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	part_n	3,256	5	4.2928	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51787	The immortality of the soul asserted, and practically improved shewing by Scripture, reason, and the testimony of the ancient philosophers, that the soul of man is capable of subsisting and acting in a state of separation from the body, and how much it concerns us all to prepare for that state : with some reflections on a pretended refutation of Mr. Bently's sermon / by Timothy Manlove.	Manlove, Timothy, d. 1699.	1697 (1697)	Wing M454; ESTC R6833	70,709	184

too Begin when you please I hope I shall not be unprovided for you But till then I am not obliged to incumber my Defence of the Soul's Immortality with needless Controversies 4. Though it should be granted That the Souls of Brutes are both Material and Mortal we are still sure that the Humane Soul is much more excellent than they as appears by those Operations in us which are not descernible in them I think it is ill done of those Philosophers who debase or deny the Sensitive Faculties of Beasts and make them meer Machines and I deny not that there is something in them which looks like Reason But what then These higher Operations of the Souls of Men which have a more immediate and direct reference to Immortality are such as we see no appearance of in the Inferior Creatures They know not God they love him not they have no apprehensions of a Future State no sense of Moral Good or Evil as Man hath and this is enough to distinguish us from them and to shew that our Natures are made for higher Ends than theirs as the Poet speaking of Religion says Seperat haec nos A Grege Brutorum And therefore to argue from the Mortality of the Souls of Brutes against the Immortality of the Souls of Men is every way to beg the Question 5. And thus again you carry the Controversy into the dark as the manner of such Philosophers is and plead Uncertainties against those things which are Certain not knowing the premises while you will needs hold the Conclusion and so abuse your Reason and lose the Truth and your Labour both together This method may indeed serve the ends of perverse Wranglers but is not the way to make any man wiser There is a great deal observable both in the Souls of Men and Brutes which the best Philosophers do not comprehend Must we therefore deny what 's plain because we are not agreed about more remote Difficulties This is the way to introduce Scepticism and unthankfully to reject what God hath made known to us because he hath not laid open all the rest The words of Tertullian in his Treatise de Animâ are very remarkable in the present Case Quis enim revelabit quod Deus texit unde sciscitandum est praestat per Deum nescire quia non revelaverit quam per hominem scire quia ipse praesumpserit pag. mihi 342. Your Masters have not yet satisfied the Learned World in any Account they have given of Sensitive perception and Appetite by reducing them to the Laws of Matter and Motion You must lay your Foundation better before you build so much upon it But Cicero and Laertius tell us That the Epicureans abandoned Logick and so do their Abettors If supposing would serve instead of proving there would be no great difference between an Ideot and a Philosopher Obj. 2. But Thinking Arguing c. which you ascribe to the Soul belong to the whole Compositum or contexture of Soul and Body which is the efficient proper cause of them pag. 2 4. Answ According to your own Hypothesis each part of the Compositum is not alike concerned in these Acts but especially the Animal Spirits and the Brain which you suppose to be a materia cogitativa but these are not the whole Compositum so that you must first reconcile your Philosophy to it self and then answer what I have said against the Capacity of these Material Corruptible Spirits for the production of such Acts before this Objection be at all valuable They very use which the Soul now makes of Corporeal Organs and Instruments plainly evinces That it doth exert some Action wherein they assist it not for it supposeth an operation upon them antecedent to any operation by them When therefore the Soul makes use of a bodily Organ its Action upon it must needs at last be without the ministry of any Organ unless you multiply to it Body upon Body in infinitum as a Reverend Author observes Blessedness of the Righteous pag. 205. Nullam vim virtutem aut aptitudinem ad ipsum intelligendi aut volendi actum purum formalem in se à spiritibus aut à sensu animus recipit Quomodo enim inferius vilius passivum virtutem activam nobilem Naturae superiori praestantiori activae communicare potest Method Theol. part 1.162 Obj. 3. Matter and Motion may do much as appears by a Musical Organ in the hand of a good Artist page 2. Answ The Instrument is not conscious of the Harmony produced by it as the Soul is of its own Acts and therefore your Similitude is far from running upon all four Obj. 4. Matter has a self-moving Power for if it be reduced to a fine Powder part of it will rise up into the Air like a thin Cloud pag. 7. 13. Answ The Air is a fluid body in which those little Particles are moved as Sticks or Straws are in the Water according to its motion and not by a self-moving Power of their own Though as our Author not observing how he almost confutes himself tells you in the very next words that they are apt to be moved with every little breath I believe indeed they are very susceptible of impressions from without but have no self-moving power within them If the Dust in the Streets fly into you Eyes will you therefore say it has a self-moving power stop it but close up in a Bottle where Wind and Air cannot disturb it and I will be bound for its good behaviour As for the nature of Fire you have light and heat as well as motion to give an account of which I fancy will put you hard to it Neither know you whence the Wind comes nor whither it goes nor what it is that puts it in motion and so we are not at all edified by your Assertion concerning it Obj. 5. The Spirit of the Egyptian whom David found at Ziklag in the field famished came to him again after they had given him Fruit and Water pag. 11. Answ No wonder that his Material Animal Spirits were refresh'd by suitable Nourishment but that proves not that he had no nobler Principle in him Neither do I deny that these Spirits are the immediate Instruments of the Soul 's Operations in its state of union with the Body But this is only ad modum not ad formam actus and therefore to say the Soul cannot subsist nor act in a state of Separation from them is an Argument à Bactdo ad Angulum And yet it is no wonder if it leave the Body when these Spirits are no longer fit to be a vinculum of vital union between them Obj. 6. It cannot be conceived how the separate Soul should think without the Brain see without an Eye c. Answ The Infant in the Womb hath no conception of these Actions which it shall perform when it is come into the World and grown up to maturity The Cases are much alike To conclude Except

