Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	apostle_n	church_n	doctrine_n	4,033	5	6.2595	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52612	An historical account, and defence [sic], of the canon of the New Testament In answer to Amyntor.	Nye, Stephen, 1648?-1719.	1700 (1700)	Wing N1507A; ESTC R216541	48,595	124

easy to guess the Reason He was a Heathen and they were Christians But we see however by all this that the mere force or edacity of time bears away or devours the most excellent Instances of Human Industry and Wit that we ought not to marvel if we have not still all or even had not the principal Labors of the Apostles and Apostolical men If Amyntor's Catalogue of Books some of them once reve●enced by the Church and now lost were much larger than it is it would by no means prove they were all Trivial Spurious or Erroneous Books 't would be no imputation on Christianity as abounding only with Fables and Impostures There being we have seen no part of Learning tho never so useful and necessary or so curious and diverting but has suffered extremely by the loss of some excellent Books and Authors nay of most such Authors and Books I believe also The unquestionable Orthodoxy the yielded certainty or genuinness and apparent sufficiency of the present Scripture-Canon were great Occations that the Books in the Catalogue fell gradually into dis-use and were afterwards lost As to the sufficiency of the Books of the Canon I mean of all them taken together it is self-evident For they contain a repeated Abrogation of the Mosaic Law so far as 't is Ritual and Judicial a compleat System of Morals the History of the Parentage Conception Birth Miracles Doctrine Death Resurrection and Ascension of our Saviour the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles their Divine Inspiration and Miraculous Powers their Epistles to private Persons to Churches and Nations in which they often professedly repeat the Substance of the Christian Religion as well in what respects Faith as Manners In short a man cannot read these Books without most plainly perceiving that they are such an Account of the Religion they teach as needs no Supplement Their Genuinness and Orthodoxy or that they are the very Books of the Authors whose names they bear and are true Representations of the Doctrines of Christianity as delivered to the Churches by the first Miraculous Preachers this is inferred with absolute certainty from their reception by all those Churches as such and that these rather than the Books of the Catalogue tho divers of them also were highly valued have been preserved If it be urged that supposing as this Answer does the Books in the Catalogue most of them or some of them were Orthodox and Genuine and owned to be such by the Churches 't is much they should be lost and only the Books of the present Canon preserved Which have been preserved it seems for no other Reasons but what are common also to the Books of the Catalogue namely because they are undoubtedly Orthodox and certainly Genuine I answer that the Books of the Catalogue that are lost or rejected were not so certainly Cenuin to all the Churches as those that are preserved and made parts of the Canon And as to the Orthodoxy tho that as to many of them was not questioned yet the Books not being so certain as to their Genuinness in all parts of the Christian World and therefore not allowed as unexceptionable Evidences in the numerous Controversies that arose in the Catholic Church and the un-suspected Books being abundantly sufficient to serve the ends of Religion in respect both of Controversy and Institution in manners the former hereupon almost unavoidably began to be neglected and in time were lost and only the latter were kept We have now the advantages of Printing and of a ready Communication by the increase of Trade and Improvement of Navigation between Nation and Nation the Antients wanted these helps therefore with them a Book concerning the Christian Religion if it were not published in Judea or at Rome or in some part of Greece or some considerable City of Asia it might not come to be known of a long time not vulgarly and generally known in the Churches till the Evidences that it was Genuine were all wholly lost or become of but little Authority The Books of our present Canon were immediately communicated by the Churches or Persons to whom they were written unto all the Famous Churches Like Industry was not used on behalf of the Books of the Catalogue therefore these last were read only or chiefly in the places of their Publication and in the Churches to which they were addressed and thus being long unknown to the Churches and Illustrious Writers of other places tho many of them were approved as to their Doctrine and Usefulness on which accounts they are often quoted by those two the most Learned of the Antenicen Fathers Clemens of Alexandria and Origen yet they did not obtain to be adopted into the Scripture-Canon as not so certainly the Works of Apostles and Apostolical men as those that were received for such every where and from the beginning Farther it may be divers Books of the Catalogue titled with the name of an Apostle or Synergist of the Apostles were rejected and in process of time lost for that very reason It was supposed that the Book having to it a name of one of the Apostle or some Apostolical Person therefore the Author claims to be that Person or that Apostle it might appear however by some things in the Book it self or by some Circumstances commonly known that the Author was not the Apostle or other Person vulgarly thought to be designed in the Title and hereupon the Book was consider'd as a Forgery and Imposture and as wrote probably with some dishonest Intention and Aim But as now so then and then much more than now abundance of People had the same names with the Apostles and other first Preachers it may be most Christians took those Names either at their Conversion or Baptism A Book therefore suppose a Gospel Epistles Acts might really be the Work of the Author in the Title-page or elswhere in the Book and yet in short time be rejected neglected and finally lost as an Imposture and Forgery on that false supposition that the Author affected to seem the Person that he was not and that in truth he never pretended to be This very thing hath certainly hapned in divers Works of the Fathers as well those of the fourth and fifth Ages and later as those of the second and third and it might happen I say in divers Writings of the Catalogue that we are considering I take these to be some of the Causes that so many Books of the Catalogue are lost Time the Sufficiency of the Books preserved and that some of them came not to general knowledg till the Evidences that they were Genuine were not so certain These are such Reasons and Occasions of it that we cannot much wonder at the misfortune of this invaluable Damage And after this 't is but little to the credit of their Judgment and less of their Morals that some affect to guess at the Causes of this Mishap in a sort that reflects on the Christian Religion as

