Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	animal_n	brain_n	spirit_n	2,322	5	5.6452	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63913	A phisico-theological discourse upon the Divine Being, or first cause of all things, providence of God, general and particular, separate existence of the human soul, certainty of reveal'd religion, fallacy of modern inspiration, and danger of enthusiasm to which is added An appendix concerning the corruption of humane nature, the force of habits, and the necessity of supernatural aid to the acquest of eternal happiness : with epistolary conferences between the deceased Dr. Anthony Horneck and the author, relating to these subjects : in several letters from a gentleman to his doubting friend.	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.; Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1698 (1698)	Wing T3313; ESTC R5343	198,836	236

be defined otherwise than as a kind of two legg'd Animals without Feathers Thei● last Assault is against Heaven it self or the Divine Being whom they first seek to discredit by the multitude of anomalous Accidents which they say cou'd never come to pass if an Intelligent Being were the Director their Conclusion tho' perhaps not so plain is this that we need believe nothing but what we our selves are able to account for which in other words is to believe our own Understandings to be infinite and that is to believe we are so many Gods our selves Whoever looks upon our Modern Deism any otherwise than disguised Atheism will find himself deceiv'd for my own part I never yet heard of any one of them that cou'd forbear at one time or other giving us to understand that he was the modester sort of Infidel and whatever advantage it may be to their Principles this is certain that there is scarce a Profane Irreligious Person or Libertine about the Town who pretends not to be a very devout Deist As to their wild Ravings against the Christian Religion we have no occasion to reply other ways than this That had Christianity been all transacted behind the Curtain or in the Clouds had its Founder been as invisible as the King of the Pharies or were the History of Christ no better attested than those of the Mythologists who talk of once upon a time and the Land of Utopia we shou'd then I say have no small grounds for our Hesitation but since we find it otherwise and that all was acted openly at Noon-day before the Face of the Multitude since not only the Names of Christ and his Apostles but their Lives and stupendious Actions together with a Narrative of their Sufferings and Deaths are deliver'd to us by as undoubted Testimony as it is possible for any other Matters of Fact to be and stand upon perpetual Record their Adversaries will be lookt upon as a brain-sick People and no Man in his Wits will think this Religion soil'd till it is unquestionably proved that there never were such Persons on the Earth as our Saviour and his Disciples or that they never performed those works of which it is reported they were the Authors till they can do this it signifies nothing at all that they cannot reconcile the want of a Mediator or the Mystery of Man's Redemption by the Sufferings of Christ to their own crack-brain'd Fancies or to their own Notions of the Divine Attributes 'T is generally observed that by an immoderate Curiosity in searching after the Divine Arcana instead of inlightening others Men do but stagger and confound themselves which if they righ●ly consider'd the certain Limits of their own Capacities they might with less difficulty be dehorted from this dangerous Extravagance and calmly acquiesce in the revealed Will of God But to return to the present Corruption of our Natures and the Necessity of Divine Assistance to concur with our own Natural Power we have an intelligible account of the former in one of the Articles of the Church of England where it is said that Sin viz. Original is the Fault and Corruption of the Nature of every Man that naturally is engender'd of the Off-spring of Adam whereby Man is far removed from his first Righteousness and is of his own Nature inclin'd to evil so that the Flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit and in every Person born into this world deserveth the Divine Indignation and this Natural Infection doth remain even in them that are Regenerate whereby the Lust of the Flesh called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which some expound the Wisdom some the Affection some Sensuality others the desire of the Flesh is not subject to the Law of God The Learned Orator Dr. Allestry speaks to this purpose upon this Argument Our Saviour saith he suffer'd on the Tree that we might be renew'd into that Constitution which the Tree of Knowledge did disorder Before Man eat of that his lower Soul was in perfect Subordination to his Mind and every Motion of his Appetite did attend the Dictates of his Reason and obey them with that resignation or ready willingness with which our outward Faculties do execute the Will 's Commands then any thing however grateful to the Senses was no otherwise desir'd than a● it serv'd to the regular and proper ends and uses of his making there was a rational harmony in the tendencies of all his parts and that directed and modulated by the Rules and Hand of God that made them in fine th●● Grace was