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	natural_a	spirit_n	1,503	5	5.1182	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64059	A disquisition touching the sibylls and the sibylline writings in which their number, antiquity, and by what spirit they were inspired, are succinctly discussed, the objections made by Opsopæus, Isaac Casaubon, David Blondel, and others, are examined, as also the authority of those writings asserted : which may serve as an appendix to the foregoing learned discourse touching the truth and certainty of Christian religion.	Twysden, John, 1607-1688.; Yelverton, Henry, Sir, 1566-1629. Short discourse of the truth & reasonableness of the religion delivered by Jesus Christ.	1662 (1662)	Wing T3546_PART; ESTC R31870_PART	53,956	102

and Virgil and the Acrosticks translated by Cicero and all this made so manifest by those that had accurately computed the time that their testimony is beyond exception Of the same opinion is Lactantius Lact. l. 5. de ver sap p. 400. who tells you None that hath either read Cicero or Varro will believe these Writings counterfeited by the Christians out of which these testimonies had been produced by persons dead long before the birth of our Saviour But I had almost forgotten that he offers some reason against the Acrostick mentioned in the Oration of Constantine because in the Sibylline Books it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consisting of one letter more than the name ought to have according to the true writing thereof whereas D. Blundel who makes this Objection could not be ignorant that the ancient Graecians accounted the name of Christus octosyllabum as Irenaeus tells him Iron li. 1. ca. 10. And Valesius in his Notes upon Eusebius lately put out at Paris 1659. hath these wrods The ancient Graecians accounted the Name of Christ to consist of eight syllables taking sylable there for Sance veteres Graeci nomen Christi octofyllabum faciebant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 cum dipth●r 〈…〉 l. 1. c 10. a letter writing Christ Creist with a dipthong I confess I find not that particular in Irenaeus in the place quoted nor remember it in any other but of this I am sure to have observed in ancient Greek Inscriptions upon Statues and Pillars Vid. Seldini Marmora Arundeliana what we now write with a single I expressed by a dipthong and the like which is evident in the writing of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Latinus CHAP. VII Of Predictions of things to come and of Divination in general what sorts lawfull what uncertain Of Enthusiasme the definition of it Of Enthusiasticks and such of our Time who have pretended to Visions and Revelations The difference between true and fals Prophets In what rank the Sibylls are to be accounted DAvid Blundel having urged all the Arguments he could against the Sibylline Books now at last employs many Chapters touching Enthusiasme the consideration whereof I shal now take in hand but think it not amiss in the first place to speak something of Predictions in general and the several ways by which future events are foretold and frequently come to pass The first is of wise and Learned men who from their Observations out of History and comparing the times past and present when they shall see the same things come again upon the stage of the world that have formerly been and then considering all circumstances of agreement and difference are able to give a probable conjecture which seldome fails of what is like to come to pass which sort of Predictions are not only lawful but worthy of much commendation and are very frequently conducible to the good of Kingdoms by preventing evils otherwise like to come upon them A second sort is Astrological Prediction wherein the Artist undertakes from the position of the Heavens and configurations of the Planets at such a certain moment of time to foretell future accidents This Art I cannot say is unlawful but I take it to be conjectural uncertain and by ignorant people much abused Strange things are I confess often foretold and sometime prove true when a skillful Artist hath the handling of the matter but many times are otherwise sometime from the ignorance of him that undertakes the judgment other while from the influence of some of the fix'd stars which being seldom taken notice of may cross or hinder what would otherwise haply have come to pass or thirdly from the want of a sufficient treasure of Observations by which judgment ought to be given the same posture of the Heavens having never twice happened alike in every circumstance since the Creation and by that means leaving the world destitute of stable means to judge upon since what can be rationally said in that kind must proceed from the comparing of events which have happened under such and such Configurations with what are like to be when the same fall out again or lastly from the care of the party himself who may by his own industry prevent what his destiny from the influence of the Stars would have been which at most do not necessitate but incline and by the providence and over-ruling power of God are sometimes diverted A third sort is a geomantical or terrestrial Divination in which from certain voluntary points made by the hand at adventure certain figures