Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	better_a	good_a	great_a	1,484	5	2.2112	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63921	Two discourses introductory to a disquisition demonstrating the unlawfulness of the marriage of cousin Germans, from law, reason, Scripture, and antiquity by John Turner ...	Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50.	1682 (1682)	Wing T3319; ESTC R11417	26,430	68

no better or more satisfactory account of any Action can be given either to our selves or others than that all things considered we have acted most wisely for our own Advantage XII This is that which depresseth our Spirits and robs us of our natural Cheerfulness and Vigour that makes us hang down our heads and fills our minds with so many painful Thoughts upon the sense of having neglected or swerved from our Duty into the Commission of that which hath the Appearance and Character of a Crime that we are sensible we have acted foolishly and that we cannot reconcile what we have done to our own Interest or to the Interest of Mankind we are out of favour with our selves and others and being deserted and despised by all that have any value for the Reputation of their Integrity or Prudence we become forlorn useless and contemptible Creatures XIII But when we do those things which are for our own Advantage or for the good of the Publick in which our own safety and security is included this fills us all over with a strange kind of lightsomness and jollity of Spirit we are at peace with our selves and as far as may be out of all apprehension of fear or danger from others we rejoyce in the consciousness of having acted as becomes wise and understanding men and we are confirmed in our Opinion of our selves by the Approbation of our Neighbours and by this means we are put in a Capacity of being as powerful and considerable among men as our Condition and Circumstances of Life and Fortune will allow and these things I take to be a very plain Testimony of Mankind and of Nature her self to the truth of this Proposition That all Obligation is founded upon Interest and that to do wisely and wickedly are things in themselves and by the unanimous Confession of both Parties the Innocent and the Guilty inconsistent with each other XIV From whence we may discern the Vanity and Folly of those learned men who are used to talk so loudly of essential Rectitudes and eternal Notions and I know not what phantastical Idea's in an abstracted way whereas there is indeed nothing which is either good or bad meerly by its self but every thing which is good is good that is useful to something and every thing which is bad is so with reference to some Nature or other to which it is more or less pernicious and destructive from whence it follows the nature of Obligation being a result arising from the Usefulness or Hurtfulness of a thing proposed to be the Object of a free Agents choice with respect to that Agent which is conversant about it that all Obligation must be not of a simple but of a compound or a concrete Nature and must always have an inseparable Respect to the Interest or Happiness of those to whom that Obligation is binding And it is not only true that our Interest and our Duty are both of them the same but that it is absolutely impossible any thing should be our Duty which is not our Interest into the Bargain for no man can possibly be obliged to that which all things considered will be to his Disadvantage XV. Yet I do not deny that all the moral Vertues of what sort soever whether they be Personal or Political have an essential and eternal goodness in them but not in that sense in which some Learned men more speculative seemingly profound then wise have taken it for if you ask them why these things are good or evil all you can get from them is that these things are Eternal verities and that they are as plain as that two and two make four or that out of nothing comes nothing or that both parts of a contradiction cannot be true at the same time all which propositions are plain in themselves but to assign a reason of these things they cannot do it and it is necessary they say that there should be some Propositions whose truth must be discerned by their own light otherwise men would always argue backwards in infinitum and there could be no such thing as science in World XVI But though it be very true that all demonstration in its last result is to proceed ab indemonstrabili and is to be ultimately resolved into some self evident Maxim whose truth in its self must be every whit as plain and as evident to be seen as the broadest Channel of the Aegyptian Nile when it parts and divides it self into Seven several Streams but in its causes as obscure and as little understood as the first source and fountain of that wondrous River And though it be likewise true that this is the very case of all those Propositions which I have newly mentioned that they cannot be demonstrated by any thing more clear and evident then themselves yet these Propositions as they are very plain so it is no wonder to find all mankind to be agreed unanimously in assenting to them because it is no mans interest to deny them and therefore every man is willing to acknowledge his real sense and feeling of the matter XVII But when you come to apply what hath been said to moral truths you will find a manifest inconvenience in asserting them also to be of the same Nature with Mathematical Maxims whose truth as it is the clearest of all in it self so in its causes it is the most obscure or to give no better reason why these things are true than only to say they are not false or they are not bad because they are essentially and eternally good and the inconvenience you will run will be this XVIII There are a great many in the World that have a mind to be Wicked one would gratifie his Lust another his Revenge a third his Avarice and a fourth his Ambition by means which are generally thought to be Unlawful and as there are some that would do these things and therefore would be glad of any pretence to put a good face and Colour upon what they are about so there are great numbers of such as have already been actually guilty and these would be every whit as glad of any excuse to justifie and defend themselves XIX And therefore when you would reprove and chide them for what they have done or for what they intend and yet all you can say for your self or against them is that the rules they transgress are essentially and eternally good that they are so because they are so and because it is impossible it should be otherwise this instead of arguing is nothing else but bold affirmation and peremptory confidence which may be turned upon your self for they will tell you perhaps that the charms of that which you call Vice and Wickedness are equal to those of Virtue and that the essential rectitude that is the quelque chose or the Je ne scay quoy of both are exactly the same and that it is not only true what the Stoicks of Old were used to affirm

