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	part_n	soul_n	2,761	5	5.3627	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60941	Animadversions upon Dr. Sherlock's book, entituled A vindication of the holy and ever-blessed Trinity, &c, together with a more necessary vindication of that sacred and prime article of the Christian faith from his new notions, and false explications of it / humbly offered to his admirers, and to himself the chief of them, by a divine of the Church of England.	South, Robert, 1634-1716.	1693 (1693)	Wing S4731; ESTC R10418	260,169	412

Earth in gentle Showres c. for it must be granted That it is much easier to change like the Weather than to understand it and moreover though he is pleased to say That he who thinks he understands these matters would make a Man question Whether he has any sense at all which is his usual Complement to most whom he deals with yet all this confident Talk will neither clear him from the Absurdity and Paradox of the forementioned General Position laid down by him nor convince such as are conversant in the experimental part of Natural Philosophy but that a very true rational and satisfactory Account may be given of all the fore-mentioned Phaenomena in Nature which this Man with so much Confidence or rather Insolence says No Man of unquestion'd Sence will pretend to give the Reason or Philosophy of Accordingly I will direct him to some who took the boldness to give a Philosophical Account of his Unresolvable Problems As for instance That of the congealing of Water by Cold into such a solid Body as Ice he will find excellently and rationally accounted for by the Learned Mr. Boyl in his Treatise of Cold containing new Experiments and Observations touching it and an Experimental History of it begun Likewise a reason of the same given by those Learned French-men the Authors of the Philosophia Vetus Nova commonly called the Colbertine Philosophy in the 2 Vol. p. 213 214 215 216. And then for the Descent of heavy Bodies or Stones falling to the Ground he will find the cause of it assigned by Galileo in his Systema Cosmicum Collat. 1. 2. And since by Gassendus in his Accurate Tract de motu impresso à motore translato As also an Account of the Gravitation or Descent of such Bodies judiciously given by Claudius Berigardus Professor of Philosophy first in Pisa and then in Padua in his Circulus Pisanus 3d part and the 6 Dial. p. 291 292. in the Person of Aristaeus And last of all in the Causes of Gravitation briefly but ingeniously given by Isaac Vossius in his Observationes variae p. 201 c. In like manner he will find a Philosophical and Historical Account of Winds by that great Man the Lord Bacon in his Treatise upon that Subject which I am sure is as difficult an one as any mentioned by this Author And as for what he here says of the Ascent of Vapours which is easily accounted for from the Sun and other Celestial Bodies and their Descent again in Showres which might easily be stated upon their own Gravity being combined into bigger Bodies as is lively exemplified in an Alembick this Author in this seems to give us some Philosophical Account of Rain and consequently for presuming so to do ought to bear his share in the same Reproach which upon the like account he hath so insolently fastned upon others But as touching Rain and Vapours Snow and Frost and innumerable more such Subjects there is not a Natural Philosopher whether Peripatetick Gassendian or Cartesian of any note but professeth to give a Philosophical Reason of the Nature of them both as to what they are and how and by what means they are caused Concerning all which Learned Men who have avowedly travelled and imployed themselves in such Studies and that with great Applause of all the Learned World I desire his Haughtiness to speak out and declare freely whether he taketh them to have been such Persons as a Man would question Whether they had any Sense or no For as these famous Men were far from denying their Senses in Complement to their Understanding so they were as far from passing such a Complement upon their Senses as to own That their Understanding could look no farther and that where Sense had started the Game Reason might not follow it and by a diligent and sagacious pursuit at length overtake it The Things treated of by these mighty Searchers into Nature I acknowledge to be very difficult but every thing that is difficult is not therefore impossible even to him that thinks it so And therefore as to the ignorance of such like matters let our Author in God's Name and others like him pronounce each Man for himself and not undertake for others For there may be several things which one Man may not know and yet others may As for instance It may sometimes so fall out That a Man may not know himself and yet others may know him very well Which is an Observation I conceive not unworthy of this Author's Remark But to go on Whereas he is very positive and decretory That the Essences of things cannot be known I very much question and allow him if he pleases to question my Sense also for so doing whether this be absolutely true For a thing may be known more ways than one and if it be perfectly known any one way according to the utmost extent of that way it cannot be truly said not to be known Now if by knowing he means the knowledge of a thing by a direct Apprehension and Intuition