Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	action_n	effect_n	necessary_a	1,860	5	7.1073	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59251	A vindication of the doctrine contained in Pope Benedict XII, his bull and in the General Council of Florence, under Eugenius the III concerning the state of departed souls : in answer to a certain letter, printed and published against it, by an unknown author, under this title, A letter in answer to the late dispensers of Pope Benedict XII, his bull, &c., wherein the progress of Master Whites lately minted Purgatory is laid open and its grounds examined ... / by S.W.	Sergeant, John, 1622-1707.	1659 (1659)	Wing S2599; ESTC R12974	85,834	208

that our affections to acquaintance and friends and the rest we cultivated in this life shall remain in the future And more fully in the same place num 2. The affections shall remain and that in the same proportion they were during life Out of which he concludes there num 3. Those who have given themselves up wholly to corporal pleasures will be affected with a vast grief through the impossibility of those pleasures there that is because corporal pleasures cannot now be injoyed by the soul in her state of separation This is the essence the substance of his Purgatory this is his whole chain or deduction of it this is the grief he admits in separated souls for accusing them of ignorance who conceive fire or any other material or external agent hath power to afflict them in that state he conceives them sufferers from these remaining affections to corporal pleasures which therefore torment the souls because they now are in a state where these pleasures are impossible to be injoyed Sect. 7. Now as to the measure or duraration of separated souls and the continuation of that state till the day of judgment the foundations are laid in the same Book less 3. num 5. Again sayes he it is plain that a separated soul in an other manner excels place and time then in the body since in that it only abstracts from them but out of that it comprehends them For this universal and actual knowledg places all place and all time within the soul so that it can act in every place at once and together as far as concerns this respect and provide for all time wherefore it is in a manner a maker and governour of time and place out of which he deduces fully of the middle state acc. 12. in spiritual acts whether they bring happiness or misery there is no proportion to time so as to make pain which lasts longer to be greater or that which ends sooner to be less for those are the properties of corporal things c. Every act of a pure spirit reflected on it self being of its own nature out of the reach of time is not subject thereto but greater then the whole extension of time c. And in the next Sect. more fully If to a thing that is a separated soul which coexists to a longer part of time nothing be thereby added or to a thing which coexists to a shorter part of time nothing be thereby diminished there can be no reason why duration should represent either more or less grievous in these respective cases c. So that whatsoever grief of a separated soul is by the quality and force of its essence greater the same let its Co-existence to time be what it will must be more vehement and that which is less less intense nothing being gained o● lost by the perpetuating or shortning of the motions of the Sun or other caelestial bodies c. And from this ground in the same book account 22. he concludes Whatsoever time intervenes betwixt it that is the prayer now powred out for a departed soul or death and the restauration of the world that is the day of general judgment is to departed souls but as one moment Sect. 8. And further as to the Immutability of that state of separation and the unchangeableness of the acts of Souls now severed from their Bodies his grounds are laid down in the afore-cited Perepatetick Institutions book 5. less 4. num 6 7 8. Moreover says he out of what hath been said 't is deduced That in the state of separation no variety can happen to Souls from any body or the change of Bodies for since 〈◊〉 change passes not from any body into the soul but through the Identification of the soul with its own body and this Identification ceaseth by the state of separation it follows that no action nor mutation can be derived from any Body to the Soul Nor has the Soul of it self a principle of change in it self not from hence only because an indivisible cannot act on it self but also because since a mutation of the Soul cannot be any other then either according to the Vnderstanding or according to the Will But the Vnderstanding is supposed to know all things together and for ever whence by the course of Nature there is no room left either for Ignorance or new Science And the Will is either not distinct from the Vnderstanding or at least is adequately governed in the state of separation it follows that naturally no mutation can happen to a separated soul from within or caused by it self Nor yet from any other Spirit without the Interposition of the Body for since all Spirits are indivisible their operations too will be such but an indivisible effect supposing all the causes of