Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	new_a	old_a	testament_n	3,965	5	8.0680	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75017	The lively oracles given to us. Or the Christians birth-right and duty, in the custody and use of the Holy Scripture. By the author of the Whole duty of man, &c.	Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.; Pakington, Dorothy Coventry, Lady, d. 1679, attributed name.; Sterne, Richard, 1596?-1683, attributed name.; Fell, John, 1625-1686, attributed name.; Henchman, Humphrey, 1592-1675, attributed name.; Burghers, M., engraver.	1678 (1678)	Wing A1151B; ESTC R3556	108,574	250

not according to it there is no light in them Esay 8.20 So that the veneration which they had before acquir'd was still anew excited by fresh inspirations which both attested the old and became new parts of their Canon 27. NOR could it be esteem'd a small confirmation to the Scriptures to find in succeeding Ages the signal accomplishments of those prophecies which were long before registred in those Books for nothing less then divine power and wisdom could foretell and also verify them Upon these grounds the Jews universally through all successions receiv'd the Books of the Old Testament as divine Oracles and lookt upon them as the greatest trust that could be committed to them and accordingly were so scrupulously vigilant in conserving them that their Masorits numbred not only the sections but the very words nay letters that no fraud or inadvertency might corrupt or defalk the least iota of what they esteem'd so sacred A farther testimony and sepiment to which were the Samaritan Chaldee and Greek versions which being made use of in the Synagogs of Jews in their dispersions and the Samaritans at Sichem could not at those distances receive a uniform alteration and any other would be of no effect Add to this that the Original exemplar of the Law was laid up in the Sanctuary that the Prince was to have a Copy of it alwaies by him and transcribe it with his own hand that every Jew was to make it his constant discourse and meditation teach it his children and wear part of it upon his hands and forehead And now sure 't is impossible to imagin any matter of fact to be more carefully deduced or irrefragably testified nor any thing believ'd upon stronger evidence 28. THAT all this is true in reference to the Jews that they did thus own these Writings as divine appears not only by the Records of past Ages but by the Jews of the present who still own them and cannot be suspected of combination with the Christians And if these were reasonable grounds of conviction to the Jews as he must be most absurdly sceptical that shall deny they must be so to us Christians also who derive them from them and that with this farther advantage to our Faith that we see the clear completion of those Evangelical prophecies which remain'd dark to them and consequently have a farther Argument to confirm us that the Scriptures of the Old Testament are certainly divine 29. THE New has also the like means of probation which as it is a collection of the doctrin taught by Christ and his Apostles must if truly related be acknowleged no less divine then what they orally deliver'd So that they who doubt its being divine must either deny what Christ and his Apostles preacht to be so or else distrust the fidelity of the relation The former strikes at the whole Christian Faith which if only of men must not only be fallible but is actually a deceit whilst it pretends to be of God and is not To such Objectors we have to oppose those stupendous miracles with which the Gospel was attested such as demonstrated a more then human efficacy And that God should lend his omnipotence to abet the false pretensions of men is a conceit too unworthy even for the worst of men to entertain 30. 'T IS true there have bin by God permitted lying miracles as well as true ones have bin don by him Such as were those of the Magicians in Egypt in opposition to the other of Moses but then the difference between both was so conspicuous that he must be more partial and disingenuous then even those Magicians were who would not acknowledg the disparity and confess in those which were truly supernatural the finger of God Exod. 8.19 Therefore both in the Old and New Testament it is predicted that false Prophets should arise and do signs and wonders Deut. 13.1 Mat. 24.11.24 as a trial of their fidelity who made profession of Religion whether they would prefer the few and trivial sleights which recommended a deceiver before those great and numberless miracles which attested the sacred Oracles deliver'd to the sons of men by the God of truth Whether the trick of a Barchochebas to hold fire in his mouth that of Marcus the heretic to make the Wine of the Holy Sacrament appear bloud or that of Mahomet to bring a Pidgeon to his ear ought to be put in balance against all the miracles wrought by Moses our Savior or his Apostles And in a word whether the silly stories which Iamblichus solemnly relates of Pythagoras or those Philostratus tells of Apollonius Tyaneus deserve to rival those of the Evangelists It