Selected quad for the lemma: scripture_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
scripture_n	allege_v	holy_a	word_n	2,182	5	3.9148	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34114	A reformation of schooles designed in two excellent treatises, the first whereof summarily sheweth, the great necessity of a generall reformation of common learning : what grounds of hope there are for such a reformation : how it may be brought to passe : the second answers certain objections ordinarily made against such undertakings, and describes the severall parts and titles of workes which are shortly to follow / written ... in Latine by ... John Amos Comenius ... ; and now ... translated into English ... by Samuel Hartlib ...; Pansophiae prodromus. English	Comenius, Johann Amos, 1592-1670.; Hartlib, Samuel, d. 1662.	1642 (1642)	Wing C5529; ESTC R9161	78,056	98

all the words of the Latine tongue so here also all things worthy of mans knowledge should be collected together as into a treasury Secondly that nothing should be set downe above once unlesse onely such as by reason of their connexion and relation with others were necessary for the others explication Thirdly that nothing should be set downe but in its owne place and proper sense according to the most naturall order of things and in most cleare expressions that herein might be summarily and clearly learned all things that are contained in all bookes and libraries and in the whole world it selfe Which if we had so effectually performed as to set open a Gate to the understanding of all things and all bookes without the helpe of others to guide men therein it may be wee might have shared of that praise which TIMOTHY BRIGHT ascribes unto such as are inventors of brevity and perspicuity For saith he Among all the parts of Philosophy wherein such as are lovers of Truth and of the best things have taken paines there is none more profitable for life or which gives the mind a more reall content then that which helps the other Arts with brevity and perspicuity Therefore we ought thankfully to acknowledge their endeavours who have bestowed their paines to this end that learners may be eased of all tediousmesse and prolixity and freed from all ambiguous labyrinths and thorny difficulty super Scribonii Phys cap. 1. It suiteth very neere with the present case for when we first attempted this worke our intentions aimed no farther than onely at a short and perspicuous comprehension of all things that are to be knowne But in the progresse of the worke Gods goodnesse suggested a more sublime care and thought into our minds that wee should labour to rectifie all things so as wee might have them truer and better and more fitted for us Christians for the intents both of this present and the future life Of the necessity of which intention I have already discoursed sufficiently That therefore this worke might indeed prove a Gate not onely into the reading of Authors but rather into the whole universality of things I referred hither all things that I could find extant either in divine or humane workes or writings not by an unprofitable and superstitious diligence making Catalogues of all and singular things but rather by a true discovery of the grounds of all things and in things of greater moment by a more speciall explication of what is most observable which might easily conclude the rest Whence perhaps some things will be here found out and pointed at not onely such as are newly invented but even such as remaine still to be invented which are no where else to be found For wee have found our selves so farre carried in this new and generall order of things that no man seemeth hitherto to have reached thereto And to the end that this booke might also prove a dore into the holy Scriptures I have endeavoured to insert all the decrees of holy Writ every one in his place among the rules of Pansophy to bring most of the histories thereof for examples to this intent that Youth being acquainted with all those great and pretious promises bestowed upon us by which wee are partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. may not onely be fore-armed against the infection of prophane authors when time shall require the reading of them but also against all other stumbling blockes in the whole course of their lives 2. I have laboured to bring in all the most obscure passages of Scripture in their proper places that so the due citation and alleaging of them might be as a Comment and cleare apprehension of their meaning of which kind of places of Scripture there may be annexed a particular table 3. I have laboured so to make use of the Phrases and acute expressions in holy Scripture throughout my booke that youth may be acquainted both with the matter and stile of the holy Spirit and may not easily meete with any thing in the whole body of the Bible which they knew not formerly Neither do wee addict our selves unto any particular sect in our divinity but we deliver the universall and Catholique Truth as for those things which lead unto dangerous by-wayes whence it is hard to find the right way out wee meddle not at all with them For we judge it better to be ignorant of some things than to know them amisse as the Apostle intimates Philip. 3. 15 16. Although I hope our grounds and fundamentals are so well fitted and so firmly closed that the understanding Reader will easily judge that there remaines little danger of by-wayes and errours most part of stumbling blockes being removed out of the way For as it is impossible for him which in two contradictory propositions of which many may be found in the Scripture according to the letter addicts himselfe irreconciliably unto the one but that the other will urge strain him very far so also it is impossible but that they being reconciled combined together in a true middle sense all difficulties scandals doubts wil vanish of themselves to the great rejoycing of our minds For by this means whatsoever truth there is in either opinion it groneth sweetly into one whatsoever is vain or erroneous on either part presently it disappeareth which that it is the only means of uniting all truths in the center of harmony of ridding all controversies out of the world we have already declared For our order of handling the Sciences we hope that by Gods grace we have attained so farre as that men may finde here an handfull of such a method as doth divide and dispose things for our sight according as they are For I trust we have discovered the true veines of things in our Metaphysickes which if wee follow them will most easily conduct us unto all individuals and to the true nature of the least and nicest conceptions and words so that we may hereby make a new Anatomie of the Universe and truer than any hath hitherto beene seene Neither doe they consist of such intricate subtilties as can be discerned onely by the learned and those that are already versed in such matters but they are so plaine and pervious unto any though but of moderate apprehension that even children of eight yeares of age may easily conceive of our whole Metaphysickes and by benefit thereof of all the inferiour Arts and Sciences with very little paines but with much delight and contentation That which is the strength and nerves of Science I frame it into Aphorismes or Axioms but as I hope into such as are true and solid not such as are trifling and exposed to the blows of contrary instances and exceptions not such as must be defended with the weake shields of limitations but such as will persist unmoveable of themselves by the lustre and force of their universall Truth Neither in the delivery of these

