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	know_v	nature_n	1,522	5	5.1798	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45280	The invisible world discovered to spirituall eyes and reduced to usefull meditation : in three books : also, the great mystery of godliness laid forth by way of affectuous and feeling meditation : with the apostolicall institution of imposition of hands for confirmation of children, setting forth the divine ground, end, and use of that too much neglected institution, and now published as an excellent expedient to truth and peace / by Jos. Hall.	Hall, Joseph, 1574-1656.	1659 (1659)	Wing H387; ESTC R25402	72,809	262

even their omnipotent maker who best knows what is derived from him styles them by his Apostle Powers and by his Psalmist mighty ones in strength A small force seems great to the weak but that power which is commended by the Almighty must needs be transcendently great we best judge of powerfulnesse by the effects How suddainly had one Angel dispatched every first-born in Egypt and after them the hundred fourscore and five thousand of the proud Assyrian Army and if each man had been a Legion with what ease had it been done by that potent spirit Neither are they lesse able to preserve then to destroy That of Aquinas is a great word One Angel is of such power that be were able to govern all the corporeall creatures of the world Justly was it exploded as the wild heresie of Simon Magus and his clients the Meand●ians that the Angels made the world No this was the sole work of him that made them but if we say that it pleases God by their ministration to sway and order the marvailous affairs of this great Universe we shall not I suppose vary from truth If we look to the highest part thereof Philosophers have gone so far as to teach us that which is seconded by the allowance of some great Divines that these blessed Intelligences are they by whose agency under their Almighty Creator the heavens and the glorious luminaries thereof continue their ever-constant and regular motions And if there fall out any preternaturall immutations in the elements any strange concussations of the earth any direfull prodigies in the skie whither should they be imputed but to these mighty Angels whom it pleaseth the most high God to imploy in these extraordinary services That dreadfull magnificence which was in the delivering of the Law on Mount Sinai in fire smoak thundrings lightnings voices earthquakes whence was it but by the operation of Angels And indeed as they are the nearest both in nature and place to the majesty of the highest so it is most proper for them to participate most of his power and to exercise it in obedience to his Soveraignty As therefore he is that infinite Spirit who doth all things and can do no more then all so they as his immediate subordinates are the means whereby he executeth his illimited power in and upon this whole created world Whence it is that in their glorious appearances they have been taken for Jehovah himself by Hagar by Manoah and his wife yea by the better eyes of the Father of the faithfull Now Lord what a protection hast thou provided for thy poor worms and not men creeping here on thine earth and what can we fear in so mighty and sure hands He that passeth with a strong convoy through a wild and perilous desert scorns the danger of wild beasts or robbers no lesse then if he were in a strong tower at home so do we the onsets of the powers of darknesse whiles we are thus invincibly guarded When God promised Moses that an Angel should goe before Israel and yet withall threatned the subduction of his own presence I marvel not if the holy man were no lesse troubled then if they had been left destitute and guardless and that he ceased not his importunity till he had won the gracious ingagement of the Almighty for his presence in that whole expedition For what is the greatest Angel in heaven without his maker But let thy favour O God order and accompany the deputation of the lowest of thine Angels what can all the troops of hell hurt us Assoon may the walls of heaven be scaled and thy throne deturbed as he can be foiled that is defenced with thy power Were it possible to conceive that the Almighty should be but a looker on in the conflict of spirits we know that the good Angels have so so much advantage of their strength as they have of their station neither could those subdued spirits stand in the incounter but now he that is strong in our weaknesse is strong in their strength for us blessed be God for them as the Author of them and their protection Blessed be they under God as the means used by him for our protection and blessings SECT. V. The knowledge of Angels IF Sampson could have had his full strength in his mill when he wanted his eyes it would have little availed him such is power without knowledge but where both of these concur in one how can they fail of effect Whether of these is more eminent in the blessed spirits it is not easie to determine so perfectly knowing are they as that the very heathen Philosophers have styled them by the name of Intelligences as if their very being were made up of understanding Indeed what is there in this whole compass of the large Universe that is hid from their eyes only the closet of mans heart is lockt up from them as reserved solely to their maker yet so as that ●hey can by some insensible chinks of those secret notifications which fall from us look into them also all other things whether secrets of nature or closest counsels or events are as open to their sight as the most visible objects are to ours They do not as we mortals are wont look through the dim and horny spectacle o● senses or understand by the mediation of Phantasms but rather as clear mirrours they receive at once the full representations of all intelligible things having besides that connaturall light which is universally in them all certain speciall illuminations from the Father of lights Even we men think we know something neither may our good God lose the thank of his bounty this way but alas he that is reputed to have known most of all the heathen whom * some have styled the Genius of nature could confesse that the clearest understanding is to those things which are most manifest but as a bats eyes to the Sun Do we see but a worm crawling under our feet we know not what that is which in it self gives it a being Do we hear but a Bee humming about our ears the greatest Naturalist cannot know whether that noise come from within the body or from the mouth or from the wings of that Flie How can we then hope or pretend to know those things which are abstruse and remote But these heavenly spirits do not only know things as they are in themselves and in their inward and immediate causes but do clearly see the first and universal cause of all things and that in his glorious essence how much more do they know our shallow dispositions affections inclinations which peer out of the windows of our hearts together with all perils and events that are incident unto us We walk therefore amids not more able then watchfull overseers and so are we lookt thorough in all our wayes as if heaven were all eyes Under this blessed vigilancy if the powers of hell can either surprize us with

