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	motion_n	natural_a	2,016	5	6.5181	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43992	A Collection of modern relations of matter of fact concerning witches & witchcraft upon the persons of people to which is prefixed a meditation concerning the mercy of God in preserving us from the malice and power of evil angels, written by the late Lord Chief Justice Hale, upon occasion of a tryal of several witches before him.	Hale, Matthew, Sir, 1609-1676.	1693 (1693)	Wing H224; ESTC R23402	48,262	74

prefix a Meditation though not finished of that no less Wise Profound Sagacious and Ingenuous than Just and Good Man the late Lord Chief Justice HALE concerning the Mercy of God in preserving us from the Malice and Power of Evil Angels which he wrote at Cambridge the next Lord's day after the Tryal of certain Witches before him at St. Edmund's bury whom he there Condemned and ordered to be Executed after a long Tryal from Seven or Eight in the Morning till Seven or Eight at Night wherein be called to his assistance divers Physitians and other learned Men and at last after a full and careful Examination the Jury finding them Guilty he passed Sentence upon them with full Satisfaction of the Justice of their Verdict There is a Relation of it in print written by his Marshal which I suppose is very true though to the best of my Memory not so compleat as to some observable Circumstances as what he related to me at his return from that Circuit But that he was well satisfied in it may be perceived by his Writing this Meditation so immediately upon it And therefore I think it very proper for this place not only for the use which well-disposed People may make of it but also as an Evidence of the Judgment of so Great so Learned so Profound and Sagatious so Cautious Circumspect and Tender a Man in matters of Justice and especially in matter of Life and Death upon so great Deliberation for he knew by his Kalendar before-hand what a Cause he was to Try and he well knew the Notions and Sentiments of the Age and upon so solemn an Occasion to check and correct the Impiety the Vanity the Self-conceitedness or Baseness of such Witch-Advocates as either confidently maintain that there are no Witches at all making their shallow Conceptions an adequate measure for the extent of the Powers of Nature and of the Wisdom and Power of God or contrary to their Duty and their Oaths make light of the Examination and Tryal of them when brought before them Such Persons may have cause to be ashamed of themselves after notice of such a Judgment and others may hereby be admonished what to think of them if they persist in such Assertions or Pretences A DISCOURSE CONCERNING The great Mercy of God in preserving us from the Power and Malice of Evil Angels Written by Sir Matt. Hale at Cambridge 26 Mar. 1661. Vpon occasion of a Tryal of certain Witches before him the Week before at St. Edmund's-Bury 1. THat there are such evil Angels it is without all question The Old Testament assures us of it as it easily appears upon the consideration of the Temptation of our first Parents the History of Abimeleck and the Men of Shechem the History of Saul and the Witch of Endor the History of Mica●ah and the false Prophets the History of Job the Prophecy of the Desolation of Babylon wherein Jim and Ziim and the Satyrs were Prophesied to Inhabit The New Testament more explicitly and abundantly clears it by the History of the Temptation of our Lord the Demoniacks of several Symptoms Cured by our Lord and his Apostles the Procession of the Evil Spirit and his return with seven other Spirits the Vision of the Fall of Satan from Heaven like Lightning by our Saviour the several assertings of it in the Gospel and Apostolical Epistles the Prince of the power of the Air the Spirit ruling in the Children of Disobedience the Kingdom of Satan Principalities and Powers in high Places and more frequently yet in the Apocalyps It is also confirmed to us by daily Experience of the Power and Energy of these Evil Spirits in Witches and by them 2. That these evil Spirits have likewise a great measure of Power and a greater measure of Malice appears in the same Scriptures and by Experience The greatest Strength and Energy of any corporeal Creature is in the vigourand power of those Natural and Animal Spirits that are within them The great swiftness and strength of the Lyon the Wolf the Tyger and of the strongest of Men is the exerting of these Vital and Animal Spirits without which their Bodies tho of the exactest Model and Compages for strength were but a Trunk and iners moles Certainly therefore those Separate Spirits that are not clogged nor encumbred with Matter have a greater strength and energy which is evident in those Possessed Demoniacks both in the Gospel and in known Experience who could not be holden by the strength of Men when Possessed with this powerful and malignant Influence 3. And yet their Malice to the Children of Men is more extensive than their Power It began with the First Man in Innocence and it hath improved ever since The evidence both of his Power and Malice is mostlively seen in that display of the Invisible Administration and Exercise of it towards Job that it contented not it self with any Bounds his Goods his Children his Name his Body the very Peace of his Soul and Mind were not enough to content or quenoh it insomuch that had there not been a guard upon his Life his Malice had also seized that And which is yet more his Malice against the everlasting Soul of Man is unsatiable as appears in that express description of the Tempting of our Lord Tempting him to Presumption to Despair to Apostacy from God And this he did not only out of a particular or personal Malice against him but as in his first Temptation of the First Adam his Malice was not only at him but at the whole Kind which in a great measure he effected so in his Tempting of our Lord he aimed not only Personally at him but in him at the totum genus Humanum For tho possibly he might be ignorant of the hypostatical Union of the Divine Nature to our Lord yet doubtless he did suspect that much of the good of Mankind was deposited in that Treasury which if he could have shattered and broken he had exquisitely satisfied the extent of his Malice against Mankind 4. This Malice and Power of that Evil one is much advantaged in reference to Man 1. By his great Experience and Subtilty 2. By his Invisibility and Swiftness whereby he can secretly and powerfully insinuate and mingle himself with the Subject he means to mischief He knows the Avenues into Man and he knows how most subtily and unsuspectedly to seize upon them In reference to the Body of Man he knows his Humours his Temper his Distemper and hath the advantage of the higher Ground as Perseus had in his fight with the Monster in the Fable as the Eagle in his fight with the Dragon He can watch his Advantage and Undiscovered can derive into him a malignant Air or a poysonous Fume or a venomous Infusion His Experience in Natural Causes his Ability to discover fit Actives and to apply them effectually to Passives his acquaintance with the Natural Constitutions and his opportunities to disturb or invenom it his

