Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	day_n	great_a	see_v	4,001	5	3.3205	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51294	Divine dialogues containing sundry disquisitions & instructions concerning the attributes and providence of God : the three first dialogues treating of the attributes of God and his providence at large / collected and compiled by the care and industry of F.P.	More, Henry, 1614-1687.	1668 (1668)	Wing M2650; ESTC R17163	201,503	605

Meadow-pastures Cuph. Away Hylobares you are a very Wag. I perceive you will break your brown study at any time to reach me a rap upon the thumbs Euist. Gentlemen I know not whether you be in earnest or in jest touching these Aereall Genii in remote Solitudes But this I can assure you that besides the usual and frequent fame of the dancing of Fairies in Woods and desolate places Olaus and other Historians make frequent mention of these things and that there are Daemones Metallici that haunt the very inside of Mountains and are seen to work there when men dig in the Mines What merriment they also make on the outside of vast and remote Hills that one Story of Mount Athos may give us an Instance of as the matter is described in Solinus The impression of the passage sticks still fresh in my memory even to the very words Silet per diem universus nec sine horrore secretus est lucet nocturnis ignibus choris Aegipanum undique personatur audiuntur ca●tus tibiarum tinnitus cymbalorum per oram maritimam But of a more dreadfull hue is that Desart described by Paulus Venetus near the City Lop as I take it in the Dominions of the great Cham. This Wilderness saith he is very mountainous and barren and therefore not fit so much as to harbour a wilde Beast but both by day and especially by night there are heard and seen severall Illusions and Impostures of wicked Spirits For which cause Travellers must have a great care to keep together For if by lagging behinde a man chance to lose the sight of his company amongst the Rocks and Mountains he will be called out of his way by these busie Deceivers who saluting him by his own name and feigning the voice of some of his Fellow-travellers that are gone before will lead him aside to his utter destruction There is heard also in this Solitude sometimes the sound of Drums and Musicall Instruments which is like to those noises in the night on Mount Athos described by Solinus Wherefore such things as these so frequently occurring in History make Bathynous his Conceit to look not at all extravagantly on it Sophr. Our Saviour's mentioning Spirits that haunt dry places gives some countenance also to this Conceit of Bathynous Euist. And so does the very Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose Notation is from the field But all these must be lapsed Spirits therefore Bath I as sure as men themselves are lapsed then which nothing is more Euistor Euist. And so lapsed Spirits and lapsed men divide the Earth amongst them And why not the Sea too Bathynous Bath You mean the Air over the surface of the Sea For the Sea is sufficiently well peopled with Fishes Euist. 'T is true Sophr. If this were not as Poeticall as Lucretius his Poetry it self his Arguments against Providence were very weak indeed But this is to bring in again the Nereîdes and Oreades of the Pagans Euist. And if so why not also the Hamadryades and other Spirits of the Woods that the vast Woods Lucretius complains of may not be left to wilde Beasts onely no more then the Sea to the Fishes Sophr. In my apprehension Lucretius seems mightily at a loss for Arguments against Providence while he is forced thus to fetch them from the Woods Cuph. Because you think Sophron that no Arguments can be brought from thence but wooden ones Sophr. Indeed Cuphophron I was not so witty But because the plentifull provision of Wood and Timber is such a substantial pledge of Divine Providence the greatest Conveniences of life depending thereupon Euist. That is so plain a case that it is not to be insisted upon And yet it is not altogether so devoid of difficulty in that the great Woods are such Coverts for wilde Beasts to garrison in Bath But you do not consider what a fine harbour they are also for the harmless Birds But this is the Ignorance and rude Immorality of Lucretius that out of a streight-lac'd Self-love he phansies all the World so made for Man that nothing else should have any share therein whenas all Vnregenerate persons are as arrant brute Animals as these very Animals they thus vilifie and contemn Sophr. I thank you for that Bathynous for from hence methinks an Answer is easily framed against his Objection from Man's being liable to be infested by horrible and hurtfull Beasts For considering the general Mass of Mankinde was grown such an Herd of wicked Animals that is Beasts what repugnancy to Providence is it that one Beast invades another for their private advantage But yet Providence sent in such secret supplies to these Beasts in humane shape that seemed otherwise worse appointed for fight then their savage enemies armed with cruel Teeth and Stings and Horns and Hoofs and Claws which she did partly by endowing them with such Agility of body and Nimbleness in swarming of trees as Apes and Monkeys have now but chiefly by giving them so great a share of Wit and Craft and combining Policy that Lucretius has no reason to complain against Nature for producing these Objects that do but exercise mens Policy and Courage and have given them an opportunity of so successfull a Victory as we see they have obtained in a manner throughout the whole World at this very day And lastly for that lamentable Story of the circumstances of the entrance of Infants into this life it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is mere poeticall Smoke or Fume that vanishes in the very uttering of it and is so far from being a just Subject of Lucretius his complaining Rhetorick against Providence that it is a pregnant Instance of the exactness and goodness of Providence in Nature For there being so much wit and care and contrivance in Mankinde both Male and Female the weakness and destituteness of the Infant is a gratefull Object to entertain both the skill and compassion of that tenderer Sex both Mother Midwife Nurse or what other Assistents Though perhaps there has come in a greater debility in Nature by our own defaults But how-ever that Body that was to be an Habitacle for so sensible a Spirit as the humane Soul ought to be more tender and delicate then that of brute Beasts according to that Physiognomonicall Aphorism of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nor is the crying of the Infant so much a presage of the future Evils of life as a begging of aid against the present from them about him by this natural Rhetorick which Providence has so seasonably furnished him with And for Lambs and Calves and Cubs of Foxes they are not so properly said to need no Rattles as not to be capable of them they having not so excellent a spirit in them as to be taken up with the admiration of any thing For the Child's amusement at the Rattle is but the effect of that Passion which is the Mother of Reason and all Philosophy And for that last

