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	nature_n	power_n	1,617	5	4.8157	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56742	Discourses upon several practical subjects by the late Reverend William Payne ... ; with a preface giving some account of his life, writings, and death.	Payne, William, 1650-1696.; Powell, Joseph, d. 1698.	1698 (1698)	Wing P902; ESTC R21648	184,132	418

perfections which are the bounds also which the Divine power can never violate is so plain that it rather seems to follow and be fairly inferred from them for what more agreeable to Gods goodness than as that he gave us our Souls at first and put those Souls into curious and well framed bodies which are the other part of Humane Nature which makes us to be Men and Beings of such a rank and order in the Creation so that he should continue the same entire nature to us as long as he is pleased to continue us in being It wou'd be a charge methinks upon the Wisdom of God that he should give Man so curious a body above any other Creatures and yet suffer that to continue and last a much shorter time than the bodies of many other not only Animals but Plants and Trees do if he did not design that this noble fabrick should be rebuilt and repaired again after death and that the Soul should have a longer term of aboad in it afterwards and in reversion than it enjoys in this present life It would seem strange if these two Friends should be so closely and intimately united here but for a few days if they were not to meet again and dwell together for ever and that God should make us of such a compound nature in this life and of a quite other nature in the next this would not be to keep that wise order and regular course of thing that he does in the whole System of the Creation As to the Divine Justice that seems to be more exactly answered by raising the same bodies without which we are hardly the same persons that every one may receive in his body according to that he has done whether it be good or bad as the Apostle speaks 2 Cor. 5.10 that not only the same Souls but the same Bodies which have either glorified God by Suffering or any other Vertue or have been the Instrument of any sin should be glorified or tormented in another World and that the whole of Humane Nature and not only a part of it which the Soul is should be made capable of the everlasting rewards and punishments that are proper to it The Resurrection then is every way consistent with the perfections of the Divine Nature and is no way contrary to any natural principle of truth nor implys any contradiction in it and therefore is a proper object of God's Almighty Power and by the help of that may be easily effected and accounted for 4. And without this power of God nothing else can be effected in nature we must take in this not only to give an account of the Resurrection but of every thing else we see done before us and of every effect and appearance in the visible World how we were made at first and how our bodies were formed is as perfectly unaccountable without taking in the Divine Power and Wisdom as how we shall rise again and so is every other Mystery of nature if we well consider it and follow and trace it thro' all second causes it will necessarily bring us to the first and we must resolve all at last into the Power and Wisdom of that How we move our bodies by the thought of our minds we know no more than how God shall raise them what directs the spirits into such Tracts and Muscles and by what pullies they draw up the heavy parts is so admirable a Mechanism that it requires the same Divine Wisdom as to raise the dead how we live how we think and how we speak is to a Philosopher as curious and as secret as how we shall rise every thing indeed is so in the Volume of Nature which has the plainest Characters of Divine Power and Wisdom every where writ upon it as being to teach every one that there is a God To look upward we see the Sun shines but can we tell what light is or how it streams from the Sun to our Eye how such a mass of sire should so long hold together without being quenched or lessened do we know how the Stars are sixt to their Orbs how those glistering gemms are set and fastned to the fluid firmament can we imagine what Pillars there are upon which the Earth is founded and what it is supports the heavy Globe and keeps it from sinking what it is that poizes and makes it swim in the liquid Aether and keeps it at so just and exact a distance from the heavenly Bodies so as to be neither frozen nor burnt up and can we be able to know what it is makes their motions so regular and harmonious so usefull and serviceable to the World what guides their mighty bodies in such even Tracts what draws the crooked Zodiac for the Sun or Earth to move in and keeps the violent and rapid matter from going on in an infinite streight line or some other way sallying and running out of order Can any man who justly considers these things give any account of them without a wise God and Almighty Intelligence not only a Sparrow cannot fall to the ground without our Heavenly Father as our Saviour speaks Matth. 10.29 but not a stone can sall thither nor a spark fly upwards however necessary and natural that be without such a frame and such laws of matter and motion as nothing but a wise Being can establish or cause to be observed Why matter is thus figured and disposed and why such effects come from it we cannot tell as why grass is green blood red and not the quite contrary as we cannot of our selves make one hair white or black as our Saviour saith so neither can we tell why it is so but every Phaenomenon must at last be resolved into the Will and Wisdom of the first cause and thither all true Philosophy must bring us and the same Divine Power is requir'd in every the most common effect of Nature as in the Resurrection But 5. Our not fully knowing the uses and designs our bodies shall serve for after they are rais'd should not make the Resurrection incredible to us What use some say will there be of the body in another World when the Soul alone is capable of the rewards of it I answer who can tell but the body may be of extraordinary use to us in another World perhaps it is a necessary part of Humane Nature and we are not our whole selves without it perhaps the Soul is never to be quite naked and wholly stript of all matter and bodily indowment and that it is cloathed with a thinner Vehicle when it puts off the thicker and grosser flesh perhaps no Beings in the World but God himself are to be pure spirits which was a very ancient opinion of some wise Men perhaps the Angels themselves have material vestures of a slaming fire and a resplendent brightness as they used always to appear and if the Human Souls are not to be uncloathed but cloathed upon with our house which is

