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	produce_v	3,640	5	8.1636	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26960	More reasons for the Christian religion and no reason against it, or, A second appendix to the Reasons of the Christian religion being I. an answer to a letter from an unknown person charging the Holy Scriptures with contradictions, II. some animadversions on a tractate De Veritate, written by ... Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury ... / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. Reasons of the Christian religion.	1672 (1672)	Wing B1313; ESTC R4139	63,611	190

Pleasure with a simple complacency though not alwaies by election To will all that is fully discerned to have omnimodam rationem boni and nill all that is discerned to have omnimodam rationem mali Now it oft falls out that Historical Narratives shall proceed from some of these necessary acts Salvation Life and Goodness and the necessary means of all may be the Motives Thirdly There are other acts of the will which though they are not absolutely necessary are yet so neer to necessary that they alwaies go one way except in some very rare extraordinary case As for example It is not of absolute necessity that a man feed or cloath himself or that he murder not himself But yet he will ordinarily do the first and forbear the latter because he is necessarily a lover of himself and life and therefore will not cast himself away nor destroy himself without some conceived cause Fourthly There are no causes extant in rerum Natura for the commonness of some such actions Therefore it is certain they will not be done because there can be no effect without its cause And the turning of the will to a mans known corporeal destruction is an effect which hath no common cause Therefore it is a point of more Natural Evidence and Certainty than many Conclusions from Natural premises are that all the people of Europe or England will not to morrow kill themselves nor go naked nor famish or wound themselves c. And consequently that formerly all never did so since it was notoriously so much their interest to do otherwise For there was no cause to produce such an effect If it must be a Miracle rebus sic stantibus which should make all the Europeans or the English to go naked to morrow or to kill themselves than it is Natural to them to do the contrary or not to do this for a Miracle is the over-powering of Nature But the Antecedent is evident to reason from experience Ergo c. There may be Causes for one mans actions which can never fall out to All or to very many All the Physicians in England never did perswade all men against Physick nor all the Lawyers against Law nor all the Covetous men in England the Labourers or Beggars were never against recieving Meat Drink and Money Because there never was a cause of such effects And as it must be a great powerful common Cause that must do this so also if the question be whether ever there were a Parliament in England Whether ever they made Laws with the Kings Whether our statutes were made by such Kings and Parliaments as they are ascribed to c. There is such a concurrent consent of competent Witnesses as could not be to it were it false because it would be an effect without a sufficient Cause Yea against the tendency or disposition of mans nature which would have caused the wills of some to contradict it except a miracle had hindred them For among so many there are cross interest notorious Some Mens interest is against the thing while other Mens are for it And to make multitudes go against their apparent Interest and Friends and Enemies of the event to agree must be done by the power of truth or by a miracle suposing the case such as they could not be all deceived in Fifteenthly But there is yet a fuller natural evidence of the truth of some reports Even when besides the report there remain some visible unimitable effects of the reported actions which could be caused by nothing else As if their Fathers told the Grand-Children of Noah of the deluge they might see such effects of it as might assure them that it was true If the Parents of the man born blind Joh. 9. were told by him that his eyes were cured when they saw it in the effects they must believe it If uncontroulled History tell our Children that London was burnt and new built that Pauls Church was burnt c. that multitudes died of the Plague the year before c. When they see the City the Church the Graves the change of Inhabitants the proved Testaments of the deceased besides uncontradicted testimony here is a natural evidence to assure it Sixteenthly Though some half witted Philosophers boast much of the certainty of their Physicks in comparison of Morality the truth is the most of Physicks are meer untainties and the wisest see it and busily pull down others doctrines but confess they are yet but searching and groping by extrinsick effects and experiments to know what to set up in the stead And so did others before them And long may they so search before they find Whereas there is a more satisfying Evidence