is a most just judgment and accordingly threatned by Almighty God that they who would not obey the truth should believe a lie 2 Thes 2.11 But still the Almighty where any man or devil do's proudly is evidently above him Exod. 18.11 will be justified in his sayings and be clear when he is judged Rom. 3.4 31. BUT if men will be Sceptics and doubt every thing they are to know that the matter call'd into question is of a nature that admits but two waies of solution probability and testimony First for probability let it be consider'd who were the first promulgers of Christs miracles In his life time they were either the patients on whom his miracles were wrought or the common people that were spectators the former as they could not be deceiv'd themselves but must needs know whether they were cur'd or no so what imaginable design could they have to deceive others Many indeed have pretended impotency as a motive of compassion but what could they gain by owning a cure they had not As for the Spectators as their multitude adds to their credibility it being morally impossible that so many should at once be deluded in a matter obvious to their senses so do's it also acquit them from fraud and combination Cheats and forgeries are alwaies hatcht in the dark in close Cabals and privat Juncto's That five thousand men at one time and four thousand at another should conspire to say that they were miraculously fed when they were not and all prove true to the fiction and not betray it is a thing as irrational to be suppos'd as impossible to be parallel'd 32. BESIDES admit it possible that so many could have join'd in the deceit yet what imaginable end could they have in it Had their lie bin subservient to the designs of som potent Prince that might have rewarded it there had bin som temtation but what could they expect from the reputed son of a Carpenter who had not himself where to lay his head Nay who disclaim'd all secular power convei'd himself away from their importunities when they would have forc'd him to be a King And consequently could not be lookt on as one that would head a Sedition or attemt to raise himself to a capacity of rewarding his Abettors Upon all these considerations there appears not the

perswaded by that which they allow for irresistible conviction tho one rose again from the dead Luke 16.31 THE LIVELY ORACLES GIVEN TO US Or the Christians Birth-right and Duty in the custody and use of the HOLY SCRIPTURE SECT I. The several Methods of Gods communicating the knowledg of himself GOD as he is invisible to human eies so is he unfathomable by human understandings the perfection of his nature and the impotency of ours setting us at too great a distance to have any clear perception of him Nay so far are we from a full comprehension that we can discern nothing at all of him but by his own light those discoveries he hath bin pleas'd to make of himself 2. THOSE have bin of several sorts The first was by infusion in mans creation when God interwove into Mans very constitution and being the notions and apprehensions of a Deity and at the same instant when he breath'd into him a living soul imprest on it that native religion which taught him to know and reverence his Creator which we may call the instinct of humanity Nor were those principles dark and confus'd but clear and evident proportionable to the ends they were design'd to which were not only to contemplate the nature but to do the will of God practice being even in the state of innocence preferrable before an unactive speculation 3. BUT this Light being soon eclips'd by Adams disobedience there remain'd to his benighted posterity only som faint glimmerings which were utterly insufficient to guide them to their end without fresh aids and renew'd manifestations of God to them It pleas'd God therefore to repair this ruine and by frequent revelations to communicate himself to the Patriarchs in the first Ages of the World afterwards to Prophets and other holy men till at last he revealed himself yet more illustriously in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 4. THIS is the one great comprehensive Revelation wherein all the former were involv'd and to which they pointed the whole mystery of Godliness being compris'd in this of Gods being manifested in the flesh and the consequents thereof 1 Tim. 3.16 whereby our Savior as he effected our reconciliation with God by the sacrifice of his death so he declar'd both that and all things else that it concern'd man to know in order to bliss in his doctrin and holy life And this Teacher being not only sent from God Jo. 3. but being himself God blessed for ever it cannot be that his instructions can want any supplement Yet that they might not want attestation neither to the incredulous world he confirm'd them by the repeted miracles of his life and by the testimony of those who saw the more irrefragable conviction of his Resurrection and Ascension And that they also might not want credit and enticement the Holy Spirit set to his seal and by his miraculous descent upon the Apostles both asserted their commission and enabled them for the discharge of it