and justice, that notwithstanding, defended : the nature of punishments in general, and of infernal ones in particular displayed : the evangelical righteousness explicated and setled : the divinity of the Gentiles both as to things to be believed, and things to be practised, adumbrated, and the wayes whereby it was communicated, plainly discover'd / by Richard Burthogge ...	Burthogge, Richard, 1638?-ca. 1700.	1675 (1675)	Wing B6149; ESTC R17327	142,397	594

CAVSA DEI OR AN APOLOGY FOR GOD. WHEREIN The Perpetuity of Infernal Torments is Evinced and Divine both Goodness and Justice that notwithstanding Defended The Nature of Punishments in General and of Infernal ones in Particular Displayed The Evangelical Righteousness Explicated and Setled The Divinity of the Gentiles both as to things to be Believed and things to be Practised Adumbrated and the wayes whereby it was Communicated plainly Discover'd By Richard Burthogge M.D. London Imprinted for Lewis Punchard Bookseller in T●tnes in Devon and are to be sold by F. Tyton at the Three Daggers in Fleetstreet 1675. To the ever Honour'd JAMES ERISEY OF ERISEY IN THE COUNTY OF CORNWALL Esquire SIR THere is no need we pass the Seas to seek a Countrey of Prodigies our Own will furnish Instances enough of Men that would be thought more Merciful than God Himself who not finding in their Hearts how to condemn themselves or others to Eternal Pains will not apprehend how God should find it in His. The main Topicks insisted on by those so tender dispositions in order to the extinguishing the Everlasting Fire are First The Finity of Sin that in its own Nature cannot Merit an Infinite Punishment Secondly The Nature of Punishment which is for Castigation and Amendment wherewith the Perpetuity of it cannot consist Thirdly The almost Invincible Ten●ations that even Christians Weak and Impotent as they be are surrounded with which renders the state of Absolute Perfection that only has the Promise of Blessedness Unattainable by most of them And is it not Hard that Poor Souls so very easily diverted from the Way to Heaven though they have it shown them should for ever be condemned to such a Hell Fourthly The more Tremendous Circumstances of the Heathen that never heard of Jesus Christ the Way Truth and Life who would be treated with Severity with Rigour to Astonishment if for not Proceeding in a Path which they were never Acquainted of They should be Damned to Eternal Torments In a word How can it comport with the Infinite Goodness Love Kindness and Fatherly Bowels of which Almighty God doth make Profession to the world And who can once think that Tender Mercies that Compassions that never fail should suffer Him so quietly without Remorse without Pity to behold his Own Offspring Frying in Eternal and Unquenchable Flames You see Sir how hard a Task that Person has and in how large a Field he is to Expatiate that will Establish Perpetuity in Infernal Torments which was indeed the only thing designed by me at first but I found my self in Prosecution of that Design instead of framing only one Discourse if I would not have that One Defective Obliged to Digress into several Wherefore I resolved to permit my Thoughts the liberty to range into the common Places of Hell of Punishment in general of Humane Imperfection and the Evangelical Righteousness and of the Admirable Instances of Wisdom Goodness and Justice in Divine Transactions with the Heathen as well as Iew and Christian that Assuming this Freedom I might Display the Syntax Harmony Connexion Concinnity of the Notions I Employ and on which I Bottom with greater Perspicuity and Clearness than otherwise I could have hoped to Effect it In all the thing I Principally Aim at is to manifest what plain and sober Reason can do to solve Objections about them I call the Whole Apologie for God because the Arguments Alledged are Criminations Insinuating Want of Goodness Justice Wisdom in the great Creator if really there be a Perpetuity in the Torments setled by Him And no Doubt but when the Arguments are Accusations to Dissolve and Satisfie Them is to make an Apology Little thought had I to have Engag'd my self on This or on resembling Subjects when I was Invited to it by a Letter from One from whom I as little expected it Who Reflecting on an Essay lately published concerning Divine Goodness imagines it Imperfect for that I do not from the Infinite Divine Benignity conclude either the Non-Existence of Infernal Torments or their Finite Duration As if God cannot be Just if he be Good Such was the Rise of these Discourses which I Dressed in the Habit of an Epistle Not to interest therein the Person who Occasion'd it more than Others but for Form-sake that the Notions I conceiv'd might enter in more easily upon the Readers Mind who if intangled with the same thoughts the samé Scruples it Obviates may look on This Letter as One of Resolution written to Himself about Them As it is I humbly make a Present of it to You. Not that I Presume to put the Honour of Your Name upon it with design to get Protection for Defects and Weaknesses therein that do not Deserve it But to Proclaim to All the World that if Truth could need a Patron I know None more Eminently Qualified to be He than your self and None more Worthy of the Zeal and Highest Devotions of SIR Your most Humble servant Richard Burthogge Bowdon Aug. 25. 1674. ERRATA In the Text p. 33. l. 22. