Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	good_a	great_a	1,387	5	2.5396	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62994	Atheismus vapulans, or, A treatise against atheism, rationally confuting the atheists of these times by Will. Towers ... Polytheismus vapulans, or, There is but one God.	Towers, William, 1617?-1666.; Towers, William, 1617?-1666. Polytheismus vapulans.	1654 (1654)	Wing T1959; ESTC R23437	141,181	385

bless God that gave them and not bless the blessings themselves nor set at nought the meanest of those who have an interest in all of these for his Angels and Arch-Angels Let us laud and magnifie his glorious Name which we shall do the more acceptably even to those glorious Angels themselves whilst we only invoke their and our God if there be an Angel there that can be offended at this I could even suspect Heaven it self not to be altogether so holy a place as it is a branch if not an Article of my Faith to beleeve it is And in good earuest for what cause is it that we should invoke the Angels is it because we are benefited by them so we are in all those other instances is it because we are spiritually benefited by them so we are by all of these for from the Heavens to the Herb all of them Declare the glory of God is it because the Beneficial Angels can hear us but à posse ad esse is no good Argument I can walk ten miles to morrow but it is inconsequent to conclude that Therefore I will not stay all day at home is it because they do hear us but we will dispute of that anon and yet neither that they can or do is exprest or involv'd in that Text and at last a precept I call for or though they have given me some to which I have already reply'd an allowable example shew me which is impossible a command to invoke carved Images and I will presently invoke and confess that all this while I have much mis-believ'd King David for they have ears Ps 111.6 and hear shew me which is equally impossible a command to invoke Angels and I will become a stooping Proselyte and profess my forrow that Epiphanius hath either told us there were no Angelici left Austin de Haeresibus 39. in his age or that he hath call'd them Heretiques in their own or that St. Austin hath joynd with him in that opprobrious Compellation 30. But let me look a little further into the Text they bring me what if these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the same little ones of whom our Saviour says in the Chapter after Mat. 19.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Mat. 18.2 was he by occasion of whom our Saviour said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the little Child v. 2. was the one of these little ones v. 10. Suffer little Children and forbid them not to come unto me it should seem by the Context in both places they are the very same for in comparison with these little ones it is said Mat. 18.3 Except ye be converted and become as Little Children yee shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and in Mat. 19.14 it is said Of such such little Children is the Kingdom of Heaven there is the very sameness of matter and expression and almost the sameness of Chapter too so that in very good reason we are to believe those little ones Mat. 18.10 to be the very same with those little ones Mat. 19.14 Now what little ones and how little ones these were we may learn of St. Luke when he repeats the story 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 18.15 And they brought unto him also Infants read to the end of the 17. v. and St. Lukes Infants are St. Matthews little ones whose Angels let me drive it a little further and show you that Saint Lukes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does confine Saint Matthews Little ones to Infants not only by the Authority of Eustathius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are Children new Born ●ut by all these Scriptures Luke 2.16 Act. 7.19 1 Pet. 2.2 and before you shall find the word applyed to him that is of age and can speak for himself you shall sooner finde it apply'd to him that is not yet Born and therefore much less can speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luc. 1.44 the Babe leaped in my Wombe 31. All this being said it is time to tell you Why to clear That Text out of which they pretend to it from giving any Countenance to Angelicall worship for whatever layes claim to it out of Scripture must do it either from the Command of God or from the practise of Saints That there is no Command is evident likewise that there is no example so much as Imaginary to be gatherd out of that Text for those that were Infants and could not voyce a Prayer to God Himself could much less to any Angell either of God or of their own and for ejaculatory prayers Intended though not utterd although I presume Actuall Faith and such there must be even in Mentall Ejaculations presupposes the use of Reason yet in