Nature and Vertue Constitution Now to reduce us to this state as near as possible is the Business of Religion but this it can in no degree effect but as it does again establish the Subordination of the Sensual to the reasonable part within us that is till by denying Satisfaction to the Appetite which is now irregular and disorderly in its desires we have taught it how to want them and to be content without them and by that means have subdued its Inclinations According to this great Man the Corruption of our Nature does not lye in the Mind but only in the lower Soul and Regeneration is no more than the reducing that lower Soul to obedience to its superior the Mind but because this plain Point has been made a mighty Mystery by some People I shall yet farther explain it When Man by his Fall had incurr'd the Penalty of Death and became a Mortal Creature he thereby usher'd in Diseases and Infirmities the Fore-runners of Death and Dissolution and therefore propagated unequal Mixtures and Constitutions which naturally according to the prevailing part of the Mixture raises powerful and pressing Lusts and Passions which not only make violent and repeated storms upon Reason but they also interrupt her Operations in other Duties by the frequent touches of the Animal Spirits upon that Image in the Brain of the Beloved Action and intrudes it among our Thoughts whether we will or no and for this cause tho' in other things we are reasoning Men when the Tender is toucht we can scarce understand a plain Conclusion from plain Premises till the gratifying of the prevailing Lusts has wasted many of our sensible Spirits and then Reason freed from Violence puts on Shame and Remorse for her Defeat but no sooner is Nature recruited than Reason is prest to forget her Repentance And this is the best of our degenerate Condition for in most Men either through the want or the abundance or irregular Motions of the Animal Spirits the reasoning Faculty is generally obstructed and they reason weakly in every thing nay sometimes this power is quite blockt up and some Men become distracted others meer Changlings But besides that in the best of us the Reasoning Power is often obstructed and has forcible Inclinations to deal with the work of Reason in general is by the first Apostacy abundantly increased She must maintain Patience and Submission under Diseases Pains

or the Epicurean Casual Concourse of Atoms cou'd bring meer Matter into so orderly and well contriv'd a Fabrick as this World and therefore I think that the wise Author of Things did not only put Matter into Motion but when he resolved to make the World did so regulate and guide the Motions of the small parts of the Universal Matter as to reduce the greater Systems of them into the order in which they were to 〈◊〉 and did more particularly contrive some of the Portions of that Matter into S●minal Rudiments or Principles lodg'd in convenient R●ceptacles and as it were Wombs and others into the Bodies of Plants and Animals one main part of whose Contrivance did as I apprehend consist in this That some of their Organs were so framed that supposing the Fabric of the geater Bodies of the Universe and the Laws he had establisht some juicy and spirituous parts of these living Creatures must be fit to be turned into prolific Seeds whereby they may have a power by generating their like to propagate their Species So that according to my apprehension it was at the beginning necessary that an intelligent and wise Agent should contrive the Universal Matter into the World and especially some Portions of it into Seminal Organs and Principles and settle the Laws according to which the Motions and Actions of its Parts upon one another should be regulated without which Interposition of the Worlds Architect however moving Matter with some probability for I see not in the Notion any Certainty be conceiv'd to be able after numberless occursions of its insensible Parts to cast it self into such grand Conventions and Convolutions as the Cartesians call Vortices and as I remember Epicurus speaks of under the Name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet I think it utterly improbable that brute and unguided Matter altho' moving shou'd ever convene into such admirable Structures as the Bodies of perfect Animals But the World being once fram'd and the Course of Nature establisht the Naturalist excepting those Cases where God and Incorporeal Agents interpose has recourse to the first Cause but for its general and ordinary Support and Influence whereby it preserves Matter and Motion from annihilation or desition and in explicating particular Phaenomena considers only the Size Shape Motion or want of it Texture and the resulting Qualities and Attributes of the small Particles of Matter and thus in this great Automaton the World as in a Watch or Clock the Materials it consists of being left to themselves cou'd never at the first convene into so curious an Engine yet when the skilful Artist has once made and set it a going the Phaenomena it exhibits are to be accounted for by the Number Bigness Proportion Shape Motion or endeavour Rest Coaptation and other Mechanical Affections of the Spring Wheels Pillars and other Parts it is made up of and those Effects of such an Engine that cannot this way be explicated must for ought I yet know he confest