necessity exists in the same instant wherefore if any thing be to be done between Spirits t is all in one instant so done and perfected that afterwards an other action cannot be begun for if it begin either the causes were before adequately put or not if they were the effect was put if they were not some of the causes is changed that it may now begin to act and not this b●● the former is the first mutation whereof it is to be urged Whether the causes were put before These are the eternal truths as they would perswade us the unshakable foundations of Phylosophy on which this whole new Fabrick of Purgatory stands and I have been the more careful to deliver them fully to my reader even in this beginning of my discourse that he may with one cast of his eye see on what firm foundations this new school hath abandoned the hitherto received faith of our holy mother the Church and now dares pronounce That what she hath hitherto taught us proceeded but out of ignorance of the nature of separated substances Of the Mid. State Acc. 17. Sect. 9. But because Master White the Author of this new Purgatory and our faithless demonstrative Religion was sufficiently conscious to himself that these novelties would call upon the vigilancy and care of the Shepheards of Christs flock he stood ready prepared to receive their incounter And no sooner had the late Bishop of Calcedon his then superior admonished him of this and other his new Doctrines in this new pretended Demonstrative Theology but in defence of his new molded Purgatory issued out his premeditated as it seems book Of the Middle State of Souls directed to the same Bishop which book if it had remained in the Authors obscure and mysterious Dialect which he above all modern Writers seems to affect and reason enough he hath to come Mascaradoed into the world and to involve himself had layed deservedly neglected But it having been by the indiscreet care of some one of his Proselytes put into an English dress and exposed to the weak capacities even of Vulgar Readers lest this new erroneous Doctrine contained in it might spread among those whose infirmity betrayed them to be

third part of the Stars or Angels into his Rebellion And if Angels can thus Act on Angels without this interposition of a body why not on separated souls Nor is that Foundation of this his Doctrine at all subsistent For since says he All Spirits are indivisible their Operations must be indivisible And consequently perfected All of them in one moment For this consequence is perfectly null Nor will it ever be rendred evident that an Act of a Spirit may not coexist to a great or less part of time much less will it ever be evinced as is already proved that there is not a true and real succession in their operations So that his Doctrine is absolutely false when he tells us If any thing be to be done among Spirits it is so done and perfected in one moment that afterwards an other action can not be begun And besides when he assumes An indivisible effect the causes being put of necessity exists in the same moment Though he may say true for that one Act but when he infers the same for all succeeding Acts unto Aeternity he errs most grosly Imagining this which is one of the most fundamental Bases of all his Phylosophy and Divinity that all Causes are fixt and set as to All Effects whatsoever from the very beginning unto all future succession By which Doctrine both God himself is necessitated so to do that he can not do otherwise then he doth do and each intelligence so to know by the connexion of existences that it can not know otherwise then it does know which is most pure Pagan Fatality destructive of the Liberty of God and all contingency in all created things whatsoever Sect. 34. Lastly That we may vindicate Christianity and the Church from that ignorance of separated Substances he boldly and injuriously fixes upon Her and the Angelical St. Thomas from a most gross abuse let us take a survey of his 17 Accompt in his Middlè State of Souls He there tells us The delivery of Souls before Reunion proceeded out of the ignorance or not adhering to this Doctrine of the incomparable St. Thomas and his School That in Abstracted Spirits there is neither discourse nor any manner of composition but purely a simple apprehension so that errour and falsity can have no place in them For these sayes he depend on the body so that it is impossible Indivisibles or Spirits should be capable of Succession Now that my Reader may fully understand both the Truth here contained and his most erroneous Consequences drawn from It We must observe that there is a double Composition in Vnderstandong both of the Praedicat to the Subject and of the Conclusion to the Premisses Both which take place in Vs by reason of the weakness of our Vnderstandings in this state of mortality For neither do We at one single glance understand the Praedicat though we cenceive the Subject nor do we attain to the Conclusions included in the Principles but by a long indeavour and succession of reasoning or discourse So that our U●derdandings arrive not to Truth but by compounding or dividing the terms one with the other and the Conclusion with the Premisses But it happens otherwise in Angels For they by a cleer strength of Vnderstanding apprehend both the composition and division of Propositions with one simple sight and the Conclusions in the Principles without this succession of discourse This is St. Thomas his Doctrine 1 Par. quaest. 