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 35. l. 15. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 39. l. 25. r. And Albeit it p. 44. l. 2. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 13. so r. and p. 78. l. 23. r. or laying of them on on those p. 83. l. 10 11. dele p. 110. l. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 114. l. 8. r. Good p. 124. l. 14. quae r. suae p. 127. l. 13. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 133. l. 26. r. owns p. 138. l. 20. r. leges p. 160. l. 15. r. as is in us p. 182. l. 13. dele and p. 192. l. 19. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 228. l. 6. r. tam p. 276. l. 14. r. Fable p. 316. l. 7. r. at Rome p. 319. l. 17. him r. it p. 325. l. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 348. l. 16. r. Innovandi p. 354. l. 1. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 358. l. 10. r. Paulinum p. 365. l. 16. r. conringi●s p. 366. l. 2. dele the p. 371. for Greece r. Aegypt p. 383. l. 18. r. is derived p. 390. l. 26. r. was p. 391. l. 6. r. cited p. 392. l. ult dele Antient p. 394. l. 9. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 398. l. 8. r. Sapo●rs p. 410. l. 20. r. their premises p. 414. l. 10. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the Margin p. 266. r. Gazaeus p. 275. r. Pimand p. 299. after infra add pag. 383 384. p. 307. r. secundâ p. 328. r. 374. p. 347. r. Ovav p. 384. r. Diction To his much Honoured and Worthy Friend Richard Burthogge Doctor of Physick Honoured Sir I Lately met with a Discourse of yours both the Subject and Title of it as well as the Authors name invited me to a perusal What you designed in that Essay I think you have very well performed But I confess I expected more than I found

and threatning is nor are we able to defend our selves against so Good so Pious a Resentment if we soberly consider this That he that threatneth plainly shews he hath no mind to inflict and that Threatnings are fore-warnings of Evil designed and intended to this very End that those to whom they are made may timely shun and avoid it So Iohn O you Generation of Vipers who by menacing you with it hath fore-warn'd you to flee from the wrath to come Questionless he cannot but be Good in threatning evil who threatens it for that Reason that he may not be enforced to inflict it This was the sense of Clement of Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is manifest that who so threatens Evil has no mind to inflict it nor is he willing to do what he threatens But why Eternal Punishments will you say I answer That besides the Justice of it the menacing of Infernal Punishments the lusts of men are so Exorbitant and high is not sufficient to subdue and quench them there must Eternity be added to Extremity in the Torments to make the threatning of them an effectual means to reclaim men and when that is done too all is little enough there are millions in the world whom not that consideration as tremendous and as Direful as indeed it is is able to deterr and fright from their Vices If the threatning of Eternal Torments can effect no more how much I pray you would the threatnings of shorter ones effect Future things are distant and remote and what are so do seldome influence Great Punishments in another World would awe but little if they were not also Perpetual it is the Eternity that adds so much to the weight and the weight of the torments that makes them over balance when they are compared with the sin Purgatory is not half as scaring as Hell The Emphasis of the Punishment is as much upon the Duration as upon the kind of it Go you sayes Christ not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not barely into Everlasting Fire but into the Fire the Everlasting Fire the Emphasis is on the Everlastingness of it So Advantagious is the threatning of Eternal Torments and so useful to the World that the Soveraign Rector in taking that method has not only given Abundant Proof of his Wisdom and Prudence but also of as much Benignity and Kindness A Truth of which the Antient Heathen had a Glimpse and therefore they call'd the Furies who are the Executioners of Divine Revenge in the other World EUMENIDES not as most too frigidly and poorly have conceited by reason of their Imbenignity Inexorableness and Inclemency but for that by the Punishments which they are talkt of to inflict upon the Wicked they happily occasion very much Good Benefit and Advantage unto Mankind For so I understand Phornutus Revera saith he speaking of the Furies sunt Hae Deae venerandae Eumenides eò quod Naturea Benignitatem ad homines dirigunt vindicando scelera From what I have presented you on this Head it is not Difficult to Conclude what sense one ought to have of Mr. Hobb's Notion of Hell and of the Texts that concern it He tells us that the Texts that mention Eternal Fire Eternal Iudgement or the Worm that never dyeth contradict not the Doctrine of the Second and Everlasting Death in the Proper and Natural sense of the Word Death The Fire and Torment prepared for the Wicked in Geenna Tophet or what place so ever may contitinue for ever and there may never want men to be tormented in them though not every One nor any One Eternally For the Wicked being left in the State they are in after Adams sin may at the Resurrection live as they did Marry and give in Marriage and have Gross and Corruptible Bodies as all mankind now have and consequently may Ingender Perpetually