by all gifts necessary for the propagating the Faith of Christ over the whole World 5. THESE were the waies by which God was pleased to revele himself to the Forefathers of our Faith and that not only for their sakes but ours also to whom they were to derive those divine dictats they had receiv'd Saint Stephen tells us those under the Law receiv'd the lively Oracles to deliver down to their posterity Acts 7.38 And those under the Gospel who receiv'd yet more lively Oracles from him who was both the Word and the Life did it for the like purpose to transmit it to us upon whom the ends of the world are come By this all need of repeted Revelations is superseded the faithful deriving of the former being sufficient to us for all things that pertain to life and godliness 2 Pet. 1.3 6. AND for this God whose care is equal for all successions of men hath graciously provided by causing Holy Scriptures to be writ by which he hath deriv'd on every succeeding Age the illuminations of the former And for that purpose endowed the Writers not only with that moral fidelity requisite to the truth of History but with a divine Spirit proportionable to the great design of fixing an immutable rule for faith and manners And to give us the fuller security herein he has chosen no other pen-men of the New Testament then those who were the first oral promulgers of our Christian Religion so that they have left to us the very same doctrin they taught the Primitive Christians and he that acknowledges them divinely inspir'd in what they preach'd cannot doubt them to be so in what they writ So that we all may injoy virtually and effectively that wish of the devout Father who desir'd to be Saint Pauls Auditor for he that hears any of his Epistles read is as really spoke to by Saint Paul as those who were within the sound of his voice Thus God who in times past spake at sundry times and in diverse manners to our Fathers by the Prophets and in the latter daies by his son Heb. 1.1 2. continues still to speak to us by these inspir'd Writers and what Christ once said to his Disciples in relation to their preaching is no less true of their writings He that despiseth you despiseth me Luke 10.16 All the contemt that is at any time flung on these sacred Writings rebounds higher and finally devolves on the first Author of those doctrins whereof these are the registers and transcripts 7. BUT this is a guilt which one would think peculiar to Infidels and Pagans and not incident to any who had in their Baptism listed themselves under Christs banner yet I fear I may say of the two parties the Scripture has met with the worst treatment from the later For if we mesure by the frequency and variety of injuries I fear Christians will appear to have outvied Heathens These bluntly disbelieve them neglect nay perhaps scornfully deride them Alas Christians do this and more they not only put contemts but tricks upon the Scripture wrest and distort it to justify all their wild fancies or secular designs and suborn its Patronage to those things it forbids and tells us that God abhors 8. INDEED so many are the abuses we offer it that he that considers them would scarce think we own'd it for the words of a sensible man much less of the great omniscient God And I believe 't were hard to assign any one so comprehensive and efficacious cause of the universal depravation of manners as the disvaluing of this divine Book which was design'd to regulate them It were therefore a work worthy another inspired writing to attemt the rescue of this and recover it to its just estimate Yet alas could we hope for that we have scoffers who would as well despise the New as the Old and like the Husbandmen in the Gospel Mat. 21.36 would answer such a succession of messages by repeting the same injuries 9. TO such as these 't is

10. ATHANASIUS in his Tract of the Incarnation saies It is fit for us to adhere to the word of God and not relinquish it thinking by syllogisms to evade what is there clearly deliver'd Again in his Tract to Serap of the holy Ghost Ask not saies he concerning the Trinity but learn only from the Scriptures For the instructions which you will find there are sufficient And in his Oration against the Gentiles declares That the Scriptures are sufficient to the manifestation of the truth 11. AGREEABLE to these is Optatus in his 5. Book against Parmen who reasons thus You say 't is lawful to rebaptize we say 't is not lawful betwixt your saying and our gain-saying the peoples minds are amus'd Let no man believe either you or us All men are apt to be contentious Therefore Judges are to be call'd in Christians they cannot be for they will be parties and thereby partial Therefore a Judg is to be lookt out from abroad If a Pagan he knows not the mysteries of our Religion If a Jew he is an enemy to our baptism There is therefore no earthly Judg but one is to be sought from heaven Yet there is no need of a resort to heaven when we have in the Gospel a Testament and in this case celestial things may be compar'd to earthly So it is as with a Father who has many children while he is present he orders them all and there is no