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
A60562	A discourse concerning divine providence, in relation to national judgments	Smith, Thomas, 1638-1710.	1693 (1693)	Wing S4222; ESTC R3450	13,165	32

Providence except a very few whose interest it is to wish there were none that they might live as they list according to their corrupt inclinations without the least molestation or disturbance And yet these very men who deny a Providence cannot but acknowledge and confess that it is agreeable to reason yea and necessary to the well-being of the World that there should be such an over-ruling power regulated and directed by the highest wisdom For if in a private family there could be no peace nor safety without rules and orders to be observed by every one in their respective qualities if in a Kingdom confusions could not possibly be avoided without Laws they being the ligaments of the body politick that tie the members of it together whereby they perform the several offices of Civil life in an orderly conjunction much more would the World which consists of such a variety of parts fail and decay if the Creator had not set them a Law which they are not to transgress and if they were not restrained and kept in from preying one upon another and if an omnipotent and all-wise God had not the whole ordering and disposal of them 2. How came things to be endowed with those qualities which produce such strange and admirable effects as we daily see and hear of 'T is a vain attempt to go about to explain and solve the appearances of nature by the Mechanichal Philosophy how witty and subtile and refined soever without believing God not only to have created matter and put this matter into motion but to determine and modify the several motions of it and tho some effects flow necessarily from their causes according to the established laws of mechanism yet this was wholly according to the will and contrivance of the first causes nor can they display this vertue without the divine concourse all second causes in their several motions needing the continuation of the divine power and influence in order to their operations as well as to their subsistence All things then are at the disposal of God who makes use of them as it pleaseth him and the vertue which they have derives from him Even men are the instruments of his will and that without any restraint of or prejudice to their natural or moral Liberty He brings about the purposes of his Providence by actions which they design to other ends nay sometimes by their sinful passions and the exhorbitances of their temper Nebuchadnezzar a neighbour Heathen Prince made war upon the Jews Gods own people either to satisfy his thirst of fame and glory or to enlarge his dominion or it may be upon some pretended affront or injury done him or the like and yet God calls him his servant Jerem xliii 10. because by him he punished that people for their Sins and it was upon this account that Attilas such another instrument in the hand of God as was Oliver Cromwel when with his barbarous troops he broke into Christendom as if he had received a commission from heaven to execute Gods wrath upon the Christians of that Age for their luxurious and unchristian lives had the title of flagellum DEI. None can deny civil war to be a grievous judgment to a Nation notwithstanding all the plausible pretensions of cunning and designing men to draw the people into their party and to take up arms in defence of Religion and Property both which suffer infinitely more by a Rebellion than by a Persecution if any such had followed according to their fears and jealousies whether well grounded or ill grounded it matters not yet in every such war God gives commission to the Sword and says Sword go through the Land Ez. xiv 17. much more may God make use of all other parts of the visible creation which have no principle of Liberty within them Thus fire and hail snow and vapour and stormy wind are said to fulfil his word Psalm cxlviii 8. and thus God did in the plagues of Egypt and tho judgments be not always so quick and immediate but oftentimes advance slowly and by degrees Yet this doth not hinder but that they are judgments still such for instance are infectious Air malignant Diseases blasting and mildew drought and barrenness of ground Deut. xxviii We must then look beyond natural causes even to the God of nature who orders and directs them to their several ends and over-rules them and oftentimes carries them beyond their usual power according as it seems good to his divine Wisdom and the ends of Providence In a Pestilence we must not look at the evil influences of the Air but at the evil influences of sin for the infection comes first thence God might continue the same temper to the Air if he pleased that it might be for ever healthful but he suffers those alterations to be made in it by degrees and warns a Nation by such slow approaches of his future intentions So that notwithstanding we could trace the natural and immediate causes of it yet because they cannot act but by vertue of his influence and he makes use of the order and course of things as it best pleaseth him the beginning and progress and decrease of a plague is to be ascribed to his will and pleasure as much as that which we read of 2 Sam. xxiv 16. When the Angel of the Lord stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it the Lord repented him of the evil and said to the Angel who destroyed the people it is enough stay now thine hand And as the Angel so what is called nature is the instrument of God and therefore God is pleased to ascribe to himself the ordinary works of it One would judge it necessary from the constitution of the World that there be refreshing showers and dews to water and moisten the dry and parched ground whose fruitfulness would otherwise fail and decay yet this in the judgment of Saint Paul was enough to convince the Heathen that there is a God as he tells the people of Lycaonia Acts xiv 7. He left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness To this Tertullian does elegantly allude Deum in aperto constitutum vel ex ipsis coelestibus bonis comprehensibilem ignorari non licet And indeed if we do but consider the ordinary works of Nature which we do not value by reason of their commonness and therefore pass over slightly we shall find so much wisdom in their contrivance that we must of necessity have recourse to an infinite Author If then a fruitful Summer if a plentiful and seasonable Harvest and Vintage be a sufficient attestation of Providence can we think that Judgments tho brought about by natural causes are not the effects of the divine anger and displeasure cannot a Sparrow fall to the ground without the Will of God St. Matth. x. 29. and shall there be any kind of Judgment