are raised from the four first of them called Fathers are produced other four called daughters those eight bring forth four grand-children from them come out two Witnesses from those a Judge in all twelve answerable to the twelve Houses in Astrology and the judgment upon this sort of Divination not much unlike that of Astrology The ground of this Art and its foundation is laid upon a false supposition that the soul of man knoweth things to come but is hindred by the dulness of the Organs of the body and theresore in the practice of it a great sedateness of mind is required a freedome from all noise that may disturb it and such like circumstances which he that hath a mind to know may find in Cattan Dr. Floud and H. de Pisis who have all written largely upon it This kind of Divination I take to be idle vain and superstitious as not built upon any stable foundation of Reason or supported by any thing but fancy A fourth sort is by framing certain Figures of stone or metal underneath such Constellations and placing them either in some conspicuous place of a Town or sometime under ground by which strange things are wrought these are called Talismans of which as also the language of the Stars with an Alphabetical Table and how from that words are framed which shall declare the event of things to come according to the nature of the Question Gaffarel a Learned Frenchman hath largely written in his Book called Vnheard of Curiosities such they will prove to him that spends much time in the study of them Other frivolous ways of sortiledge there are which I shall purposely pass over The next way of Divination I shall mention is Enthusiasme or Illumination and this is most to our purpose to treat of Hesychius in his Glossary interprets it thus An Enthusiastick is one that is mad or full of the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Enthusiasme is a stupor or horror Or Enthusiasme is when the whole soul is enlightned by God By which several interpretations of the word it may easily be gathered that Enthusiasm may be of several kinds some natural or at least proceeding from some distemper of the body which arising from a natural cause it may be so called others come by possession or inspiration of some spirit either good or bad which may be well deemed supernatural Much contest there is whether all

Enthusiasme be natural and to that purpose the authority of Aristotle is produced who discoursing of the several passions arising from drink love and the like or from some melancholy heat tells you the story of one Maracus of Siracuse a Poet who never made so good verses as when he was made and immediately before hath these words Many because that heat is near the seat of the mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Arist. Probl. 30. Quest 1. are taken with sundry frantick and Enthusiastick diseases from whence they all become Sibylls Bakides or inspired whereas they become not so by any disease but a natural temperament From which words we may observe two things First That he doth not in this place point at any Sibyll in particular of which many had been before his time but takes Sibylls there for persons any way inspired as the Bakides and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyned with them were supposed to be And in the next place That he must not to contradict himself take disease in a different sence in the same place for in the beginning of the sentence he tells you They are taken with many frantick or Enthusiastick diseases and soon after saith They become so not from any disease but a natural crasis or temperaments in the last place therefore he must take disease in that stricter notion for such an affection as shakes and weakens the whole frame of the body in the first for such a distemper as drunkenness love poetical rapture and the like such as he calls natural Enthusiasme which will either be its own cure or vanish away with time the constitution being sound though the action be altered but however it will from these words of Aristotle follow that in his sence much of this kind of illumination proceeded from an exaltation of the mind by some ecstatick operation of the soul and not from any possession or inspiration of it by either good or evil spirits And undoubtedly great examples in all ages may be produced out of the Observations of several Physitians to this purpose some where of have been meer cheats to gain credit to such as should cure or exorcise them others true or natural where through some melancholy heat or strong imagination or lastly through custom and use See Montagnes Essays Strange effects from the force of imagination in his Chapter upon that subject Fienus de viribus imaginationis the persons affected have brought upon themselves such a habit of body that their fancy prevailing over their judgment and understanding they have really believed themselves possessed with a spirit of Prophesie and enlightning from God whereas in truth there was no such thing I my self have known two examples in Persons both of this Nation of good Rank and Quality the one a man whom I have often seen and sometimes heard discourse but was then too young my self to converse with him but am well assured he was otherwise a very sober person but in that particular of explaining