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	produce_v	sufficient_a	6,420	5	9.0959	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50012	The divine Epicurus, or, The empire of pleasure over the vertues compos'd by A. LeGrand ; and rendred into English by Edward Cooke.	Le Grand, Antoine, d. 1699.; Cooke, Edward, fl. 1678.	1676 (1676)	Wing L949; ESTC R25451	59,225	137

entring but into the hearts of infamous persons and for any to be unfaithful to their promises they must first absolutely renounce their Honor. Every time a Prince goes aside from His word or finds out any circuitous Tricks and Evasions to null His Contracts He showes a vanity that lesse●s His Grandeur and discovers His Fear or want of Power Who will give any heed to Their Promises that have once found them false and deceitful And how can They assure Their People that They will support them for the future if They are accounted faulty in Their Opinions Truth is the Appanage of Crowned Heads Kings ought to be the Lovers as well as the Defenders of It and they no less hazard their Reputation when they are Unfaithful to their Enemies then to their Allies If They write Patents with Their own Hands who will credit them Or who will receive them if they send Embassadors 'T is hard to deal with persons that have no Faith and that esteem nothing honorable but what is for their advantage Fraud is unworthy the Majesty of Kings and they cannot make use of it but they must betray their Fear or else acquire to themselves the Ignominious title of a Lyer They must be of the Nature of Scorpions that hide their Venome in their Tail and have their after Thoughts and mental Reserves when concerned to treat with Honor. If Princes ought to be true in their Words they ought not to be less just in their Actions their Authority does not exempt them from the Laws and though they be the Authors of them they cannot violate them publickly without incurring the Indignation of their People The excess of their Power is a Mark of their Dependance and if they may execute whatever they have a mind to it is forbidden them to will any thing but what they ought Justice has an Excellence above that of Diadems it judges of Kings as well as of their Subjects and appeals always from their Tribunals to Themselves when they have offended it It behoves them to follow the Orders they have made if they will command with Equity to submit to the Laws that they have prescribed to others and to establish them in their Hearts rather by their Example then by their Words and Writings They would easily execute this Design would they but reduce their Ordinances to a Reasonable Number and not multiply them without an evident Necessity Laws are the Medicaments of States and as the quantity of Remedies disorder the natural Bodies so multitude of Laws bring Confusion to the bodies Politique T is their excessive Number that begets all our Quarrels which ingages us in tedious Suits and often causes our ●euds to be perpetual T is their Number that feeds the Avarice of Lawyers and that furnishes these Blood-suckers with Tricks and Devises to filch our Purses T is their Number authorizes Injustice in Magistrates that stagger Judges and makes them find in their Codes and Pandects matter enough to favor the most feeble and guilty Causes T is their Number depopulates Countries wasts Armies decayes and ruins Traffick to fill up the Courts of Justice imploys so many loose Fellows in Jarrs and Bramblements and renders Tribunals the Retreats of Pyrates and Robbers The excess of good things is not always wholsom and I question whether Vice is more pernicious to a Common-Wealth then multitude of Laws Both do debauch Consciences corrupt Manners trouble Society and raise up Disorders and Enmities in States in the midst of Peace It were well then that a Monarch suffered but few Laws in His Kingdom if He would avoid all these disorders and content Himself with those He has received from His Ancestors if He would keep His Subjects in good Intelligence But as Justice is the happiness of States and Laws the more sacred the less profitable to it if not executed with Rigor and Severity Princes ought to watch over their Majestrates and see if those Subalterne Powers do act with Equity They ought to bethink themselves that they are God's Ministers that they hold His judgments in their hands and are not exalted above the quality of other Men but to chastize Offences and exercise Justice This is an imployment annex'd to their Puissance and they cannot discharge themselves thereof without renouncing their Dignity They ought to fillet down their Eyes to have no respect to Persons but whosoever should dare to sin against them ought to be esteem'd their Enemies and they prophane their Majesties in their partiality by making one and the same Action in two different Persons become both Innocent and Criminal The Third TREA-TISE OF TEMPERANCE The First Discourse Of the Nature of Temperance THe inferior sort of People could never yet conceive that Wise Men got any Advantage by Afflictions that they received any satisfaction at its approach and that those which griev'd the Body could transmit Delight and Pleasure into the Soul What● say they have Contraries allyed themselves in His Person and do Torments cease being sensible because they are supported and upheld by Vertue Effects have still relation to their principles and 't is to mistake the nature of things to make 'em depend on causes to which they are opposite Some Philosophers have had the same Sentiments of Temperance they can scarce comprehend that it produces Pleasure since it is still opposing of it and labors as much as can be to o'rthrow and ruin it But yet these two Paradoxes are true and it will be sufficient to give a Cursory Explanation of them that their Evidence might be the more clear and manifest The wise Man is sensible of Joy in the midst of Torments because he is wholly retired in his Soul does not at all communicate with his Body and places all his Glory and Felicity in his Vertue Temperance gives birth to his contentment in her resisting of Pleasure retrenching of Disorders and submitting her self to the Laws of Reason For Temperance is nothing else but a Controuling Power that She as Soveraign has over the concupiscible Appetite which governs those passions that are most agreeable and which gives us satisfaction from their Moderation or their Overthrow She represses the Desires and suffers not those Rovers to take their flights out of our Selves She restrains Hope and does not permit the ambitious seeking of Goods which are prejudicial or unprofitable to us She retains Love prescribes Laws to that Tyrant and qualifying its fury she keeps it from raising up Tempests that might be a trouble to our Repose But her chief work is to oppose Pleasure to suppress its unjust Violence and to hold the most dangerous of our Passions to its Duty She is a Persecuter of infamous Pleasures and knowing they are Scandalous and dare not produce themselves she chastizes them in the persons of their Slaves she moderates the lawful Ones and forbids the too frequent use of them and prevents those things that are permitted us from ingaging us in Sin The