A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Divine Providence In Relation to NATIONAL JUDGMENTS LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers-hall M DC XCIII A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Divine Providence In Relation to NATIONAL JUDGMENTS NOtwithstanding that it is most consonant to reason to believe that he who made the World doth govern it and that all things are subject to the Laws of Providence and that the order and course of nature whereby things act regularly and make up that beauty and harmony and proportion which is visible throughout the World is not the effect of chance but of contrivance and design and owes its original to the divine will regulated by an infinite wisdom yet such is the pride of some who yet cannot but be conscious of their own defects and how little they are able to do either of themselves apart or in conjunction with others in comparison of what they see done both in heaven and upon earth as that they will scarce acknowledge God to be supreme but set up for themselves as absolute and think to reverse his decrees by their wit and policies attributing the success of their counsels to the strength of their parts and wisdom and never referring their defeats and disappointment to his over-ruling power but to some cross-accident which they should have provided against and then they cry out upon the extreme malignity and spightfulness of fortune as they speak when all their wicked and devilish policies have been blasted and proved to be nothing but elaborate folly Besides they will have all the great revolutions that are brought upon the World to be the results of meer nature which they set up as a distinct principle from Providence that is that they flow from a series of natural causes linkt and tyed together and that such a kind of combination necessarily produceth such effects and that all those astonishing acts of Providence which we by a general name call judgments are natural and consequently in a manner fatal and periodical What is this but to leave the World to it self and to exclude God from having any thing to do in the Government of it and in effect to rob him of the glory and perfections of his Godhead But I know not whether the folly or impiety of this opinion be the greater not to acknowledge a divine hand in those events which are confessedly extraordinary Let us lift up our eyes to the Heavens and contemplate the number of the Stars their greatness their inexhausted light their regular and uninterrupted motion and order and let us fancy if we can that they made themselves or that such glorious bodies resulted from the fortuitous concourse of little particles floating up and down in an infinite space according to the idle and precarious Hypothesis of Epicurus Let us turn our Eyes downwards and look into our selves and reflect upon the faculties of our mind upon the power and command which we have over our selves and our actions upon the Law imprinted upon our Nature upon those notions of good and evil that grow up with us and which we can never throw off and upon the dictates and judgment of Conscience and this will shew us that we are fit Subjects and capable of a Law After this Let us proceed to consider the Original of our being the prerogative which reason gives us above other creatures and the obligations lying upon us as we are men and this will prove to us that we are not only capable of but actually under a Law that we are accountable for the actions of our lives to a supreme power and that every violation of the divine law the eternal and unchangeable Law of righteousness which God has revealed and manifested not only in the Scriptures but in our very nature is justly punishable by him This being once granted we shall be soon made to confess except we will do violence to our reason that God shows his anger against sin by the judgments which He brings upon the world and that nothing of this nature doth come to pass or can come to pass without his order and appointment and but for some cause The Prophet Amos chap. iii. verse 6. lays it down by way of question and appeal to the reason and conscience and understanding of all mankind shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it which according to the known laws and methods of arguing amounts to this universal negative proposition that there neither is nor can be any judgment in a City or Kingdom whereof God is not the Author Now in the first place in order to vindicate the honour of the divine providence I lay down the following proposition as infallibly certain that no evil of punishment which is brought upon the World happens by chance and particularly that those judgments which seem to derive from natural causes are the effects of his justice and governing power which I thus briefly prove That God doth concern himself with the transactions of men and either doth or will punish them sooner or later according to their misbehaviour and demerit hath been the belief of the very Heathen notwithstanding the corruption and degeneracy of their manners notwithstanding that vast number of false opinions which they had taken up according to their fancy and which made way for others of a fatal consequence to the great shame and discredit of their reason and notwithstanding all those brutish customs and violations of the laws of humanity which they had brought into practice the impressions of this fundamental truth of Nature were made so deep upon their minds that they could not totally efface them In a time of common calamity for instance when they were distrest by an invading Enemy or when a Plague had diffused its venom over their Country or in case of any violent inundation or famine or earthquake they acknowledged that this was the punishment and demerit of their sin that their Gods were angry with them and that the way to get these judgments removed was to appease their anger whereupon they erected altars and heaped up sacrifices upon them some devoted themselves to death and others were offered up alive they thinking to gain the favour of their Deities by such kind of barbarous and bloody rites 'T is certain that they had corrupted this truth horribly by their superstitions and impieties but the foundation and ground was that there was a vindicative Justice a Nemesis which proportioned our punishments according to the measures and degrees of guilt Now I demand 1. If all things come to pass of themselves without being guided and directed by an invisible hand how came the belief of the contrary so universal It is a blemish to our reason to imagine that by the constitution of humane nature false principles should be infused into our minds and that we should be fatally inclined to error or that all the World should mistake in the belief of this great truth that there is an all-wise