58. art 3. 4. Now it imports not our present business to consider Whether this knowledge of Spirits is a true discourse since a succession of time is not perhaps requisit to that but onely of causality which is here found But it imports us to consider That out of this Doctrine of St. Thomas it no ways follows That Errour or falsity can have no place in separated Substances For the same St. Thomas disputes this in the very next Article and teaches us That though in such things as are thus naturally known by the apprehensions of the terms or Principles Spirits can not err yet in such things as depend on the supernatural Ordination of God as far forth as they are supernatural Errour may take place in them And this says he happens not to the good Angels because they judge not of those things which supernaturally belong to the Object without due submission to the Divine Ordination but it does in the Devils who by their perverse will withdrawing themselves from the Divine Wisdome judge erroneously of supernatural things But that we may further see how injuriously he would improove the Doctrine of this great Saint and Doctour both against him and the Church we must further observe that his Consequence That Indivisibles or Spirits are not capable of succession is both null and against this holy Doctour every where For in the first Article of this very Question he teaches That Angels are not alwayes in actual consideration of those very things they know naturally He tells us That of those thinge which God reveals to them of which they receive new revelations by the occasions of affairs they are in potentiality or preceding ignorance He tells us in the next Article Those things whose knowledge depend on one onely Species Angels know all together but not those which depend on divers He tells us in fine everywhere That there is a real and true Succession in their Acts which is measured by a real and true Succession of Time And I can not admonish my Reader too of ten of His fatal Necessity and Connexion of Causes which runs through all his Doctrine and grounds these his Positions when he tells us That a separated Soul is all other things by the connexion of existencies and since she knows all things together and for ever by the course of Nature there is no room left either for Ignorance or new Science Which Doctrine is the Corner-stone of all his Fabrick of Purgatory and is perfectly destructive of all Religion because destructive of all Liberty in God and Creatures And peculiarly destructive of all the mysteries of Grace and Supernaturality for all these depend on the pure freedom and Will of God who is not nor can not be tyed to creatures and therefore the same Angelical Doctor in the precedent 57. Quest Art 3 4 5. concludes That Angels neither know all future contingencies Nor the secrets of our hearts Nor the mysteries of Grace but as far forth as it pleases God to reveal these to them which in their first Creation he did in some measure but more amply and fully afterwards according as it did agree with their Offices and imployments in this Vniverse This Sir is true Christian Theology which reaches much more to souls in Purgatory learnt by revelation from him who neither can be deceived nor deceive us not out of Epicurean Lucretian Pagan Principles of Fatality in things and of Necessity in God in order to his Creatures But if we should suppose all these Vnchristian

let it give testimony to this Faith We find the Priest at the Propitiatory Sacrifice for the Dead powring forth his Devotions in this manner Dread Iudge whose Iustice is severe Their long black score of sin make clear Ere the Accounting Day appear What new construction shall we have of this Ante diem rationis ere the accounting day and every where Grant them rest Eternall Receive O Lord the Sacrifices and Prayers for those Souls we make a memory of this day make them pass from death to life And more expresly in the Prayers and Post-communions Grant we beseech thee O Lord that the Soul of thy Servant being purged and discharged from his sins by these now offered Sacrifices may obtain mercy and Rest. What senseless Devotions are these whilst Separated Souls cannot be purged or discharged by any Sacrifice whatsoever since that is reserved to the state of Reunion Sect. 23. But to this Clowd of witnesses to all the Authority we can Imagin in the Catholick Church to the consent of all the Christian world Fathers Councils Popes to the Constant and Universal practice of all the faithful not any Church Chappel Altar Oratory but speaking it alowd in their continual Prayers Dirges Masses Almes Doales c. What is opposed but THOMAS ANGLVS E GENEROSA ALBIORVM IN ORIENTE TRINOBANTVM PROSAPIA ORIVNDVS THOMAS THE ENGLISHMAN DESCENDED OF THE GENEROUS PROGENY OF THE ALBII I think he Construes it Whites IN THE EAST OF THE TRINOBANTS A● which in good modest English is Thomas White of Essex Together with the autority of the Heathen Poets