Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A23772
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The vanity of the creature by the author of The whole duty of man, &c. ; together with a letter prefix'd, sent to the bookseller, relating to the author.
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Allestree, Richard, 1619-1681.
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1684
(1684)
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Wing A1168; ESTC R19327
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37,491
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120
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the ordering and disposing of all things here below And this did the wiser sort among them confess as the Satyrist tells us Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia sed te Nos facimus Fortuna Deam Others again as the Stoicks make Fate or Destiny the cause of all Alterations which they say is an Event that necessarily falls out from a certain inevitable order and connection of Natural Causes working without the will of God as the Supreme Orderer and Disposer of them he being subjected to them and not they to him whereby they take away the very Nature of the Godhead which is to be a most powerful and free Agent that works what and by what means it pleases all secondary causes depending upon that and that upon none But enough of these For I must remember my self that I am now speaking to Christians who acknowledge the Divine Providence in all things and therefore shall speak no more of these Negative and supposed Causes but shall now give you the true Efficicent Causes of them by way of Affirmation And here know that Logicians tell us of two Efficient Causes Principal and less Principal And this is twofold Impulsive and Instrumental First then the Principal Cause of all Changes and Alterations is God for so said the Heathen man Valet ima summit Mutare insignem attenuat Deus Obscura promens But why borrow I weapons from the Philistins forge when as there is enough for this that may be drawn out of Gods Armory of the Scriptures as Psal. 75.6 7. Promotion says the Prophet comes neither from the East nor from the West nor from the South but God is the Iudge he puts down one and sets up another So also Job 34.29 When he gives Quietness who can make Trouble and when he hides his face who can behold him whether it be done says Elihu against a Nation or against a particular man only Again Amos 5.8 He makes the Seven Stars and Orion and turns the shadow of Death into the morning The Lord is his Name The Oratour expresseth this well by comparing Gods Omnipotency to the power of the Soul over the Members of the Body which upon the least intimation of the Mind do turn and move about with all facility Now God says he is the sole Mind of the Universe and hath all parts and parcels thereof at his beck and pleasure to be turn'd into any shape or form at his disposal Nay it is no dishonour for God to cast the eye of his Providence upon the alteration even of the meanest things for who is like says the Psalmist to the Lord our God who hath his dwelling on high and yet humbles himself to behold the things in Heaven and Earth Not only to behold the things in Heaven which is a great condescention to him whom the Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens cannot contain but also the things in Earth Now how unworthy these are of his taking notice of you may see by those diminutive expressions of them compared with Gods greatness Isa. 40.15 where the Prophet says Behold the Nations are but as the drop of a Bucket and are counted as the small dust of the Ballance Behold he takes up the Isles as a very little thing And if this be not low enough for them he says further v. 17. That all Nations before him are as nothing and are counted to him as less than nothing Now look what a wide difference there is betwixt the Sea and a Bucket of water yea the drop of a Bucket or betwixt a heap of dust and the small dust of the ballance betwixt very great and very little betwixt all things and nothing at all yea less then nothing if less could be so vast is the disproportion betwixt God and all Nations which are the greatest among all earthly things And yet for all this is God pleased so far to extenuate his own greatness and to take off from it as to look after them and run them about in their several stages from one point unto another And if you would have this truth to be made out further unto you our Saviour doth it Mat. 10.29 by two several instances The one is of two Sparrows which are little birds and of small value but the Greek yet runs it more diminutively 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 two little sparrows and so they must needs be for they were sold both even for a farthing and this is price little enough Yet the Arabick makes it less and hath for it Phals which is the least piece of money that can be and accordingly expresses the two Mites spoken of Mark 12.42 which makes but one Farthing by Phalsain in the dual number as a late and learned Expositor notes The other is of the Hairs upon our Heads being a kind of Excrement belonging to our Bodies and no integral or necessitous part of them as the Heart Hands and Feet are and yet he tells us that God numbers these and takes such a particular account of them that not one of them falls to the ground without his disposal In the vision of the Wheels we read of a wheel within a wheel Now the wheel within is the wheel of Gods Providence that turns about the wheels of all outward things be they never so low and mean For as God doth not labour in doing the greatest things so neither doth he disdain either to do or undo the least but as he made the small and great says the book of Wisdom so also doth he care for both alike The Potter having power over his Clay either to make of it a vessel of honour or dishonour and being made either to preserve it in that form and being he hath bestowed upon it or else to deform and destroy it since it is equitable that every one should do with his own as he pleases Nay as he says of the gnat that Nusquam potentior natura quam in minimis So may we say that God doth no ways advance his Power and Wisdom more than in ordering of the least accidents to be disposed of to his Glory and the good of his Children And so much for the Principal Efficient cause The less Principal follows which as I said is either Impulsive or Instrumental Now the Impulsive cause of all Changes and Alterations is the sin of man This usher'd them in at the first and so it doth still For before Adam sinned he enjoyed a Paradise of constant and uninterrupted happiness but so soon as he sins against God then follows a great change presently For the Earth all fruitful before now becomes barren himself subject to labour his Wife to Travail and Sorrow and both to cares and troubles to weakness and dissolution And so it is also with Nations and Kingdoms If they be chang'd at any time sin is the cause of it and the greater their sin is the greater ususually is their change Great sinnings are the floud-gates to let in great
