Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	according_a	believe_v	holy_a	2,473	5	4.6085	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66810	A survey of the heavens being a plain description of the admirable fabrick and motions of the heavenly bodies, as they are discovered to the eye by the telescope, and several eminent consequences illustrated thereby. I. The infinite wisdom, power, glory, and incomprehensibility of God in the creation. II. The verifying of the Copernican hypothesis. III. The probability of more inhabited worlds. IV. The clearing of some difficult places of scripture from doubtful interpretations. V. The higher exaltation of Gods attributes in the business of our redemption. VI. An essay to prove the Sun to be the seat of the blessed, with several other useful notions. To which is added the gout raptures. Augmented and improved in English, Latin, and Greek lyrick verse. By Robert Witty Dr in physick in both universities, and fellow of the Colledge of Physicians in London.; Ouranoskopia, or, A survey of the heavens	Wittie, Robert, 1613?-1684.	1685 (1685)	Wing W3234; ESTC R221136	68,864	172

Holy Scripture wherein the Mind and Will of God both as to what we are to believe and do is clearly laid down in order to our everlasting well-being This of the Heavens is Natures Book in folio to which the Holy Scripture does frequently refer us by plain and visible Objects of demonstration to clear up to our narrow Understandings that which in words could never have been sufficiently expressed or conceived in our Minds the never enough to be adored Attributes of the Divine Essence as his infinite Wisdom Power Glory Goodness and Immensity They point out a Deity From hence do arise most clear and convincing Arguments to prove there is a God which the wanton and prophane Wits of the subtlest Atheists in the world can never evade without forfeiting their Reason and ceasing to be men If we consider the Heavens even through all the Predicaments what stupendous matter of Admiration do they afford How much more ground then of Admiration and Adoration too shall we find of that Eternal and Almighty Being of whose hand they are the Workmanship unless we can suppose they made themselves or that they and the comely Order that is among them came by Chance or a fortuitous coalition of Atoms as some have presumed to assert against Sense and Reason What thing is there in all this World within our ken that in any reason we can think has made it self If we see a noble House or a neat Watch or other piece of Art we soon reflect in our minds upon some Workman whom we fancy to have been an Artist answerable to his piece Would not all men laugh at him that should tell he fancied they made themselves or that they came by chance or a fortuitous meeting of Atoms which though the Air we breath in be full of them yet they tend to nothing but to make us wink neither incline they to take any form nor yet in above 5000 years since the Creation have produced the least trifle in Nature The immensity of the Stars What less than infinite Power and Incomprehensibility could have made such an immeasurable space as the Firmament of Heaven which is only not infinite They point out Gods Wisdom and Power And what less than infinite Wisdom and Omnipotency could have contrived so many great and glorious Bodies as the Stars all of which even the least we see do undoubtedly far exceed this Globe of the Earth and some thousands of them many hundred times bigger as we may reasonably judge Ptolomy to some may feem bold in asserting that the Sun is 166 times bigger yet he pretends to make it out by Demonstration Nay I could here name above a dozen Learned Men Ancient and Modern that have written their Opinions on this Subject who though they do exceedingly differ among themselves yet he that speaks lowest judges it to be 140 times bigger and some of them 1000 times yea some of them many thousands And truly their Arguments seem not to want strength and solidity who estimate it to be 1000 times bigger and Sirius the Dog-Star to be larger than the Sun as also Aldebaran the Bulls-eye and other Stars of the first Magnitude only seeming less because of their exceeding great distance Yea and they judge the Planet Jupiter to be 100 times bigger than the Earth And truly all we can do in these matters is to speak upon probable grounds of reason as men reckoning according to rules of proportion to what we see with our eyes And hence it is that the Holy Scripture designing to make out to our Understanding some glimpse of these two great Attributes of God very frequently leads us to the consideration of his Creating the Heavens and the Earth As Psal 19.1 The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy work And so Isaiah 40.12 and 26. He tells of meting out the Heavens with his span and of measuring the Waters of the Sea in the hollow his band of bringing out the Stars by number and calling them all by their Names So Prov. 30.4 And hence he proves the greatness of his Might and the strength of his Power intimating there that all these things were made by his Eternal Power and according to the Counsel of his own Will in infinite Wisdom Nay God directs his People of Israel when they should sojourn in Chaldea which fell out afterward how they should defend their Religion among the Chaldeans and use this as an Argument to prove him to be God in that he made the Heavens and the Earth Jer. 10.11 12. Thus shall ye say unto them The Gods that have not made the Heavens and the Earth even they shall perish from the Earth and from under these Heavens And here by the way t is well worthy our observation that whereas all the rest of that Prophecy of Jeremy is written in Hebrew this Verse alone is expressed in the Chaldean Tongue whereby God puts words into their mouths for the plainer conviction of the Chaldeans among whom they were to sojourn A forcible Argument methink against the ☜ Romanists who do lock up the mind of God from the common people in an unknown language when God directs his own Penman the Holy Prophet to lay aside the language he inspired him and to declare his mind in this most principal Article of Faith in the language of the Country By this Argument we are taught by the Apostles in their Creed to believe in him if we may suppose it was of their composing being Maker of Heaven and Earth and directed by our Saviour to pray to him as being there in his special place of residence But to return to our scope Without all doubt those great and glorious Bodies were not only made for us the Inhabitants of this world to look on and so to glorify God objectivè wherein t is well if we do our duty but for other great ends and uses among themselves And I do verily believe many things both as to the Being and the ends of the Being of those Celestial Bodies which we understand not we may come to know hereafter I mean we that inhabit this Globe of the Earth We see many things which the Ancients never thought on are clearly made out to us As the turning of the Earth upon its Axis every twenty four hours which makes our natural Day plainly made out by Copernicus The Copernican Hypothesis which solves all the Phaenomena of Heaven far better than the obscure Epicycles of the Ancients Although I find that Aristarchus Samius was the first Author of that Opinion who lived 400 years before Ptolomy and him did Copernicus follow Now though the Notion has gained great credit in the world among Learned and considerate Men as any other in Nature and daily gets ground against all Objections yet I must needs say it is rejected by the Vulgar because it appears not to their Senses but rather they say 't is plain that the

