Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bear_v	fruit_n	tree_n	1,451	5	8.5127	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70803	A decad of caveats to the people of England of general use in all times, but most seasonable in these, as having a tendency to the satisfying such as are not content with the present government as it is by law establish'd, an aptitude to the setling the minds of such as are but seekers and erraticks in religion an aim at the uniting of our Protestant-dissenters in church and state : whereby the worst of all conspiracies lately rais'd against both, may be the greatest blessing, which could have happen'd to either of them : to which is added an appendix in order to the conviction of those three enemies to the deity, the atheist, the infidel and the setter up of science to the prejudice of religion / by Thomas Pierce ...	Pierce, Thomas, 1622-1691.	1679 (1679)	Wing P2176; Wing P2196; ESTC R18054	221,635	492

in unrighteousness v. 18. And That which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shew'd it unto them v. 19. And again They did not like to retain God in their Knowledge v. 28. So very hard a thing it is in the Judgement of our Apostle to be a speculative Atheist even for one who desires to be so and is unwilling to acknowledge what he cannot but Know § 8. But not to put the least stress upon the Authority of S. Paul which Antiscripturists will not allow and 't is for Their sakes especially that I am faln on This Subject I shall Secondly prove by Reason touching the Being of a Deity not onely that we are furnish'd with as much Evidence of its Truth as such a thing is capable of but that 't is capable of as much Evidence as the light we see and see by or rather more For as a mental Demonstration is more cogently convincing to any Skeptick than an Ocular so That which shews the Godhead to us is of mental Demonstrations the most convincing For the most cogent Demonstration which can be made by a Logician is that which argues from the Cause to the Effect and is call'd with good reason Demonstratio Potissima But God Almighty being the Fountain of All things knowable in the World and so the Cause of All Causes which are the Grounds of Demonstration the effect of which is true knowledge whose Ratio formalis formal Reason is Assurance 'T is plain his Being must carry with it so clear an Evidence of it self that if we were not sure of That we could be sure of nothing else We are much surer of it than of any thing we can see by how much the inward light we have is more infallible than our outward For This may easily deceive us and indeed so often does that much Experience has taught us to distrust our own Eyes in several Cases and in some to disbelieve them Whereas a man's Vnderstanding of Objects adaequate to it self can never either fail him or be suspected because 't is an Eye whose Sight is Knowledge And Knowledge properly so call'd is so infallible in its nature that without infallibility it cannot possibly be Knowledge but must needs be somewhat else a shrewd Conjecture or strong Belief an obstinate Confidence or Presumption each of which is true or false as it is well or ill grounded Whereas to Knowledge as it is Knowledge Infallibility is essential Shall I make the Case clear and undeniable by an Example We know a man having been blind from his very Birth may have as absolute a knowledge that 5 and 5 do make 10 as the best Ey'd Lynceus And a man the most illiterate is as far from being able to be deceiv'd in this point as one of the greatest Erudition or deepest Reach Which strongly vindicates our Apostle from the possible Reproach of a Contradiction when he says Things invisible are clearly seen and that Moses saw him who is invisible For God's Existence though invisible to the Eye of the Body is yet to That of the Soul most clearly seen even as clearly as the Assertion that 5 and 5 do make 10 is ascertain'd to a man without Eyes or Learning Not at all seen by the light without but so much the more by the light within him The Learned and the Illiterate the Blind and the Quick-sighted are very equally undeceivable in these Particulars And therefore when 't is said by the pert and dull Scoffer as pert and dull as the Japonians of the Jenxuan Haeresie that He is too foolish who thinks he knows any thing he cannot see and He too credulous who is able to believe what he cannot reach He may be presently made asham'd of his Vnderstanding by an argument ad hominem that He is void of all Reason and can have no Soul within him much less a rational because he neither can see it nor can it possibly be seen So 't is an Argument to the Scoffer beyond all Answer that nothing by nature can be more excellent than a Beast because a Beast cannot reach it or comprehend how it should be There have been some in all Ages whose shamefull Ambition it has been to make their Ignorance Monumental Hercules by his Pillars with a Nihil plus ultra inscrib'd upon them and Mr. Hobs by his Hypothesis that there is no Spirit at all nor any thing else above the Sphere of his low Capacity have but built obelisks to the Memory of their most eminent Imperfections their Incomparable Pride and their Incurable Stupidity The man is fitter to be despis'd than to be sadly disputed with who takes his narrow Vnderstanding to be commensurate with the Vniverse and the adequate Standard of all Existence who will have All to be but Fiction which is to Him Incomprehensible and nothing really to exist which is above or beyond his Soul's Horizon He is worthier of our pity whose perfect ignorance in Astronomy makes him ready almost to swear the Sun is no bigger than a Bonfire because the Distance of the Object and the Deceiptfulness of the Organ do conspire Both at once to give it a Littleness of Appearance 'T is hard to say which is greater our uncertainty of some things which we do every day see or the Certainty of other things which cannot possibly be seen § 9. Now amongst the many ways of proving a God by Demonstration some of which cannot be made but to good Logicians and very hardly if at all in the English Tongue Two especially are the fittest for the Capacities of the Vulgar whilst unassisted by Erudition The first of which will be the easier though the second will be more cogent and more imperative of our Assent The first and the most obvious is à Posteriori as proving the Cause by its Effects Which is as true a Demonstration and as prevailing as any the Mathematicks pretend to and many times more proportionable to Capacities unimprov'd than Demonstration à Priori which proves an effect by its Cause or Causes As 't is many times easier to prove the Tree by its Fruit than the Fruit by its Original the Tree that bears it Yea there are things as the four Elements whose inward Forms are unknown and therefore they cannot be demonstrated to be what they Are but à posteriori such as Fire by its properties of heat and light and lightness and the like which yet do beget as great a Certainty of its Existence and Disposition as could be had if we could know the whole Essence of it And thus our common Masters of Musick do know the forces and the effects of all the Musical proportions of Sound and Number perhaps to much better purpose than either Froschius or Gafforel or Boetius himself whilst yet the Reason of effects is a Stranger to them Now that God is demonstrable à Posteriori I mean as to his Being and his Nature in Part which is