Alterations upon them For it is not a bare sinning in a Nation from which there is none that could ever plead exemption but a sinning in some high measure that is an in-let to Changes in the highest kind Which made David say Psal. 107.34 That a fruitful land is turn'd into barrenness for the wickedness of those that dwell therein which the vulgar Latine reads Propter malitiam i. e. for the malicious wickedness of those that dwell therein which notes a sin of a high nature viz. such a one as is persisted in both against Knowledge and Conscience And therefore it is a good observation which Musculus hath upon the words These strange Alterations says he of Nations and Kingdoms are not for the sinning of them from which no Nation can be free but for their malicious sinning And this you may see farther in Jerusalem Ezek. 21. where we read of a very great Judgment that should befal her from the Babylonian viz. Utter Destruction expressed by the threefold Overturn wherewith God threatens her v. 27. And v. 24. he laies down the Impulsive cause that mov'd him to it and this is an impudent and shameless sinning against God for they did not commit their sin in a corner as those that were asham'd of it but brazen-faced Wretches as they were they declar'd their sin as Sodom and discover'd it openly in the face of the Sun and this they did too not only in one or two particular acts but generally says the Text in all their doings Now there is some hope of a modest and bashful but none at all of a shameless and obdurate sinner Thus the Father when his Son hath done amiss yet is he well perswaded of his amendment if he but see him blush upon his reproving of him But when like Judah he hath once a Whores forehead and refuses to be ashamed then doth he give him over as a lost Child and not to be recover'd So that from hence we see that in what place soever we find such a Turn such an Eversion as this where all is turn'd upside down there hath been without question some great Aversio a Creatore ad Creaturam some great sinning against God as the Schoolmen call it Which was the reason that when the English were now upon their quitting of France in Henry the Sixth's days demanded of the French by way of derision when they would make their return thither it was feelingly answered by one of our Nation thus When your sins are greater than ours It is sin then that ruines particular persons that subverts Families that periods Kingdoms that wheels about Governments that overturns States that disjoynts Common-weals and says unto them as to the proud waves Thus far ye shall go and no farther And so I have done with the Impulsive Cause and come next to the Instrumental causes or means which God uses in effecting his Changes here and they are two The first is the Motion and Influences of the Celestial Bodies And this will the better appear if we consider their forcible workings upon the Mind of man For though they cannot work immediately upon it because it is immaterail yet may they and do work mediately upon it as by the Body which is the Instrument of the Soul to work by and the Case wherein it is put up here for a time and so make it either well or ill affected according to the Bodies present temper By which means it comes to pass many times that not only the dispositions of particular men but also of whole multitudes collected together in a Politick Body are much alter'd and chang'd either to labour or Sloth to Peace or Disquiet to good or evil actings according as they are inclin'd by the Motions of the Heavenly Bodies And that these Celestial Bodies have their energy upon all Sublunary things is plain First by Scripture as Job 38.33 where the Lord speaks thus to Job Know'st thou the Ordinances of Heaven and canst thou set the dominion thereof in the Earth which implies 1. That the Heavens have power and dominion in the Earth 2. That this power of theirs is set them from Gods ordinance and appointment Secondly by the constant Observation and Experience of all Ages Bodinus the French Lawyer speaks well to this point Many erre says he greatly who think the influence of the Celestial Spheres to be nothing when as their strength hath ever been most effectual as in Sacred Writ is to be seen and he cites the 38. chap. of Job before-mentioned to prove the same Adding further That many ancient Writers have noted the great Changes in Cities and Kingdoms upon the conjunction of the Superior Planets but to them only where they have been deputed of God to that end and purpose And that they have been instrumental towards the working of such effects he shews by an induction of some particular instances As that before the translation of the Roman Soveraignty unto Caesar there was a great Conjunction of the Superior Planets met together in Scorpio which fell out again seven hundred years after when the Arabian Legions received the Law of Mahomet rebell'd against the Greek Emperours and subdued the Eastern Asia from the Christians The same also came about again Anno Christi 1464. after which Ladamachus King of the Tartars was by his Subjects thrust out of the Chair of Soveraignty and Frederick the Third driven out of Hungary by Matthias Corvinus who from a Prisoner stept up to the Royal Throne c. And Alstedius tells us that the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in February 1642. did foretell and portend the revolution of some new Empire and Government to fall out after it in Europe The effect whereof in part it's like we have seen in this Nation already and may live if God so dispose of us to see further of it yet in time to come But to pass this and to come to that daily and usual course of Gods proceedings with us in the world Here methinks there should be few though of ordinary capacities among us but if we be a little observing may see this truth made good by the eye of our own experience which tells us that the Earth is either Fruitful or Barren and the Air either Wholsome or Infectious sutably to that measure and manner of influence they receive from them And therefore when God will at any time bring about some great change in the world it is then easie to see how usually he fits his inferiour means according to their several natures for the orderly transacting of it in those stations wherein he hath set them As when he will turn a fruitful Land into barrenness and again a barren Land into fruitfulness which he promis'd his own people Hos. 2.21 there he tells them in what order he will work it I will hear says he the Heavens and they shall hear the Earth and they shall hear Jezreel For this is a sure rule That the Supreme Cause