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	receive_v	truth_n	1,611	5	5.9464	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33459	A treatise of humane reason	Clifford, M. (Martin), d. 1677.	1674 (1674)	Wing C4707; ESTC R21053	22,005	94

have no means of repenting of it Now God enjoyning men Repentance and promising Pardon thereupon for all sins whatsoever prescribes such a Physick as is impossible to be taken for Repentance presupposes knowledge of the Fault and knowledge of a fault do's not consist with an errour of the understanding for we cannot apprehend the thing so and yet be sorry that we are mistaken Sixthly The great probability and appearance of Truth on all sides even the erring ones ought to make us believe that God will not punish those who erre if that be probable which all or most men or many or the most wise or some wise men receive for Truth What Doctrine is there which in the whole compass of Religions may not pass for probable and what cause have we to condemn the Understanding of any man in a thing which he is drawn by probabilities to assent to I cannot possibly conceive it agreeable to the goodness of the Divine Nature so to have hidden and involved and almost disguised the Truth from us if he had intended to have censured the missing of it with so heavy a sentence as that of eternal ruine especially seeing there is but one true Way for one hundred false ones and no certain Mark set upon the entry of that one to distinguish it from the others And let this suffice to be said upon the first Argument to induce us to commit our selves wholly to our Reason in the search of Divine and Religious Verities which is drawn from the certainty of safety this way and the great hazard of it any other Secondly As in visible Objects we receive confidently and rest in the report of the sight because Nature hath ordained and accommodated it accordingly for that purpose without appeal from it either to other Sences or to Revelations or the Eyes of other men and as we do the like in all other operations of the Sense and all other faculties of the Soul so ought we as entirely and absolutely to resign our Belief to the dictates of our own Understanding in things intelligible which are as properly and naturally the Object thereof as things visible are of the Eye-sight and we might as well say we will trust our Eyes in green and white and black but not in red or yellow Colours as affirm that our Reason must guide us in the contemplation of Nature the search of Arts the Government of Publick Societies and the Regulation of mens Lives as far as the bounds of Morality but that it is not at all to be followed or obeyed in matters that concern Religion those too being intelligible Truths yea the chief and therefore most to be searcht and a part of the Understandings object as much or rather more than any other Now as the credit of the sight is not at all to be disparaged because some men have the Jaundies which paints every thing yellow some look through Blew spectacles which represent all things to them under the same colour and some through divers mediums which makes the straight Staff appear crooked some are short-sighted and take Men for Trees at a distance so I say the mistakes which Reason by accidental disturbances leads some men into is not a sufficient Argument for others to refuse to be guided by it If it be objected that the Sight though it be subject to some particular impediments yet is generally by its own nature much more certain and exact in the judgment of Colours than the understanding can ever be made even without accidental hinderances in the knowledge of things Spiritual I Answer That if such things be the proper object of such a faculty we are herein to be govern'd by the dictates of it without considering whether that faculty be as quick and perfect as God could make it in apprehension of its object neither ought we to give less trust to our Understanding in supernatural Truths because it is so much inferiour to that of Angels than we do to our Eye-sight in things visible though it be so far short of that of Eagles Certainly they who remove the cognizance of Divine Truths out of the Court of Reason take away that which most properly and naturally falls under its determination For when GOD had created all things else he thought the World imperfect as yet whilst there was nothing made that could contemplate thank and worship the Maker of it and therefore he created Man and this was the chief end of the production of a Rational Soul that by it they might consider the things which they saw and discourse and collect out of them the things which they saw not and both praise and love the Maker for and in them both which is the whole substance of Religion for the manners and kinds of doing it are accidental So then Religion appears to be the principal end of Mans Creation and therefore as if Horses be made for burthen they have a natural ability given them wherewith to do it if Birds to flie they have a faculty and wings given them for that purpose because where an end is Natural the means are so too so if Religion be the End of Man as he is partaker of a Rational Soul that reasonable Soul hath some power naturally placed in it for the exercise judgment and choice of Religion as far forth as is necessary to his own happiness that is to the attaining the end for which he was Created In the Third place This Opinion is not only most safe and most natural for every Man in particular but likewise most agreeable to the good and interest of Humane Society for all Wars of late Ages have been either really for Religion or at least that has been one of the chief pretences which if it were quite taken away it would be difficult for those men who disguise their Ambition with it to draw the People into the miseries and uncertainties either of a Civil or Forraign War Now if this Doctrine were generally planted in the minds of Men both the reality and pretence of fighting for Religion were utterly cancelled and though turbulent minds would then either find or make some other occasion to disturb their Neighbours yet the ill would neither be so frequent nor so cruel as it is at present For who would quarrel for Religion when this were made the main and general ground of all Religions That every Man ought quietly to enjoy his own True it is that unity in Religion would produce the same effect but alas both Reason and Experience teaches us that the hopes of that are vain and impossible and though a State may sometimes force all its Subjects to submit to an outward uniformity in all things that concern Divine worship yet they must know that every publick disturbance in the Common-wealth breaks all those bonds asunder of dissembled Obedience and that such compulsions both beget and ripen all Disorders Much might be spoken in this matter but not necessarily here both because