to small purpose to talk of the Immortality of the Soul to such Persons who are resolved to gratify their Lusts though they lose their Reputations and Souls too in the Adventure Thus Bias the Philosopher being asked by some vain Fellows What that Piety he talked of meant Answered It was to no purpose to speak to a Man of those things which he never intended to practise See Laert. 22. Direct 5. Proceed orderly in your Studies and do not begin at the wrong end Lay down the most plain and certain Truths first and so ascend gradually to those that are more difficult Try those things that are uncertain by and do not plead them against those that are clear and certain unless you have a mind to bewilder your selves and to know nothing because you cannot know all There are many Questions concerning the Origine of the Soul its Union with the Body its moving of it and Direction of the Spirits its different Mode of Operation when it shall be separate from the Body its Reunion with the Body at the Resurrection c. which will puzzle you when you have done your best and peradventure yea peradventure no is very often the wisest Answer you can give to them To such matters the sayings of Xenophon in Varro is pertinent Hominis est haec opinari Dei scire God only knows them and we conjecture But must we therefore renounce or undervalue that Knowledge which is attainable What if I know not how the Child is formed in the Womb after all that Dr. Needham hath said de formato Foetu must I therefore deny that the Child is formed there at all This were ridiculous You may easily apply it Remember that which is greater cannot be comprehended by that which is less The Soul fetter'd in the Body is in some respect less and weaker than it self as Duplessis observes Shall we quarrel with the Almighty because he hath hidden some of the Secrets of his Workmanship from us Or like froward Children cast away what is given us because we may not have all we would desire though never so unfit for us Plurimorum enim infelicium ingeniorum inde orta est ruina quod dum nota necessaria plane negligunt an t sensualitate vitiorum mole obruunt absconditis inutilibus enixè student idque ingenio superbiente caliginis suae non satis conscio quando frustrà se non patefacta quaesivisse comperiunt fatigati desperantes de certis etiam necessariis dubitant ipsam animorum immortalitatem negant In tanta scilicet mala stultos perversus studiorum ordo praecipitat Method Theol. Part 1. pag. 155. In order therefore to your satisfaction in this Point give me leave to recommend to you the following Method 1st Digest well those Arguments which demonstrate the Being and Perfections of the Deity That there is a God and that the Souls of Men are Immortal are Truths so nearly link'd together that he who denies the one may justly be suspected of a Disposition to deny the other Atheism and Sadducism spring from the same Root and must both be attacqued together The invisible Things of God are clearly seen by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead What think you Can there be an Effect without a Cause Could this glorious Fabrick of Heaven and Earth be rear'd by Chance Could the Sun Moon and Stars have any Light but from the Father of Lights Could the Earth be hung upon nothing but by him who upholdeth all things by the Word of his Power Is it not demonstrable that something must needs have been Eternal If you should suppose a time or space call it what you will in which there was nothing will it not necessarily follow that there never could have been any thing because nothing could have produc'd nothing Moreover there can be no excellency in the Effect which is not some way or other in the Cause and therefore since so much Power Wisdom and Goodness shines forth in the Greatness Order and Usefulness of the several Parts of the Creation and their Aptitude and Tendency to the Beauty and Perfection of the whole and so much that is unsearchable in the meanest Creature and since in the Enumeration of Causes 't is absurd to run in Infinitum you must needs come up to a first Cause Eternal and of Incomprehensible Perfection who has more Excellency than all subordinate Causes put together for they have none but what he gave them and it is not possible any Creature should be so perfect as he that made it 2dly Study well the Doctrine of Divine Providence and consider what full and clear Evidence we have that the World is ordered and govern'd by it Epicurus denied That God was the Creator of the World Eximendum imprimis est à sollicitudine ac labore Mundi extruendi Divinum Numen Gassend Syntag. Philos Epicur 72. And upon the same account he denied Providence Non enim cum felicitate congruunt negotia sollicitudines irae gratiae c. 78. The like you have in Laert. pag. 285. In Epicur pag. 300. And Lucretius treads in the same Steps Now this is in effect to deny the Being and Perfections of the Deity or to measure his Perfection by our Imperfection and to leave both the Creation and Government of the World to blind Chance or to that empty Nothing which they call Nature And yet they speak contemptibly of Fortune too though they say the World was made by Chance Gassend Syntag. 49 50. So ill do the Principles of this Philosophy hang together How much better is it to say with Cicero Deo nil praestantius ab eo igitur necesse est mundum regi De Natur. Deor. And again Whoever doubts of Providence may as well doubt whether the Sun shine or no Ibid. 'T is all one to a Being of Infinite Perfection to regard the Motions and Actions of every Creature as if he had but one to mind God has not made a World greater than himself and it is dishonourable to him to suppose that he is only an unconcerned Spectator of the Affairs and Transactions of his Creatures Besides 't is Nonsense to think that the Creatures can either Subsist or Act without him His Name is I A M and all created Beings compared with him are but Non-Entities as Plato observes Id solum esse quod est aeternum immutabile caetera potius non esse quam esse In Timaeo And 't is observable how Nature it self prompts us to look unto him for relief and help in Exigences and to lift up Hands and Eyes to Heaven when we know not what to do Thus it bears witness to the Divine Providence And the Checks of Conscience for secret Sins in like manner evince That there is an All-seeing Eye upon us And so Natural Light prepares for Supernatural 3dly See that your Souls be possest with awful Apprehensions of so great a Majesty