Not so you willx say we have not this Thomas The Englishman with this frightful title but with his Reason with his Demonstration with that indisolvable Chaine of necessary conclusions pursued with Irrefragable evidence through the most abstruse properties of Bodies to the clear discovery of separated Substances not onely of Souls now severed from that Clay which before inclosed them but of Angels those clean pure Spirits which never had any allay of drossy matter Dives Promissis To be rich in Promises may accompany very poor men would your performance were answerable though much short of the full proportion This truly Sir is a very handsome invitation to your School But is this the onely entertainment there O no we have an incomparably higher and nobler feast prepared for us All this is but his Peripateticks the atchievment of Thomas the Englishman of the Albii of the East-Saxons What shall we hope for in his Theology now he hath gotten this much nobler Title What is it for the now great Trinobant to understand Men and Angels This towring soul flyes much a higher pitch by his Adamantine Chaine of Demonstrations he soars up to the a inaccessible light of the Divinity he leads us into the bosome of that incomprehensible essence and there evidences by cleer light the b Eternal Generation of the Word the Procession of the Holy-Ghost There he inlightens us cleerly to see an Eternal Father a Co-eternal Son a substantial love Generation Processions Nature Persons All In sum whatever our astonisht humble Faith hath hitherto only accepted by Revelation c And yet which is more admirable then All this and which never yet fell into any mans hopes or thoughts that it could be possible even of those contingent verities to which the Divine Will is free and where neither part of the contradiction determinately can have any necessary tye to the Cause as certainly all created truths are for God to any thing besides God can have no necessary connexion he with his incomparable Chain fixes even in such contingencies this determinat part of the contradiction And all this after our great Knight his standard bearer Sir Kenelm Digby d had now held forth his new Torch to the hitherto darkned World May Sir this your great Master be happy in his glorious undertakings may success attend and wait on his endeavours Phaetont youthful attempt to drive the Sun was nothing to this enterprise and yet magnis excidit ausis Happy we who are reserved to this third age of the Church which is no more to walk by Faith but by Science Happy we that now live when this new Sun appears from the East of the Trinobants who gives the second Wing of Knowledg to the Woman to the Church but especially happy we to whom the acquaintance of this Miracle for a Man I dare not style him nor an Angel since even to them but by Revelation these Mysteries are hidd hath not been denyed I May all other Doctrines be silenced all other Schools shut up they have hitherto led us in a Clowd in a submission of our understandings to obscure unseen verities upon the Authority of God the Revealer whilst he tearing this veile of ignorance which incumbred our understandings hath displayed with light and evidence and plac't All in the mid-dayes Sun whatsoever we have groped for hitherto in the dark obscurity of Faith Let us no more envy the happiness of those who conversed with our B. Saviour in Flesh who heard that heavenly voice who beheld that ravishing countenance beautiful above the Sons of Men who were eye-witnesses of those stupendious miracles he wrought in confirmation of that Doctrine which he brought from the bosome of his Father Let not an other bragg he received his Faith from the mouth of S. Peter the Rock of S. Paul the Vessel of Election of S. Iohn the beloved of Iesus but let all these worthily envy us who now have a Docto●r as far excelling all them as Light excells Darkness as Day the Night as Evidence Obscurity it self For alas what did Peter Paul or Iohn or our B. Saviour himself They layed down obscure Positions abstruse hidden mysteries and in confirmation of the truth of what they delivered wrought Miracles which certainly inforce no Assent but leave us to our former liberty leave the Object it self in the same obscurity it was before For since they are neither its cause nor effect but purely extrinsecal to it they enlighten not at all the object in it self What then was begotten in the souls of those holy Apostles and Disciples who followed our B. Saviour by his Preaching but a free voluntary submission of their understandings to those obscure truths he deliver'd upon the Authority only of their heavenly Teacher But our great Master promises a far other proceed Not by an Attestation extrinsecal to the Object will he confirm those truths which he delivers to us but out of the cleare principles and intime notions of the Objects out of the very bowels of the Mysteries themselves he will render all cleer evident and perspicuous and ravish our souls even whether our selves will or no into an Assent not any more of an obscure dark Faith but of a cleer apparent Science even to the a full content and satiety of our truth-thirsty understandings Let him then possess the Chair Let him