Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	call_v	reason_n	see_v	1,446	5	3.0420	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28442	Miracles, no violations of the lavvs of nature	Blount, Charles, 1654-1693.	1683 (1683)	Wing B3310; ESTC R7329	20,726	38

MIRACLES No Uiolations OF THE LAVVS OF NATURE Quid non miraculo est cum primum in notitiam venit Plinius Histor. Nat. lib. 7. cap. 1. LONDON Printed for Robert Sollers at the King's Arms and Bible in St. Paul's Church-yard 1683. PREMONITION TO THE CANDID READER IT is the Judgement of most of the ancient Fathers of the Christian Faith and of the most learned Theologues among the Moderns that the Authors of the holy Scriptures when they speak of natural things do not design to instruct men in Physical Speculations and the Science of Natural Philosophy but aim only to excite pious Affections in their breasts and to induce them to the Worship and Veneration of the true God whom they celebrated in their Writings whose Power and Goodness they therefore took all fair Occasions to demonstrate that they might from as well the natural as civil Order of things establish in the Minds of the Readers a right and firm Belief thereof This then being the only End they proposed to themselves they found themselves obliged so to explicate the visible Works of God and the nature of the things they were to relate as that they might not by Novity and Insolency appear too remote and abhorrent from the common Sence and pre-conceiv'd Opinions of the Vulgar to whose narrow Capacity and groveling Wit they were always to condescend yea even to wrest the general Causes and Ends of the whole Creation in favour of the Peoples Prejudices as if all things in the Universe were ordain'd only for the good and benefit of Mankind Nor could it conduce to this their principal purpose to insist upon second Causes or defer much to their Efficacy but rather in all Contingents or Events to recur immediately to God himself the First Cause Author and President of Nature omitting to give any account of that Apparatus and long Series of Causes which Philosophers use to remark in explicating the Phenomena of Nature and which Nature her self uses in their production Whence it is that these pious Writers compendiously refer all things to the immediate Power of God and to his irresistable Will and Command leaving men to learn from the Light of Nature or right Reason which alone is able to teach it that the Power of God and the Power of Nature are one and the same and that all her Laws are his eternal Decrees For their business was not to treat of the Principles of Natural Philosophy as I said before but to convince the unthinking Multitude that God is the Origine of all things that universal Nature is obedient to his Will and that his Providence presides over and governs all things as well natural as bumane which he so disposes and accommodates as to make them conspire to the good and happiness of those who follow Piety and Vertue and to the Punishment of the Impious and Vicious and the Multitude was to be convinced not by leading their Reason with a long Chain of Premisses and Conclusions Theological but by surprizing their Imagination and accommodating Events to their common Opinions however unreasonable in themselves This well consider'd as we are not to admire if we find in the holy Scripture many memorable things related as Miracles which yet notwith standing proceeded from the fixt and immutable Order of Nature and necessarily flowed from a Series of Causes ordain'd according to her eternal Laws that is from God's Decrees so ought we not rashly to accuse any man of Infidelity only because he refuses to believe that those Miracles were effected by the immediate Power of God such as is not only inconsistent with but point blank repugnant to the fundamental Laws and Constitutions of Nature which he in his infinite Wisdom hath made and made so ample and fertil as to extend to the certain production of whatever Events he hath will'd and decreed For first among the many Miracles related to be done in favour of the Israelites there is I think no one that can be apodictically demonstrated to be repugnant to th' establisht Order of Nature and then the Power of God being infinite that of Nature must be so too because one and the same with the Power of God but humane Understanding is finite and consequently incapable to know how far the Laws of Nature extend themselves In a word therefore If by a Miracle in the general you understand nothing else but a certain Work or Effect the Causes of which cannot be explicated by men ignorant of the Principles of natural things I acknowledge many such Miracles to have been done in all Ages and among all Nations Nay more if by a Miracle you mean that the Causes whereof transcend the Capacity even of the most acute and profound Philosopher I will not deny but that among the many things related in the Scripture as Miracles some are found that in this sence also may deserve that name because I do not measure the Power of Nature by the unequal Line of humane Wit But if you will have a Miracle to be such a rare Effect which is absolutely above or which really is all one contrary to the Laws of Nature or which cannot possibly follow from her fixt and immutable Order then I dare not believe that any such Miracle hath ever happen'd in Nature lest I oppose God to God that is admit that God changes his own Decrees which from the Perfection of the divine Nature I know to be impossible If you candid Reader know so too I have already said more than is necessary to the defence of this innocent Discourse and therefore acquiesce in hope of being rightly understood Of Miracles BY MIRACLES are understood the admirable or wonderful Works of God But because Men following their own natural Reason are wont to doubt whether what is by a Prophet deliver'd for the Command of God be truely the Command of God or not Miracles in the sacred Scriptures are call'd Signs as signifying the Will of God as also in Ethnick Writers for the same Reason they are call'd Ostenta and Portenta as shewing or portending the divine Will concerning Things to come That we may therefore understand what a Miracle is we must observe what Works those are which men generally admire or wonder at The Things then that cause men to admire any Work or remarkable Effect are only two One is if that Work be rare the like whereof they have seldom or never seen done before The other if after thè Work is done they cannot conceive it to have been done by natural Causes but only by the immediate operation of God himself For if we understand the natural Causes of the Fact however rare it be or if we have often seen the like done before though we do not conceive the natural Cause thereof we no longer admire it nor call it a Miracle Quae usu quotidiano novimus frequenti experientia ea neque admiramur neque ad eorum causas investigandas multum excitari solemus

