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	nature_n	power_n	3,155	5	5.1866	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41384	The fundamentals of the Protestant religion asserted by reason as well as Scriptvre written in French by the famous Monsieur de Gombaud ; made English by Sidnet Lodge ; to which is added his Letters to Monsieur de Militiere and other personages of the French-court upon the same subject.	Gombauld, Jean Ogier de, d. 1666.; Lodge, Sidney, b. 1648 or 9.	1682 (1682)	Wing G1024; ESTC R14808	82,659	180

finding the first or last which alone merits the name of Divinity To what are we come that we must even now with Industry endeavour to prove the Truth of the being of a God! Is not this indeed to affront men as reasonable as our selves to shew 'em what each particular Sence does constantly prove to ' em Is not this to teach those to see who have their Eyes open and tell others they have the use of Reason who profess themselves men Shall we add to these Considerations the frequently repealed Arguments of those who have undertaken so high but just and reasonable a Defence In effect if there was no God How could the World be Could it be the Workmanship and the Workman of it self Could it be before it was How can these agree and yet but the same World If it be eternal and is independent on any first Cause that Order which we observe and must be an effect of admirable Wisdom with all those Powers which are differently communicated to each part would in a manner prove what some have fancied That it is God himself For it is not in the least probable that it's Beauty it 's Order and Duration can be the effects of blind and confus'd Chance Can we imagine that from thence could proceed such long and regular Successions of Time and Motion Can we attribute to that so much Care and Wisdom as to be able to make so different Causes tend to the same Effect This certainly under another Name would be God himself and his Blasphemers would meet in every place what their guilty Souls are afraid of finding any where otherwise What is this Fortune but a vain and insignificant Title an imaginary Idol that exists but in our Fancies to which we erroniously attribute such Effects of whose Causes we are ignorant She appears to us less or greater according to our Proportion of Knowledge and if we could but free the World from Ignorance the Notion of Fortune would be laid aside 'T is then the Deity of the ignorant which no wise man adores and I cannot but wonder how those who plead for her can believe themselves reasonable since according to the Opinion they have of all things they must confess they were made by Chance and consequently that they move act and speak so There are amongst these some who pretend to believe a God but at the same time make him careless and idle slothful and wholly unconcern'd in the Affairs of the Universe at least in all sublunary things imagining perhaps says one that this would be too great Trouble to him As if their Impieties could give him any Comfort or Satisfaction Is not this to deny whilst they own him and boldly to confine the Actions of an infinite Power Is not this to make to themselves a God who cannot barely act as a Man to allow him Understanding without Counsel a Will without Freedom Goodness without Communication in a Word a Being without a Being and less than that of the Elements which comes nearest to no Being at all But not to insist farther on the universal chain of Causes with their Effects which plainly demonstrate that things of the sublimest nature are assisted by those of the lowest and that these necessarily depend on the same Wisdom and Power by which they are made and conserv'd Who is he that in his Anger chastises both Kings and People that removes the Scepter from one and gives it to another that overturns Empires and in an instant changes the Face of Estates and to shew that this is done by his Power has long since foretold it by the Mouth of his Messengers and Prophets Who was it that punish'd the Sins of men by a miraculous Flood acknowledged by all the World and by whose Advice was one only Family saved from it Who was it that promis'd such a Deluge should never return and who has so faithfully kept his Promise What Spirit foresaw the coming of the Messias three or four thousand years of whom the Prophets have so particularly spoke as if they as well as the Apostles had seen him From whom but God himself or some Angel sent from him were those Predictions of the Posterity of Abraham of the Throne of David and of that Lamp which should be kept in his Family of the dispersing and rejecting of the Jews and the Conversion of the Gentiles If it be told me that there are Mathematicians Astrologers and Wise men who foretell things to come I must ask by what hand they are writ in the Heavens in such Characters that men can read 'em and who has plac'd the Signs in the Stars or rather their Vertues and Causes which the same men cannot comprehend It must needs be that those who are not touch'd with these Considerations are blinded with Passion that prevents their Reason who from Custom become obstinate and from Ignorance stupid We find that there are many very wise and knowing in all worldly things nay are ignorant and insensible of nothing but Divine ones But if I am not deceived most bear in their Breast both their Accuser and Judge and will earlier or later be forc'd to say as others have done We are so weary of the ways of Iniquity that we can endure 'em no longer CHAP. III. THUS whatever presents it self to our sight do's speak of a God and prove that he is but what he is neither all those Objects nor all our Reason can discover to us Yet so much as we know of him is sufficient to make us believe and worship what we don 't perfectly know Let it be then that the continu'd course of Causes and Effects is not infinite that all things either reach or tend visibly to their End that from the Ancientest of Books in respect of which all others are but new and imperfect we know the Origine and Rise of all Nations That the Powers of the Heavens are become weak that the Age and Strength of Men are impaired in comparison of that account we receive of 'em in Sacred and Profane History it does evidently appear that God created the World and for an additional Perfection to his greatest Work made Man after his own Image that is wholly conformable to his Will not in Essence but Imitation and as Perfect and as Happy as the Noblest Creature could be He was plac'd in an honourable Station between Beasts and Angels was the Bond of the Universe the End of all created things over which he had eternally commanded had he been only but obedient to his Creator But not content with those abundant Favours he had received rashly aspires to a degree above his Sovereign endeavours to rise higher than the Top it self and aiming at something in nothing was near returning to that first Nothing from whence he came How strangely bold What high Presumption is it to covet being equal with God! What base Incredulity to accuse him of falshood or Envy What horrid Ingratitude and Rebellion to