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	necessary_a	voluntary_a	1,479	5	10.9108	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45575	A sermon preach'd at St. Marys Church in Cambridge, January the 6th being the feast of the Epiphany / by Francis Hare ...	Hare, Francis, 1671-1740.	1700 (1700)	Wing H757; ESTC R35443	14,022	33

admired every thing and understood nothing nothing of Arts and Sciences nothing of the Causes and Natures of things in a word nothing beyond their Senses and what was just before their Eyes and by that means became an easie Prey to a few who thought farther than the rest and used them as we use Children now amused them with Fables and strange Stories and lead them which way they would by complying with their Superstition to which purpose they took care the Doctrines they taught the People should be absurd enough and well adjusted to the Lowness of their Understandings This was really the case and no better for the Fabulous Age of the World was the time when these several Religions were first invented and their Poets were the Authors of them of which the Eldest either never wrote or at least nothing of their genuine Writings is now left but of the Poets which do remain we find always the oldest as had in greatest Veneration so be sure most absurd in matters of Religion The World in the mean time was like to thrive and grow in Understanding under the Influence of such Teachers and in embracing Schemes of Religion formed in such Times Times of which we know nothing certainly besides their Ignorance Yet Considerations of State Management of designing Men and the Interest that a great many had in them kept these Superstitions up in after-times the bulk of the People being as ignorant as ever and still believing whatever they were taught There were no doubt some wise and honest Men who saw the Absurdity of these things and would have declaimed sooner and more loudly against them but were deterred 't is likely from the Attempt partly by the Danger they might bring upon themselves and partly thro' a very right Opinion they had that Religion was necessary for Society and that tho' the establish't one were very faulty there might be more inconvenience in labouring a Change especially since they could not be sure what Religion was true to bring in the room of it or indeed whether any were so besides it may be they thought that in that State of things Prejudices were necessary to make the People have any notion of Religion and therefore if they were once removed the People who are always ready to run into extremes and if once unhinged are very hard to be settled again if they had shaken off the Religion they were bred in would then perhaps take up with none at all Some such Thoughts probably kept in the Wiser Heathens from exposing the Folly and Inconsistency of the Religions then in use who could easily have framed more rational Schemes but were not sure they could find out the True one and therefore were content to sit down by those they had and make the best Sense of them they could In time indeed they ventured many of them to refine a little and by degrees endeavoured to explain away what was most apparently Absurd but this did not satisfie some who being Men of more Heat and less Discretion were for going faster and thinking they knew more than all before them could not keep in the mighty Secret any longer The Credulity implicite Belief and Bigotry the World had been so long under about things they had scarce any notion at all of made them run now into the other Extreme and so first Scepticism and then downright Atheism became the Learning and Wisdom of the World These Men having found the World was mistaken in many things began now to doubt of every thing they began to question the Being of any God at all and having shewn with Reason enough on their side the folly and weakness of the common Opinions as they were then corrupted 't was so hard to see the little Truth that lay under them that without Distinction they threw them all away and setting up for themselves entertained about almost all things new Opinions of their own very different from what had been hitherto received but not less Extravagant And thus by different ways they came to all intents and purposes to the same end and left the World in as ill a Condition as they found it or rather made things worse for perhaps 't is better to act upon wrong Principles than none at all for then Men may be govern'd by those that are wiser than themselves whereas the Men of no Principles can be govern'd neither by themselves nor others Some of the main Points about which the World when they began to think freely were employed were these First They were much in the dark whether there were such a thing as an Eternal Intelligent Being or not if there were wherein his Nature consisted and what were his chief Attributes and if there were one such Being who was infinitely Wise and Good whether there were not an Evil one Equal in Power to him without which they could not account for the Origine of Evil which was always one great Difficulty Next if there were One Eternal Mind and but One which we call GOD whether he made the World or not if he did whether he only put things into that Frame and Order they are now in or whether he made the things themselves out of Nothing If the former for the latter was an Opinion that all their Philosophy was not able to comprehend whether this GOD were any other than the Soul of the World animating the vast Mass of Matter after the same manner as the Soul of Man actuates his little World Again if GOD were a Being intirely distinct from the Universe with which many of them confounded him whether he did at all interest himself in the Government of the World after he had made it that is whether there were any Providence or not whether his Happiness did not consist in perpetual Ease and Rest and consequently whether any Care or Thought of Business were not inconsistent with it or if he did meddle and concern himself with the Government of Things whether this Care were not confin'd within certain Bounds in looking after the great Springs and Wheels of the Machine while the Sublunary things and this lower World were quite neglected or if he took care of them too whether this extended to the Insensible and Vegetable part only or to the Sensible and Rational if to them whether he governed the Minds and Actions of Men or only their involuntary Motions if their Minds and Thoughts and Actions whether by a chain of Causes link'd together in a perpetual and necessary Order or only by a Concurrence with their own free voluntary Motions if the latter whether Men were by that rendred capable of Moral Good and Moral Evil if capable whether they were actually accountable to GOD for what they do which supposes that there are fixt and unalterable Rules or Good and Evil that these Rules are the Will of GOD that he has declared this Will of his to Man if so what and how many are these Rules when and where