need of a written Will Accordingly Christ when he was present upon earth from time to time commanded the Apostles whatsoever was necessary But as the earthly father finding himself to be at the point of death and fearing that after his departure his children should quarrel among themselves he calls witnesses and puts his mind in writing and if any difference arise among the brethren they go not to their Fathers Sepulcher but repair to his Will and Testament and he who rests in his grave speaks still in his writing as if he were alive Our Lord who left his Will among us is now in heaven therefore let us seek his commands in the Gospel as in his Will 12. THUS Cyril of Ierus Cat. 4. Nothing no not the least concernment of the divine and holy Sacraments of our Faith is to be deliver'd without the holy Scripture believe not me unless I give you a demonstration of what I say from the Scripture 13. SAINT Basil in his Book of the true Faith saies If God be faithful in all his sayings his words and works they remaining for ever and being don in truth and equity it must be an evident sign of infidelity and pride if any one shall reject what is written and introduce what is not written In which Books he generally declares that he will write nothing but what he receives from the holy Scripture and that he abhors from taking it elsewhere In his 29. Homily against the Antitrinit Believe saies he those which are written seek not those which are not written And in his Eth. reg 26. Every word and action ought to be confirm'd by the testimony of the divinely inspir'd Scriptures to the establishment of the Faith of the good and reproof of the wicked 14. SAINT Ambrose in the first Book of his Offic. saies How can we make use of any thing which is not to be found in Scripture And in his Instit of Virgins I read he is the first but read not he is the second let them who say he is second shew it from the reading 15. GREG. Nyssen in his Dial. of the soul and resurrect saies 'T is undeniable that truth is there only to be plac'd where there is the seal of Scripture Testimony 16. SAINT Jerom against Helvidius declares As we deny not that which is written so we refuse those which are not written And in his Comment on the 98. Ps Every thing that we assert we must shew from the holy Scripture The word of him that speaks has not that autority as Gods precept And on the 87. Ps Whatever is said after the Apostles let it be cut off nor have afterwards autority Tho one be holy after the Apostles tho one be eloquent yet has he not autority 17. SAINT Austin in his Tract of the unity of the Church c. 12. acknowledges that he could not be convinc'd but by the Scriptures of what he was to believe and adds they are read with such manifestation that he who believes them must confess the doctrin to be most true In the second Book of Christian doctrin c. 9. he saies that in the plain places of Scripture are found all those things that concern Faith and Manners And in Epist 42. All things which have bin exhibited heretofore as don to mankind and what we now see and deliver to our posterity the Scripture has not past them in silence so far forth as they concern the search or defence of our Religion In his Tract of the good of Widowhood he saies to Julian the person to whom he addresses What shall I teach you more then that we read in the Apostle for the holy Scripture settles the rule of our doctrin that we think not any thing more then we ought to think but to think soberly as God has dealt to every man the mesure of Faith Therefore my teaching is only to expound the words of this Doctor Ep. 157. Where any subject is obscure and passes our comprehension and the Scripture do's not plainly afford its help there human conjecture is presumtuous in defining 18. THEOPHILUS of Alex. in his second Paschal homily tells us that 't is the suggestion of a diabolical spirit to think that any thing besides the Scripture has divine autority And in his third he adds that the Doctors of the Church having the Testimony of the Scripture lay firm foundation of their doctrin 19. CHRYSOSTOM in his third Homily on the first of the Thessal asserts that from the alone reading or hearing of the Scripture one may learn all things necessary So Hom. 34. on Act. 15. he declares A heathen comes and saies I would willingly be a Christian but I know not who to join my self to for there are many contentions among you many seditions and tumults so that I am in doubt what opinion I should abuse Each man saies what I say is true and I know not whom to believe each pretends to Scripture which I am ignorant of 'T is very well the issue is put here for if the appeal were to reason in this case there would be just occasion of being troubled but when we appeal to Scripture and they are simple and certain you may easily your self judg He that agrees with the Scripture is a Christian he that resists them is far out of the way And on Ps 95. If any thing be said without the Scripture the mind halts between different opinions somtimes inclining as to what is probable anon rejecting as what is frivolous but when the testimony of holy Scripture