of it so as to have an exact Idea or resemblance of it thereby imprinted upon the mind I pretend not that the Essences of things are by any Human Intellect so known But then this is still but one way of knowledge and what is not known one way may for all that be very well known another But if on the other side by knowing a thing be meant the knowing it to be of such or such a Nature by such peculiar Properties such peculiar Effects and Operations as discriminate it from other things and that to know it thus be truly to know it Then I affirm That the Natures or Essences of things may be truly and one way at least perfectly known And accordingly I think it a very good Account of the Essence of any thing to say That it is such a thing as always and necessarily has such Properties such Operations and produces such Effects For this is an Answer not only to that Question that enquires Whether there be such a thing or Essence or no But also and much more properly to the Question that enquires What kind of Nature or Essence such a thing is of For when that is askt to say in reply to it That the Essence or Nature of that thing is a certain Principle always attended with such Properties and always or generally operating in such a manner and producing such effects is a full and satisfactory Answer to that Question If now this Author replys here that he grants That the Properties of things may be known I Answer That sometimes indeed he grants it and sometimes again he positively denies it as I have shewn But if in the issue he will stand by the Concession of it then he must stand by the Consequence of that Concession too and grant That Properties are declaratory of the Quality of the Essence they flow from and belong to For I hope he will grant that the

which he appeared of old and the other to that Body which he was Born with in the World All which Positions are horrid and monstrous but unavoidably consequent from the foregoing Assertion But for the further Illustration of the Case I do here affirm to this Author That God is as visible in an assumed Body whether of Air or Aether or whatsoever other Materials it might be formed of as in a Body of Flesh and Blood personally united to him I say as visible For notwithstanding the great difference of these Bodies and the difference of their Union and Relation to God One being by a temporary Assumption and the other by a personal Incarnation yet no Corporeal Eye could discern this Difference during the Appearance but that one was for the time as visible as the other and therefore since both of them were truly Symbols of God's peculiar Presence the only way by which the Divine Nature becomes visible to a Mortal Eye it demonstratively overthrows that positive false Assertion of this Author That nothing can make God visible but a personal Union to a visible Nature PARADOX All the Circumstances of our Saviour's Birth and Life and Death were so punctually foretold by the Prophets and so peremptorily decreed by God that after he was come into the World there was no place for his Choice and Election And he could not shew either his Love or his Humility by choosing Poverty Death c. Page 242. Line 5. Answer This is False Absurd and Dangerous and indeed next to Blasphemous as overthrowing the whole Oeconomy of Man's Redemption by the Merits of Christ. For that which leaves no place for Choice leaves no possibility for Merit For all Merit is founded in freedom of Action and that in Choice And if Christ after his Incarnation had not this he could not Merit And whereas the Author says That Christ chose all this as the second Person of the Trinity antecedently to his Incarnation I Answer That this is indeed true but reaches not the present Case For what he did before he was Incarnate was the Act of him purely as God but a meritorious Action must still be an humane Action which could not proceed from the second Person before his Assumption of an humane Nature I readily grant and hold That the Actions of Christ's humane Nature received a peculiar Worth and Value from its Union with his Divine Person yet still I affirm that this Worth and Value was subjected and inherent in his humane Actions as such and thereby qualified them with so high a degree of Merit So that whencesoever this Merit might flow they were only his humane Actions viz. such as proceeded from him as a Man that were properly and formally meritorious And whereas this Author states the Reason of this his horrid Assertion upon the Predictions of the Prophets and the peremptory Decrees of God concerning all that belonged to or befell Christ I do here tell him That neither Predictions nor Decrees though never so punctual and peremptory do or can infringe or take away the freedom of Man's Choice or Election about the things so decreed or foretold how difficult soever it may be for humane Reason to reconcile them and if this Man will affirm the contrary he must either banish all Choice and Freedom of Action or all certain Predictions and peremptory Decrees out of the World let him choose which of these two Rocks he will run himself against for he will be assuredly split upon either This vile Assertion really deserves the Censure of a Convocation and it is pity for the Church's sake but in due time it should find it PARADOX Concerning Person and Personality he has these following Assertions which I have here