Heavens do move and the Earth stands still Objections from sense against it And 't is also doubted of by many eminently Learned and Pious because it seems to thwart the plain sense of Holy Scripture To the first I shall answer I am afraid those Thomases that will be led only by their Senses will never become Proselytes to the Doctrine of the Circulation of the Blood because they feel it not move which was as long latent and unknown to the world as this of the Earths Motion upon its Axis Will they not believe the motion and descent of the meat they eat through the bowels from the Stomach to the lowest gut because they feel it not in its passage If those men were on Shipboard in a calm Sea carryed on either by a smooth Tide or a very soft gale would they not believe that the Vessel moved under them because they feel it not stir Would they rather encline to think that the Mountains Churches and Trees moved and changed their places because they seem to do so to their eye So smoothly and silently yea and a hundred times more does the Globe of the Earth move upon its Axis so as if they can receive any conviction that their Senses are not fit Judges in the aforesaid cases there will be no ground of perswasion left to make them Umpire in the last Objections from Scripture Now as to the Scriptures which do attribute Stability to the Earth and Motion to the Sun we are to know that in things of this nature the Scripture speaks according to vulgar acceptation and outward appearance so as when men thought they saw and did believe that the Sun moved and the Earth was fixed the Holy Ghost in the Pen-men of the Scripture applies himself to that vulgar Opinion of the Age from which it never design'd to withdraw men so as they go most impertinently to work that will ground Philosophical notions on Scriptural expressions The Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation wherein if we hold to them we are sure we cannot err though not unto curiosity or Philosophical Notions wherein it matters not much whether we be right or wrong The Holy Pen-men in things of that lesser alloy were wont to speak according to the vulgar Opinions of their Age and it may be to think so too or at least not to examine them their thoughts being imployed in things of greater Consequence Their business was to let the world know that what ever they could conceive concerning any thing in Nature throughout the whole Creation it was from God and therefore while they thought the Earth to be so firmly fixt that it could not be moved the Psalmist not contradicting the Hypothesis preaches up the infinite Power and Soveraignty of God therein 1 Chron. 16.30 and elsewhere in the Psalms Though if the Texts be well considered the words do not genuinely import what they would infer against such motion as we are mentioning The Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 properly signifies to stagger the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used by the Septuagint signifies to be shaken and we all agree that the Earth is so firmly establisht by the Almighty Power and Providence of God in its proper place that it cannot stagger nor be shaken from off its foundation but that hinders not but it may move upon its Foundation in a regular way if there be reason to think so without straining those Texts Psal 89.37 the Moon is there said to be establisht in Heaven shall any man therefore deny its Motion from that Text So we read that Josuah in his zeal against the Enemies of God and his People in the heat of battle perhaps led by the vulgar opinion of the Suns motion called to the Sun and Moon to stand still c. The design was that the light might be lengthned till he might destroy the Army of the Amorites and the day was accordingly prolonged so as the Sun went not down for a whole day and the Moon also staid But why should Josuah call to the Moon to stand still as well as the Sun which could be of no use to him while the Sun was up To this I answer with all due modesty I do believe Josuah did call thus by inspiration and a special impulse from God upon his Spirit for that which would make the Sun stand still would also stay the Moon and therefore as his heart was inflamed with zeal from God to call for such an extraordinary thing so was his tongue guided to call for more than he needed and yet that which Divine Providence would order and was naturally to attend the other from the stopping of the Earths motion of which we are speaking He that from the hasty zealous call of this great General shall think to found an Argument to prove the Philosphical notion of the Suns diurnal Motion about the Earth by taking the words in a proper literal Sense may as well go on and eke it out a little further and then he may prove the Sun to have been in the next great Town Gibeon and the Moon in the Valley but if to all men this latter shall be judged a weak Inference I dare say to many wise men so will the former And on this occasion let me tell my ☜ Observation that where there is in the Scripture any seeming difficulty in a Text in what sense it is to be taken there is usually something couched in the Context that clears it and being seriously weighed points out the most genuine interpretation When we read in Scripture of the Suns rising and setting and of its rejoycing as a Giant to run its course must we needs draw Arguments from thence to assert the Suns Motion Do not all men at this day call it the rising and setting of the Sun even those that are sure it moves not but do firmly assert the Earths motion which is enough to make out that Phaenomenon of the perpetual Motion of the Heavens and we are drawn thereto by vulgar acceptation and propriety of our modern Language but must every man be drawn to defend it because of his compliance with the Vulgar certainly no that is an inference which was never intended nor can be rationally born with when the Argument is laid to the line It may as well be inferred that the Sun runs in a progressive motion by steps as a Giant doth and that it has a reasonable Soul and the affection of Joy Figures often used in the Scripture In the Scripture as in all other writings yea and sayings too of the wisest of men there are many passages which cannot fall under a plain sense without gross absurdity There are many mystical and figurative Expressions that we frequently meet with both in the Old and New Testament else we must think that the Mountains skipped like Rams and the little hills like Lambs which would plainly contradict this stability of the