Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
heaven_n	day_n	earth_n	great_a	11,067	5	3.2684	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64059	A disquisition touching the sibylls and the sibylline writings in which their number, antiquity, and by what spirit they were inspired, are succinctly discussed, the objections made by Opsopæus, Isaac Casaubon, David Blondel, and others, are examined, as also the authority of those writings asserted : which may serve as an appendix to the foregoing learned discourse touching the truth and certainty of Christian religion.	Twysden, John, 1607-1688.; Yelverton, Henry, Sir, 1566-1629. Short discourse of the truth & reasonableness of the religion delivered by Jesus Christ.	1662 (1662)	Wing T3546_PART; ESTC R31870_PART	53,956	102

Midas might as well receive his name from the River as that from him except you like better to believe this verse foisted in by some late Writer who remembring that Celaene was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the tradition of the Arks resting there thought by this means to explain the Oracle but indeed corrupted it A misfortune like to it I have before shewed you happened to the text of Justin Martyr For if that verse be left out the sense of the Oracle is no more then that in the Continent of black Phrygia there is a long and arduous Mountain called Ararat upon whose high top the Ark rested But D. Blond cap. 3. p. 9 Blundel will not thus give us over but tells us that this very person discovers her self to be a Christian and that she compiled this her Rapsodie between the years after Christ 138 and 151. that is between the time of the death of Adrian and that part of the Reign of Antoninus when Justin Martyr presented his Apology The words referred to are these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Lib. 8. p. 403. We therefore that are sprung from the holy and heavenly generation of Christ c. By which words saith he she evidently manifests her self to have lived after Christ Though I might accommodate many answers to this place and tell you that all persons whatsoever that have been saved were regenerated by Christ whether exhibited or to be exhibited and that future things are often declared as past Yet since it is not my task to justifie all things in those eight Books to be as ancient as the flood but only to shew 't is possible some things therein might I shall not contend with him about it so as on his part it might be as equally conceded that there were more Sibylls then one which I find him very hard to be induced to as you may see in his seventeenth Chapter at the end Blond cap. 17. p. 78. where he saith all the eight Books which we have were written by one and the same hand I confess very pertinently to his purpose had he proved it but contrary to the sence of all the world before him except by writing he understand composing and setting in order the works of many persons which probably might be the labour of one and the same person according to the custome of the Eastern Countries at this day as I am informed by a Learned Divine that hath travelled in those parts where their manner is to gather together the wise sayings of their Progenitors who ever they were without any order or consideration of time or other circumstance and so transmit them to posterity indeed as a Rapsody or disjointed things that have no necessary connexion or dependance one upon another and yet all or much of them very true That these Writings of the Sibylls may have had their share in this fate as to some particulars therein I think probable enough but that will not serve to impugne the authority of them all Object 8 Another Objection urged by D. Blundel against these Books is taken from their direct contradiction of the Holy Scripture Genes 7.11 Genes 8.14 for whereas Moses tells you that Noah continued in the Ark from the 17th day of the second moneth to the 27th day of the second moneth following 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sibyl Orac. lib. 1. p. 183. the Authour of this work plainly saith that Noah went out of the Ark the eighth person after he had fulfilled forty and one days in the waters according to the will of God If this learned man had as much endeavoured to have gathered Arguments for the asserting the truth of the Sibylline Predictictions Answ as he was curious and diligent to heap up all imaginable matter that could be found out any way to impugne their authority he might from this place have found out as well reason to believe them true as by it conclude their falshood for he could not but see that the History of the flood is told almost directly like to that related by Moses in Genesis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Sibyl Orac. lib. 1. pag. 179. The opening the flood-gates and cataracts of Heaven of his opening the roof of the Ark of his great fear of the endless extent of the waters of the earths being covered and drowned by them many days and of the terrible face of the Heavens during that time She then tells you the story of the first sending out of the Dove her return then the sending her out the second time her return with an Olive branch in her mouth After this the sending forth the Raven who returned not And before the first sending forth the Dove tells you of some remission in the air after the earth had been watered with the rain many days And after this and the first return of the Dove his remaining in the Ark more days And much more to that purpose all which could not probably be performed in the space of 40 or 41 days in which time 't is scarce imaginable either how or from whence so great a bulk of water could come as was sufficient to cover the whole globe of the earth so high as to be enough above the highest mountain upon the face of it that all the Inhabitants might be drowned had not the immediate hand and power of God intervened to effect it Insomuch that no Impostor whatsoever except he had been more foolish then false would have transcribed a story out of Moses with circumstances comprehending some length of time in their performance and at last contradict his own relation in a matter which lay directly before his eyes and impossible not to be detected We may therefore with more reason believe this relation not to have been taken out of Moses but rather to have proceeded out of the mouth of her that was in the Ark with Noah which being no way prophetical but historical may admit of a greater latitude and lead us to conclude the Writer whoever she was pitched upon some considerable or notable period of 41 days in which they were in the greatest danger Let us therefore see if we can any way discover when this was Moses saith Genes 7. Gen. 7. v. 11. That on the seventeenth day of the second moneth when Noah and all his Family with the creatures were in the Ark and that the Lord had shut up the door upon them that the fountains of the deep were broken up and the cataracts

