Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	effect_n	will_n	1,670	5	6.6468	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27207	Considerations on a book, entituled The theory of the earth, publisht some years since by the Dr. Burnet	Beaumont, John, d. 1731.	1693 (1693)	Wing B1620; ESTC R170484	132,774	195

must follow that no Proportion can be assign'd to an Orb of Earth but about two Miles in depth Now we find according to these Proportions which are the only Proportions assignable to the two Orbs that the Abysse-Orb is but a ninth part of the other a Proportion no way answering such an Effect as a Deluge and the forming of the present Earth which could not possibly thence ensue Thus I have been forc't to apply Arguments several ways and to make a large Discourse on a Point which if the Hypothesis had been clearly stated I might have answered in a few Lines And now I think no more need be said the whole Contents of the Book falling of course only as the Author has said in some part of his Work That he conceives what he has advanc'd may at least serve to open the Inventions of some other Men so possibly some part of what I shall deliver in the sequel may conduce to the same end If the Author does suppose that at the time of the Disruption of his Orb of Earth there was an Orb of Air or Vapours betwixt it and his Abysse-Orb rais'd there by the constant Action of the Sun on the Abysse in the later Ages of the Antediluvian World as in some places of his Works he seems to intimate I think he ought to have represented such an Air-Orb in his Scheme of the Disruption of his Orb of Earth p. 135. which he has not done and therefore my preceding Arguments have not related to any such Air-orb But if he pleases to be plain in the matter and fairly tells us if he supposes any such Air-orb how thick he supposes it and what thickness he allows to his other Orbs I do here assure him I shall always be ready either to shew him the impossibility of a Deluge its being caus'd that way so that the Earth should be afterwards habitable or freely to own that he has represented the Possibility of a thing to me which upon long thinking hitherto I cannot conceive so to have been CHAP. VII and VIII IN the seventh Chapter the Author endeavours to make out by Argument and from History and particularly by some passages in the Scriptures that the Explication he has given of an universal Deluge is not an Idea only but an account of what really came to pass in this Earth and the true Explication of Noah's Flood And in the 8th Chapter he endeavours particularly to explain Noah's Flood in the material parts and circumstances of it according to his preceding Theory and concludes this Chapter with a Discourse how far the Deluge may be look'd upon as an effect of an ordinary Providence and how far of an extraordinary I think it plain enough by what I have set forth in the foregoing Chapter that nothing contain'd in these Chapters can be of any force wherefore I shall pass them by only taking notice of what the Author says concerning an Ordinary or Extraordinary Providence in reference to the Deluge for performing which he will not have the Waters to have been created or otherwise miraculously brought on the Earth but allows as there was an extraordinary Providence in the Formation or Composition of the first Earth so there was also in the dissolution of it and thinks it had been impossible for the Ark to have subsisted on the raging Abyss for the preservation of Noah and his Family without a miraculous hand of Providence to take care of them And concludes that writing a Theory of the Deluge as he does he is to exhibit a series of Causes whereby it may be made intelligible or to shew the proxim natural Causes of it Now as for any natural Causes to be found for the Deluge the learned Johannes Picus falling foul with Astrologers says thus Astrologers ascribe Noah's Flood as well as all other Miracles mention'd in the Scriptures to their Constellations in which thing doubtless they are madder than those who deny any such things to have been because they believe them as they are related and nevertheless effected by natural Causes when no greater madness can be imagin'd than to think that any thing is done by Natures power above Nature it self this being demonstrably so because nothing is more repugnant to Nature than that it should attempt its own destruction wherefore it would never bring that Injury on its self that it could not free it self from by its Power And if it could not be according to the course of Nature that the Waters exceeding the Mountains tops fifteen Cubits Noah with his Cargo in the Ark should be free from Shipwrack twelve months so it was not Natures purpose to drown the whole Earth with an Inundation of Waters to the destruction of all living Creatures He adds also particularly against Astrologers who will have the Stars to be Signs at least if not the causes of such effects as follows The course of natural things is so limited by God according to the Order he has establisht and so disjoyn'd from those things which are preternaturally done by the divine Power and Will that if all these were taken away there would be nothing wanting nor nothing abounding in Nature Wherefore as by the Order establisht by God natural things are signified by natural Signs and miraculous things by antecedent Miracles so Noah being divinely inspir'd and to be preserv'd by the divine Power signified to the World that an universal Deluge was to come by a Miracle of the divine Justice and he exemplifies the usual proceedings of Providence in other instances of the same kind And indeed we have reason to think that if there had been any natural Causes for the Deluge some of the learned Persons then in being at least upon Noah's warning would have perceiv'd some growing dispositions in the Heavens and Earth toward such an effect and not have suffer'd themselves to have been all surpriz'd when it came as the Scriptures represent to us they were Again since the ten Plagues of Egypt were miraculous which were to teach only one obdurate King that there was a God who commanded all things certainly when that God pleas'd to execute his vengeance on a World consummate in sin he would do it in an extraordinary and supernatural manner that Posterity should have no Tergiversation but be forc'd to own that Divine controling Power being certified of this act surpassing all natural Causes whatsoever And whereas the Author says that he writing a Theory of the Deluge is to shew the proxim natural Causes of it It will be answered that when an effect is thus miraculously wrought by an arbitrary determination of the most remote Cause we must not look after proxim Causes in Nature for it Effects being only accountable from any second or proxim natural Causes when things are left to Gods ordinary Concourse Not but God often uses second Causes in working Miracles but then he raises that natural Power otherwise belonging to them to an height far transcending Nature so

