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	people_n	senseless_a	14	3	11.0372	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

use in common life in which they govern themselves some better some worse according to their differences of experience quicknesse of memory and inclinations to severall ends but specially according to good or evill fortune and the errors of one another For as for Science or certain rules of their actions they are so farre from it that they know not what it is Geometry they have thought Conjuring But for other Sciences they who have not been taught the beginnings and some progresse in them that they may see how they be acquired and generated are in this point like children that having no thought of generation are made believe by the women that their brothers and sisters are not born but found in the garden But yet they that have no Science are in better and nobler condition with their naturall Prudence than men that by mis-reasoning or by trusting them that reason wrong fall upon false and absurd generall rules For ignorance of causes and of rules does not set men so farre out of their way as relying on false rules and taking for causes of what they aspire to those that are not so but rather causes of the contrary To conclude The Light of humane minds is Perspicuous Words but by exact definitions first snuffed and purged from ambiguity Reason is the pace Encrease of Science the way and the Benefit of man-kind the end And on the contrary Metaphors and senslesse and ambiguous words are like ignes f●…i and reasoning upon them is wandering amongst innumerable absurdities and their end contentention and sedition or contempt As much Experience is Prudence so is much Science Sapience For though wee usually have one name of Wisedome for them both yet the Latines did alwayes distinguish between Prudentia and Sapientia ascribing the former to Experience the later to Science But to make their difference appeare more cleerly let us suppose one man endued with an excellent naturall use and dexterity in handling his armes and another to have added to that dexterity an acquired Science of where he can offend or be offended by his adversarie in every possible posture or guard The ability of the former would be to the ability of the later as Prudence to Sapience both usefull but the later infallible But they that trusting onely to the authority of books follow the blind blindly are like him that trusting to the false rules of a master of Fence ventures praesumptuously upon an adversary that either kills or disgraces him The signes of Science are some certain and infallible some uncertain Certain when he that pretendeth the Science of any thing can teach the same that is to say demonstrate the truth thereof perspicuously to another Uncertain when onely some particular events answer to his pretence and upon many occasions prove so as he sayes they must Signes of prudence are all uncertain because to observe by experience and remember all circumstances that may alter the successe is impossible But in any businesse whereof a man has not infallible Science to proceed by to forsake his own naturall judgement and be guided by generall sentences read in Authors and subject to many exceptions is a signe of folly and generally scorned by the name of Pedantry And even of those men themselves that in Councells of the Common-wealth love to shew their reading of Politiques and History very few do it in their domestique affaires where their particular interest is concerned having Prudence enough for their private affaires but in publique they study more the reputation of their owne wit than the successe of anothers businesse CHAP. VI. Of the Interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions commonly called the PASSIONS And the Speeches by which they are expressed THere be in Animals two sorts of Motions peculiar to them One called Vitall begun in generation and continued without interruption through their whole life such as are the course of the Bloud the Pulse the Breathing the Conco●…ion Nutrition Excretion to which Motions there needs no help of Imagination The other is Animall motion otherwise called Voluntary motion as to go to speak to move any of our limbes in such manner as is first fancied in our minds That Sense is Motion in the organs and interiour parts of mans body caused by the action of the things we See Heare And that Fancy is but the Reliques of the same Motion remaining after Sense has been already sayd in the first and second Chapters And because going speaking and the like Voluntary motions depend alwayes upon a precedent thought of whither which way and what it is evident that the Imagination is the first internall beginning of all Voluntary Motion And although unstudied men doe not conceive any motion at all to be there where the thing moved is invisible or the space it is moved in is for the shortnesse of it insensible yet that doth not hinder but that such Motions are For let a space be never so little that which is moved over a greater space whereof that little one is part must first be moved over that These small beginnings of Motion within the body of Man before they appear in walking speaking striking and other visible actions are commonly called ENDEAVOUR This Endeavour when it is toward something which causes it is called APPETITE or DESIRE the later being the generall name and the other often-times restrayned to signifie the Desire of Food namely Hunger and Thirst. And when the Endeavour is fromward something it is generally called AVERSION These words Appetite and Aversion we have from the Latines and they both of them signifie the motions one of approaching the other of retiring So also do the Greek words for the same which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For Nature it selfe does often presse upon men those truths which afterwards when they look for somewhat beyond Nature they stumble at For the Schooles find in meere Appetite to go or move no actuall Motion at all but because some Motion they must acknowledge they call it Metaphoricall Motion which is but an absurd speech for though Words may be called metaphoricall Bodies and Motions cannot That which men Desire they are also sayd to LOVE and to HATE those things for which they have Aversion So that Desire and Love are the same thing save that by Desire we alwayes signifie the Absence of the Object by Love most commonly the Presence of the same So also by Aversion we signifie the Absence and by Hate the Presence of the Object Of Appetites and Aversions some are born with men as Appetite of food Appetite of excretion and exoneration which may also and more properly be called Aversions from somewhat they feele in their Bodies and some other Appetites not many The rest which are Appetites of particular things proceed from Experience and triall of their effects upon themselves or other men For of things wee know not at