difficult prophesies did think himself strangely indowed insomuch that his confidence so far misled him that he could no way be driven out of that opinion That the eleventh Chapter of the second Apocryphal Book of Esdras denoted King James who was the Lion of the North who plucked at the feathers of the Eagle which he conceived to be the Emperour Nay his confidence in this fancy was so great that after the death of the King he believed he should rise again out of his grave to make good his conjecture The other was a Lady of Noble Rank who pretended much to this gift of Prophesie and having unhappily foretold the death of a great person which by chance fell out true she was mightily puft up with it and followed by some of the giddy multitude she undertook to denounce the end of the world writ upon the prophecy of Daniel very idly and at last lived to see her self deceived in all her vain extravagancies These two might certainly be reckoned amongst the Enthusiasts of Aristotle who laboured under some light disorder of the brain which disturbed their judgment as to that particular though in other matters they were sober enough and under the same notion must I look upon the false Prophets Dreamers and Quakers whereof this Age hath been very fertile who pretend themselves endued with an extraordinary measure of the Spirit of God first dream dreams then see visions then expound them after their own imaginations and would obtrude these upon the ignorant multitude as Revelations of God which are indeed no other than the effects of a disturbed brain what they foretel rarely coming in any measure to pass and themselves never able to confirm their mission by any miracle whatsoever to induce men to believe them Prophets Some of them are not unlike the Derevises or Torlaces in Turky who by frequent using their bodies to turn round can at their pleasure fall into extasies in which they pretend to receive messages from God and deceive those that give credit to them though to speak truth the sad consequences that have followed from the doctrine of some of these pretenders to new Lights may give us good cause to believe them to have been led away into these extravagancies by the spirit of errour and delusion and not wholly by a natural disturbance of the brain Unless as we have great reason to suspect that many of them have been carried on by interest and design by such pretences to deceive others thereby to compass their wicked designs of which we have seen too sad effects From this and much more which might be materially added to this purpose it will be evinced that Aristotle had much of truth and reason in what he said but because some were either cheats or Hypochondriaque that therefore all were and among them the Sibylls as D. Blundel would infer I can no way be induced to believe nor doth he produce any reason that they were so whereas the very great time between the predictions and the fulfilling of them sufficiently evince that they came from a higher cause then a melancholick heat In which I have ever observed that between the Prophesie and the time allotted for the adimpletion of it seldom interceded more then a score of years sometimes not so many moneths Beside we find that as well the Sibylline Predictions as all other Oracles ceased at or soon after the preaching of our Saviour whereas melancholick distempers continue still which to me seems a strong argument that they were different in their causes Neither ought the authority of Aristotle too much to sway us in this thing I allow him to be one of the greatest Masters of reason that ever was but withal must remember that being contemporary with Plato and sometime his Scholar but resolving to set up a new Philosophy different from that of his Master would not comply with him in that particular in which he deemed him faulty For it

is observable that as Plato often speaks of Sibylls Prophesies and Revelations Aristotle mentions none or very ambiguously resolving to go a quite contrary way not medling with any thing of which he was not able to give a probable reason And all others of the Ancients who have denyed the truth of all Oracles or Predictions whatsoever except natural were still of the Sect of Epicurus meer Atheists and consequently bound by their Sect to believe nothing in this kind but what they conceived to be so For which Lucian a profess'd Atheist doth commend Democritus Metrodorus and Epicurus for their constant adhesion to their own opinion though never so much contrary to reason and authority His words are these speaking of one Alexander a cheat as it seems and an Impostor he tells you he did so strange things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lucian Pseudomantis p. 481. Edit Par. 1615. That indeed the trick stood in need of some Democritus nay of Epicurus himself or Metrodorus or some other that had an adamantine opinion toward that or things of the like nature as not to believe them and cast about which way it might be which if they could no way find they resolved to conclude it a lye and impossible to be done though the manner of the cheat was hid from them Amongst them Democritus hath endeavoured to give a reason why all Divination may be natural because according to the opinion of the Stoick Philosophers nothing