that the common Laws of motion and gravity by which the Author pretends to establish his Hypothesis have no place here I may add that it 's the general Opinion of Divines that nothing of those things which God has made by himself and without the concurrence of any other Cause will ever have an end or total dissolution as the Author intimates this dissolution of the Earth to be for want of Principles in them sufficient for their eternal support tho God by his meer will may put an end to them or dissolve them as he pleases and therefore as the Earth and other Elements were made by God in the Beginning so according to their natures they will remain for ever without any destruction or dissolution as to the whole tho they may undergo some partial Changes And in reference to this the learned Vallesius on that passage of Esdras Considera ergo tu quoniam minori staturâ estis prae his qui ante vos qui post vos minori quam vos quasi jam senescentes creaturae fortitudinem juventutis praetereuntes Says but neither is that fourth Book of Esdras receiv'd by Divines nor could that Opinion ever down with me for the World has Ages according to divine Ordinations and the account of Times which God has with himself but not according to Nature since neither its rise was from Nature nor will its destruction so happen Indeed it may be that this or that little part of the Earth drain'd by long culture and sowing may decay but not the whole Earth neither does any little part of it ever so decay as things which really grow old so that it can never after resume its strength and as it were wax young again but all things pass away and return in a certain Circle according to all and each of their parts according to all by vicissitudes some being decay'd others render'd more fertile according to each each of them being alternately decay'd and restor'd And indeed the Learned Dr. Hakewill in his Apology has so well clear'd the Point against a general decay in the World that I think it past time of Day now to have it brought in question so that such a dissolution in the Earth tending to its general decay as the Author intimates may not be admitted I shall conclude this Chapter by observing that besides the miraculous Providence which the Author allows in the saving of the Ark his Hypothesis forces him to introduce two or three Miracles more as I shall shew in the Second Book Whence we shall find that what he has endeavour'd to save in one great Miracle he has been forc't to make out in little ones CHAP. IX NOW the Author comes to prove his Theory from the Effects and present Form of the Earth and in this Ninth Chapter after having observ'd that the most considerable and remarkable things that occur in the Fabrick of this present Earth are First subterraneous Cavities and subterraneous Waters Secondly the Channel of the great Ocean Thirdly Mountains and Rocks He proceeds to give an account of these according to his Hypothesis Beginning with subterraneous Cavities and Waters Saying that those Cavities were made upon the general Dissolution of the Earth according as the broken Fragments variously fell into hollow and broken Postures and that the subterraneous Waters are parts of the Abysse the Pillars and Foundations of the present Earth standing immerst in it Now I have shewn before that such an Orb of Earth and Dissolution of it on the Face of the Abysse for causing Noah's Deluge as the Author has suppos'd was impossible and consequently his Explanation here of subterraneous Cavities and Waters cannot hold I might add some things here for shewing the necessity of subterraneous Caverns in the Antediluvian Earth which the Author denies to have been But because in the following Chapters I shall shew the necessity of a Sea and Mountains in those times the Uses of which may be more conspicuous I shall pass by the Cavities at present CHAP. X. HEre the Author treats concerning the Sea-Channel and the Original of it the Causes of its irregular Form and unequal Depths as also of the Original of Islands their Situation and Properties He exaggerates much in the Description of the Sea-Chanel where amongst other things he says thus p. 128. When I present this great Gulph to my Imagination emptied of all its Waters naked and gaping at the Sun stretching its Jaws from one end of the Earth to another it appears to me the most ghastly thing in Nature And again p. 131. If we should suppose the Ocean dry and if we look't down from the top of some high Cloud upon the empty Shell how horridly and barbarously would it look And with what Amazement should we see it under us like an open Hell or a wide bottomless Pit So deep and hollow and vast so broken and confus'd so every way deform'd and monstrous c. To this I must say as far as I can conceive of the Sea-Channel if it were empty and had a Sword upon it and Trees as the Land has I can fancy no other Prospect could be there than what the Earth now affords us We have Mountains now that appear as high to us as perhaps any would if we then stood in any part of the Sea-Channel and so for any other suppos'd Unevennesses Indeed to look upon many places of it naked without a Sword on them might not seem so well so draw off the Skin from the most beautious Creature on the Earth and see how it will look as for other Ghastliness I fancy none for when all is said it is but a Veil spread over half the Earth allow'd to afford a quarter of a Mile depth to the Sea taking one place with another thorowout and not being above two Miles deep at the deepest part and what is this in a Philosophical Consideration when compar'd with the vast Body it lies upon It 's a place fit to receive such a poor Lake as the Sea otherwise not worth naming being not comparably so much to the Body of the Earth as the thickness of a Leaf of the thinnest Paper drawn from one half part of a Globe of three feet Diameter takes from the bulk of that Globe Next the Author tells us there are three things particularly to be consider'd concerning the Sea-Channel viz. It s general Irregularity the vast Hollowness of its Cavity and the Declivity of its sides which lie shelving tho with some Unevenness from top to bottom And these he thinks may be aptly explain'd according to his Hypothesis by the fall of the Earth and are not explainable any other way and he gives us two Figures for representing the Fall of the Earth to effect these things The like he says for the Rise of original Islands which he counter-distinguishes from such as are factitious these being made either by the Aggestion of Sands or the Sea 's leaving the tops