not to be sufficiently understood You may hereby inform your self of the Sentiments of this great Philosopher with respect to the unavoidable necessity that we meet with of referring our selves to some powerful intelligent Being for the disposing the Mundane Bodies into that wonderful and mighty Fabric we call the World So that to sum up all whatever Opinion you may as yet harbour with relation to the Nature of your own Mind and how great soever the Difficulties and seeming Absurdities may be which tend to impeach the Divine Providence and rob the Deity of his Government of the World thus far I hope we are got at least that whether or no we are willing we must acknowledge his Divine Fiat in the Business of Creation and there is no Man will e're be lookt on as a Rabbi if I may so speak in Atheism till he becomes not only acquainted with real Essences the Mechanical Affections and all the Powers of Matter but can intelligibly resolve us how second Causes act in their several Productions and which is the main point of all can prove to us that there was no need of Intelligence Power or Wisdom to preside in their Primitive Constitution 'T is now high time to look about you and if you look as becomes a Creature endow'd with Reason there is nothing can pres●nt it self which is not able to discover its Almighty Author or in Helmont's Phrase the Wisdom of the Protoplast The Existence of a God says another of great Learning were there no such thing as Supernatural Revelation is plainly evidenced as well by what is without us as what 's within Hence it is that altho' God has wrought many Miracles to convince Infidels and Misbelievers yet He never wrought any to Convince an Atheist nor do the Pen-men of Sacred Writ attempt to prove it but take it for granted as being evidently manifest both by sensible and rational Demonstration As for innate Idea's of God continues He I see no occasion to believe any such thing at all for I know of none that are formally innate what we commonly call so are the Result of the Exercise of our Reason The Notion of God is no otherways inbred than that the Soul is furnisht with such a natural Sagacity that upon the Exercise of her Rational Powers she is infallibly led to the Acknowledgment of a Deity and thus by looking inwardly upon our selves we perceive that the Faculty resident in us is not furnish'd with all Perfections and therefore not Self-existent nor indebted to it self for those it hath otherwise it wou'd have cloathed it self with the utmost Perfections it can imagine and by consequence finding its own Exility and Imperfection it naturally and with case arrives at a Perswasion of deriving its Original from some first Supreme and free Agent who hath made it what it is and this can be nothing but God 2. We perceive that we have such a Faculty as apprehendeth judgeth reasoneth but what it is whence it is and how it performeth these things we know not and therefore there must be some Supreme Being who hath given us this Faculty and understands both the Nature of it and how it knoweth which we our selves do not 3. Our Natures are such that as soon as we come to have the use of our Intellectual Faculties we are forced to acknowledge some things good and others evil There is an unalterable Congruity betwixt some Acts and our reasonable Souls and an unchangeable incongruity betwixt them and others Now this plainly sways to the Belief of a God for all distinctions of Good and Evil relate to a Law under the Sanction of which we are and all Law supposeth a Superior who hath right to command us and there can be no Universal ind●pendent Supreme but God 4. We find our selves possest of a Faculty necessarily reflecting on its own Acts and passing a Judgment upon it self in all it does which is a farther Conviction of the Existence of a God

give you to understand that many of those surprising Symptoms which are produced by the Disorders of the Nervous System are by the generality of all Men unless Physicians very frequently lookt on as unaccountable Prodigies Thus many Hysteric Persons have been esteem'd Planet-struck especially if by a Resolution of some particular Nerves one Muscle has been relaxed and its Antagonist contracted by which the Parts have been distorted and thereby rendred deformed or if the Celestial Bodies have been acquitted it must be imputed to Fascination or Witchcraft Epileptics in like manner are taken for Daemoniacs and the surprising Phaenomena they exhibit such as Dancing Singing Crying Laughing c. are presently supposed to be wrought by a Praestigious or Diabolical Possession and if as it often happens the Priest be sent for instead of the Physician to eject the Evil Spirit the mistake is then so far from being rectify'd or the Fallacy detected that whole Cities have been impos'd on by such like Reports and the supposed Authentic Testimony of the Parson of the Parish has serv'd for an irrefutable Confirmation By these means when Atheistical Men have understood that such like Accidents have proceeded from no other Causes than the Convulsive Disorders which do frequently disturb the Animal Oeconomy and that by Mechanic Principles they are to be explain'd 't is natural for them presently to conclude that all Relations of the like tendency proceed either from the same Origine and exceed not the force of second Causes or