quanquam saepe occultiores sint inventuque difficiliores aliis quae ob raritatem hominum studia animos maximè occupant Thus for example if we should hear an Ox or Horse speak we should call it a Miracle because rare and of which we are not able to imagine a natural Cause Thus also in the generation of Animals every unusual Error or deviation of Nature might be held for a Miracle But if a Man or any other Animal generate his like in specie though we are equally ignorant how this and that is perform'd we do not take it for a Miracle Also if a Man should be transform'd into a Stone 't would be a Miracle because rare but if Wood should be converted into a Stone because such conversion is often seen 't is no Miracle and yet notwithstanding we are as ignorant how God effects that conversion in Wood as how he effects it in a Man The Rain-bow that first appear'd in the Sky was a Miracle because the first that is the like had never been seen before and because it was shewn by God for a Sign to signifie that the World should never again be destroy'd by a Deluge But at this day because Rain-bows are often seen no man looks upon them as Miracles Again many wonderful Works are produced by humane Art yet because after they are effected we come to understand how and by what means we therefore not account them for Miracles For Admiration depends for the most part upon men's Knowledge and Experience so that what seems to be a Miracle to one man seems not to be so to another And unskilful and superstitious men are wont to take for great Miracles those things which the Learned and well experienced do not at all admire Eclipses of the Sun and Moon have in times past been mistaken for supernatural Effects and Prodigies by the Vulgar while learned Astronomers understanding the natural Causes of them have certainly predicted them Also cunning men confederate among themselves closely enquiring into and discovering some secret actions of an unwary and simple man and afterward relating them to him have been held in great admiration as if they had come to the knowledge of those Secrets by supernatural means by divine Revelation at least when the same Confederates have not been able so easily to impose upon wary and prudent persons Admiration then we see is generally greater or less according to the various degrees of Science and observation among men the most ignorant being most prone to wonder and the Causes of Admiration which many times makes a Miracle of what is purely natural we have found to be Rarity and Ignorance II. If this Disquisition be yet a little farther pursued it will soon appear that Superstition also contributes largely to the belief of Miracles For the Minds of men being naturally prone to be agitated betwixt Fear and Hope of the future the two grand Passions that govern humane life thence it comes to pass that they very often fancy a certain extraordinary divine power in all Contingents which are unusual and the natural Causes of which they do not comprehend as if those Contingents certainly proceeded not from the order of Nature but from an immediate operation of God transcending or changing that order and that they presignified some good or evil Fortune to themselves For the Vulgar thinks that the Power and Providence of God is then most apparent when they observe any Event unusual in Nature and contrary to the opinion they have from custom conceiv'd of Nature chiefly if the Event seem to promise any thing of Commodity or Advantage to themselves imagining that the Existence of a supream Being can be by no way better prov'd than by the inversion of the course of Nature which they suppose to happen in all unusual Events Whence it is that common Heads always accuse those Philosophers of Atheism and design to extirpate the belief of God at least of his Providence who endeavour to explicate what they call Miracles by natural Causes and study to understand the Reasons of them erroneously conceiving that God forsooth remains idle while Nature acts in her usual Order and on the contrary that the power of Nature is suspended and the action of all natural Causes arrested or frustrated while God acts Thus they form in their Brains confused Notions of two distinct Powers one of God t'other of Nature which yet they allow to be determined by God but what to understand by either of these Powers and wherein the difference they suppose consists they know not Only this they will tell you that the unusual Works of Nature are Miracles or the Works of God and partly out of blind Devotion i. e. Superstition partly from an itch of opposing wise men that study Natures Laws and Constitutions they please themselves in their Ignorance and think they please God too with their affected Admiration not considering how much they derogate from his infinite Wisdom while they conceive the Laws of Nature by him made and establish'd insufficient to effect all things he hath decreed to produce for the ends in order to which he ordain'd them without variation III. This popular Error seems to derive its Original from the primitive Jews who that they might convince the Ethnicks of their time who adored visible Gods the Sun Moon Earth Water Air c. and shew them that those Gods were weak and inconstant or mutable and under the Command of the invisible God whom themselves worshipped recounted to them the Miracles he had wrought for their sakes as cogent Arguments that all Nature was by his Superintendency and Command directed only to their Commodity and Advantage other Nations the while having not an equal share of his Providence A perswasion so agreeable and grateful to men that to this day they have not ceas'd to feign Miracles in favour of themselves that others might believe them to be more beloved by God and dearer in the eye of his Providence than the rest of Mankind yea more the final Cause for which he at first created and continually directs all things What doth not the folly of the Vulgar arrogate to it self having not so much as one sound conception or thought concerning either God or Nature confounding the eternal Decrees of God with the mutable Placits of men and feigning Nature to be so narrow and limited as that man is the chiefest part of the whole Creation IV. Having from this brief Enquiry learned what is generally understood by the word Miracle what are the Opinions and Prejudices of the Vulgar concerning Miracles and whence those Opinions and Prejudices have proceeded urged as well by zeal for the Glory of God which is never propagated by erroneous conceptions of his Nature Power Wisdom and Providence as by Charity for the unlearned part of Mankind which is always by Ignorance seduced into Superstition I resolve to endeavour by a few plain Reasons to shew the unsoundness yea the