in much of Morality as being Natural to Mankind and such as will no sooner cease to be believed than man will cease to be man whereon all the affairs of the world are turned and converse Societies and all the private Comforts of Nature are maintained God hath made known to us what pleased him according to his own wisdome and not at our direction or choice And he hath chosen that for us which is most usefull It is more usefull to us to know how to live well and how to be happy and how to please and glorifie God and do good to one another than to know Gods skil or mysteries in his workes to know what is in the center of the earth or how the active Nature doth operate on the passive whether cold be a privation or positive what is the cause of the continued motus projectorum Whether Light and Heat be bodies or Substances whether they penetrate other bodies c. As it is more useful for me to know how to keep my Clock in order than how to make one to know how to plow sow eat drink to my health than to know by what mysterious operations the Corn or other things do grow and my food is digested c. Therefore this Learned Lord doth truly and wisely enumerate his Notitiae Communes in Morality and Religion as certainties the denial whereof doth unman us God hath left such instincts powers inclinations and conscience in humane nature as shall naturally though with some degree of freedome in the exercise be an insuperable witness in the world to himself and to our common principles and duties Seventeenthly The Historical Evidence of the Gospel of Christ is such as hath all the advantages before described in its kind He lived and preached and wrought his miracles frequently before thousands friends and foes His miracles were never controlled as Moses did the Magicians by greater nor by any certain Truth which they contradicted The eye witnesses themselves were unbelieving till forced by Cogent Evidence They delivered his Doctrine Miracles Resurrection to the world not onely by credible report and to the ruine of their worldly pleasures and interests with the loss of their lives and all this meerly for the hopes of a reward in heaven from God that well

most necessary clear and certain must be held accordly with a more clear assured confidence than those that are unnecessary dark And that uncertainties must be reduced to certainties and not certainties to uncertainties And that all arguing should be a notiore and not a minus not is And as I said before as the Trunks of the Tree the Veins the Arteries the Nerves are few and visible and easily and surely known when the thousands of little branches are hardly visible or numerable so is it with the schemes of truths He therefore that will begin at these numerous small branches will dote rather than know or learn As in the former instances First When I see with my eyes the effects of Power Wisdome and Goodness in all the visible works of God I am sure that it is perfect Power Wisdome and Goodness which is the cause of this I am certain that nothing can give that which formaliter or eminenter it hath not to give nor can the effect exceed the totall cause I am certain that he from whom all Creatures Power Wisdome and Goodness doth proceed must needs himself be more Great and Wise and Good than all the world of Creatures set together which he hath made To this fundamental certainty therefore I must hold if I will not dote whatever little Objections or pratlings may be used against it Secondly Eternity is a thing incomprehensible which quite swalloweth up my understanding and many little things be said against it But I am certain that nothing can make nothing And if ever there had been nothing there never would have been any thing And to this certainty I will hold Thirdly A holy life hath a great many of cavilling Objections raised against it by corrupted nature And shall I there begin to make my trial of it No I am first sure that a Rational free Agent and Subject of God is bound to obey him and that the Greatest Good should be Greatliest loved and that we are totally our Creators own and should be totally devoted to him I am sure I cannot love the infinite Good too much nor be too Good nor do too much Good to others in the world nor make too sure of my own felicity nor too much seek my ultimate end And shall not this assurance hold me fast against all the snarlings and pratlings of the doating drunken world So here I have in the Treatise opened those grounds on which we may be certain of the necessity of this holiness of the life to come and of the truth of the Christian Faith and hopes And because God in mercy hath not put off the world with the skeleton of a bare Creed but also given them the compleat body of sacred Scriptures to be a full perpetual Record of this truth shall I turn his mercy to a snare and sin and question all even the Articles of the Faith because in the Scriptures there are some things accidental to Religion and some things hard to be understood which the ignorant and unskilfull wrest to their destruction This is but to be Devils to our selves and foolish