did ever happen in the world but by an eternal concatenation of causes which have such a dependance one upon another that they render an aptitude in every thing to be foreseen in its causes which being natural Divination may be so too And Democritus farther asserts that out of all things that happened by natural causes there proceed certain effluxes or emanations not only in the things themselves when existent but from their causes also so that these causes being in any subject may from the emanations proceeding from them give an aptitude to the subject to be disposed accordingly and consequently that the cause of Divination being in any man the effluxes of it may render him a Diviner This speculation I confess is subtile and high if there be any sence in it fitter for the mouth of an Atheist then a Christian for admitting such emanations or species may come out of material bodies how they can proceed out of causes that are sometimes inexistent till they produce the effect sometimes immaterial I understand not Will any man say that love which is a passion and immaterial now in any man upon the sight of an Object to be beloved was in him causally either before his own existence or the existence of the object if there were such effluxes in that cause why not in the cause of that cause and so in infinitum These subtile inventions to avoid manifest convictions of their own consciences clearly shew there were among them undeniable testimonies of such predictions of which no true reason could be given which put them so to their shifts because they were indeed supernatural Such I take the Predictions of the Sibylls to be but whether any or all of them were indued with the Holy Spirit of God as I have before said remains to me questionable This difference from them I observe to be in the true Prophets that they were never during their Prophesie deprived of their wits or senses if at any time they have been surprised with any consternation or astonishment upon the appearance of an Angel or the like they have been by the power of God soon restored to a temper fit to understand and deliver the message intrusted to them Nay they have been farther able to confirm by Miracle that they were truly sent by God when it stood with his glory to have it so and the distrust of the people required it Whereas these Sibylls are never reputed to have done any other Miracle save that of truly foretelling things to come 'T is made indeed the mark of a Prophet not sent by God Deut. 18. ult if the things foretold come not to pass and this undoubtedly is true but it follows not convertibly that where ever things foretold come to pass that person is sent by God except meant permissively for we know the Oracles of the Heathen Gods gave often true answers suffered so to do indeed by God but inspired by the Devil We know farther that these Sibylls were generally supposed in the delivery of their Oracles to be in a rapture and fury that themselves understood not what they delivered nor were able to make perfect what was imperfectly taken by the Writer This we have upon the authority of Virgil Tully Virg. Aenei 3. Cic. de Divin li. 2. Ovid. Met. li. 14. and others Nay that Sibylla commonly called Erythrea saith she is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surprised by a rapture or fury The consideration of these things makes me prone enough to believe they had in their predictions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a powerful inspiration as Justin Martyr twice calls it in his Admonitory to the Gentiles but not true Prophetesses of God sanctified by his holy Spirit at least not all if any of them yet do I very little doubt of their Antiquity or suspect any great corruption to have happened to their Books for the genuineness of which we have as much to say as for most ancient Writings left amongst us all or most of the things quoted out of them by any ancient Writer being now extant in those we have and as they now are from ancient Copies transmitted to us I know some go yet higher than I do and conceive them true prophetesses of God as you may see in the beginning of this Discourse of which opinion St Jerome seems to be Jerom. lib. 1. adversus Jovini longe post medium Collius de Sibyll c. 35. p. 226. Collius in a streight it seems what to determine goes a middle way and saith their Oracles are of two sorts one that concerns Christ his Birth Worship or the like these he thinks proceeded from divine inspiration others which concerned Kingdoms and their Idol worship he believes came from the Devil Such a mixture of God and the Devil in the same person may seem hard to some to believe yet will not this conjecture seem altogether void of probability when the case of Balaam is fully considered who though he were a Magician and wicked person yet for ought appears to the contrary was guided in his prophesie by the Spirit of God and yet not allways so in the counsel he gave to Balak as you may read Numbers 22. and 23. Chapters Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 9. c. 23. St Augustine in his Book of the City of God thinketh that she that goes under the name of Sibylla Erythrea whom some think to be Sibylla Cumea was a Citizen of the City of God because she hath nothing in all her verses tending