such a different Genealogy of our Saviour from that by St. Matthew without the reason of so wide a dissent nor would there be found in the other Evangelists so many apparent contradictions as have harassed the Wits of Learned Men almost since the first constitution of the Canon St. Luke plainly intimates that the Evangelists and Gospels he had seen were not furnisht with the relations they make by Eye-witnesses as himself was We have at this day says Mr. Dodwel some writings of Ignatius Polycarp Hermas Barnabas Clemens Romanus these were later than the other Writers of the New Testament except Jude and John and yet Hermas cites nothing out of the New Testament nor in all the rest are any of the Evangelists named If they cite any passages like to those we read in our present Gospels they are withal so unlike that it cannot be known whether they are alledged out of ours or some Apocryphal Gospels they cite also Passages which are not in the present Gospels Nay we cannot say from those Canonical Books that were last written that the Church knew any thing of the Gospels or that the Clergy made a common use of them We can't tell whence St. Paul had that moral Aphorism of our Saviour which he quotes Acts 20.35 In those early times the true Writings of the Apostles used to be bound up together with those now called Apocryphal and Spurious that it was not manifest by any mark or public Censure of the Church Which of them should be preferred to the other Upon this judgment made by Mr. Dodwel Amyntor says he agrees with Mr. Dodwel as to matter of Fact And he shuts up all with adding that whosoever has an inclination to write on this Subject is now furnisht with a great many curious Disquisitions whereon to show his Penetration and Judgment As how the immediate Successors and Disciples of the Apostles could so grosly confound the genuine Writings of their Masters with such as are falsly attributed to them And if they were in the dark about these matters in those early times How came the following Ages by a better Light Why all those Books which are cited by Clemens Alexandrinus and the rest should not be accounted equally authentic And lastly What stress can we lay on the Writings of those Fathers who not only contradict one another but are also inconsistent with themselves in their relations of the very same Facts The whole amounts to thus much The Books we now own as Canonical were never seen till about 130 years after Christ and when they appeared 't was not possible to distinguish them but by some Revelation from Apocryphal Gospels and Epistles which bore the names as these do of the Apostles and their Synergists From the earliest times contrary Copies of them were shown and not one of them but was rejected by considerable and potent Parties of Christians the very Parties that received them have changed 'em three or four or more times that they might be at liberty to affirm or deny as present Exigence should require The Figments of Hermas the Trash of Barnabas and others such like have an equal right to a place in the Canon of Scripture with the Gospels of Mark and Luke The Authority and Credit of both and of all the other Canonical and Extra-canonical Writings depending on the Quotations made from them by St. Ireneus Clemens Alexandrinus Origen and one or two more of the Antients and on their having been Contemporaries and Coadjutors to the Apostles And so in few words Friends bonas noctes to the Christian Religion Our Author however that we may not forget to do him that right is a compleat Gentleman tho he has us and our Canon at these Advantages he saith He will determine nothing but suspend his Judgment P. 58. On the CATALOGUE in general THE Catalogue by Amyntor is considerable on divers accounts As it is pretty Perfect He has omitted but few of those Antient Pieces and not so often mistaken as some others the several and like Titles of the same Book for several and distinct Books And as it naturally gives one a great Idea of the Christian Religion By informing us of so many Persons that wrote Gospels Acts Revelations Liturgies Itineraries Martyrdoms either on their own knowledg or on credible report made to them and which have not been lost on any other accounts but such as are common to things Valuable and Great in their kind Such as the Deluge of an immense time almost 1700 years the absolute Certainty and apparent Sufficiency of the Gospels Acts Epistles c. which on those accounts the Church has preserved and contents her self with them And lastly As nothing can be objected to it or inferred from it but what in such a case a man of any Experience or Prudence would certainly expect Namely that in so important and various a Subject there would be some more Writers and Writings than the extreme Caution of the Catholic Church would intirely approve and even that some Triflers and Impostors would intermix and intrude themselves among the approved and well-meaning It will be requisite to enlarge a little on these general Reflections That the Catalogue is indifferent perfect I grant However some Books and other Writings are omitted and others never really extant or pretended to be extant are added For instance under the first Head or of Books ascribed to our Saviour or that particularly concern him these are overlookt A Book by St. Matthew distinct from that by Thomas concerning the Infancy of our Saviour being the History of his younger Years 'T is very antient for it hath some Passages that are also mentioned by St. Ireneus and which he saith were in the Books shown by the Valentinians A Letter of our Saviour that fell down from Heaven it being indeed an Epistle forged by a certain notable Enthusiast a French Bishop who for this and some other such-like Facts was deprived and put to penance by a Council assembled at Rome An. 745. The Letter however was kept in the Library of the Roman Church by order of Pope Zechary A Liturgy of our Saviour received as his by the Ethiopians it was brought out of the Orient by Father J. Vanslebius who promises also to publish it at Paris together with other rare Ethiopic Pieces But Ludolphus in his Ethiopic History and Commentary gives the true account of this Liturgy As to Books added under the same Head Amyntor mistakes when as from Eusebius he attributes to our Saviour a Book of Parables and Sermons For on the contrary these Proverbs and Doctrines as Eusebius calls them were all of them only Traditional they were Doctrines and Proverbs that Papias Bishop of Hierapolis had heard from some Persons that they were spoke and taught by Jesus Christ but they never were committed to writing as a particular Book by any body The Millennium or thousand-years Reign was one of these Traditional Doctrines I observe also that Amyntor