drawn together from several parts of his Book viz. The Mind is a Person Page 191. Line 21 22. A Soul without a Vital Union to a Body is a Person Page 262. Line 17. And the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing power and Constitutes the Person Page 268. Line 28. A Beast which has no Reasonable Soul but only an Animal Life is a Person c. Page 262. Line 18 19 20. And again We may find the Reasonable and Animal Life subsisting apart and when they do so they are Two Persons and but One Person when United Page the same at the end of it And lastly One Agent is One Person Page 268. Line 2. Answer In all these Propositions so confidently laid down by this Man there are almost as many Absurdities and Falsities as there are Words I have already shewn this of some of them in Chap. 3. and therefore I shall be the briefer in my Remarks upon them here And first for that Assertion That the Mind is a Person To this I Answer That the Mind may be taken Two ways First Either for that Intellectual Power or Faculty by which the Soul understands and Reasons Or Secondly For the Rational Soul it self In the former Sense it is but an Accident and particularly a Quality In the second it is an Essential part of the whole Man and therefore upon neither of these Accounts can be a Person For neither an Accident nor a Part can be a Person which as such must be both a Substance and a compleat Substance too And secondly Whereas he says That a Soul without a vital Union to the Body is a Person I tell him That the Soul without such an Union is still an incomplete Being as being originally and naturally designed for the Completion and Composition of the whole Man and therefore for that reason cannot be a Person And then Thirdly whereas he adds That the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour governing Power and Constitutes the Person I answer That it is the former and does the latter only as it is the prime essential part of the whole Man and for that very cause is an incomplete Being as every part is and must be and consequently cannot be a Person In the next place for an Answer to his saying That a Beast is a Person I refer him to his own positive Affirmation pag. 69. line 18. That a Person and an Intelligent Substance are reciprocal Terms And the same may serve for an Answer to his next Absurdity That when the Reasonable and the Animal Life subsist apart they are Two Persons For the Animal Life separate from the Rational is void of all Reason and the very Definition of a Person is That it is Suppositum Rationale aut Intelligens In the last place By his saying That One Agent is One Person which I am sure he affirms universally of every single Agent he makes every Living Creature under Heaven a Person For every such Creature is endued with a Principle of Life and Action and accordingly acts by it and by so acting is properly an Agent From all which it follows That this Author as great as his Retinue may be has many more Persons in his Family

is an act of Intellection and so must issue from an Intellective Faculty which the Body is not endued with and therefore cannot act by and withal every act of the Will is only an Intelligible and not a sensible Object and consequently cannot be otherwise apprehended and perceived than intellectually And as for the Commands of it a Command operates and moves only by way of moral Causation viz. by being first known by the Thing or Agent which it is directed to which thereupon by such a Knowledge of it is induced to move or Act accordingly But now the Will does not thus Act upon the Body the Body having no Principle whereby to know or understand what it Commands And therefore when we say That the Will Commands the Body in strictness of Truth it is only a Metaphorical Expression For the Will or Soul exerting an Act of Volition moves the Body not by Command but by Physical Impulse That is to say It does by its native Force Energy and Activity first move and impell the Spirits and by the instrumental Mediation of them so moved and impelled it moves and impells the Body and this by as real an Impulse as when I push or thrust a thing with my hand For though indeed a material Thing cannot actively or efficiently move or work upon an Immaterial yet Philosophers grant that an Immaterial as being of the nobler and more active Nature can move impell or work upon a Material and if we cannot form in our Minds an Idea of the Mechanism of this Motion it is because neither can we form in our Minds an Idea of a Spirit But nevertheless Reason and Discourse will Evince That the Thing must be so PARADOX He tells us That the Human Nature of Christ may be Ignorant of some things notwithstanding its personal Union to the Divine Word because it is an Inferiour and Subject Nature Page 270. Line 12 13 14. Answer These Words also are both absurd and false And First They are Absurd because no Rules of Speaking or Arguing permit us to say of any Thing or Person That it may be so or so when necessarily it is and must be so For the Term may imports an Indifference or at least a possibility to both sides of the Contradiction So that when a Man says That a Thing may be thus or thus he does by consequence say also That it may not be thus or thus And therefore to say That the Human Nature of Christ notwithstanding its personal Union to the Word may be ignorant of some Things when it cannot