Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	effect_n	nature_n	2,106	5	5.3452	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66409	The possibility, expediency, and necessity of divine revelation a sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Jan. 7. 1694/5 : at the beginning of the lecture for the ensuing year, founded by the honourable Robert Boyle, Esquire / by John Williams ...	Williams, John, 1636?-1709.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1695 (1695)	Wing W2718; ESTC R2129	12,841	37

be inclosed in a Material Body and could as soon resolve all those perplexing doubts which otherwise he would have been assaulted with as he understood at first sight that Eve was bone of his bone and knew how to give Names to the Creatures suitable to their Natures Gen. 2. 19 23. But now the reasons for such an Inspiration to Adam were personal belonging to him alone but after what manner the Divine Wisdom would have imparted the Knowledge of it self to Adam's Posterity if he and they had stood and continued in a state of Primogenial Innocency or whether there would in those Circumstances have been any need of a Supernatural Inspiration after the Revelation made to Adam from whom they might have Infallibly received it no more concerns us than it doth to know how Mankind would then have been disposed of when they were not to Dye but to have subsisted in the same State Body and Soul inseparably United Those are among the secret things which belong unto God but things revealed belong unto us We must therefore alter the Scene and consider Mankind in a State of Imperfection and Depravation and there we shall find Revelation absolutely necessary as a remedy against a fourfold Mischief which without it would unavoidably ensue As with respect to the Confusion Adam was in by reason of Guilt The Danger he was in from his Enemy The Subtile and Malicious Serpent The Ruin that threatned him from the impotency and disorder he found in his Faculties which like a Dislocation in the Limbs though fit in themselves for Action yet being removed out of their Sockets are not capable of discharging their Functions This being the State of Fallen Man there was need of a Supervenient Revelation to recover him as well as it was the determination of the Divine Goodness to design it There was need of this to comfort him under the sense of his Apostacy and the Guilt he had contracted to prevent his Despair To fortify him against the power of his insolent and triumphant Adversary and to aid him under his contracted disability for preventing his Discouragement And to caution him against the sad effects of his Depravation or the falling into a repetition of a new disobedience for preventing his Presumption For these Reasons Almighty God so soon interposed in the Garden by a new Revelation of Himself and Instructed him in his gracious design to restore him to Favour and in the method he would observe for that purpose inwhat he saith to the Serpent Gen. 3. 15. I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel Thus the Gospel was Preached to Adam who was the first Prophet to whom the Mystery of Salvation was revealed to which those places in the New Testament seem to refer Luke 1. 70. As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets since the world began 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the beginning so Acts 3. 21. This was the case of Adam and the exigence he would have been in without this immediate and comfortable Revelation And the Condition of his Posterity would have been worse than his without a Revelation had this Revelation died with this their Progenitor and not have been transmitted to them For besides the state of Guilt which must equally have invaded them as it did him and what Conscience in them could no more quietly digest than in him there were several disadvantages they laboured under which he did not As if we consider Adam in a bare State of Nature without any Supernatural provision he had this advantage above his Posterity that being Created in a full Age he was free from all prepossessions of Sense or Education and in the first moment of his Being had his Reason clear in the fountain of it like the Sun in its Meridian Glory and all his Faculties bright and as ripe at once for Observation and Reflection as his Body was for Action But his Posterity growing up from their Infancy among sensible Objects from thence would in a meer course of Nature have received all their Information and by slow degrees from things Visible must have argued themselves into the Belief of things Invisible and from the Effects of a Supreme Cause to the Supreme Cause it self which in the Apostle's Words Acts 17. 27. would be to seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as men blundering in the dark and find him In such danger would the fundamental Principles of Natural Religion have been if there had been no Revelation to prevent it And this was the reason of such a provision by Inspired Persons to preserve those Principles alive and safe of the number of whom Abel is accounted and therefore called a Prophet Luke 11. 