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	soul_n	1,472	5	5.2309	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A00954	The revvard of the faithfull. The labour of the faithfull. The grounds of our faith	Fletcher, Giles, 1588?-1623.	1623 (1623)	STC 11062; ESTC S117621	79,563	446

first from the wombe of nature but where I pray should nature find seed 〈◊〉 some the earth but from the fruites of the earth before growing where should shee seeke for egges to breed her ●owles with but from ●owles already bred whither should she goe to gather her akrons but vnder the oake before flourishing what neede ●nfinite knotts It is not in the power of nature to bring forth a man but he must first be borne a child and of whom should that child bee borne had not there been already in nature both man and woman nature then we see could not by any power in her produce the least creature but shee must needs haue her semniall causes and whence are they seeded but from things already beeing Much lesse could chance for what is fortune but onely something in nature wherof we know not the cause If a man digging in a field find a mine we cal this fortune but a mine must bee first there by nature before any can finde it there by fortune And therefore fortune that comes alwayes after nature cannot bee the cause of nature It followes then that the whole world and the soules of men proceeded neither from nature nor chance but from the power and wisedome of God himselfe who is as much more powerfull then nature to call out his worke perfect in his kind at first as he is more wise then fortune to adorne his worke with the most graceful order with out any chaunceable or blind confusion This then being either graunted or extorted from a naturall man what followes hence Truely this That the soule of man doth consist by the word of God Secondly That the soule of man beeing onely able of all creatures visibly in heauen or earth to conceiue and vnderstand a diuine beeing which our experience teaches vs must needs be a spirituall substance like God himselfe and created after his image For this in reason and nature is a selfe-credible truth That no Creator can rayse the power of his action beyond the sphaere of his owne actiuity A stone cannot liue A plant cannot see A beast cannot vnderstand a diuine nature because it hath no such receptiuity no such actiue and diuine power in it as to take into it an insensible obiect For then it should work extra sphaerā beyond the pitch of a sensible being man therfore onely who hath such an eye of vnderstanding in him whereby he is able to liue as it is sayd of Moses Heb. 11. 27. as seeing him who is inuisible must needs be fashioned and form'd in the similitude of the inuisible God For what creature worships a diuine power sanctifies holy dayes and Sabaoths obserues solemne feasts and assemblies offers sacrifices of prayer praise to God but man onely Vpon whose soule doth the law of God naturally reflect it selfe in the knowledge of that which is good and the conscience of that which is euill but onely vpon man's What nature in earth obserues the different motions of the heauenly bodies and admires the methodicall Wisedome of God in them or thinkes vpon his couenant of mercy when he sees the token of it shining in the waterie cloud sweetly abusing the same waters to bee a token of his mercy which before were the instrument of his iust reuenge but only man's whose eye lookes beyond the bright hilles of time and there beholds eternity or sees a spirituall world beyond this body esteeming that farre discoasted region his natiue countey but onely man Which diuine thought wee shall not find in the hearts alone of the children of light that haue the starres of heauen shining thicke in them Hebr. 11. 16. but in the minds of heathen men that lay shadowed in their owne naturall wisedome out of which the banisht Consul of Rome Boetius could sing Haec dices memini patria est mihi Hinc ortus hic sistam gradum O this my country is thy soule shall say Hence was my birth here shall be my stay And of which Anaxagoras liuing a stranger among the Athenian Philosophers and being chid for regarding so little his natiue soile by one that asked him why he minded no more his owne country answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ô sayes he pointing vp to heauen I am exceeding mindfull of my natiue countrie Now to apply all this discourse home man we haue prou'd was created by the word of God man only was form'd in Gods image and similitude And who then is the word of God but the Sonne of God who the expresse image of the Father but the Sonne Ioh. 1. 1. Heb. 1. 3. Since therefore our soules consist by the Word Christ and euery thing is preseru'd of that it consists as Nature it selfe teaches since our soules are made after the image and similitude of Christ and euery thing is most agreeably nourished by that it is most assimilated vnto is it not euen in reason an irrepugnable Truth that our soules must needs be nourished and preserued by the power of our Lord CHRIST who is Gods Essentiall Word and Image And heere by the way but I speake of it onely incidentally as it falls into discourse wee may see as the high dignity so the causall differēce between the reasonable soule of man and the liuing souls of bruit beasts For doe but looke into the booke of the generatiō of creatures and you shall see there Mans soule was immediately breathed into his body by God himselfe and was created after his Diuine image but the Liuing Soules of bruit beasts were educ't out of their elementarie wombes those bodies which were most like thēselues For so sayes our Lord God Let the Earth bring forth euery liuing thing according to his kind and it was so so the sea was commāded to bring foorth issue according to his kind and so it was which is the reason the liuing souls of beasts fal again into the same matter out of which they were first taken and of whose kinde likeness they are as our corruptible bodies doe Dust thou art and into dust thou shalt returne but the diuine and reasonable Spirit of man returns to God that gaue it as Salomon speakes Eccles 12. 7. being immediately created by him of his owne similitude and kinde so breath'd into the body which is indeede the true prime cause of the immortality of our souls So that they being created immediately by the Word breath of God out of nothing and not arising from any praeexistent matter cānot possibly be corrupted into any other nature or annihilated by any other word except we childishly suppose some word more powerful then the Word of God himselfe I haue now prou'd that our soules all consisting by the word of the Father which is Christ and being imag'd most like vnto him they must needs as euery thing else is by their like be preserued and nourisht by Christ whose image they are and who may therefore with greater truth and reason be called