enemies of our own peace and comfort As Cicero speaks against them that pleaded for the souls mortality as if it were a desireable thing You have nothing else that suiteth the Nature and Interest of a man and agreeth with the Nature and Interest of God to set against the Christian Religion in Competition If you would have no Religion you would have no Hopes no Safety no Business or Comfort but Bea●●ial in this world and you would be no Men. If you would have nothing but Nature and the Holiness which Nature clearly calleth for you would have Health in an unhealed Body and Health without the Physician and his Means The Mediator is the way to the Father and if you would Love God and be happy in his Love and have the Pardon of your Sins you have little reason to reject him that cometh to Procure Reveal and Communicate that Love and Pardon which must win your hearts to the Love of God And if you would not die in desperation but have the hopes and foresight of a better life you have little Reason to quarrel with a Messenger from Heaven which bringeth Life and Immortality to light As bad as Christians are if personal quarrels and malignity blind you not and if you will not take the enemies and persecutors of Christianity for Christians meerly because they assume the name you may easily see that serious Christians who live according to their profession are persons of another kind of excellency than all the unbelieving world I know that from some self-conceited ignorant well meaning persons I must look to be reviled and called a betrayer of Christianity because I plead not for it in their way and give you any other answer to your objections than That when God giveth you the spirit you shall know that the Scripture hath no contradictions and that Christianity is the true Religion Till then you cannot know it nor must I give you Reasons for it But I do my work and let who will wrangle and revile How far the sayings of some are true or false that the Scripture is the onely means of faith or saving knowledge of God that it is Principium indemonstrabile as first principles of knowledg are in nature that as others say It hath evidence of credibility but not evidence of certainty as if evidence of Divine credibility or or faith were not evidence of certainty that faith hath not evidence but evidence evacuateth faith or the merits of it with such like a man of understanding may gather from what is said And I must not be so tedious as particularly here to resolve them having done it in Preface to the Second part of the Saints Rest Edit 2. c. long ago And though I have written nothing here which some men cannot make an ill use of and some men will not turn to matter of cavil and reproach I will not therefore leave it out whilst I expect that the Cood which Truth is fitted to is greater than the evil which by accident and abuse will follow it And because you seem Confident and think me bound to answer you and consequently all others not knowing how many hundreds may trouble me in the like kind I send you this in print that other mens mistakes and infidelity also may have the same remedies But I shall conceal your name and dwelling lest the shame of your sin should hinder your patient application of the remedy save onely by telling you that it is long ago since I read a noble Learned Lord who in a Latine Book De Veritate Contra Veritatem said much against the certainty of faith But it was all but learned froth and vanity I Rest A Servant of Christ and desirer of your faith and salvation R. Baxter Dec. 28. 16●1 THE SECOND PART OF THIS APPENDIX BEING Some ANIMADVERSIONS On the foresaid Treatise

De Veritate Resolving several Questions there included or implyed HAving let fall the mention of that noble Authors Treatise it came into my mind that it having never been answered might be thought unanswerable and so the more considerable Therefore I adjoin so much of my Animadversion as the cause in hand requireth And First I must give the Author the Honor of his great Learning and strength of wit Secondly I must confess that the Teachers of the Church have been too often such as have given him the scandal which he so oft expresseth as more regarding their Interest than Truth and not making clear the truth which they have taught and often wronging it by their omissions or additions or unsound explications Thirdly I confess the body of his Treatise containeth many very considerable things in order to the disquisition of truth especially about the sutableness of the faculties to the object the conditions requisite to a true apprehension and somewhat about the nature of truth it self Though that which he calleth Veritas apparentiae I had rather call Evidentia Veritatis rei And I am not willing to think that I have as many different faculties as there are different plants in my Garden or Books in my Study or Sentences in those Books And in several things I miss that accurateness which he pretendeth to But these I shall pass by Page 217. he saith An vero aliud praeter Paenitentiam quidem convenientius detur medium unde justitiae divinae sit