50. and Enoch Jude 14. and Noah 2 Pet. 2. 5. But now as the Rays of the Sun the farther they are projected grow weaker and weaker so it was in the derivation of these Principles which lost very much of their primitive lustre and notwithstanding the certainty of the evidence the credibility and authority of those Holy Patriarchs Vice like a deluge broke in upon the world so that every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts generally speaking was only evil continually Gen. 6. 5. And if now when there was a Revelation and a Revelation seconded by the Authority of such Eminent Persons the World so soon grew Corrupted What would it not have been if there had been no such Revelation or no such Curators of it And this the World was soon sensible of after the Flood for notwithstanding so late and astonishing an instance of the Divine Vengeance yet in their several Dispersions for want of a Revelation they lost the sense of the true and great Principles of Religion some as the Chaldeans turning it into a vain Inquiry into the Influences of the Heavenly Bodies others placing their Religion in ridiculous and opprobrious Superstitions as the Egyptians others pleasing themselves in nice Disputations and the Vanity of new-discovered Deities and Religions as the Greeks And all acting in Divine matters as if they were in inextricable Labyrinths being distracted and eternally divided about the Origine of the World whether it were Eternal or Accidental or the Product of a Divine Power about the Origine of Evil about the Government of the World whether it be by different Deities Good or Evil or whether by none but be wholly Acted by the levity of Chance or the immutable Law of Destiny and Fate So that in process of time the World was brought into the condition of Elymas Acts 13. 8 11. that once had the advantage and pleasure of Sight but upon the opposition made to St. Paul immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness that he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand Too close a Representation of the condition of Mankind in that Degenerate

State who because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God but became vain in their imaginations their foolish heart was darkned Rom. 1. 21. Of which darkness and confusion in matters of the greatest importance the World the Commonalty as well as the Philosophical part of Mankind was sensible and of the necessity of a Revelation or somewhat beyond Nature Reason and Argumentation to remove these difficulties to inform them of what they could not otherwise know and to clear up to them what they did know but imperfectly Of which I shall offer some undeniable Instances 1. They universally complained of the loss they were at and of the insufficiency of all their Maxims and Principles of all their Enquiries and Speculations to give them any tolerable satisfaction so that they were in nothing more divided than about what Happiness is as St. Austin from Varro has shew'd And therefore there was somewhat further necessary to satisfy them or else they must for ever remain unsatisfied 2. There was nothing more desired than a Revelation and therefore they were prone to hearken to all pretences to it and when they conceived or were made to believe it was a Revelation they were in nothing more obsequious and pliable So that to gain Authority to his Laws and to keep the People Quiet and Orderly Numa Pompilius did then as Mahomet of latter years pretend he had all by Revelation from the Nymph Egeria And of such Authority was this pretence that as Tully saith There was nothing so absurd which was not maintained by some of the Philosophers so I may say There was nothing so foolish or wicked which was not an ingredient in the Worship they gave to their Deities Insomuch as the nature of things should be perverted Reason and Humanity should be abandoned and God himself be made worse than those that Worshipped him in compliance with their pretended Revelations What Beastiality and Lewdness what Savage and Barbarous Practices and Rites were allowed and required The Blood of Captives and of their own Children must be a Libation nay even Suicide was not only Honourable but a Religious Martyrdome if the Oracle commanded it and they chose rather to be unnatural to the highest degree than not to be Obedient to Divine Revelation Now of what authority must that be which should over-rule the Laws of Nature and so infatuate Mankind that they should not be able to espy the Imposture And what could thus impose upon them if they were not sensible of the imperfect state they were in and the need they stood in of some higher Principle and greater Light to direct them than that of Nature 3. There was no Nation without a Revelation that is without some pretence to it and which they generally vouched for their Rites and Religious Observances from whence it was that there was scarcely a People of any note in the more Civilized parts of the World that had not their Sibyls such as were accounted to be the mouth of their God to be sure none in any part of the known world without