but be ignorant of some nay of very many Things is Absurd And in the next place also To make the Subjection of the Human Nature to the Divine the proper Cause of this Ignorance is false and the Assignation of a non causa pro causâ It being all one as if I should say That such an one cannot be a good Disputant because he has a blemish in his Eye For it is not this Subjection of it to the Divine Nature that makes it ignorant of many Things known by that Nature but the vast disparity that is between these Two Natures viz. That one of them is Infinite the other Finite which makes it impossible for the Infinite to communicate its whole Knowledge to the Finite Forasmuch as such a Knowledge exceeds its Capacity and cannot be received into it so as to exist or abide in it any more than Omnipotence or Omnipresence or any other Infinite Divine Perfection can be lodged in a Finite Being And besides this this very Author in the immediately foregoing Page had not only allowed but affirmed That the Body which certainly is both united to the Soul and of a Nature Subject and Inferiour to it was yet conscious to the Dictates and Commands of the Soul Wherefore where Two Natures are united the bare Subjection of one to the other is not the proper Cause that the Nature which is Subject is ignorant of what is known by the Nature which it is subject to For if Subjection were the sole and proper Cause of this Ignorance the Inferiour Nature would be equally ignorant of every Thing known by the Superiour which yet according to this Man 's own Doctrine of the Consciousness of the Body to the Soul is not so This Consideration I alledge only as an Argument ad hominem having already by the former Argument sufficiently proved the falseness of his Assertion But I shall detain my Reader no longer upon this Subject though I must assure him that I have given him but a Modicum and as it were an handful or two out of that full heap which I had before me and from which I had actually collected several more Particulars which I have not here presented him with being unwilling to swell my Work to too great a Bulk Nevertheless I look upon this Head of Discourse as so very useful to place this Author in a true Light that if I might be so bold with my Reader I could wish that he would vouchsafe this Chapter of all the rest a second Perusal upon which I dare undertake that it will leave in him such Impressions concerning this Man's fitness to Write about the Trinity as will not wear out of his Mind in haste And yet after all this I will not presume to derogate from this Author's Abilities how insolently soever he has trampled upon other Mens but content my self that I have fairly laid that before the Reader by which he may take a just and true measure of them And so I shall conclude this Chapter with an Observation which I have upon several occasions had cause to make viz. That Divinity and Philosophy are certainly the worst Things in the World for any One to be Magisterial in who does not understand them CHAP. X. In which the Author 's Grammatical and such like Mistakes as they are found here and there in his Writings are set down and remarked upon COuld this Author have carried himself with any or dinary degree of Candor and Civility towards those whom he wrote against he had never had the least Trouble given him by me upon this Head of Discourse But when I find him treating Learned Men with so much Disdain and Insolence and much liker a rough ill-bred School-Master domineering over his Boys than a fair Opponent entring the Lists with an Ingenuous Antagonist I must confess I cannot think my self obliged to treat him upon such Terms as I would an Adversary of a contrary Temper and Behaviour One Man and a very Learned one too he flirts at as if he could not distinguish between Conjunctive and Disjunctive Particles Vindication of his Case of Allegiance pag. 76. the Two last Lines Another he Scoffs or rather Spits at as neither understanding Greek nor Latine Vindic. Trin. Pag. 95. Line 25. and thereby I suppose would bear himself to the World as no small Critick in both As for the Socinians of which number this latter is

which Relation is founded partly upon its Original Designation and partly upon its Natural Aptitude to be an Ingredient in the Constitution of a Compound And this Relation to the Compound I affirm the Soul to retain even while it is separated from it as is evident from what both Philosophers and Divines hold concerning the Soul viz. That even in its Separation and Disjunction from the Body it yet retains a strong Appetite and Inclination as well as an Essential Aptitude to return and be re-united to it Which Re-union also we know will be effected at the great and last Day But you will say Does not the Scripture in Heb. 12. 