to Idolatry but against the false Gods and their worship mentions there the Acrosticks conteining these words JESUS CHRIST SONNE OF GOD THE SAVIOUR Which the Translator of that Book having turned into our tongue I have thought fit to transcribe for the English Readers sake who perhaps will not have the Book by him In sign of doomes-day the whole earth shall sweat Ever to reign a King in heavenly seat Shall come to judge all flesh the faithful and Unfaithful too before this God shall stand Seeing him high with Saints in times last end Corporeal shall he sit and thence extend His doom on souls The earth shall quitely waste Ruin'd oregrown with thorns and men shall cast Idols away and treasure searching fire Shall burn the ground and thence it shall inquire Through Seas and Sky and break hells blackest gate So shall free light salute the blessed state Of Saints the guilty lasting flames shall burn No act so hid but thence to light shall turn Nor breast so close but God shall open wide Each where shall cries be heard and noise beside Of gnashing teeth The Sun shall from the sky Fly forth and stars no more move orderly Great Heaven shall be dissolv'd the Moon depriv'd Of all her light Places at height ativ'd Deprest and Valleys raised to their seat There shall be nought to mortalls high or great Hills shall be levied with the plains the Sea Endure no burthen and the earth as they Shall perish cleft with lightning every Spring And River burn The fatal trump shall ring Unto the world from heaven a dismal blast Including plagues to come for ill deeds past Old Chaos through the cleft Mass shall be seen Unto this Bar shall all earths Kings convene Rivers of fire and brimstone flowing from heav'n These Verses and many others in the Sibylline Books carry in them a great shew of plainness and sincerity so that I could willingly subscribe to the opinion of St Augustine That some of them were Citizens of the City of God were I able to fix upon any person in particular or to satisfie my self that any one of the Books as they are now extant were not a mixture of the Prophesies of different persons She upon whom St Augustine pitches to wit the Sibylla Erythrea if there were truly any one of that Country which to my understanding the words do not necessarily import after she had told you she left Babylon in Assyria she hath these words which I should chuse thus to render Men call me according to the Graecian manner of another Country to wit of Erythrea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. S●b Or. l. 3. p. 283. impudent others the daughter of Circe and Gnostus The interpunction of the words favour this construction for if they were thus to be understood Men call me born indeed at Erythre an impudent person according to the Graecian manner of another Country Lact. l. 1. de falsa Relig. pa. 37. Nisi Erythreae quae nomen suum verum carmini inseruit Erythream se nominatam iri praelocuta est cum esset orta Babyloniae There ought to have been a distinction at the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ought to be read in a parenthesis that the reference might truly be made beside the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the second verse will be impertinent and no Country at all from whence she came is named This I have inserted here because I had in the preceding Discourse so rendred the words without giving any reason and I find some conclude out of this place that one of the Sibylls acknowledges her self born at Erythrea Moreover that Sibylla Erythrea or Cumea upon whom St Augustine pitches was certainly that person whose books were kept in and burnt with the Capitol and from which the Romans fetch'd out all their superstitious follies besides she seems by Virgil to be possessed in the delivery of her Prophesies with that kind of madness and fury usually observed in the delivery of Oracles by Apollo for which reasons of all others of them I should think Sibylla Cumea if the same with Erythrea the most unlikely to be of the City of God which is more likely to be true of her that came out of Babylon and foretold she should be counted of Enythrea Under so great an uncertainty therefore and variety of opinions I think it safest to suspend my own judgment and agree in this conclusian That whether all or any of them were immediately guided by God or what other spirit they spake by yet were they by his power so over-ruled that where in his wisedom he thought fit they could not lye so that the truth they delivered was indeed his though the spirit by which they spake came not from him However this is clear such persons there were such predictions they left which in their due time were accomplished which was all I designed to prove in this discourse Thus Sir have I gone through my intended disquisition of the Sibylls and in it have I hope made it appear That the Arguments produced against them are not of that value to take from them the authority they have been allowed by the testimonies of Justin Martyr Clemens Alexandrinus Theophilus Antiochensis Tempor Chron. An. mun 610. Lactantius who as Temporarius saith was a Priest of the Capitol before his conversion and so permitted to read these Books and many others of the Ancients with innumerable latter Writers amongst whom I cannot forget two very learned Prelates of our own Church Richard Montacute sometimes Lord Bishop of Norwich who hath a particular Excercitation in the defence of them and Lancelot Andrews late Lord Bishop of Winchester who hath these words speaking of the truth of Christianity For the credit of the History it self we know that the Sibylls Oracles were in so great credit amongst the Heathen that they were generally believed Now if they be true w th we have of them as there 's no question but many of them are divers of which we refer to Christ being mentioned in their own writers Virgil Cicero and others it will follow that nothing can make more in their esteem for the credit and truth of the Nativity Life and Death of Christ than their Oracles for we may see almost every circumstance in them Andrews Pat of Catechist Doct. Introduct c. 12. Sect. 3. And by reading these Verses divers of their Learned men were converted to Christianity as Marcellinus Secundanus and others If after all this there remain yet some that had rather believe D. Blundel and some others but of yesterday I shall only add That the thing in controversie is not of faith and that for the truth and certainty of our Christian Religion we have in the undeniable Word of God a more stable and un-erring Testimony FINIS