Patriarckes to Pharaoh Gen. the 47. Thy seruants are shepheards both wee and all our fathers Where we may see that Pharaoh himselfe had his heards and flocks of cattell to feed abroade in his own crowne lands and royall inheritance And among the Princes of Israel was not Gedeon taken from the threshing floore Iudg. 6. 11. Moses Dauid from the Ewes great with young to feed Israel Gods people and Iacob his inheritance Exodus 3. 1. Sam. 16. 11. may wee not meete Saul after hee was annoynted king ouer Israel following his Oxen. 1. Sam. 11. 5 and therefore the ancient phrase of the world for kings was the shepheards of people so Homer vsually stiles Agamemnon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and nothing is more frequent in the stories of elder times then to see the greatest Princes of the world taken with Cincinnattus and C. Fabricius and Curius Dentatus as they were following the plow to bee the Consuls and Dictators of Rome which was then the Queene of Nations and the Lady of the world And this not so much the necessitie of their estates droue them as the honesty delight and naturall sweetnes of these countrey and fieldlabours woed them vnto And therefore old Cato after hee had out of his censorious grauity well rated and scolded withall other pleasures as the lasciuious Mistresse of lewd youth and the onely harlots of the whole world cannot in conclusion dissemble his loue to this same countrey Galatea as Virgil cals this field-life but as soone as he begins to speake of it Redeamus in gratiam cum voluptate sayes the rough Censour of the world Let vs bee friends againe with pleasure as confessing it to be not so much a clownish labour as the most naturall and therefore lawfull delight allowed a wise man And therefore in the youthful flourish of Rome we shal finde it obserued by Columella that their faires which the Romans call Nundinae quasi nono die habitae were kept once onely in nine dayes because they would not leaue their country houses to be drawne into the idle troubles of the cittie more then needes must and if they were by exigence called to the Senate house for their aduise they had publike officers whom they called Viatores their countrey posts attending such occasions and when they gaue any man extraordinary commendation ita laudabant sayes the first Latine writer de re rustica Bonum agricolam bonumque colonum as for the generall Trade some fewer then but now so many deale with of vsury the Romane Law was sayes the same Cato Furem dupli condemnari foeneratorem quadrupli and with good reason is this Art of getting by our mony not by our labour inueighed against of all such as commend husbandry as most vnnaturall husbandry and contrary to the life they write of being as M. Varro speakes of it most hated of those who are beholding to it but for the certainty of gaine and the pietie of the getter and the safety and health of him that vses it and the apting the bodies of men military seruices in the defence of the common-wealth those haue euerbin accounted most happie sayes the same Authour Qui in eo studio occupati sunt By all which it sufficiently appeares that husbandry hath bin both an ancient and honourable meanes of life before pride and the fashion began to bee vertues of so speciall request in the world as they are now thought and that all bee in the glory of Nature before sinne had hlemisht the world we were by creation all diuines and Priests of God not to offer bloudy sacrifices but of praise and obedience which should make vs thinke honorably of that calling which we were al born to except we would cast dirt in the face of our innocent nature yet presently after the soyle of our sin had strucke barennes into the womb of our mother her brests were dried vp that suckled vs husbandry succeeded to bee the next vocation The first call was of the minde the second of the body the first of heauen the secōd of the earth the first to the glory of God the second for the necessitie of man and yet I thinke both of them may make the same complaint for themselues which Iunius Moderatus Columela does for them Sola res rustica quae sine dubitatione proxima quasi cōsanguinea sapientia est tam discentibus egeat quam ma gistris Onely the Art of husbandry which doubtlesse is next and nearest a kinne to wisedome wants both schollers and teachers meeting very seldome with such religious votaries towards them as the Prince of the Latin Poets was who in his Georgicks or poeticall Husbandrie breaks out into this godly wish Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musae Quarū sacra fero ingenti percislsus amore Accipiant caelique vias sidera monstrent Sin has non possim Naturae accedere partes c. Rura mihi rigui placeant in vallibus amnes Flumina amen syluasque inglorias No first of all O let the Muses wings Whose sacred fo●ntaine in my bosome springs Receiue and landing mee aboue the starres Shew me the waies of heuē but if the barres Of vnkinde Nature stoppe so high a flight The Woods and Fields shall be my next delight Thus were the opinions of the old world but it is a world to see now the prodigious change of Nature when not onelie most men count Husbandrie a base and sordid businesse vnfit to soyle their hands with but some who thinkes his breast tempered of siner clay then ours of the vulgar sort call such as haue spent their times in the studies of Diuinity no better then rixosum disputatorum genus quorum vix in coquendis oleribus consilium admittit It is the speech of one Bartaeus a Germane disclaimer who was better borne thē taught more eloquent then learned against the Diuines of his Countrie too busily wrangling as he thought about the Paradoxes of Arminius who I feare will change if not his false opinion of the cause yet his prophane censure of the men nisi ipse forte inter olera sit quae in inferno sint conquenda Before our bodies were only instruments to serue our soules and wee delighted our selues in the study of heauenly diuine knowledge now our soules drudges onely vpon the bodies seruice runnes onely vpon the fleshes errands neyther is any thing more wearisom to it selfe or more out of credit in the world then a soule walking climbing vp the holy mountaines from whence commeth our saluation til it be out of breath after the knowledge of heauenly things before our labour for the body was soone dispatched when wee all went naked and the ground seeded it selfe brought forth a voluntary haruest to feede vs but now all our labour is for food cloathing as the wise mā tells vs in his Prouerbes our nakednesse was then our glory it is now our shame it was a curse