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	matter_n	motion_n	2,080	5	8.1894	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49843	Observations upon a sermon intituled, A confutation of atheism from the faculties of the soul, alias̀, Matter and motion cannot think preached April 4, 1692 : by way of refutation.	Layton, Henry, 1622-1705.	1692 (1692)	Wing L756; ESTC R39115	14,582	19

OBSERVATIONS upon a Sermon Intituled A Confutation of Atheism from the Faculties of the Soul aliàs Matter and Motion cannot think Preached April 4. 1692. By way of REFUTATION THE whole Sermon is comprehended in 39 pages the first 12 of which or to page 12 are employed as an Introduction or Apparatus to his Text and Design and page 12 the Preacher says he intends to prove that the Life Motion Essence and Nature of Man is derived from God and may direct Men to the knowledge of him but all this need not be proved to Men of my opinion who do willingly agree the Truth of his Assertion P. 13. he says he will prove That there is an Immaterial Substance in Man which we call Soul and Spirit essentially distinct from our Bodies And this if he shall substantially perform it shall pass for heroic and above all ordinary power but presently he seeks to avoid and shift off his performance of Proving by saying that the thing is evident in it self But this I do utterly deny and think the contrary more evident viz. That the humane Soul is a material Spirit generated growing and falling with the Body and rising again with it at the sound of the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God And upon this Difference between our Positions the state of our present Controversie will depend I have denied this his Assertion That the thing is self-evident Why but says he There is something in Man's Composition that thinks deliberates consents and actuates all humane Sensations and Powers these Activities cannot come from nothing therefore they come from an immaterial Soul or Spirit in Man To this I answer his Consequence is not good viz. These Powers come from something ergo from an Immaterial Spirit for they may come from a Material Spirit In proof whereof I argue à simili The Plants live grow flourish and fructifie by a Material Spirit The Insects act admirably by a like Spirit The Brutes act sensibly and knowingly by a like Spirit ergo Man may perform all his natural Functions by the like means of a Material Spirit inspiring and acting the proper Organs which God hath made apt for such purposes We see in a Musical Organ every Pipe hath its proper Sound and Function and the same Breath acts them all and therein appears a great Effect and Power of Matter and Motion rightly fabricated and acted by the hand of Artists and what then may not God do with them and by them when he pleaseth I take a second Exception to his saying there is something in Man's Composition that thinks argues c. He says there is no Man so sceptical as to deny this or to doubt of it but his Mistake is great in it for I do believe that there is not any particular thing in Man's composition that thinks argues c. but that it is the Man himself viz. the whole Composition of Soul and Body by a divine and admirable Contexture united which thinks argues and doth all other natural things which God hath given him a Power and Propensity to do It is not the Preacher's something in Man that doth all those things which he mentions but it is the Man that doth them not that something which he will surmise to be the Soul for that cannot act without the bodily Organs not think without the Brain nor remember without the Organ of Memory any more than see without an Eye or speak without a Tongue or generate without a proper Organ for that purpose And this needs be no news to our Preacher for his Master Aristotle in his treatise of the Soul lib. 2. cap. 5. counts it a great impropriety of speaking to say that the Soul is sorrowful fearful sensitive or rational angry or the like and that one may say as properly that the Soul weaves or builds and that it is not proper to say the Soul learns or reasons but the Man doth so viz. the whole Compositum of Soul and Body doth them further he saith there To love hate think or use reason are not properly Affections or Actions of the Soul but of him who hath the Soul In his 1. cap. dicti Lib. he questions whether the Soul have any Affections or Actions not communicated to the Compositum or Person but kept as peculiar to itself Finally he says It seems to him that the Soul hath neither Desire Anger Fear c. nor can do or suffer by them without the Body nor that it can so much as perceive or be sensible without it the very Intellect he thinks either is the Phansie or cannot be acted without it and then cannot the Soul use it without help of the bodily Organs Dicaearchus maintains his Master's doctrine in this point and Pliny in his Natural History lib. 7. cap. 55. says the like Shew if you can says he what is the Substance and Body of the Soul as it were what kind of Matter is it apart from the Body where lieth the Cogitation which she hath how doth she see or hear what toucheth she nay what one thing doth she how is she employed or if there be none of all this in her what good can be to her without them surely these are but Imaginations of Men who fain would live always And there is the like Foolery in preserving of Mens Dead Bodies yea such is the Folly and Vanity of Men that they think the human Soul extends naturally to future Ages and that Ghosts separated from their Bodies have Sense and thereupon render Men them honour and worship making a God of him who is not so much as a Man as if the manner of Mens Breathing differ'd from that of other Creatures These were all persons eminently learn'd and yet they denied that Man's Powers were acted by any particular or specifical something that was in him and affirmed as I do that all are Actions of the Compositum or the Man a Contexture of Soul and Body and by no means can our Preacher's something perform such Offices without the divine and admirable Contexture of Soul and Body for that the one of these without the other can do no such things nor can probably do or suffer anything at all P. 14. Our Preacher says Such Powers and Actions must have an Efficient Cause and I grant it and assign the Contexture of Soul and Body in Man as the Efficient and proper Cause of all such Actions Then he says that Cogitation Volition and Sensation are neither inherent in Matter as such nor acquirable to Matter by any Motion or Modification of it To this I answer that Sensation and Perception are inherent in Man and Beast and to each of them belonging as they are divine Compositions or rather Contextures of Soul and Body Gen. 2.7 says God formed Man of the dust of the ground so c. 3. v. 19. God says to Man out of the ground wast thou taken for dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return We know