of Heaven opened and that it rained upon the earth by the space of forty days and forty nights This certainly was the period aimed at by the Sibyll who might well call it 41 days reckoning the day they all or some of them entered into the Ark before the rain fell for one and Moses only reckoning the time whilst the rain was falling during which time they might well be said to be shut up by the Lord as well for their defence against the impetuosity of the weather and waves which shook the ribs of their wooden habitation as the violence might have been offered to it both by men and beasts before the waters had force enough to raise it out of their reach or depth enough to drown them All which time if we believe the Eastern Traditions Noah and his Sons kept a solemn Fast taking meat but once a day as I find it in Gregories Opuscula p. Catena veterum praecipuè Orientalium in Pentateuchum Arabicè M.S. in orchivis Bibliot Bodl. 28. out of the Catena Arabica And Noah was the first who made the 40 days holy or instituted the Quadragesimal Fast in the Ark. The words thus explained are fully consonant with what is recorded in Scripture the many days mentioned by the Sibyll comprehending all that time definitively set down by Moses till their going out the 41 containing only those in which they fasted and were in continual horror and fear of death which they might truly say to have fulfilled in the water being environed with it both above their head and beneath the soles of their feet So that this Argument is so far from standing D. Blundel in any stead that it much serves to confirm not weaken their authority In the ninth place he urges Object 9 that they countenance the fable of the Titans as if it were true the opinion of the Chiliasts as to the re-building of Jerusalem That much concerning the Titans or Giants as their story is related by Poets Answ may be sabulous I shall easily grant but that what is urged by the Sibylls concerning them is also so D. Blundel hath not proved They are mentioned in several places in the Sibylline Writings First in the first Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 1. p. 184. Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 2. p. 204. Again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 3. p. 232. From all which places there is no more imported then that God would at last execut judgment upon those Titans or Giants whom the flood had devoured who were a wicked generation Prov. 21.16 The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the Congregation of the dead as we render it in the Congregation of the Rephaim in the Original See Mead in Diatrib upon Prov. 21.16 which word by the Septuagint is always rendred Giants Titans or the like So that I see nothing to be excepted against in their Writings or to accuse them as fabulous for calling the Inhabitants of the old world Titans That which he calls the Haeresie of the Chiliasts he could not be ignorant had received learned Supporters both in ancient and modern times Whether what ever hath been hitherto urged in their defence be confuted remains yet sub judice certainly those which believe the Jews shall yet once more be graffed into their own Olive-tree will not think it unreasonable that Jerusalem may be again as famous in the profession of Christianity as it hath formerly been of Judaisme D. Object 10 Blundel farther objects That those Books make Adrian the Roman Emperour that succeeded Trajan by whom he was adopted as some say to have strangled himself which was in no sort true Adrian was not indeed strangled Answ as the words in the Sibylline Oracles import which are as follow 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sibyl Orac. lib. 8. p. 367. The sence of them is that when fifteen Kings had subjected the world to themselves from the East to the West one should arise wearing a white helmet having a name almost of the Sea overlooking the world with his polluted feet that gathered and spent much money skilful or making use of all the Mysteries of Magick c. After the interposition of two or three verses she saith then shall be a lamentable time because he perished by a halter This person though no body is particularly named is commonly taken to be Adrian both because he is the fifteenth from Julius Caesar his name seems to resemble the Adriatick Sea and that he made use of Magick spells for the curing his disease of which Xiphilinus tells you he was once by the help of Magick recovered Xiphil Epit. Dion p. 360. lin 29. but after fell again into the same whereof he miserably dyed after he had in vain implored death from the hands of his servants but could find none to afford it him The difficulty of this place is easily reconciled by admitting an easie mistake in the Transcriber by putting an n in the place of a b for if we read the Verse thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is then true according to the story that a dropsie should destroy him for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a drop of water or a tear and in poesie may especially in aenignatical or prophetical speeches denote a dropsie Some other Objections D. Blundel hath gathered together touching some Geographical mistakes some doubts concerning Gog and Magog concerning Antichrist and such like to which satisfaction might be eafily given but I rather forbear being perswaded that no man that is in some measure satisfied with the answers given already to the most material Objections of which I have pretermitted none but will easily satisfie himself as to the rest in that Chapter But having gone thus far and seen the strength of D. Blundel as an opposer we shall in the next Chapter consider him as an answerer and see if in that he succeeds any better CHAP. VI. The Opposition made by D. Blundel to the Authorities and Quotations of the Ancient Writers in favour of the Sibylline books and his answers to them weighed THis Learned Divine and great Reader of Authors both Christian and Heathen having left no stone unmoved which could any way serve his turn to the overthrow of these Writings yet at last could not but see the Authorities of so many Writers of great Antiquity and for many hundred years together which had decurrently made use of the Testimonies of the Sibylls for the confutation of their Adversaries would still remain like so many thorns in his feet he thought it very necessary to say something in