because he neither can nor will doe otherwise he cannot because he can behold nothing but himselfe in his infinite eternity whence then should he borrow either the beginning or rule of his works Neither will he for seeing he is most perfect he can will nothing but that which is most perfect now nothing can be said to be most perfect but that one onely eternall and perfect good which is himselfe If any man say that God did take liberty to himselfe to thinke of other rules for the forming of things I aske then to what end he did so If God doe nothing in vaine now in his ordinary concurrence with Nature why should he be thought to have done so at the beginning why should he bethinke himselfe of any other way when himselfe was the most infinite patterne of all perfection Was it that he might conceale his owne Majesty No for it was his owne good purpose to display it visibly Rom. 1. 20. Was it that he might manifest the depth of his wisdome by that looking off from himselfe Neither for this would prove a diminution of the fulnesse of his glory if he could find out any perfection which was not in himselfe which is impossible Therefore it is most certaine that both the creatures and their Idea's have issued from this one fountaine And seeing that among the creatures every agent naturally labours to assimilate its object unto it selfe why should we not acknowledge the same in God who hath imprinted this property in the creatures especially seeing God can find nothing fit to be the end of his works but himselfe Therefore we conclude that God takes from himselfe the rule of his workes as well at the end of them and power to effect them the matter onely whereof the creatures are compos'd and wherein they differ chiefely from their Creator he takes out of nothing 9. God therefore in framing of the world figureth out himselfe so as the creature is wholly proportioned to the Creator Even as the impression answereth alwayes to the stamp although sometimes it be more sometimes lesse evident whence arise divers degrees of this proportion So the Sonne of God is called the expresse image of his Father Heb. 1. 3. And yet man is said to be made after the image of God Gen. 1. 26. 1 Cor. 11. 6. Yea and all other things are said to resemble him in some sort for it is said that the invisible things of God are seene from the beginning of the world in those things which are made Rom. 1. 20. and that in the greatnesse and beauty of created things their Creator may be proportionably knowne Wisd 13. 5. And hereupon it was that the Gentiles entitled Nature not onely the Daughter of God but said that its selfe was God Nature is nothing else saith SENECA but God and divine Law implanted in the whole world and all its parts de Benef. 4. c. 7. 10. And because all things are partakers of divine Ideas hence also it comes to passe that they partake one of another and are proportioned one to the other For those things that agree in any third thing agree among themselves 11. Therefore the conceptions of all things are the same nor is there any difference but in the manner of their existence because in God they are as in their Originall in Nature as in the Coppy in Art as in the counterfeit Even as in a Seale the form is one and the same which is first conceived in the mind of him that graves it or commands it to be graven then as it is engraven in metall and lastly as it is stamped upon wax For although it be threefold yet it is the same because the second is formed by the first the third by the second each of them after the resemblance of that which is next before it in order So these Ideas being first conceived in God imprint their likenesse in the creatures and likewise the reasonable creatures in things which they themselves effect 12. Therefore the ground as of the framing so of the knowledge of all things is Harmony That which the Musicians call harmony is a sweet consonancie of diverstones the like exact agreement is to be found in the eternall perfections of God with those which are created in Nature and those which are expressed in Art for each of them is harmonious in it selfe as also in mutuall respect one to the other Nature is the image of divine Harmony and Art of Nature 13. The first thing required in Harmony is that there he nothing dissonant Musical Harmony is composed of most different contrary tones and yet there is a certaine consonancie to be found in their contrariety So the whole world is composed of contraries because without them the Truth and order essence of the world would fall as also the Scripture containeth many things in it which seeme to oppose one another all which notwithstanding have a perfect agreement in themselves and so are to be disposed in our understandings towards a perfect Harmony that so there may bee an universall consent as in Divine so in humane workes and words all seeming dissonancies vanishing of themselves The want of the understanding of this mystery is the reason that Philosophers and Divines doe picke out of Nature and Scripture one this thing another that opposing Nature to Nature Scripture to Scripture and thereupon drawing out contrary senses fall into contentions and differences among themselves which thing cannot chuse but vanish of it selfe if once the light of this universall Harmony doe but appeare For Truth is one and every way agreeing with it selfe 14. The second thing required in Harmony is that all things have a perfect consonancie and agreement It is manifest both in naturall and artificiall things that all are framed according to Harmony So in a beast a tree a musicall instrument a ship a booke an house all the parts are necessarily proportionate as to the whole so to one another But some men may make a question whether divine things have any proportion with things naturall and artificiall for it may be thought that it best becomes the divine Majesty to have nothing common with the creatures But we must observe that whatsoever is to be found in the counterfeit is first and by way of excellencie in the patterne so the river proceeds from the fountaine the shadow from the body and the image in a glasse from the thing it represents Againe if the workes of nature are so absolute and exact that there is no place left for new additions thereunto as GALEN confesseth lib. 6. de usu part cap. 1. and if the nature of Nature be unchangeable and unalterable as TERTULLIAN witnesseth against Valent. cap. 9. 29. what then is Nature but a lively image of him in whom all things are first and by way of excellencie good perfect and unchangeable Lastly in the Scripture God attributes to himselfe eares eyes a mouth hands