this case it matters not though I seem to grant it since not the close Purpose but the Manifest expression of the Heart is onely capable to grow into example and therefore since from hence they have neither Precept nor Practise it concludes not so much for them as it might if they had said nothing at all for though that silence of theirs would be very far from a probational argument yet That silence of theirs would never have been refuted nor be made an argument against them as their vain Babling is I am in very great hast and I have many reasons to be so and therefore I will not trouble either them or my self to overthrow them more who are already upon the ground Let us see if their next Quotation will lift them up and give them Breath for a New Contest 32. Act. 12. And here I thank them that their Citations and my speed may well agree there is so little of moment in that whole Chapter for them t is true verse 7. that an Angel of the Lord came and smote Peter on the side and Rais'd him up t is more easy to conclude that the Angell suspected Peter being down to vvorship Him and that he smote him for it and bade him arise up quickly then that Peter did Really vvorship or the Angell cheerfully accept but not this neither for till the Angel parted from him Peter was not come to himself verse 10.11 No Precept no Practise in all this t is true Verse 8. Exod. 3.5 the Angel bids Him Binde on his sandales but when the very ground was Holy the Shooes were commanded off and to put on the Sandales was no signe of worshipping Angelical Purity the Angel bids Him Cast Thy Garment about Thee Luke 19.36 37. Contrariwise the garments were strewd in the vvay vvhen Christ was Honour'd His Chaines fell off from his hands verse 7. and the Iron-gate open'd to them of its own accord verse 10. I hope I may believe all this and be no more of the present Faith of Rome then Ovid vvas vvho I know not by vvhat method of Tradition did light upon the same story Sponte suâ patuisse Fores Metam l. 3. lapsasque lacertis Sponte suâ fama est nullo

Such a First Man there must have been Quare etiam atque etiam Maternum nomen adepta Terra tenet Merito quoniam Genus Ipsa creavit Humanum Lucret. or else there must be that which the Philosophers the meer Natural Men and the best knowing of All meer Natural Men call a Progressus in Insinitum a Proceeding even to an Infinitude which the meer Natural Men do Discerningly and Truly and Deliberately Deny to be Possible in Nature which very word does signify all I have already said an● preoccupies somewhat more that 〈◊〉 have still to say Natura quasi Aliunde Nata As All Propagated Creatures which at this day have a Being in Nature receiv'd it from the Prae-Being of some of the same kind so the first Individual which it self does partake of Nature in its Composition though not in the Efficiency of it must needs have its Being Aliunde still and therefore from That Which Is before Nature Was for as it is impossible for the First Man of all to have Had a Father else He was not the First Man else He must be Father to Himself in that He was the First and His Own Child in that He had such a Father as Impossible as it is for Himself to Be at the same Instant and Point of Time both Before and After Himself at the same Instant both to Be and Not to Be which is One Contradiction in it self and Another Contradiction to the very First of Principles in the very Chief of Sciences Omne vel Est vel Non for Metaphyr Whoever Makes Any thing is as much and as Really before that thing which He makes as Any of those who Plow their Own Lands or Plant their own Vines were in Being before those Vines were first Planted or those Lands Last Plow'd as a Shoomaker Is Before the Shoo He Makes a Carpenter Is Before the Plough he Makes and a Smith Is Before the share He makes to that Plough Now as a First Man must have been and That First Man Cannot have made Himself so though We already know who That First Man was Adam and who made Him God yet that those who Deny God may be well forc'd to acknowledge Him as I am Ill-forc'd thus to Prove Him Either it was God or somewhat Else that made That First Man if Any thing else Besides God the Question returns Who made that somewhat else so that at last of meer and Undeniable Necessity God must be as to our Understanding as God would be as from His own Goodness the First Maker of All the First Maker of all must be God and nothing else but God because whatsoever is in Him must Necessarily be in God and Incommunicably in Any thing else but God such Properties are these To have a Being of Himself not Depending upon any thing else but Himself To have such a Being of which All else Depend as well in Produci as in Conservari To Be without Beginning To be Eternal and these four properties are proper to God Quarto Modo they do Convenire Soli semper And thus He is driven in many Words and per Circuitus Ambages to Confess God