Speed and imperceptible Motion in insinution of himself and his Experiments upon the Body renders it upon a bare natural account much subject to his Power 5. And no less advantage hath he upon the Soul First in respect of it self and its own spiritual Nature whereby in all probability he can secretly and immediately insinuate himself with it and Perswade and Excite and Deceive and Abuse as a subtil Man can deal with another of more simplicity For it seems altogether as reasonable upon a bare natural account that one Spirit may communicate with another in a Kind proper to their Nature as one Man may communicate to another in a Kind suitable with his Nature 2. And principally in respect of the manner of the operation of the Soul of Man in Communion with the Body whereby she hath a kind of dependance upon the Body's Constitution and by a disturbance or disorder in that become subject to a disorder in her Actings Upon this account he can disturb the Blood into Cholar or Lust abuse the Fancy with false representations or disturbances in Truth corrupt the Organ of the Sense or the Species which they receive inrage and discompose the Humours of the Body mingle Ingrediants with them that shall impede or corrupt the actings of the Soul And as thus he can corrupt within so he can by observation of the prevalence of any Lust or Passion and of the just and true season when it is at the height fit it with a Temptation that shall draw it out to Action When Achan's covetous humour is high he can unvail the Wedge of Gold and the Babylonish Garment When David's Security and Idleness and possibly high and delicate Fare hath raised up the Lust of his Flesh he can present him with a Bathsheba Thus partly by his own Wisdom Experience malicious Vigilancy Invisibility Strength and Power partly by our own Weakness and Infirmity partly by the Correspondence he hath with our Tempers and Dispositions he is able to make advantage upon us either by internal Corrupting or by external Alluring or Inciting us to what is hurtful and prejudicial 6. Since therefore it is apparent that he wants neither Power nor Opportunity nor Malice to mischief us it remains that certainly the obstruction of the executing of that Power doth not arise from himself for his Malice is unsatiable it is his business every day to go about seeking whom he may Devour And unquestionably his Malice would carry him to the execution of the utmost of his Power either to destroy Mankind or at least to make them Slaves to his Kingdom Alexander who was most certainly the most Ambitious Prince in the World could not be near so fond of bringing the World under his Subjection as this Prince of Darkness is Those that he cannot make his Vassals he would soon extirpate and exterminate out of the Bounds of his affected Empire And on the other side the obstruction is not from our selves we are too weak to deal with him he was too hard for Adam in his Innocence and therefore must needs be too hard for us in our corrupted Estate And if it be said there was but one to one we are many to one or at least to few we deceive our selves herein for they are Numerous One Man was possessed with a Legion in the Gospel But if it were otherwise yet the Agility and nimbleness of those impure Spirits is great and their dispatches speedy they are Itinerarii Circumferanei walking to and fro through the World 7. It remains therefore that the power and malice of this great Enemy is checked and controlled and limited by a higher Power it is Regnum sub graviori Regno And he that hath shut up the Sea in Bars and Doors and said Hitherto shalt thou come and no further and here shall thy proud Waves stay hath likewise limited and confined this proud and malicious and powerful Adversary within his Sphear and Limit and chained up this unruly and ravenous Woolf so that he cannot to one Link beyond his prefixed Bounds 8. These Bounds or limits of the Power and Activity of this Adversary are many we may reduce them into these four viz. 1. The Law of their Subjection 2. Providential Dispensation 3. Ministerial Resistance 4. Natural Impediments I. The first restraint is the Law of their Subjection for tho those impure Spirits are like Rebels and Malefactors against their Lord and have an habitual Opposition against him yet they are under his Dominion tho they hate to Obey him they dare not disobey him tho they have not the love of the Law of their Being yet they are under the Cohersion and fear of that Law Just as there be among Men many vile People that yet dare not act their Villany for fear of Punishment and if they do they do it by stealth and secretly So doubtless those Evil Angels are under a fear of Offending and do smart for it Government is the Ordinance of God as well in the Invisible as the Visible World And this seems plain to me by that Petition of the evil Spirits to our Saviour that they might not be sent to the place of Torment even before their last and final Judgment There are certain Torments for their Extravagancies inflicted by an Invisible Oeconomy which they fear and dread as much as Malefactors do the Whip and the Pillory And upon this account partly it was that Satan tho he had naturally power to have afflicted Job durst not attempt it without leave and permission from God II. Providential Dispensation And this is the same over Men and Devils It naturally lies in the Power of one Man to Kill or Hurt another yet that same Superintendency of Divine Providence without which a Sparrow falls not to the Ground prevents one Man from doing all the mischief to another that naturally lies in his Power and the same prevention and Providential interposition hinders the activity of the Evil One from doing all that Mischief he naturally can among the Children Men. And this was that Hedge and Fence that God had made about Job and all he had and till that were removed the attempts of Satan were vain and idle to have broken in upon him III. Ministerial Impedimeuts and these are of two kinds 1. Such Impediments as concern the Soul only and the immediate Agency there Satan he disturbs and provokes and perswades and tempts to Evil but the Divinae Graciae Adminicula counter-perswade The Son of God came into the World to destroy the Works of the Devil and there is a perpetual contest between these two for the Principality and Dominion over the Children of Men on the one side the Devil and his Angels they Fight by their Method and Temptations and Allurements and Insinuations to win over the Children of Men to the Kingdom of Darkness On the other side Michael and his Angels the Angels of the Covenant and the secret and powerful Agencies of his Grace