Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	aaron_n	moses_n	peculiar_a	33	3	9.5076	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43998	Leviathan, or, The matter, forme, and power of a common wealth, ecclesiasticall and civil by Thomas Hobbes ...; Leviathan	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1651 (1651)	Wing H2246; ESTC R17253	438,804	412

people were obliged to take him for Gods Lieutenant longer than they beleeved that God spake unto him And therefore his authority notwithstanding the Covenant they made with God depended yet merely upon the opinion they had of his Sanctity and of the reality of his Conferences with God and the verity of his Miracles which opinion coming to change they were no more obliged to take any thing for the law of God which he propounded to them in Gods name We are therefore to consider what other ground there was of their obligation to obey him For it could not be the commandement of God that could oblige them because God spake not to them immediately but by the mediation of Moses himself And our Saviour saith of himself If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true much lesse if Moses bear witnesse of himselfe especially in a claim of Kingly power over Gods people ought his testimony to be received His authority therefore as the authority of all other Princes must be grounded on the Consent of the People and their Promise to obey him And so it was For the people Exod. 20. 18. when they saw the Thunderings and the Lightnings and the noyse of the Trumpet and the monntaine smoaking removed and stood a far off And they said unto Moses speak thou with us and we will hear but let not God speak with us lest we die Here was their promise of obedience and by this it was they obliged themselves to obey whatsoever he should deliver unto them for the Commandement of God And notwithstanding the Covenant constituteth a Sacerdotall Kingdome that is to say a Kingdome hereditary to Aaron yet that is to be understood of the succession after Moses should bee dead For whosoever ordereth and establisheth the Policy as first founder of a Common-wealth be it Monarchy Aristocracy or Democracy must needs have Soveraign Power over the people all the while he is doing of it And that Moses had that power all his own time is evidently affirmed in the Scripture First in the text last before cited because the people promised obedience not to Aaron but to him Secōdly Exod. 24. 1 2. And God said unto Moses Come up unto the Lord thou and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel And Moses alone shall come neer the Lord but they shall not come nigh neither shall the people goe up with him By which it is plain that Moses who was alone called up to God and not Aaron nor the other Priests nor the Seventy Elders nor the People who were forbidden to come up was alone he that represented to the Israelites the Person of God that is to say was their sole Soveraign under God And though afterwards it be said verse 9. Then went up Moses and Aaron Nadab and Abihu and seventy of the Elders of Israel and they saw the God of Israel and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a saphire stone c. yet this was not till after Moses had been with God before and had brought to the people the words which God had said to him He onely went for the bnsinesse of the people the others as the Nobles of his retinue were admitted for honour to that speciall grace which was not allowed to the people which was as in the verse after appeareth to see God and live God laid not his hand upon them they saw God and did eat and drink that is did live but did not carry any commandement from him to the people Again it is every where said The Lord spake unto Moses as in all other occasions of Government so also in the ordering of the Ceremonies of Religion contained in the 25 26 27 28 29 30 and 31 Chapters of Exodus and throughout Leviticus to Aaron seldome The Calfe that Aaron made Moses threw into the fire Lastly the question of the Authority of Aaron by occasion of his and Miriams mutiny agaiust Moses was Numbers 12. judged by God himself for Moses So also in the question between Moses and the People who had the Right of Governing the People when Corah Dathan and Abiram and two hundred and fifty Princes of the Assembly gathered themselves together Numb 16. 3. against Moses and against Aaron and said unto them Ye take too much upon you seeing all the congregation are Holy every one of them and the Lord is amongst them why lift you up your selves above the congregation of the Lord God caused the Earth to swallow Corah Dathan and Abiram with their wives and children alive and consumed those two hundred and fifty Princes with fire Therefore neither Aaron nor the People nor any Aristocracy of the chief Princes of the People but Moses alone had next under God the Soveraignty over the Israelites And that not onely in causes of Civill Policy but also of Religion For Moses onely spake with God and therefore onely could tell the People what it was that God required at their hands No man upon pain of death might be so presumptuous as to approach the Mountain where God talked with Moses Thou shalt set bounds saith the Lord Exod. 19. 12. to the people round about and say Take heed to your selves that you goe not up into the Mount or touch the border of it whosoever toucheth the Mount shall surely be put to death And again verse 21. Goe down charge the people lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze Out of which we may conclude that whosoever in a Christian Common-wealth holdeth the place of Moses is the sole Messenger of God and Interpreter of his Commandements And according hereunto no man ought in the interpretation of the Scripture to proceed further then the bounds which are set by their severall Soveraigns For the Scriptures since God now speaketh in them are the Mount Sinai the bounds whereof are the Laws of them that represent Gods Person on Earth To look upon them and therein to behold the wondrous works of God and learn to fear him is allowed but to interpret them that is to pry into what God saith to him whom he appointeth to govern under him and make themselves Judges whether he govern as God commandeth him or not is to transgresse the bounds God hath set us and to gaze upon God irreverently There was no Prophet in the time of Moses nor pretender to the Spirit of God but such as Moses had approved and Authorized For there were in his time but Seventy men that are said to Prophecy by the Spirit of God and these were of all Moses his election concerning whom God said to Moses Numb 11. 16. Gather to mee Seventy of the Elders of Israel whom thou knowest to be the Elders of the People To these God imparted his Spirit but it was not a different Spirit from that of Moses for it is said verse 25. God came down in a cloud and took of the Spirit that was upon Moses