after the Resurrection c. Now not to mention the Confusion and Perplexity in this Notion what will Mr. Hobbs make of that Description the Evangelist gives of Hell wherein the Torments of it are painted out so Dreadfully by Fire and Brimstone by a never Dying Worm c. It is but a solemn piece of Mockery a Bugbear a Mormo that can only fright those weaker Apprehensions that do not throughly understand and see it Hell to those that know it for all this Tragical Description of it in the Gospel is a Paradise of Pleasure such a Place as all the Wicked would elect and choose for their Heaven a Place of Eating and Drinking of Marrying and giving in Marriage and why not of Quaffing Carousing and making merry In a word no worse a Place than this Earth and the state of sinners in it no worse nor better so over-merciful a God we have than that of Men before the Deluge The wicked saith he being left in the state they were in after Adams sin may at the Resurrection live as they did As if the wicked in the Old World had in it suffered and undergone their Hell and that they had not been Reprieved for that time from the Wrath to come Here is a Hell for Sinners that would tempt them to be so Is this Wrath in the day of Wrath this the Utmost that God can do Is Tophet Prepar'd of Old and Geenna and the Lake of Fire and Brimstone and the Place prepar'd for the Devil and his Angels come to this Is this the Terrour of the Lord with which the Apostles perswaded men Who would care for Hell if this so soft and easie ae Place be Hell Ay but the Fire is Eternal And what if Fire and Brimstone prepared for the Wicked in Geenna be eternal and there never want men to be tormented in it but that there be an Eternal Succession of the Wicked to keep in and feed that Fire This will not Help the matter For though the Fire be Eternal yet seeing there is no one to lye Eternally therein The Punishment is not Eternal not doth the Perpetuity of the Fire bring an Aggravation to the Punishment and suffering of the sinner since if he feel it not Eternally it is to him all one as if it were but Temporal What doth it matter to a Criminal whose Execution is to be but short how long the Gibbet stand or how many others be hang'd on it after him So to Interpret Eternal Fire is to Trifle with it But this is a too Absurd and Gross Conceit for me to Exercise your Patience longer on it wherefore to Apply my self unto the last particular Not to mention what Abatement Goodness may be thought to make in Hell Torment since this is secret I shall only endeavour to demonstrate what suffices for my purpose that it is not want of Goodness no more than 't is Injustice to Inflict Eternal Punishments on those to whom they are threatned when the Good Designs and Ends for compassing of which they were so are altogether defeated And in

indeed Benignity and Goodness hath a Great though not the sole hand in moving or inclining the Divine Will that God is no Respecter of mens Persons that both Jew and Gentile are as One to him No humane Qualities of Wit and Ingenuity of Learning of Beauty of Civility or the like which rather are Effects than Motives of Divine Favour do at all affect or move him Further nor will I deny that Divine Goodness and Benignity as such obligeth not God to Discriminate or make a Difference between Man and Man but then as it obligeth not to make a Difference so it obligeth not to make none but it leaves him free to follow the motions of his other Glorious Attributes such as either Wisdom Soveraignty or some other of his admirable Excellencies do inspire and infuse him with But chiefly his Soveraignty for all his Practical and Active Attributes for such I call these which seem to have an Influence upon him in his Acting are all Will Soveraignty hath Place in All. And this brings me home For do you ask me how it cometh to pass there is a Difference made between man and man Nation and Nation in respect of the Light and Knowledge of God I answer God makes it who dealeth not alike to all and do you further ask me Why he dealeth not alike to all I answer further it is to shew he is not bound to do what he does to any and that if he sheweth mercy it is because he will shew mercy not from any obligation on him whatsoever much less any engagement from the Object but ex mero motu of his own alone Election and Choice It is for this Reason that he so delighteth in Election and Reprobation that he not only sheweth them in mankind among particular and individual Persons he chooseth Jacob and rejecteth Esau and among Nations he choosed the Iews and he refused the Gentiles of all the Nations of the earth I have chosen you and among the Gentiles he enlightens some sooner others later some more some less but also in the kind of Angels thus he elected those that stood and he rejected those that did not All is to shew how Soveraign and how Free he is in whatsoever he doeth Hence the Scriptures speak so much of Election and of Gods Purpose according to the Election and of the Good pleasure and of the will of God Thus God in all the Exercises of his Grace is Free not only from all Determination and Necessity of Nature but from all engagement by any foreign and extrinsecal Respects whatever in the Object and it is to manifest himself so that he so diversly dispenses it to some he manifesteth more to some less to those in one way and to others another All according to the Counsel and Advisement of his own