factum satis non est hic in animo exponere Hoc solummodo dicimus quicquid in adversam partem a quibusdam suggeratur quod nisi sola penitentia fide in Deum vitia scelera quaecunque eliminari possint Justitiae Divinae Bonitas Divina adeo sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut non sit ulterius quo provecetur nullum universale ita patere vel olim patuisse remedium ut fuerit quo confugeret misera ex peccati sensu languentium turba vel haberet unde gratiam pacem illam internam conciliaret tandem in id deveniendum sit ut quosdam immo longe majorem hominum partem inscios nedum invitos creaverit damnaverit Deus Opt. Max. Quod adeo horrendum Providentiae Bonitati immo Justitiae Divinae incongruum sonat ut mitiori immo equiori sententia dicendum sit totum humanum genus ex paenitentia semper habuisse media unde Deo acceptum esse potuit quibus si exciderit non jam ex Dei bene placito sed ex proprio hominum peccato perditionem uniuscujusque ex titisse nec per deum stetisse quo minus salvi fierent The first Question then is Quest 1. Whether if Christ and not onely our Repentance and belief in God be taken for a sacrifice and price given to God for mans Redemption it will follow that most of the world are damned by Gods will without any Remedy to which they covld have recourse for salvation Answ First It is strange that men should be left Remediless if Christ and not onely their Repentance be the Remedy Surely if Christ had given sinners nothing yet he hath taken nothing from them Secondly We all confess the universal necessity of Repentance But this is partly coordinate as the end and partly subordinate as an effect and therefore not contrary to the necessity of a Redeemer Repentance is our conversion and our begun Recovery from sin And will it follow that the Physician is unnecessary because health and recovery are necessary Yea and sufficient in their kind Thirdly How doth it follow that the Remedy was not Universal when Redemption by Christ was universal Christ so far died for all men as by his death he procured them any Grace But he procured Grace though not equal Grace for all You confess an universal Grace and yet an inequallity of benefits we say that Grace was procured by Christ Do we narrow it at all by saying Christ procured it Fourthly I perceive some mens mis-explication of these things was your snare and scandal First We distinguish between Christs procurement of our pardon and salvation by his sacrifice and merit with God and Christ as the object of mans faith or as Believed in by man We do not make the latter so universally necessary as the former For we hold that Infants are saved that believe not But we hold that no one is saved for whom Christ did not satisfie Gods Justice and merit salvation Secondly And that this much causlessly offend you not we say That this satisfaction and merit consisteth not in an identity or gradual proportion of Christs pains or sufferings to all mankinds but in an Aptitude of his Sacrifice and Righteousness to attain the ends of God the sovoraign of the world the demonstration of his truth holiness and right cousness together with triumphant love and mercy better than the remediless damnation of all the sinning world would have done Read but Master Trumans Great Propitiation which sheweth you the true ends of the sacrifice of Christ and this unjust offence will vanish Thirdly And we maintain as is said that the merit and Propitiation wrought by Christ is not to make our Repentance needless But to procure it and to make it effectual to its ends He giveth us Repentance and Remission of sins You confess that we may and must make a New Covenant with God upon our Repentance In that Covenant God promiseth us Grace as we consent to be his servants and children Now if Christ did procure and as Gods General Administrator Give us that promise of pardon and salvation to the truly Penitent doth not this more oblige us to Repentance and not less And the merit of Repentance if you will so call it with the Ancients is quite of another order rank and nature than the merit of Christ It s one thing for the Innocent son of God to merit Repentance and pardon to all that will Repent And another thing by Repenting through his grace to perform the Condition of the further Grace of pardon or salvation Fourthly And yet further to heal your unjust offence we do not hold that Christ maketh God more merciful than he was or that his Redemption is the first cause of our recovery and salvation causing God to be willing who was unwilling before But that Gods love and mercy and his own good will is the first cause which gave us Christ for a Redeemer as a second cause an effect of his love and the Head of all the means of our Recovery and the true meriting cause of that Grace and salvation which God will give us Nor so meriting as to change God but so meriting as to remove the Impediments of his grace as to the Communication and as to become the sittest Instrument of the Fathers love and mercy by whom to Govern the lapsed world and to communicate grace and life to sinners Fifthly And yet