from relieving the Necessities of our Brother in Affliction or Pain and stifle this Divine sense of Pity and Compassion which is most prevalent in Wise men and which if it be not wholly owing to that cause is in part at least the effect of a Reflection upon the uncertainty of human Affairs is at once a great sin and a grievous Folly together it proceeds from want of skill in the true state of the World and from want of a due Submission to that Almighty Will and Power in the person of our Brother which may when it pleases inflict the same Calamities or Wants upon our own XLII It is very clear from the nature of things themselves that there is a Connexion betwixt Hunger and its proper Food betwixt Sickness and those Medicines which are provided by nature for its Cure we have all of us the same Appetites and the same Organs fitted and intended by Nature for the same uses and therefore we must all of us be supposed to have a natural right to all those necessary Enjoyments which tend to the Maintenance and Preservation of life neither can any man pretend a right to Superfluity that is to that of which he is in no absolute need or to that of which he makes no use when the Necessities of his Neighbour call upon him to part with it for his Relief for this is to abuse the Gifts of Fortune against the intention of Nature who hath provided sufficiently for all and intended that all the Wants of her Creatures should be supplied out of her abundant Store XLIII Besides that those Powers and Faculties which we find within our selves as well of Body as Mind were not designed by God and Nature meerly for our own use but for the mutual Benefit and Advantage of each other as is plain from this That they are so plainly fitted for that purpose as sit as the eye is for seeing or the ear for hearing and therefore he that seeing another reduced to any Extremity or Want shall stand lazy and unactive by when it is in his power to help him does manifestly betray that trust which God and Nature have reposed in him by giving him that strength of Body and those Faculties of Mind which are so exactly fitted for the mutual aid and assistance of each other XLIV Not that we are to spend our whole strength and to lay out all our Thoughts in a sollicitous Provision for the safety or subsistance of others for we are in the first place to consult our own Happiness which is inconsistent with a too sollicitous carking for our selves and much more for others and besides a very small Proportion of every mans care and time will be sufficient in order to this end XLV Neither are we obliged to squander away our whole Estates in charitable uses because they cease to be Charitable when we are so unkind to our selves and because an Universal Practice of such Profuseness would introduce an equality of Order and Power and consequently an Universal Anarchy and Confusion into the World which is very inconsistent with the Quiet and Happiness of it but it is enough in this case if a man shall contribute such a reasonable quota or Proportion towards the relief of those that are in want as may be sufficient if imitated by others in their several Capacities and Abilities of doing good to supply all the real Wants and Necessities of Mankind but if any man will do more than this comes to so he do no prejudice to his Family and Relations for Charity begins at home all the harm he will get will be that he will have the greater satisfaction in himself the greater praise from men and the more exceeding Recompence of Reward from God who sees his Charity and approves the Image of his own Goodness drawn in little by the Bounty of his Creatures and Servants towards each other XLVI And if an evil day should happen to overtake him he will find that this is but casting his bread upon the waters from whence it will be sure to return again with plenty and flow in upon him with a mighty stream because besides the Providence of God which does not ordinarily fail to make a sutable Provision for Virtue in Distress and will not easily desert or abandon him who hath been so great an Example of Mercy and Compassion to others such is the nature of man likewise impress'd upon him by the Divine Wisdom and Goodness for the better preservation and maintenance of his noblest Creature that you shall find but very few who have not some sense of Gratitude about them or who will not charitably and affectionately remember what we have done for them when we are able to do no more for our selves and therefore we shall be sure to find to our exceeding Comfort and Satisfaction that the Alms and Charities which others have begged of us will interceed on our behalf from whence they came with an Importunity not to be resisted and either they whom we have relieved will themselves return the Kindness or if they are not able yet others will the sooner do it for their sakes and the naked whom we have clothed the hungry whom we have fed the Kindnesses and Civilities which we have shewn to all that have stood in need of our assistance will plead more strongly on our behalf than all the crafty Rhetorick of the most importunate and most practis'd Beggar XLVII Wherefore all these Instincts and Passions of the human Nature which I have lately mentioned being so wisely and so mercifully contrived for our own preservation and for the mutual assistance of each other are plain and manifest Indications of a Divine Providence governing the World and superintending human Affairs and therefore I am so far from extending this Principle of Interest no further than the publick view of the World that I think for any man to do so is the most foolish and Unphilosophical thing that can be conceived for since we can neither look into our selves nor abroad into the World but we find all things so full of Usefulness and Beauty since there is Nourishment and Sustenance provided round about us for our Bodies and since the Organization and Contexture of our own as well as of the Bodies of other Animals is so exquisitely fitted to digest and assimilate that Nourishment into it self since there is every where such plentiful Provision made not only for the Necessities but for the Pleasures of life since there is in all Animals a natural desire of maintaining and propagating their several Kinds since there is so much wise Contrivance and wonderful Curiosity in the spermatick or prolisick Parts and Vessels for the accomplishing the ends of Nature since there is in all Creatures not excepting the most sluggish and insensible of Beasts themselves a natural Tenderness and Fondness for the Preservation of their respective Broods which would otherwise be exposed to Want and Hunger to the Injuries