Conscience in playing the Courtier She instructs him that Fortune is blind and as unjust in her favors as in her outrages That he must act below himself to submit to her Empire and Governance and make a Divinity of an imaginary Idol ●na word He ought not to regard the Court but as the Enemy of Wisdom and as a Theatre whereon he cannot appear but he must lose his Liberty hazard his Conscience and abundantly derogate from his Honor. But his Labor will be still Imperfect if after he has estrang'd himself from Court he does not retire from the noise of the World and if having disengaged himself from one Peril he is abandoned to another For the Populace is not more just then those of a Prince●s ●rain their Sentiments though more generally received are never the more Reasonable and if we love our own Repose we should most fear how we please many persons The multitude is always dangerous what ever Vertue we bring to them we hardly ever carry away agen Pu●e and Entire our Manners alter by the company of Men and either the ●vil insects those that come near them or an i●●●nious Complaisance gives it is Entrance we still go from them less Innocent or more disordered Vice there appears commendable because it has always there some to approve it the pomp wherewith it discovers it self begets in us a high esteem of it and judging its worth by the number or quality of its Authors we receive it with satisfaction It often steals into us without ever staying for our consent all its approaches corrupt our heart and only to present before it an Object that is agreeable and pleasant is enough to ingage it to an earnest search and diligence On the other hand there is little trouble in a shady Solitude as one sees there no rich Gayeties so the Desires are kept regular and orderly Impurity is banish'd where one can meet with nothing to entertain it and Ambition ceases to be our torment when Honors have left off dazeling our Eyes and our actions are no more to have Spectators and Witnesses As one cannot be near the ●ire but the heat must be felt so likewise cannot we be conversant with Mankind but we must blurr our Innocence and share in their Defilements If they find they have Courage enough tooppose their charms or their Efforts they scarcely will be able to shun their Derision they think them Bruits when ever they divide from their sentiments and we must resolve to become their Enemies if we would not be their Picture to resemble them in imitation The Wise Man knowing his vertue cannot be in Safety amidst so many Dangers and that t is hard to converse with the Impious and Prophane without contracting their Vices flyes their company and mistrusting his own Strength to resist thinks it better to make an honorable Retreat than to hazard his Innocence He seeks his ●elicity in his solitude he retires from the World to enjoy himself and his vertue being all his Treasure he believes himself sufficiently happy in his having it for a Companion He regards it as a Good that will never forsake him but be his Shadow when ever he is pleas'd to be the Substance and which is never more faithful to him then when he is a Recluse to t●e world to become her most humble and passionate Servant The Volupty he receives from it is an effect of Prudence he is indebted to the sincerity of his Counsels for the tranquillity of his Soul and it may be said that she is the cause of all his Happiness since she discovers to him the miseries of the Court and the injustice of the People to ingage him to a Retreat The Third Discourse That Prudence instructs Men to rule their Families IF Oeconomie be not the most Noble she is the most Antient of Empires Fathers of Families were seen before Kings and the first who have set themselves over the liberty of the People were but as Prentices to them Their Rules have serv'd them for Instructions they have got from these Sources wherewithal to govern their States and have learnt the Politiques in observing the Maxims of particulars If the conduct of Families has not so much of Pomp in it as that of a Kingdom it has not less of Difficulty and I question which is the easiest to command Subjects or to keep a Wife in her duty and Children in their obedience The ill humor of the one and extravagence of the others put a whole House into disorder Correction and Chastisement are oftentimes little profitable to them and the fear that assures their Estates almost continually puts their Persons into danger Therefore does Prudence boast of her assisting us in our Necessities because she counsels us not rashly to ingage our selves in Marriage but to consider well beforehand the dispositions of that person one designs for a Wife and rather to be affected with the perfections of her Soul then the charms of her Face It tells us that Beauty is but seldom innocent that Pride is inseperable to it that the Fair are always scornful and commonly despises the company of their Husbands to entertain themselves with that of their Adorers That the Rich are imperious that they love to command but will never obey that they must not be contradicted in their will without making them angry and that we must resolve to bear with their Insolence if we would be quiet in our house To make our Marriage happy she would have our conditions equal our humors of a pretty near resemblance our Love mutual and she does not aim so much to unite our Bodies as our Minds and Affections When Heaven smiles upon our Choice and we find all these qualifications in the Person of her we Court she obliges us to consider her as our Spouse and not as our Friend only to receive her into our counsel to make her share in our Secrets and to conceal nothing from her that may give her a suspicion of our mistrust T is to Sollicite her to abate her Kindness to doubt of her Discretion and to reveal all that is not committed to her Fidelity Love suffers no partage all that divides it is its bane and ruine and it changes its nature and languishes when it ceases to be communicable The way to ingage a Wi●e to silence is to think her faithful to assure her of the good opinion we have conceiv'd of her Vertue and to testify to her that we believe our Secrets as secure in her breast as in our own If there be some opportunities that dispence with this Obligation and suffers us not to declare our Secrets there are none that disengage us from our Promises the faith that knits the Marriage is sacred and not to be violated without committing a Sacriledg The Law that favors Men cannot absolve them from injustice when they difile the Nuptial Bed and leave their Wives company to throw themselves