Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	effect_n	natural_a	nature_n	4,625	5	5.6875	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30484	A review of The theory of the earth and of its proofs, especially in reference to Scripture	Burnet, Thomas, 1635?-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing B5945; ESTC R7953	42,163	56

the Innocent Thus you see the parts of the Theory link and hold fast one another according to the second character And as to the third of being suited to the Phaenomena we must refer that to the next head of Proofs It may be truly said that bare coherence and union of parts is not a sufficient proof The parts of a Fable or Romance may hang aptly together and yet have no truth in them This is enough indeed to give the title of a just Composition to any work but not of a true one till it appear that the conclusions and explications are grounded upon good natural evidence or upon good Divine authority We must therefore proceed now to the third thing to be consider'd in a Theory What its Proofs are or the grounds upon which it stands whether Sacred or Natural According to Natural evidence things are proved from their Causes or their Effects And we think we have this double order of proofs for the truth of our Hypothesis As to the method of Causes we proceed from what is more simple to what is more compound and build all upon one foundation Go but to the Head of the Theory and you will see the Causes lying in a train before you from first to last And tho' you did not know the Natural history of the World past or future you might by intuition foretell it as to the grand revolutions and successive faces of Nature through a long series of Ages If we have given a true account of the motions of the Chaos we have also truly form'd the first habitable Earth And if that be truly form'd we have thereby given a true account of the state of Paradise and of all that depends upon it And not of that onely but also of the universal Deluge Both these we have shewn in their causes The one from the Form of that Earth and the other from the Fall of it into the Abyss And tho' we had not been made acquainted with these things by Antiquity we might in contemplation of the Causes have truly conceiv'd them as properties or incidents to the First Earth But as to the Deluge I do not say that we might have calculated the Time manner and other circumstances of it These things were regulated by Providence in subordination to the Moral World But that there would be at one time or other a disruption of that Earth or of the Great Abyss and in consequence of it an universal Deluge So far I think the light of a Theory might carry us Furthermore In consequence of this disruption of the Primeval Earth at the Deluge the present Earth was made hollow and cavernous and by that means due preparations being used capable of Combustion or of perishing by an universal Fire Yet to speak ingenuously This is as hard a step to be made in vertue of Natural causes as any in the whole Theory But in recompence of that defect the Conflagration is so plainly and literally taught us in Scripture and avow'd by Antiquity that it can fall under no dispute as to the thing it self And as to a capacity or disposition to it in the present Earth that I think is sufficiently made out Then the Conflagration admitted in that way it is explain'd in the 3d. Book The Earth you see is by that fire reduc'd to a second Chaos A Chaos truly so call'd And from that as from the First arises another Creation or New Heavens and a New Earth By the same causes and in the same form with the Paradisiacal This is the Renovation of the World The Restitution of all things mentioned both by Scripture and Antiquity and by the Prophet Isaiah St. Peter and St. John call'd the New Heavens and New Earth With this as the last period and most glorious Scene of all humane affairs our Theory concludes as to this method of Causes whereof we are now speaking I say here it ends as to the method of Causes For tho' we pursue the Earth still further even to its last Dissolution which is call'd the Consummation of all things yet all that we have superadded upon that occasion is but Problematical and may without prejudice to the Theory be argued and disputed on either hand I do not know but that our conjectures there may be well grounded but however not springing so directly from the same root or at least not by ways so clear and visible I leave that part undecided Especially seeing we pretend to write no more than the Theory of the Earth and therefore as we begin no higher than the Chaos so we are not obliged to go any further than to the last state of a Terrestrial consistency which is that of the New Heavens and the New Earth This is the first natural proof From the order of Causes The second is from the consideration of Effects Namely of such effects as are already in being And therefore this proof can extend onely to that part of the Theory that explains the present and past form and Phaenomena of the Earth What is Future must be left to a further trial when the things come to pass and present themselves to be examin'd and compar'd with the Hypothesis As to the present Form of the Earth we call all Nature to witness for us The Rocks and the Mountains the Hills and the Valleys the deep and wide Sea and the Caverns of the Ground Let these speak and tell their origine How the Body of the Earth came to be thus torn and mangled If this strange and irregular structure was not the effect of a ruine and of such a ruine as was universal over the face of the whole Globe But we have given such a full explication of this in the first part of the Theory from Chapt. the 9th to the end of that Treatise that we dare stand to the judgment of any that reads those four Chapters to determine if the Hypothesis does not answer all those Phaenomena easily and adequately The next Phaenomenon to be consider'd is the Deluge with its adjuncts This also is fully explain'd by our Hypothesis in the 2d 3d. and 6th Chapters of the first Book Where it is shewn that the Mosaical Deluge that is an universal Inundation of the whole Earth above the tops of the highest Mountains made by a breaking open of the Great Abyss for thus far Moses leads us is fully explain'd by this Hypothesis and cannot be conceiv'd in any other method There are no sources or stores of Water sufficient for such an effect that may be drawn upon the Earth and drawn off again but by supposing such an Abyss and such a Disruption of it as the Theory represents Lastly As to the Phaenomena of Paradise and the Ante-diluvian World we have set them down in order in the 2d Book and apply'd to each of them its proper explication from the same Hypothesis We have also given an account of that Character which Antiquity always assign'd to the first age