Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	air_n	cold_a	heat_n	1,490	5	8.2077	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70179	A blow at modern Sadducism in some philosophical considerations about witchcraft. To which is added, the relation of the fam'd disturbance by the drummer, in the house of Mr. John Mompesson, with some reflections on drollery and atheisme. / By a member of the Royal Society..	Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680.	1668 (1668)	Wing G799; Wing G818; ESTC R23395	62,297	178

an extraordinary evil to be the Judgment of God upon him for some notorious impiety Thus his Name was continually exposed to Censure and his Estate suffered by the concourse of people from all parts to his house whom he could not dismiss without the Civility of an Entertainment And besides this he was hindered and diverted from the prosecution of his Affairs and he could hardly get or retain any in his Service To which if I adde the continual hurry that his Family was in the affrights vexations and tossings up and down of his Children and the Watchings and Disturbance of his whole House in all which himself must needs be the most concerned person I say the putting together of these Circumstances will be evidence enough that he could have no interest in designing to put a cheat upon the world in which he would most of all have injured and abused himself Or if he should have designed and managed so incredible so unprofitable an Imposture 't is strange he should trouble himself so long in actuating an abusive Artifice only to deceive and to be talk't of And 't is yet more so that none of those numerous inquisitive persons that came thither purposely to Criticise and examine the truth of those matters could make any Discoveries Especially since many came prejudiced against the belief of such things in general and others resolved before-hand against the belief of this and all were permitted all possible freedom of search and inquiry And after things were weighed and examined several that were prejudicated enough before went away strongly convicted To which I adde That there are divers particulars in the Story in which no abuse or deceit could have been practised as the motion of Boards and Chairs of themselves the beating of a Drum in the midst of a Room and in the Air when nothing was to be seen the heat that fill'd a whole Room without Fire in excessive cold Weather The Scratching and Panting where nothing ordinary could be suspected for the cause and several others such like All which have numbers of sober and uninteressed persons to attest them 'T IS true my Lord that when the Gentlemen the King sent were there the House was quiet and nothing heard or seen that night And this was confidently and with triumph reported by many as an evidence of the untruth of the Story But certainly 't was but poor Logick to conclude in matters of Fact from a single Negative and such a one against numerous Affirmatives and to inferr that a thing was never done because omitted at such a season and that no body ever saw what this man or that did not By the same rule of consequence I may say that there were never any Robbers upon Salisbury Plains because I have often travelled over them and never met any of those sorts of Violence and the French-man inferred well that said There was no Sun in England because he was 6 Weeks here and never saw it This my Lord is the common Argument of those that deny the being of Apparitions They have travel'd all times of the night and never saw any thing worse than themselves and it may be so Therefore Spirits and Apparitions are Bugs and Impostures But why do not such Arguers conclude that there was never a Cut-Purse on Ludgate-Hill because they have past that way a hundred times and were never met with by any of those nimble practitioners Certainly he that denyes Apparitions upon the confidence of this Negative against the vast heap of positive Assurances is credulous if he believe there was ever any High-way-man in the world if he himself was never rob'd And the Tryals of Ass●ses and Attestations of those that have if he will be just ought to move his assent no more in this case than in that of Witches and Apparitions which have the very same evidence But for the particular of the quiet of Mr. Mompesson's House while the Courtiers were there it may be remembred and considered that the Disturbances were not alwayes constant but interrupted by intervals of Cessation sometimes for several dayes and sometimes for weeks as is mention'd in the Relation some passages of which that record those Cessations were I am sure written in Mr. Mompesson's Letters before those Gentlemen had been at Tedworth So that its omitting at that time 't is like was meerly accidental or possibly the malicious Spirit was not willing to give so publick a testimony of Its being and troublesome incursions for the convincing those he had rather should continue in the disbelief of his existence but however it were this circumstance will afford but a very slender inference against the credit of the Story except among those who are willing to take any thing for an Argument against things they have an interest not to acknowledge There are other exceptions made against the Truth of this Relation and Dr. H. More sent me an account of some particulars that were objected at Cambridge to which I have answered in a Letter to him and have sent it your Lordship in company with this THUS my Lord I have given your Honour the sum of this Affair and I have taken notice of and recorded the particulars of the Relation not to satisfie curiosity or feed the humour that delights in wonders which are but mean designs and unbecoming one that pretends to any thing that is generous But I consider it as a great evidence against Sadducism the Disease of our Age. And though those passages are not so dreadful tragical and amazing as there are some related in Stories of this kinde yet are they never the less probable or true for being less prodigious and astonishing And they are strange enough to prove themselves the effects of some invisible extraordinary Agent and to demonstrate that there are SPIRITS that sometimes sensibly intermeddle in our Affairs And I think they do it with as many clear circumstances of evidence as any thing that is extant For these things were not done long ago or at far distance in an ignorant Age or among a barbarous people they were not seen only by 2 or 3 of the melancholick and Superstitious and reported by those that made them serve the advantage and interest of a Faction They were not the passages of a day or night nor the vanishing glances of an Apparition But those circumstances were near and late publick frequent and of years continuance witnessed by multitudes of competent and unbiast Attestors and acted in a searching and incredulous Age Arguments enough for the conviction of a modest and capable reason This Relation my Lord you perceive proves the being of SPIRITS and APPARITIONS but not so directly that of WITCHES and Diabolick Contracts and therefore while I am about it I shall adde the other NARRATIVE which I promised your Honour and which I received from the Justice of Peace who took the Examination upon Oath 'T is the same Gentleman to whom I directed my Letter about