Idea of him in their mind answerable to his nature For as a man that is born blind hearing men talk of warming themselves by the fire and being brought to warm himself by the same may easily conceive and assure himselfe there is somewhat there which men call Fire and is the cause of the heat he feeles but cannot imagine what it is like nor have an Idea of it in his mind such as they have that see it so also by the visible things of this world and their admirable order a man may conceive there is a cause of them which men call God and yet not have an Idea or Image of him in his mind And they that make little or no enquiry into the naturall causes of things yet from the feare that proceeds from the ignorance it selfe of what it is that hath the power to do them much good or harm are enclined to suppose and feign unto themselves severall kinds of Powers Invisible and to stand in awe of their own imaginations and in time of distresse to invoke them as also in the time of an expected good successe to give them thanks making the creatures of their own fancy their Gods By which means it hath come to passe that from the innumerable variety of Fancy men have created in the world innumerable sorts of Gods And this Feare of things invisible is the naturall Seed of that which every one in himself calleth Religion and in them that worship or feare that Power otherwise than they do Superstition And this seed of Religion having been observed by many some of those that have observed it have been enclined thereby to nourish dresse and forme it into Lawes and to adde to it of their own invention any opinion of the causes of future events by which they thought they should best be able to govern others and make unto themselves the greatest use of their Powers CHAP. XII OF RELIGION SEeing there are no signes nor fruit of Religion but in Man onely there is no cause to doubt but that the seed of Religion is also onely in Man and consisteth in some peculiar quality or at least in some eminent degree therof not to be found in other Living creatures And first it is peculiar to the nature of Man to be inquisitive into the Causes of the Events they see some more some lesse but all men so much as to be curious in the search of the causes of their own good and evill fortune Secondly upon the sight of any thing that hath a Beginning to think also it had a cause which determined the same to begin then when it did rather than sooner or later Thirdly whereas there is no other Felicity of Beasts but the enjoying of their quotidian Food Ease and Lusts as having little or no foresight of the time to come for want of observation and memory of the order consequence and dependance of the things they see Man observeth how one Event hath been produced by another and remembreth in them Antecedence and Consequence And when he cannot assure himselfe of the true causes of things for the causes of good and evill fortune for the most part are invisible he supposes causes of them either such as his own fancy suggesteth or trusteth to the Authority of other men such as he thinks to be his friends and wiser than himselfe The two first make Anxiety For being assured that there be causes of all things that have arrived hitherto or shall arrive hereafter it is impossible for a man who continually endeavoureth to secure himselfe against the evill he feares and procure the good he desireth not to be in a perpetuall solicitude of the time to come So that every man especially those that are over provident are in an estate like to that of Prometheus For as Prometheus which interpreted is The prudent man was bound to the hill Caucasus a place of large prospect where an Eagle feeding on his liver devoured in the day as much as was repayred in the night So that man which looks too far before him in the care of future time hath his heart all the day long gnawed on by feare of death poverty or other calamity and has no repose nor pause of his anxiety but in sleep This perpetuall feare alwayes accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes as it were in the Dark must needs have for object something And therefore when there is nothing to be seen there is nothing to accuse either of their good or evill fortune but some Power or Agent Invisible In which sense perhaps it was that some of the old Poets said that the Gods were at first created by humane Feare which spoken of the Gods that is to say of the many Gods of the Gentiles is very true But the acknowledging of one God Eternall Infinite and Omnipotent may more easily be derived from the desire men have to know the causes of naturall bodies and their severall vertues and operations than from the feare of what was to be fall them in time to come For he that from any effect hee seeth come to passe should reason to the next and immediate cause thereof and from thence to the cause of that cause and plonge himselfe profoundly in the pursuit of causes shall at last come to this that there must be as even the Heathen Philosophers confessed one First Mover that is a First and an Eternall cause of all things which is that which men mean by the name of God And all this without thought of their fortune the solicitude whereof both enclines to fear and hinders them from the search of the causes of other things and thereby gives occasion of feigning of as many Gods as there be men that feigne them And for the matter or substance of the Invisible Agents so fancyed they could not by naturall cogitation fall upon any other conceipt but that it was the same with that of the Soule of man and that the Soule of man was of the same substance with that which appeareth in a Dream to one that sleepeth or in a Looking-glasse to one that is awake which men not knowing that such apparitions are nothing else but creatures of the Fancy think to be reall and externall Substances and therefore call them Ghosts as the Latines called them Imagines and Umbrae and thought them Spirits that is thin aëreall bodies and those Invisible Agents which they feared to bee like them save that they appear and vanish when they please But the opinion that such Spirits were Incorporeall or Immateriall could never enter into the mind of any man by nature because though men may put together words of contradictory signification as Spirit and Incorporeall yet they can never have the imagination of any thing answering to them And therefore men that by their own meditation arrive to the acknowledgement of one Infinite Omnipotent and Eternall God choose rather to confesse he is Incomprehensible and