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	great_a	know_v	1,518	5	3.5656	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A68824	The oliue leafe: or, Vniuersall abce Wherein is set foorth the creation, descent, and authoritie of letters: together with th'estimation, profit, affinitie or declination of them: for the familiar vse of all studentes, teachers, and learners of what chirography soeuer, most necessarie. By two tables, newly and briefly composed charactericall and syllabicall. Of Alexander Top Gent.	Top, Alexander.	1603 (1603)	STC 24121; ESTC S119954	13,059	30

or to greater vse I may recite the Chapter of Creation where the Lord created a vse for them to wit the two vnequall Lightes and the Starres for signes for seasons for dayes for yeeres which to our sense may be thus For Minutes Howers Dayes and Yeeres That is Othoth as if a man should faigne for proportionall Figures or legible Letters for the full scope of Gods Creation especially was that Such thinges as erst lay hid in Confusion Rude and Vaine Tohow vabohow of no manner of shape or facion might then by his Word of life most clearely appeare and be distinguished Not that their sundry qualities should be admirable to the outward sense onely but that the very hart and minde of man should be mooued to consider the deapth of so strang a separation when euery thing was so rightly weighed by his owne poyse and as the vpper face of any thing contented the sense so the inwarde proprietie with due cogitation should content the hart that as well in kinds as in facions both sense and vnderstanding might by comparing the substaunce with the pourtrayture be lightned Seeing that all thinges which the Lord wrought or commaunded in the first weeke exceeded not the number of two and twentie And as I gather by the text he delighted to rest in the most complet and correspondent summe of the letters of this Abce From hence may much glorious matter arise but I note onely this that the Lord hereby described all his worke for the most capacious vse and profite of man whom he placed in honour Wherefore I may conclude that euery of these seuerall Hebrew letters should signifie or import some speciall workmanshyp of the Lordes Creation And the rather because the Lord concluded euery one of his actions or creatures with this proper demonstration Eth which is taken for a Signe Figure Letter Forme or Marke beeing the extremities of the two farthest letters of the Rew. As if all things were to be comprehended by this limitation or circumscription Bara Elohim Eth hashamaim God created the figure signe or letter of the Heauens c. Or the very hieroglypsis of them this worde beeing the singular of Othoth which signifieth Figures Letters Causes Signes or Tokens of all sortes Where note that God by his diuine insight hath diligently obserued the shapes the figures and the lines of euery of his workes because he vsed to commende the perfection of them so with his very finger hath he drawē them and with his spirit stamped them secretly in all creatures for vs. This worde Eth maketh the Pronowne demonstratiue Zoth i. this which is thus to be deriued and expounded Zou or Ze oth which properly signifieth This Token this Figure this Letter this Cause Here could I more at large dilate vpon this word Eth but this for my present purpose may suffice Hitherto of the Creation of these little Figures whereby men may coniecture that in the time of Cain they were playne to be read and vnderstood and that Tubal-Cain ingraued them in his costly Instruments And lastly that the Almighty God him selfe in the seperation of his Elementes vouchsafed to remember them and delighted most often to designe the constancie of them by Eth the particle AVTHORITIE WHereas many perchaunce of my sort will wayte for the approbation of diuers and sundry Abce-like authorities they shall surely vnawares deceiue themselues for I minde nothing lesse neither dare I willingly so much to diminish the glorie of the Holy writing because I well know that in these seuerall Rewes howsoeuer disguised is no new thing and that their inuentions which at this day are so famously faigned are meerely nothing else but counterfeiting of the Hebrew Rew in changing their bodyes or their power their places or their order as in my Table of Abces thou mayest well discerne For what cause vpon what deliberation or to what end except that Nations were wont craftily to conceale the knowledge of their Tongue from strangers I know not but a great cause of their metamorphosis may be the changing of the culture and race of Wryting which was from the left hand to the right being before contrary The alteration of their power may seeme to rise from Warfare or pollicie of Court where because silence will not serue secrecie of Language should be needfull and this yea in the same Countrey and Dialect where Ciuill-warres haue growen men haue been forced to study and practise least that the Watch-word either in Court or Campe be too easely apprehended of the enemie and by an vnlucky Alarme both Policie Armie confounded The example of the Gileadites is plaine whom the Ephraimites pursued to the foord of Iordan requiring passage with them which vpon good aduice denying the Gileadites bad them pronounce their Watch-word Shibboleth a Foord or Chanel which they wel knew was a proprietie of their owne tongue whereby it came to passe that by defect in pronuntiation as in Sibboleth an Eare of Corne for Shibboleth the Ephraimites receiued a wonderfull defeat and the Gileadites escaped safe For which cause peraduenture Kinges and Princes haue not onely endured and suffered in their litterature and language but at their pleasure and will haue ruinated and ouerthrowen the naturall stampe course thereof and by preposterous order changed the sound also Concerning the Hebrew writing it was vnpossible for man to inuent the like for of man there remaines no monument so memorable that euer I could find or imagine Wherefore I may well conclude That Almighty God who would scarcely be thought at leasure to attend so litle things is both the Author and Father of the Hebrew writing whether of substaunce or of forme Because in the Table of Ten Wordes or Commaundementes the Lord himselfe vouchsafed to write or carue these formes most seriously with his owne finger which grace he would not adde vnto the vile worke of man nor crowne his corrupt inuention with so Holy memorie DIGNITIE IT is most manifest that these principles haue in auncient time had no small estimation among Princes seeing so many of them haue as it were studied to inuent new formes or alter their course which by no meanes they could so well bring to passe but that the body of the Hebrew Figure would alway remaine and appeare This espying they were euer constrayned to allow the preheminence thereof Yea the holy people of God hath often in the Hebrew text of the old Testament prouerbially vsed the affinitie and iteration of these Letters as delighting in the very Echo of them as Nabal shemo Neblah gnimo A Foole is his name and folly is with him And it also seemeth that the Lord sometimes tooke great pleasure in shi●ting of them and that in texts of great matter and importance as in that of Abram and Sarai where God taking away Jod the last letter from Sarai which is in the Hebrew count the tenth so signifieth rewardeth her with He the first