Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	contingent_a	effect_n	necessary_a	2,565	5	7.4523	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30977	The genuine remains of that learned prelate Dr. Thomas Barlow, late Lord Bishop of Lincoln containing divers discourses theological, philosophical, historical, &c., in letters to several persons of honour and quality : to which is added the resolution of many abstruse points published from Dr. Barlow's original papers.	Barlow, Thomas, 1607-1691.	1693 (1693)	Wing B832; ESTC R3532	293,515	707

should happen to be question'd we may quickly return this obvious Answer viz. that while we are here in in via all our knowledge does originally depend upon our Senses and those Truths which are most evidently testified by them are best received For our Senses discover unto us that Omne totum est majus suâ parte because we see that a whole Lyon is bigger than a part of the same But as for practical Principles they are confin'd within the Sphere of our Reason and are of a higher pitch than what our low creeping Senses can ever aspire after and therefore allow us no other Natural Guide to conduct us unto them but our Reason Which is so blind imperfect and miserably obfuscated especially as to such Men in whom Vice Prejudice Sloth and neglect of the useful and necessary means does predominate that it is no wonder if it should embrace Errour instead of Truth Now from all that has been said we may safely conclude that it is abundantly demonstrable by Natural Light that there is a God and that he is the first cause of all things From whence these Inferences are plainly deducible 1. That God is Eternal for the first Cause is not capable to receive its production either from it self or from another 2. That he is a most simple Being for the first Cause as it excludes all external so likewise all internal constitutive Causes 3. That he is independent for what is first can admit of no prior thing whereupon to depend all which hath been largely insisted upon already So that not only the Existence of God but many of his Attributes deducible from thence by undoubted and natural consequence may be evidently demonstrated by the Light of Nature Quod erat demonstrandum Some time after the Year 1650 Dr. Barlow being engaged by Dr. Langbain the Provost of Queens College in Oxford to Moderate for him in the Divinity-Disputations in the Chappel and the Custom of the Moderator then being after the performance of the Disputations was over to state the Question Disputed of and to give his Determination concerning the same and the Copies of several such Determinations concerning many Arduous and Momentous Questions in Theology being transcribed from the Latine Original of Doctor Barlow's own Writing it is thought fit for the Information and Entertainment of those whose Studies are Conversant in Divinity to publish some Translated Extracts or the substance of some of those Determinations the Printing of the whole being likely too much to swell the bulk of this Volume And here various of the Latine Expressions referring to Terms of Art Distinctions and Quotations and some particularly emphatical are thought fit to be retain'd Praesc●entia Divina à Rebus praevisis non tollit Contingentiam First HERE I shall explain the Terms and state the Question and secondly lay down certain Theses First By Prescience we mean that Act of Divine Understanding whereby God from all Eternity knew most certainly in himself things that were to come to pass in time Secondly I shall say that this prescience of God is not distinguish d from his Science re ipsâ sed respectu relativo ad Objectum cognitum terminato For we call it Scientia as it perceives all things present past and to come and Praescientia as it doth rerum temporalium actualem existentiam praecurrere and is referr'd to things future I call them future not only in Ordine ad res alias quibus succedant in eàdem temporis mensurâ but also in ordine ad Deum I know that the School-men generally on 1 par Q. 14. art 13. in 1 Sent. Dist 38. and after them our Learned Davenant Quaest 35. may think otherwise namely that things are not called future in ordine ad Deum modum intuitionis Divinae because the ordo Divinae Cognitionis ad rem quamcunque is tanquam praesentis ad praesens where by the presence of future things in ordine ad Scientiam Divinam some may either understand praesentiam objectivam and this we grant or realem per proprias existentias and this we deny because 't is impossible that futurum Contingens scientiae etiam Divinae praesens sit actu antequam actu sit Since first alicujus praesens esse supponit esse ex parte Rei And Secondly Ex parte modi praesentia actualis per existentiam actualem supponit essentiam actualem quae praesens esse possit When therefore God did foreknow future Contingencies from Eternity it is necessary that they should be to him even future namely in respect of actual existence The reason is because they were not futura Contingentia ab aeterno and therefore from Eternity they could not be present with God The Knowledge therefore of God is twofold First Simplicis intelligentiae Secondly Visionis First The Scientia Simplicis intelligentiae is called the Scientia naturalis necessaria and is founded in the power of God by which he doth certainly and naturally know all things past present or to come or those things which are only possible and necessarily so that he cannot but know For this is that we call his Omniscience nor is it possible that any thing can lie hid from it Secondly The Scientia Visionis is said to be the Scientia libera as founded in decreto voluntatis suae libero And this Knowledge doth know all and only those things which his Will hath decreed either efficiendo so as to produce them or permittendo so as not to hinder them And this Knowledge doth know all things past present and future But those things which are only possible and never to come to pass are not the object of this Knowledge Therefore the Question is concerning this Science of Vision For if this be referr'd to future things it is called prescience In the next place that we may know what Contingentia is let us see what is Contingens in the Concrete Aristotle tells us that Contingens is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod potest aliter se habere and necessarium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod non potest aliter se habere Contingency therefore in the abstract is possibilitas aliter se habendi as necessity is an impossibility aliter se habendi Moreover Contingency is twofold First Intrinsical Cum res possit aliter sed habere ab intra per principium suum internum So the Actions of free will are said to be intrinsically contingent ratione principii because it is in the power of the will from its intrinsical and innate liberty to act in this way or another or in none at all Secondly Extrinsical by reason of Impediment whence it comes to pass that a cause otherwise acting in a natural way and necessary is hinder'd from its effect Thus fire does necessarily and naturally burn ex parte sui but ratione impedimenti interpositi it is possible that it may not burn So in Dan. 3.27 The Three Children were thrown into the Fiery