23. speaking of Blessed Souls in a state of Separation from the Body call them The Spirits of Just Men made perfect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if those Just Men were made Perfect must it not have been in respect of the Perfection of their Souls since their Bodies were then rotting or rather rotten under Ground And if they derived this Perfection from their Souls must not their Souls have been eminently perfect themselves which rendred them so And if perfect can we deny them the Perfection of Personality which as we have shewn in Rational Beings carries in it the greatest Natural Perfection To all which I Answer That the Perfection here spoken of is not Natural but Supernatural and relates only to the Consummation of their Graces and not to the manner of their Subsistence Which being the only Thing now in dispute this Scripture which speaks only of the former can make nothing at all to the present Purpose Having thus evinced that the Soul notwithstanding its Self-Consciousness is neither during its Conjunction with the Body nor its Separation from it properly a Person and having withal shewn the grounds and Reasons upon which I conclude it impossible to be so I shall however think it worth while something more particularly to examine as I promised this Author's extraordinary and peculiar Notions of Person and Personality as he applies them to the Soul even while it is joined with the Body also And first in the 268th Page he discourses of it in this manner All the Sufferings says he and Actions of the Body are attributed to the Man though the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour and Governing Power and Constitutes the Person These are his words and they contain a very pleasant way of arguing though wholly contrary to the common known Rules of Philosophy For according to these one would and must have concluded That for this very Reason That all the Actions and Sufferings of the Body and he ought to have added of the Soul too are ascribed to the Man therefore the Man himself to whom these Personal Acts are ascribed must indeed be the Person and that for the same reason also the Soul cannot be so But our Author has a way of Reasoning by himself For says he The Soul is the Person because it Constitutes the Person But for that very Cause say I The Soul is not the Person For whatsoever Constitutes a Person must do it either efficiently or formally That is either as a Principle producing it or a Principle compounding it As for the first way whatsoever Constitutes a person efficiently must do it either by Creation or Generation but this the Soul as much a Superiour Power as it is is not able to do For will any one say That the Soul can either Create or Generate the Person or to speak more plainly the Man who is the Person And then for the other way by which it may be said to Constitute a Person to wit formally This it can do no otherwise than as it is a Constituent Part and therefore only as a Partial and not a Total Adequate Cause of the Constitution That is in other words the Soul as the Form must concur with the Body as the Matter to the Constitution of the whole Person of the Man But then for that very Reason again the Soul cannot possibly be a Person since it contributes to the Constitution of the Person only as a Part which by reason of its Incomplete Being can upon no Principle of Philosophy be a Person And I would fain have this profound Philosopher give me but one allowed Instance where one Person is the constituent Principle of another But to examine the forementioned Assertion yet more particularly since this Man so peremptorily says That the Soul is the Person because it is the Superiour Power and Constitutes the Person I must tell him That the Superiour Power is not therefore the sole Power and consequently cannot solely Constitute the Person which yet this Author pretends it does If indeed he had said That the Soul as the Superiour Power bears the chief and principal part in the Constitution of a Person this had been sence but by no means sufficient for his purpose for still this would not prove the Soul to be a Person which he contends for but on the contrary by proving it to concur thereto only as a Part demonstrate it upon the same Account not to be a Person But this is not all for in Page 169. he calls the Mind of Man a Person and thus Discourses about it Faculties says he Vertues and Powers have Personal Acts and Offices ascribed to them only upon the Account of their Unity and Sameness with the mind in which they are which is a Person and Acts by them Now this also is very odd and strange could any thing in this Author which is odd be strange too For the thing Asserted by him amounts to neither more nor less than this That Powers Faculties and Vertues have personal Acts ascribed to them upon the account of their Unity and Sameness with that which it self neither is nor can be a Person as we have abundantly proved That the Mind of Man taking it in his sense for the Soul cannot be And for his further Conviction I could tell him of something which has personal Acts very remarkably ascribed to it and yet neither for being it self a Person nor for its Unity and Sameness with the Mind in which it is and which sometimes acts by it And that if he pleases to turn to 1 Corinth 13. he will find to be that notable Grace and Virtue called Charity which being but an Accident I believe that even this Author himself will not affirm to be a Person and I am sure as little can be said for any Unity or Sameness that it has with the Mind which it is lodged in Since though it should be utterly lost the Mind would nevertheless retain all the Essentials of a Mind and continue as truly a Mind as it was before Which I think is but an ill Argument of any Unity or Sameness between the Mind and that and this being indubitably true all that this Author here discourses about personal Acts being ascribed to the Mind and about their Identity with the Mind as the