first Book of Euclide till he had read him all over and all other Mathematicall Writers besides For this Phaenomenon of Gravity is one of the simplest that is as the first Book of Euclide one of the easiest Not to adde what a blemish it is to a person otherwise so moral and vertuous to seem to have a greater zeal for the ostentation of the Mechanical wit of men then for the manifestation of the Wisedome of God in Nature Sophr. Excellently well spoken O Philopolis As in water face answers to face so the heart of man to man You have spoken according to the most inward sense and touch of my very Soul concerning this matter For I have very much wondred at the devotedness of some mens spirits to the pretence of pure Mechanism in the solving of the Phaenomena of the Universe who yet otherwise have not been of less Pretensions to Piety and Vertue Of which Mechanick pronity I do not see any good tendency at all For it looks more like an itch of magnifying their own or other mens wit then any desire of glorifying God in his wise and benign Contrivances in the works of Nature and cuts off the most powerfull and most popular Arguments for the Existence of a Deity if the rude career of agitated Matter would at last necessarily fall into such a Structure of things Indeed if such a Mechanicall Necessity in the nature of Matter were really discoverable there were no help for it And the Almighty seeks no honour from any Man's Lie But their attempts being so frustraneous and the Demonstrations to the contrary so perspicuous it is a marvell to me that any men that are vertuously and piously disposed should be so partially and zealously affected in a Cause that has neither Truth nor any honest Usefulness in it Cuph. O Sophron Sophron full little do you consider what a wonderfull pleasure it is to see the plain Mechanicall sequels of Causes in the explication of the Phaenomena of the World as necessarily and closely coherent as Mathematicall Demonstration it self Sophr. Certainly O Cuphophron you are much transported with the imagination of such fine Spectacles that your mere desire should thus confidently present them to you before they are But for my part I conceive there is far more pleasure in clearly and demonstratively discovering that they are not then there would be if it were discoverable that they are And that way of Philosophizing that presses the Final cause the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls it seems to me far more pleasing and delicious then this haughty pretence of discovering that the Frame of the World owes nothing to the Wisedome of God Bath All things must out O Sophron in the promiscuous ferments and ebulliencies of the spirits of men in this Age that that Wisedome which is the genuine fruit or flower of the Divine Life may in succession of time triumph over the most strutting attempts or performances of the highest natural Wits Cuph. What wisedome is that which flows out of the Divine Life O Bathynous Bath That which leads to it which the Mechanicall Philosophy does not but rather leads from God or obstructs the way to him by prescinding all pretence of finding his Footsteps in the works of the Creation excluding the Final cause of things and making us believe that all comes to pass by a blinde but necessary Jumble of the Matter Cuph. Well be the future Fate of things what it will I doubt not but Cartesius will be admired to all posterity Bath Undoubtedly O Cuphophron for he will appear to men a person of the most eminent wit and folly that ever yet trode the stage of this Earth Cuph. Why of wit and folly Bathynous Bath Of wit for the extraordinary handsome semblance he makes of deducing all the Phaenomena he has handled necessarily and Mechanically and for hitting on the more immediate material Causes of things to a very high probability Cuph. This at least is true Bathynous But why of folly Bath Because he is so credulous as not onely to believe that he has necessarily and purely Mechanically solved all the Phaenomena he has treated of in his Philosophy and Meteors but also that all things else may be so solved the Bodies of Plants and Animals not excepted Cuph. Posterity will be best able to judge of that Philop. Cuphophron is very constantly zealous in the behalf of the Mechanick Philosophy though with the hazard of losing those more notable Arguments deducible from the Phaenomena of Nature for the proving the Existence of a God And yet I dare say he is far from being in the least measure smutted with the soil of Atheism Cuph. I hope so Philop. Wherefore O Cuphophron let me beg the liberty of asking you what other inducements you have to believe there is a God Is it the Authority of the Catholick Church or what is it Cuph. I have a very venerable respect for the Church O Philopolis which makes me the more sorry when I consider how much they have wronged or defaced their Authority in obtruding things palpably impossible and most wretchedly blasphemous with equal assurance and severity as they do the belief of a God Euist. I conceive Cuphophron reflects upon their barbarous butchering of men for their denying the Article of Transubstantiation Cuph. It may be so Who can believe men upon their own Authority that are once deprehended in so gross and impious an Imposture Euist. But these are not the Church Catholick but onely a something-more-numerous Faction of men But not onely these but the whole Church and indeed all Nations believe that there is a God Cuph. Indeed Tully says Nulla gens tam barbara c. Euist. It is consent of Nations therefore O Cuphophron that you chiefly establish your belief of a Deity upon Cuph. That is a plausible Argument Euistor Euist. But the History of Mircacles and Prophecies with their Completion a far greater Cuph. They are very strong Arguments that there are invisible Powers that superintend the affairs of mankind that have a greater Virtue and comprehension of Knowledge then our selves Bath And so may be able to bring to pass what themselves predict in long succession of Ages As if the Government of the World and the affairs of mankinde were intrusted into the hands of Angels Sophr. But some Miracles are so great and Predictions of so vast a compass of time that none but God can rationally be thought to be the Authour of them Bath Most assuredly God himself superintends and acts through all Philop. Is this then the Basis of Cuphophron's Belief Cuph. I will tell you O Philopolis because I see you so hugely desirous what is the main Philosophicall Basis of my belief of a God Philop. What is it Cuph. The innate Idea of God in my minde the arguings from thence seem to me undeniable Demonstrations Philop. I believe they are the more prevalent with you because they are