Who in One Onely word Denys Him nor can His Ignorance any otherwise be excus'd than if we fancy Him to be what Erasmus does not say Any man VVas but only Himself fancies some One Man so to be so besottedly Ignorant as to beleeve that Himself was never Born This says that Inventor would be more Pardonable than to Deny a God nay Pace Illius dixerim This would not Deny a God but pretend Himself to be One a God and a Christ too as being a Stone cut out Dan. 2.34 Deus est Rerum omniCausa Arist Meta. Virg. l. 1. without Hands 8. This is that which they call the Chain of Causes and as much Evidence as this will arise out of any Other Cause in respect of any Other Effect when it is thus driven up to the Head to that God who may Article with some Heady men now and aske the question of them Jud. 11.8 Virgil. Ovid. which Jepthah ask'd of the Elders of Gilead shall I be your Head Jovis omnia plena and Jupiter est quodcunque Vides you may see God on † Quid est Deus quod Vides totum c. Senec. every thing you see the most Minute most Contemptible Production in Nature is not at all Minute is not at all Contemptible in that it is a Demonstrative Argument to Prove a Creator a God the very Mice and the very Frogs will do it not only when they come upon Gods errand Exod. 8.2 to execute His Judgements upon Pharaoh and by the wonderfulness of the Judgement in the Feebleness of the Instrument had it not been Impower'd from above to declare a God whose Name is wonderful Ps 9.6 qui Solus facit Mirabilia but when they Come of their Own Errand to Feed upon the Crumbs from under thy Table and to Drink the Dew of Heaven from off Thy Grass even These and even Then will be Arguments and Doctrines Proofs and Inferences of a Deity Not to Dispute whence they have their Being whether as some say the One out of the Dust and the Other out of the Air be it from these or be it from what else it will whence had this Dust and this Air and this Any-thing else their own Beginning whereby they Contribute to the Origination of these I must not now tell you out of Scriptures that the very Dust and the very Air Mat. 8.26.27 John 9.6 the Winds which Christ Commanded and the Clay which He bad be Physick and Cure the Blind did testifie Christ to be God and God to be their Maker by their Obedience to Him but I must tell you out of Nature that God was the Maker of That which by the Descent and Continuation of second Causes became Frogs and Mice for if Man the most Excellent of Sublunary Creatures and as this self-minded Atheist is apt to believe the Paramount subsistence amongst all those which have Any Being was not able to bring forth Himself but as we have already prov'd must needs be beholden to a Superiour Power an Original Maker a First Cause for the Relative and Dependent Being which He has much less could those more Ignoble and Servile Creatures the Air which it self He is perhaps as ready to Believe not to Be as the God and for the same Reason which may equally make Him doubt whether He has a Soul or no because Both of them because all three of them are Invisible or the Dust of the Earth that sluggish Creature which He disdainfully tramples under His Foot not Considering that That Foot and the whole Body besides is now but Compacted Clay and will anon be Viler more putrified I must speak modestly More Offensive earth than That and Stand in need of that very earth He Scorn'd to (p) Pellucidum Tegit

first drawn points in the Circumference yet every after Line touches as close as that and though he must not reserve from others that of his own also which is another Mans yet he must not impart to others that without which nothing is left his own but he must love and cherish them and himself by liberal imparting and moderate using of what he hath and not leave off to love and cherish either by immoderate keeping else if you only declame against his covetousness till you perswade and charm and fright him into a renouncing and loathing and ejuring of that and use not your discreet endeavours to stop him in the right middle and vertuous way you will only dispossess him of one Devil that he may have room in which he intertain another so a Prodigal Man may be chid out of his spending vanity till he does nothing else but scrape and neither he nor he be the more or at all a liberal Man for all you have said unto them So it is in Christian Religion too A Reform'd Anabaptist will sooner turn a persecuting Papist and a Reform'd Papist sooner turn a persecuting Anabaptist then either of them be a truly-reform'd Protestant though like Sampsons Foxes Judg. 15.4 they turn tails to one another and are ready to spit fire too in the Face of each yet they have a Firebrand in the midst with which they burn up all the shocks V. 5 and standing Corn as that Corn signifies true Disciples and tares Apostates all the Olives and Vine-yards as that Vine-yard signifies the true Church of Christ which