Will and not according to the Humor or Deserts of ours So much for the first Proposition but Secondly Though God dispenseth not an equal light to all yet to whom he hath dispensed least he hath dispensed enough if not to save them which many of the Antient and most Learned Fathers thought yet he has to leave them Inexcusable and without Defence as our Apostle exprestes it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Certain it is as I proposed in the first Assertion That the Dispensations of Almighty God in point of Light and opportunities of Grace are not equal every where for if they were there would be as little Beauty Ornament and Lustre as Variety in them since 't is in the Moral World as in the Natural wherein Day and Night and Diverse Graduations of the Light and Darkness in them are necessary to compose it and to set it off with some Advantage and Beauty But though there be a Diverse and inequal Dispensation of the Light some have more and some have less yet so Extensive is Divine Goodness and so large that all have some and that some as little as it may be Enough to silence Obloquy and Contradiction A Truth that cannot be Refused in consideration of the Antient Gentiles with more reason than it can be doubted in respect of the Antient Jews who had the Oracles of God For the Antient Gentiles for so I call those before Christ in contradistinction to the Jews though they had not Moses and the Law and Prophets to instruct them in the method of salvation yet they had Tradition and they had Philosophers and Philosophy The Persians had their Magi the Babylonians and Assyrians their Chaldeans the Indians their Gymnosophists and Brachmans the Celts and Gauls their Druides and Semnothei the Greeks their Philosophers in a word All of them they had Divines and Prophets who were Preachers to them of the fear of God and of Righteousness And you know I have already evinced in the Premise That to fear God and work Righteousness suffices to render one accepted with him and this Philosophy taught Now by Philosophy I understand not any one kind or Species of it as either the Barbarian or the Grecian the Stoic the Epicurean the Platonic or the Peripatetic but as Clemens Alexandrinus also doth All that Truth or Verity divided and dispersed among them and of this I say It was a Ray or Beam of Jesus Christ the Original Light the Light that enlightneth every one that comes into the World afforded to the Gentiles to conduct and guide them to God and so sayes the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So both the Barbarian and the Greek Philosophy containeth in it a certain Portion of the Eternal Truth which it Borrowed not or derived from the Mythology of Bacchus but from the Theology of the Eternal Word himself Thus Clemens of Alexandria and indeed it is the main Design of his Stromata Books he called so because in them he collected these Dispersed Truths to manifest the Consonancy and Agreement of the Old Philosophers with the Verities of the Christian Religion I know the Great Apostle affixeth on Philosophy an Epithete that seemeth not agreeable to this Assertion he calls it Vain Philosophy and cautions those he writes to with very much concern more than once against it but who ever well considers that he represents the Jewish Ceremonies which in their Institution were Divine and useful methods for happiness as beggarly and carnal Rudiments as Elements of the World and under other hard names he will not find himself surprized at his doing the former or necessitated to confine the Philosophy of which he speaks as Clemens Alexandrinus does to the Epicurean that denyed Providence and all Respects and care of God for the World For I make no question but whosoever seriously Reminds the Circumstance of Time wherein the Apostle wrote that it was after the Effusion of the Blessed Spirit and the bringing of the Life and Immortality to light in Jesus Christ will easily agree that his Principal if not his sole Design in so severely reflecting on the Ceremonies of the

But they can't deny that some Particular Men lived in the world in other Nations that were belonging to the Heavenly Hierarchie And Vives in his Notes is of the same Perswasion But do you ask by what means Gentiles who were Aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and without the Line of that Communion became acquainted with those great Truths of which the Iews only had the solemn keeping I answer that as I have often intimated It was either I. By a Catholick or General Tradition from the first and most Antient Fathers Or 2. By some Extraordinary Revelation or Discovery made to them Or 3. By Communication from the Hebrews the Israelites and Jews who as a Church were a Candlestick to hold the Light committed to them out to all the Earth That most of those Doctrines I have noted were communicated down from hand to hand by Immemorial Tradition from the first and most Antient Fathers is not difficult to be conceived by those that know that as all men came from Adam in the first World so that in the second all did Descend from Noah who had the knowledge of the true Religion and instructed all his children in it which children cannot be imagined but also to instruct and teach theirs and so onward But this is not all for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mos majorum was a thing insisted on by all the Heathen who ever pleaded for the Rites of their