an Oracle that they repaired to and whose Injunctions they readily Obeyed The use I make of all this is to show what a sense Mankind had of a Revelation and what all the World has thought Expedient if not Necessary which was the thing to be proved From what has been said we may observe I. What a Happiness it is to have a Revelation by which Mankind are brought out of darkness into a marvellous light and from an endless and fruitless Enquiry Who will shew us my good are placed in a quiet and full possession of it If there be no Revelation we are as it were with ut God in the world and know not whether that Divine Power be our Friend or our Enemy or whether it shall be exerted to our Good or our Ruine If there be no Revelation we are still in our sins and have no Sanctuary against the accusation of our own embittered Consciences the fears of our own guilty Minds or the Justice of an incensed Deity If there be no Revelation we have no hope and can have no comfort in our Death and no assurance of Immortality after it If there be no Revelation we are in a perpetual maze as if we were at Sea without Star or Compass and knew not what course to take to gain our Harbour So thoughtful and pensive so confounded and lost is Mankind without this that if I were to chuse whether I would have no Revelation or a false one for the quiet of my own mind did I believe the false one to be true I would rather chuse the content of the latter than the distraction of the former and leave it to my own reason to rectify the manifest mistakes in it rather than have my hovering Reason to be my constant affliction under the want of Revelation But Blessed be God that there is no cause for such a supposition and that we have all the reason in the world to believe there is a Revelation a Revelation that is such as all Mankind would desire that touches upon all points necessary to our comfort and entire satisfaction as to the Nature and Will of God the Present and Future State of Mankind the Providence that Governs this World and the Rewards of another A Revelation where all the parts of it agree together and bear a conformity to the Nature of things to the Holiness Justice and Mercy of God and to the Reason of Mankind where there is a System of the best Principles and a Scheme of the best Rules and Directions and which like the Book of Nature the more it 's viewed and consulted the more do the lively Characters of a Divine Hand and Wisdom appear in the Composure A Character this is that the Book of Scripture exactly answers For what holy Precepts what heavenly Promises what useful Examples what excellent Encouragements do the Sacred Pages abound in Such as are sufficient to direct us in every point of our Duty to inform us in every necessary Truth to establish our Hearts in every condition of Life to enable us to encounter all the difficulties of it with Resolution and to bear all the evil of it with Patience Here behold God Reconciled to Mankind the trembling Sinner Pardoned the Weak sustained the Doubtful satisfied and nothing wanting on God's part to make us Happy if we are not wanting in a fit disposition of Mind to receive it So that if there be any Revelation it is the Christian if that be not a Revelation from God there is no Revelation in the World And if that be a Revelation that only is so and there can be no other II. Such as the Revelation is such is the Obligation the Authority it receives from God the Obligation lies upon us to Obey as well as Believe it The times of ignorance God winked at and overlook'd but now he commandeth all men every where to repent Acts 17. 30 He hath commanded them by a Revelation which is of universal concernment and extends its Authority over the World So that a Bad man is no better or safer for a Revelation how perfect soever it be and how great soever the advantages of it are than he that is without Revelation nay so much the worse as the latter is a state of Unbelief the former of Disobedience this errs without his will but the other with it And therefore if the Heathens who had only the Book of Nature to read and a blundering Reason for their Guide were yet so far inexcusable because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God Rom. 2. 21. How shall we escape if we neglect so great Salvation which at the first was spoken by the Lord and was confirmed by those that heard him God also bearing them witness c. Heb. 2. 3 4. What remains then but since the Grace of God in the Revelation of the Gospel hath appeared unto all men that we be thereby taught to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world And then we may comfortably look for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2. 11. FINIS Books Printed for Richard Chiswell and Thomas Cockerill RVshworth's Historical Collections The Third Part in Two Volumes Containing the Principal matters which happened from the Meeting of the Parliament November 3 1640. to the end of the Year 164● Wherein is a particular Account of the Rise and Progress of the Civil War to that Period Fol. 1692. Dr. John Conant's Sermons Octavo Published by Dr. Williams