Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	adultery_n	commit_v	wife_n	2,548	5	8.1753	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63921	Two discourses introductory to a disquisition demonstrating the unlawfulness of the marriage of cousin Germans, from law, reason, Scripture, and antiquity by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1682 (1682)	Wing T3319; ESTC R11417	26,430	68

that omnia peccata sunt aequalia but also that monstrous Paradox may pass for current that virtutes sunt corpora and after all they will say why do you trouble your head so much about Vertue and Vice when for ought you know they are the same unless you can assign a difference between them XX. And that difference must be taken from the effects otherwise it will be impossible to make any standing Criterium or Tekmar by which Vertue and Vice either in the general or in particular instances shall be distinguished from one another and if we will go this way to work then I suppose it will be granted that those outward practices or those inward habits and dispositions of mind which do in their own Nature tend to the disturbance of our own happiness or of that of the World are vitious and morally evil and because the Nature of mankind is like for ever to continue the same they are said to be essentially and eternally so and on the contrary by the same reason it must be acknowledged that all those inward affections of the mind and all those external or imperate activities that are derived from it whose Natural tendency is to the publick or to a private good without any damage or detriment to the publick that all these whether practices or inclinations are virtuous or morally good and because in their own Nature they do and will always so long as mankind continues the World continue and persevere to be what they are so highly conducible and so absolutely necessary to the good of the World and to the happiness of particular persons because they will always wherever they are found keep mankind steady and upright and hinder them from doing wrong or injury to one another they are said to have an essential and eternal rectitude in them XXI Further that this indeed is the measure by which we are to proceed in our disquisitions concerning Moral good and evil that the interest and happiness of mankind is the only true and the only infallible touchstone to which they are to be brought for Tryal will appear from these three following considerations XXII First If Robbery and Oppression if Rapine and Injustice if breach of Oaths and Promises if Betraying our Trust or Forfeiting our Word and breaking through all the sacred ties and obligations of Friendship were things that were as much for the interest of the World as they are now against it and tend only to bring us into disorder and confusion to make every mans Life unhappy and his safety precarious and his fears endless If intemperance were as much for a mans health as it is now destructive and pernicious to all the useful faculties both of his Body and Mind there is no question to be made but these things would be as Lawful and Commendable as they are now worthy of Punishment or of Blame because Laws are made for nothing else but only for the interest and well being of the publick things that are manifestly destructive to this end they punish about things that are indifferent or signifie nothing either way towards it they do not concern themselves and those things or persons that are useful and advantageous to the publick weal the Laws and the Governors of all Nations so far as these things can be adjusted by any common Rule or Measure are used proportionably to encourage and reward and though the other sort of Justice which consists not in the reward of Vritue but in the Punishment of Wickedness or Vice be that which is much more equally distributed than the other yet the Measure of this Justice being the detriment or damage accruing to the publick and the proportion in which all punishments are inflicted being altogether governed by this measure this is a Confession of all Nations and all Ages that the measure of moral evil is the Interest of Mankind and if all that is meant by moral evil is that in its own nature or in its immediate tendency it is hurtful to a particular person or to the Commonwealth then all that can be meant by morally good is that which by the consent and experience of Mankind is found to be absolutely necessary or highly useful and expedient for it XXIII Secondly the same thing will appear from this that there are some sort of Actions which are not always determinately good or evil but sometimes one and sometimes the other as the Physical Action is the same whether I kill a man se defendendo or when his back was towards me in cold blood without any Provocation but yet in one case the Law not only pardons but commends the Action but in the other it will be sure to revenge the Death of an innocent person with that of him by whose unjust and cruel hand that mortal Wound was inflicted and both of these things depend upon the same reason because it is for the Interest of the publick and because no man could be secure in any Commonwealth where upon an extremity he may not be suffered to defend himself or where another with impunity may be suffered to hurt annoy or kill him without provocation and yet these two Actions though Physically the same yet in the morality of them they are extreamly different from nay they are directly opposite and contrary to one another and so likewise if a man have carnal Knowledge of his lawful Wife it is not only a lawful thing but a Duty but if he commit Adultery with another mans it is so far from being a Duty that it is one of the highest Crimes that can be committed the reason is because the first is for the peace of every Family and of the Commonwealth the second is a cause of infinite Strifes and Quarrels between a man and his Wife a man and his Neighbour a man and his Friend it is an Invasion of that barrier and boundary of Justice by which every man enjoys his own and without which no Family can be safe nor any Kingdom happy it tends to the introducing a promiscuous Lust and to the rooting out that shame and modesty from among men without which the Passions and Desires of men will grow too strong for the publick peace and will by Degrees lanch out into all manner of Riot Disorder and Excess and yet the Physical Action of the Copula Carnalis is the same in the one Case as the other wherefore this is another unanswerable Demonstration that the Interest of Mankind is to be the square and measure of Moral good or evil XXIV But thirdly the third and last thing by which I shall endeavour to demonstrate that all Obligation is founded in the Interest either of men considered by themselves or as they are Members of a Civil Society shall be this that though it be true in the General for example That Temperance and Justice are indispensable Duties and such as are of Moral and Eternal Obligation yet these things are not true in