Religious that they had received them from their forefathers and that they were of Antient Usage yes and that Plato whom Aristobulus the Iew affirmeth to have been a follower of the Law of his Nation and to be very studious of the Doctrines in the Sacred Oracles and whom Numenius for the same Reason styles the Attick Moses he sayes expresly That he Gleaned all he had and wrote in that kind out of Immemorial and Unwritten but almost expired and worn out Traditions For in his Politic in the Place which I have cited in my Advertisement to the Reader he plainly tells us That the points he speaks of were transmitted from our first Predecessors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That those that lived in the former Ages Preached it is his own Expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They were Preachers of the very things that now are causelesly rejected of many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The like in his Philebus which I also noted before wherein he sayes that the Antients better men than we and dwelling nearer to the Gods delivered to us the Report or Fame of these things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yes and in his Republique he maketh Adimantus in Address to Socrates to speak the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 deducing your Discourses from the An●ient Heroes who were from the Beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Remains of whose Discourses are arrived even down to us 'T is very probable that these whom Plato calls the first Ancestors the Antients better men than we nearer to the Gods Heroes that were from the Beginning I mean the first Patriarchs for so I understand him Noah for instance and his children are the same designed by the fam'd Apollo when in answer to a grave and serious Inquiry made by Zeno Citticus how he might institute and frame and order his Life Best He sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he would institute and frame and order it best if he made it to conform to the Dead Apollo's Dead and Plato's Heroes are the same Thus by Oral Tradition or Report by which I mean a delivery down of Doctrines from hand to hand by Words or else by visible and significant Actions many things were transferred from preceding to succeeding ages But Report or Oral Tradition and Delivery is in it self a means of conveyance so Uncertain and fallible that when it passes many hands there can but little be consided to it in controverted matters for then it proveth most commonly so diversified and various that it is the cause of Controversies not the cure the persons that convey it are so lyable either to mistake and Imposture or to design Interest Nothing is more Obvious or more frequently experienced than this For the Report of an Accident but at One End of the Town albeit it may Retain as for the most part it doth some general likeness and similitude of the First and Original Truth yet 't is disguised with a thousand Errors though perhaps in some places with more in some with less according to the different Capacities Numbers Tempers Affections and Designs of those that have the conveying of it Report the further it goes the more it loses of Truth and the more it gains of Error In this Instance we have a lively Pourtraict of the False Religion of the Gentiles and the plain Reason why it seemeth in so many things an Apish Imitation of the True why it is so diversified in it self and yet withall Retaineth such Resemblance and Conformity with Ours It is because that all men came from one and that all men came from one and that not only Adam but Noah did instruct his children in the Mysteries of the True Religion and in the Rites of it and these again Reported to theirs and so onward But we may easily believe it to have hapned in this Tradition as it doth in all others that there was almost in every New delivery and Transmission for the mentioned causes some departure and Recess from the Former and thence arose so great Diversity in several parts of the World yet what also is in all Reports notwithstanding so much Variation in Particulars as there was among them all Retained some Agreement in the General and that Greater or Lesser as those that made them were either nearer to the first Reporters or more Remote or else were more or less Intelligent Faithful careful and sincere in Transferring them Cunning and Designing men foisted in something of their own and made the Catholick Traditions to father their conceits But others were more Honest Hence the Variety and hence the Agreement in the Religions of the World Now those General Articles Heads or Points of Religion wherein all men all the World over commonly agree and which are therefore called common sentiments though they be not what by some they be imagined Innate Idea's or Notions ingrafted and imprinted on the Minds of Men by Nature but as I have evinced them main and substantial Points of the first Tradition and consequently Retained in all the following with more or less Disguise yet be they as Infallibly and Indubitably true as if they were since 't is as impossible that they should obtain so Universally all the World over if indeed they were not the Traditions of a first and common Parent as that they should be false if they were For grant one first Parent common to all the World who could not but know the Truth and that he so delivered things to his Children and