that they are downright Cheats which for the countenancing some Design are promoted and carry'd on by a Knavish Confederacy or Combination and indeed tho' I am far from denying all accounts of Daemoniacs or the Satanical Power of Fascination yet I cou'd heartily wish that none of them were publisht without the proper Examen of Expert Physicians for to speak freely I am well satisfy'd that those Subjects which have furnisht so many Histories Discourses and Reports upon this Matter have been for the greatest part no other than Maniacal Hypochondriacal Hysterical or Epileptical Persons and that the usual Appearances they exhibit belong properly to Spasmology or the Doctrine of Convulsions 'T is not long since my Curiosity lead me to take a view of a young Woman the Report of whose Circumstances had brought a Multitude of Spectators from all parts of the Town who generally return'd amaz'd at so surprising a Spectacle and gave out that she was Daemonical or possest with an evil Spirit who did sometimes utter very unusual Sounds some of them not unlike the howling of a Dog without any perceptible Motion of her own Organs of Speech When I came into the Room with a particular Friend we found her accompanied by two or three other Women and discoursing rationally which they said at some intervals she used to do During the time I stay'd there was a continual Motion of the Vertebrae of her Neck and sometimes those of her Loins the former occasion'd a violent throwing backwards and forwards of her Head and that which they lookt on as unaccountable was this That if any one offer'd to stop this motion of her Neck and Loins the same was then quicker and continued with a redoubled force Upon this Advertisement just then receiv'd from her self and the good Women my Friend on one side and I on the other as she was sitting on the Feet of the Bed laid our hands on each side on the top of her Shoulders and first gently pressing of them down to retard the Motion I perceiv'd a very sensible Opposition or Resistance even beyond my Conjectures of her own strength insomuch that at length endeavouring with all our Power to suppress this uncommon Motion of the Head and Body the Resistance made against us was so very forcible as almost to throw us from her and the Agitation of both began to grow so vehement as to occasion very irregular Distortions of the Eyes a Foaming at the Mouth together with a very considerable Influx of Blood upon the Surface of her Face which frighting her Acquaintance and rendring her uneasie we were desired to desist and after some few Minutes the Disturbance went off she returning to her accustomed Motion of gently moving her Head backwards and forwards During this time of her Agony she spake nothing but being pretty well recover'd I found her very willing to believe it a Supernatural Power that thus impetuously mov'd her and the rather she said she was induced to think so because it was involuntary and much against her Inclination for when at any time being all the while sensible she wilfully endeavour'd to stop the Motion and to keep her self in Aequilibrio she was so violently tormented in some other parts of her Body that if she did not submit her self to the Evil Spirit he wou'd certainly kill her Before I attempt an Explication of these several Phaenomena it will be requisite that I acquaint you with the Method I took in the Exploring thereof There was at that time in the room an ancient Midwife who as I understood had put this young Woman under a Course of Physic tho' altogether unsuccessfully Upon which Information I enquir'd on what account the Physic had been given or what expectation she design'd it should answer which understanding who I was she very freely told me That what she had order'd was for a Suppression of under which Obstructions the Patient had labour'd for a considerable time I enquired no farther but having given my Opinion came away with this Satisfaction that if the whole was not Imposture and she a Counterfeit as it was not impossible but she might there was nothing in all this but a Spasmodic or Convulsive Disorder of the Nerves frequently attending Hysterical and Epileptic Persons I had before-hand asked her whether there was Truth in those Reports she had suffer'd to be printed concerning the Devil's speaking in her and barking like a Dog She utterly deny'd this and reply'd she knew nothing of that Matter and that it was both unknown to her and against her will that such Discourses shou'd be disperst The Maid I must needs say seem'd very modest and soberly dispos'd and was extraordinarily lamented by some of those who knew that her Education and Converse in the World had been unblamable and pious I never certainly understood how her Distemper terminated and being willing to judge Charitably of her so far as I was concern'd shall only intimate by the way that it was publickly reported not long after that she was proved a Cheat and had got much Money by it But as to this I am not certain being rather inclinable to believe the contrary and that she labour'd with the Symptoms of an Hysterical Affection I shall not think my self concern'd to give you here a Mechanical Account of the Progress of these Distempers or to tell you by what means the Morbi●ic Matter is contracted which insinuates it self into the Muscular Fibres and there