by it it being the only ground why God was more gracious to them than the rest of the World and that he still allows some Persons and Countries much greater means of Grace than others tho' there are none who want what is sufficient for them 2. That God as absolute Lord Proprietor and Creator of the World has so vast a Right over his Creatures as to put 'em into what condition he pleases that is not worse than the having no Being for that is but giving 'em a lesser good But to put them into such a state as it were desirable rather to be annihilated than to be so miserable to do this without some fault of theirs that shall deserve this as a punishment is against the plainest Axioms and Rules of Right and Justice and is to take more from a Creature than he gives it and so make himself as it were a debtor to it There cannot be any such thing as unlimited Right no not in God over his Creatures for all Right supposes some Rules to bound and limit it the transgressing of which may be supposed and therefore may be wrong and injury and here is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Predestinarians but to dispose of Kingdoms in this World and tranfer 'em from the Canaanites to the Jews to give others an express command to make the Jewels of the Egyptians their own to command the life of a Child at the hand of its Parents as a Sacrifice to him that gave it and the like this is a right belongs to the absolute Lord Proprietor and Creator of the whole World and as such he may give Jacob a more fruitfull Land and greater Kingdom and show his love to him rather than to Esau that way 3. That punishment and severity upon sinners which is necessary for publick good and for the Ends of Government is not to be called Unrighteous be it never so great and I can never believe that God does ever inflict more no not in the Eternal torments of Hell nor has any other end in that or any other punishment and severity than to give a sufficient sanction to his Laws than wisely to Govern and keep the world in order and procure with the best Advantage the Welfare and Happiness of all the Beings that are in it and whatsoever punishments are necessary to that end are upon that account Just and Righteous since that is the only true measure by which a Just proportion can be assigned between the fault and the punishment I know not what they mean who talk of any sort of Vindictive Justice in God different from this as if there were any revengefull Passion in him to be satisfied by the miseries of his Creatures or he took any other pleasure in the punishment of them but meerly the pleasure of doing Justice ' ris this is a further assurance to us of Gods Righteousness that a Being so great and powerfull and self sufficient can have no such passions as spring up in weak and impotent minds nor be tempted to do any injustice because that proceeds always from weakness and imbecillity But I must enlarge no further on these particulars I hope what has been said already will give some satisfaction to our minds that there is no Unrighteousness in the great God But he that is infinitely Great is therefore infinitely Just and Righteous because he can have no Mean and Unrighteous designs either for himself or against others so that Justice and Righteousness is necessarily joined with Almighty Power and it must be a thought full of dread and horror that can conceive it possible to have them parted and separated but in Truth where there is any one infinite Perfection there must be all and therefore we have the same Evidence from reason of Gods being Righteous as of his being Almighty or of his being at all and they who from some mistaken places of Scripture and Revelation endeavour to Represent God under another Notion and Character destroy that true natural Notion and Conception of a God upon which all Revelation is built and which must be previous and antecedent to it and make Religion and the thoughts of a God which is the most cheerfull and comfortable thing in the World to be an hideously black and melancholy Superstition and as this may reasonably be the cause of a great many's becoming Atheists who had rather believe there was no such Being as a God than that he was such an Unrighteous being as some would represent him so it would tempt any Man to wish to be so if he could and if it were in his Power But what shall we say then is there Vnrighteousness with God God forbid The Second Sermon MATTH XI 29. last Part. And ye shall find rest unto your Souls OUR Blessed Saviour in the foregoing verses was exhorting all Persons to embrace his Religion who were under any load and Burthen Trouble and uneasiness of Mind and he promises to give them ease and refreshment Come unto me allye that Labour and are heavy Laden and I will give you rest This is a great Undertaking and Proposal and very desirable and inviting to Mankind The Diseases and Disorders and Uneasinesses of the Mind are a great many more than those of the Body and it is a more Divine thing and more owing to the Gods as Tully speaks to find out proper Physick and Remedies to Cure them than the other Our Saviour proposes his Religion and his Example as the means to do this Take my Yoke upon you and learn of me There were a great many Sects of Philosophers of old in which the wisest Men always aimed at this Tranquility and ease of Mind and proposed their Doctrine as the way to attain it and gave admirable Rules of living up to such heights of Vertue as should make Men casie and happy in all conditions even the worst that could befall them and a great many of them it must be confessed were as great Examples as Teachers of these such as Pythagoras Socrates Plato Zeno and others who were the natural Prophets and Apostles of the Heathen World and taught 'em the best Wisdom and Vertue and the best Directions how to attain the truest and perfectest happiness they knew humane Nature to be capable of Revelation and especially the Religion of Christ has done the same with much greater advantage hath shown us a right Notion of Happiness and all that conduces to it and has both enlarged the view and prospect of it in another World and improved the Method of acquiring and obtaining it and confirmed that good old Notion that it lies only in Vertue that nothing else can make a Man happy and this alone can do it Our Saviour as well as most of the Philosophers were to all appearance none of the happiest men in the World they were poor and mean and despised and contemned and had very little or none of those things in which the World places