suddainnesse or circumvent us with subtlety let them not spare to use their advantage But oh ye tutelar spirits ye well know our weaknesse and their strength our sillinesse and their craft their deadly machinations and our miserable obnoxiousnesse neither is your love to markinde and fidelity to your maker any whit lesse then your knowledge so as your charge can no more miscarry under your hands and eyes then your selves As you do alwayes enjoy the beatifical vision of your maker so your eye is never off from his little ones your blessednesse is no more separable from our safety then you from your blessednesse SECT. VI The imployments and operations of Angels EVen while we see you not O ye blessed spirits we know what ye do He that made you hath told us your task As there are many millions of you attending the all-glorious throne of your Creator and singing perpetual Hallelujahs to him in the highest heavens so there are innumerable numbers of you imployed in governing and ordering the creature in guarding the elect in executing the commands which ye receive from the Almighty what variety is here of your assistance One while ye lead us in our way as ye did Israel another while ye instruct us as ye did Daniel one while ye fight for us as ye did for Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus another while ye purvey for us as for Elias one while ye fit us to our holy vocation as ye did to Esay another while ye dispose of the opportunities of our calling for good as ye did of Philips to the Eunuch one while ye foretell our danger as to Lot to Joseph and Mary another while ye comfort our affliction as to Hagar one while ye oppose evil projects against us as to Balaam another while ye will be striven with for a blessing as with Jacob one while ye resist our offensive courses as to Moses another while ye incourage us in our devotions as ye did Paul and Silas and Cornelius one while ye deliver from durance as Peter another while ye preserve us from danger and death as the three children one while ye are ready to restrain our presumption as the Cherub before the gate of Paradise another while to excite our courage as to Elias and Theodosius one while to refresh and chear us in our sufferings as to the Apostles another while to prevent our sufferings as to Jacob in the pursuit of Laban and Esau to the Sages in the pursuit of Herod one while ye cure our bodies as at the pool of Bethesda another while ye carry up our souls to glory as ye did to Lazarus It were endlesse to instance in all the gracious offices which ye perform Certainly there are many thousand events wherein common eyes see nothing but nature which yet are effected by the ministration of Angels when Abraham sent his servant to procure a wife for his son from amongst his own cognation the messenger saw nothing but men like himself but Abraham saw an Angel fore-contriving the work God saith he shal send his Angel before thee that thou mayest take a wife thence when the Israelites forcibly by dint of sword expelled the Canaanites and Amorites and the other branded nations nothing appeared but their own arms but the Lord of hosts could say I will send mine Angel before thee by whom I shall drive them thence Balaam saw his Asse disorderly starting in the path he that formerly had seen Visions now sees nothing but a wall and a way but in the mean time his Asse who for the present had more of the Prophet then his Master could see an Angel and a sword The Sodomites went groping in the street for Lots door and misse it they thought of nothing but some suddain dizzinesse of brain that disappointed them we know it was an Angel that stroke them with blindenesse Nothing appeared when the Egyptian first-born were struck dead in one night the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck we know it was done by the hand of an Angel Nothing was seen at the pool of Bethesda but a moved water when the suddain cures were wrought which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficiall constellation we know that an Angel descended and made the water thus sanative G●hezi saw his master strangely preserved from the Aramite troops but had not his eyes been opened by the Prophets prayers he had not seen whence that aid came Neither is it otherwise in the frequent experiments of our life Have we been raised up from deadly sicknesses when all naturall helps have given us up Gods Angels have been our secret Physitians Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of some absent friends which no humane intelligence hath bidden us to suspect who but our Angels hath wrought it have we been preserved from mortall dangers which we could not tell how by our providence to have evaded our invisible Guardians have done it I see no reason to dislike that observation of Gerson Whence is it saith he that little children are conserved from so many perils of their infancy fire water falls suffocations but by the agency of Angels Surely where we find a probability of second causes in nature we are apt to confine our thoughts from looking higher yet even there many times are unseen hands had we seen the house fall upon the heads of Jobs children we should perhaps have attributed it to the natural force of a vehement blast when now we know it was the work of a spirit Had we seen those thousands of Israel falling dead of the plague we should have complain'd of some strange infection in the air when David saw the Angel of God acting in that mortality Humane reason is apt to be injuriously saucie in ascribing those things to an ordinary course of natural causes which the God of nature doth by supernatural agents A master of Philosophy travelling with others on the way when a fearfull thunder-storm arose checked the fear of his fellows and discoursed to them of the naturall reasons of that uprore in the clouds and those suddain flashes wherewith they seemed out of the ignorances of causes to be too much affrighted in the midst of his philosophicall discourse he was strucken dead with that dreadfull eruption which he sleighted what could this be but the finger of that God who will have his works rather entertained with wonder and trembling then with curious scanning Neither is it otherwise in those violent Huracans devouring earthquakes and more then ordinary tempests and fiery apparitions which we have seen and heard of for however there be natural causes given of the usual events of this kinde yet nothing hinders but that the Almighty for the manifestation of his power and justice may set spirits whether good or evil on work to do the same things sometimes with more state and magnificence of horrour like as we see Frogs bred ordinarily both out of putrefaction and generation and yet