the Heathen Poet Ovid. Fast l. 4. however it came to his hands hath acquanted us with † Scilicet vulpem Captivam stipulâ Foenoque Involvit Ignes Admovet Urentes effugit illa Manus Quà Fugit Incendit Vestitos Messibus Agros Damnosis Vires Ignibus Aura dabat Histories are almost as full of those Passionate Changers with whom the wise Man Prov. 24.21 bids us to have nothing to do especially not to do what they will not choose but do Meddle who have run from One extreme to the other as of those Judicious changers who have run from both extremes to the truth of all enemies to the Church of England from an English Jesuit who hath formerly protested better Good Lord deliver us and I would it were well consider'd whether in these very dayes and in this very Nation for want of this judgement and moderation and sobriety for there is and should be a mental sobriety aswel as there is though there should not bee a mental drunkenness Pliny l. 9. Ep. 26. Ex Demosibene Non Datum † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the office † taken at any thing which was or seem'd offensive has not been the cause of so many real offences amongst us God in his mercy and wisdom restore to us those two great blessings which alwaies fall off together truth and love that the swords may be beaten themselves beaten into plowshares and the spears into pruning Hooks that the Hedge of Christs Church may be only prun'd by these to grow the better and not quite cut down by those As thus it is in Morality and thus in Christianity that the unguided hate of one fault in ill practice and mis-opinion does beget another so thus it is too in the very beginning as well as in the progress of true Religion not only the Cathari for that word will be less quarreld at then the direct English of that word will misdeem themselves so † Paenitentiam denegat Austin de Haeres 169. Aetas nostra tam praesentibus plena est numinibus ut facilius possis Deū quam Heminem invenire 't is so true of Aetas nostra that I may spare to quote Petronius for it holy and perfect as if they were a kind of Demi-Gods on Earth at least the Dii minorum Gentium for they are the minors the inferiour sort of people who artogate to themselves this inferiour kind of Divinity nor only the contracters and Covenanters with Hell who rather then fail of a Plurality though they assuredly know there is but one God will worship the Devil himself for another but out of the infirmity of his unknowing Nature for less of knowledge is part of the punishment of Adams sin in all Adams race and in the simplicity and mis-lead zeal of his Heart he that is but now Initiated into the belief of a God that is convinc'd of his monstrous crime in denying that there is any God will so abhor that Atheistical gui●t as rather then return to that gross mistake every thing he sees and knows every thing he loves and fears shall be a God there shall not only be as St. † L de Haeresib Fig. 46. excus Oxon ad●ct Vincenti● Lyrinens Cōmonitoriu duabu● Ani 1631. Austln sayes the Manichaeans held Duo Principia Aeterna Coaeterna Boni mali but numerosum Principium utriusque and yet even amongst these too which would make the very Soul to blush every good Soul is of the same nature of which God himself is This also they say † Ibid. out of their former absurd principle although with a Coguntur dicere and then uno absurdo dato sequuntur mille if ever there were but one thousand of good Souls perhaps a thousand of thousands too every good Soul of these is an absurdity a Solecism of the Manichaeans not only the living Spirit of a Man but the liveless Body of the Sun shall be one God and every Star another and then what † Quicquid humus pelagus coelum mirabile signat Id dixere Deos colles Freta Flumina flammas Prudentius the Heathens do worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz. de Natal Christi store of Gods have they and how above number though we have store enough of God in one and that innumerable store too because but one yet such a one as is infinitely more infinite then all else which in their own nature though not by the actual Arithmetique of Man are capable to be numbred because he alone is more all then they which I shall presently tell you of in shewing you the several ways by which God is one 3. He is one simplicitate because he is not made up of several parts as all things are that have this that they are of gift the most simple of them are at least compounded of Actus and Potentia All things else are compounded and the very composition of them does Un-God all things else every totum Physicum and I speak only of substantials which are intire and have nature in them for they who make the part of a Man a God have answer'd themselves for how can that which is but a part and that but of a Man be yet a God and a whole God too but when they make the worst part of Man a God they may safely do it Nil securius est Lascivo