A69235:47
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes…A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes…
A treatise against lying Wherein is showed what it is, the nature and causes of this sin, the divers kinds of it; and that all of them are sinful, and unlawful, with the motives and means to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Downame, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.A treatise against lying Wherein is shevved vvhat it is, the nature and causes of this sinne, the divers kindes of it; and that all of them are sinfull, and unlawfull, with the motives and meanes to preserve us from it, or to cure us of it. By John Dovvname, B. of D. and preacher of Gods Word.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Nicolas Bourne, 1636
Title page typeset from the transcription.
A TREATISE AGAINST THE SIN OF LYING. › Chapter 3A TREATISE AGAINST THE SINNE OF LYING. › Chapter 3
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
and that if all things which Christ did should be written, the 1whole World would not contain the volumes that should be written. By which speeches no man can be deceived, seeing if they were taken literally, there were no shadow or show of truth in them; but rather the truth which they persuade is the more cleared and enforced, namely that the Benjamites were exceeding cunning in the use of their slings; that the sins confessed were a number almost numberless, and the actions done by Christ were very many, more than the Evangelist had ⟨p. 28⟩recorded. Of the other we have many examples in the Psalms and Prophets, as when the Mountains are said to skip, the Floods to clap their hands, the Earth to hear the Word of the Lord; which cannot be taken in their proper sense, but only as Rhetorical phrases, expressing the trueth according to the intention of the speaker in a loftiness of speech, for the better understanding of the hearer and affecting of him with more delight. Neither can they be esteemed lies, because they do not deceive the hearer or reader, seeing they do not beget a false conceit in his mind, but rather cause him to conceive and embrace the trueth with greater admiration. So S. Augustine: Whatsoever 2is done or spoken figuratively is not a lye. For every enunciation or signification is to be referred unto that which it signifieth to the understanding of those unto whom it is uttered: otherwise (as he saith in another place) all tropes and metaphors which are not taken in a proper but borrowed 3sense, by one thing signifying another, should be judged lies; as where it is said that Christ is a Rock, a Door, a Vine, and that impenitent persons have hearts of stone, all which are not properly and literally true, but in a figurative sense.
and that if all things which Christ did should bee wtitten, the 1whole World would not containe the volumes that should bee written. By which speeches no man can be deceived, seeing if they were taken literally, there were no shaddow or shew of truth in them; but rather the truth which they perswade is the more cleared and inforced, namely that the Benjamites were exceeding cunning in the use of their slings; that the sins confessed were a number almost numberles, and the actions done by Christ were very many, more than the Evangelist had