Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	efficient_a	end_n	final_a	2,172	5	9.9792	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29868	Religio Medici	Browne, Thomas, Sir, 1605-1682.	1642 (1642)	Wing B5166; ESTC R4739	58,859	162

Trinity of our soules and that the Triple Unity of God for there is in us not three but a Trinity of soules because there is in us if not three distinct soules yet differing faculties that can and do subsist in different subjects and yet in us are so united as to make but one soule and substance if one soule were perfectly three di●stinct bodies that were a pretty Trinity conceive the distinct number of three no● divided nor separated by the intellect bu● actually comprehended in its Vnity and that is a perfect Trinity I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras and the secret Magicke of numbers Beware o● Philosophy is a precept not to be received in a narrow sense for in this masse of nature there is a set of things that carry in ●heir front though not in Capitall letters yet in stenography and short Characters somthing to Divinity which to wiser rea●ons serve as Luminaries in the abysse of knowledge and to judicious beliefe as ●scales and roundles to mount the pinnacles and highest pieces of Divinity The severe Schooles shall never laugh me out of the Philosophy of Hermes that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible wherein as a pourtract things are not true●y but in equivocall shapes and as they counterfeit some more reall substance in that invisible fabrick That other attribute wherewith I recreate my devotion is his wisedome in which I am happy and for the contemplation of this onely do not repent me that I was bred in the way of study The advantage I have of the vulgar with the content and happinesse I conceive therein is an ample recompence for al my endeavours in what part of knowledge soever I know he is wise in all wonderfull in what we conceive but farre more in what we comprehend not for we behold him but a squint upon reflex or shadow our understanding is diviner than M●ses his eye we are ignorant of the backparts or lower side of his Divinity therefore to pry into the maze of his Counsels is not only folly in Man but presumption in Angels like as they are his servants not servators he holds no Councell but that mysticall one of the Trinity wherein though there be three persons there is but one minde that decrees without contradiction nor needs he any his actions are not begot with deliberation his wisdome naturally flowers what best his intellect stands ready fraught with the superlative purest Idea's of goodnesse consultations election which are two motions in us are but one in him his actions springing from his power at the first touch of his will These are Contemplations Metaphysi●all my humble speculations have another Method and are content to trace and discover those expressions he hath left in his creatures the obvious effects of nature there is no danger to propound those mysteries no Sanctum Sanctorum in Philosophy The world was made to be inhabited by beasts but studyed and contemplated by man it is the debt of our reason we owe to God and the homage we pay for not being beasts without this the world is as though it had not been or as it was before at the first when there was not a creature that could conceive or say there was a world The wisdome of God receives no honor from the vulgar heads that rudely stare about and with a grosse rusticity admire his workes those onely magnifie him whose judicious enquiry into his acts and deliberate research into his creatures returne the duty of a learned and devout admiration There is but one first foure second causes of all things some are without efficient as God others without matter as Angels some without forme as the first matter but every Essence created or uncreated hath its finall cause and some positive end both of its essence and operation This is the cause I grope after in the workes of nature on this hangs the providence of God to raise so beautious a structure as the world and the creatures thereof was but his Art and their sundry divided operations with their predestinated ends are from the treasury of his wisdom In the causes nature and affection of the Eclipse of the Sun and Moon there is most excellent speculation but to propound farther and to contemplate a reason why his providence hath so disposed and ordered their motions in that vast circle as to conjoyn and obscure each other is a sweet piece of reason and a diviner point of Philosophy therefore there appeares to me as much divinity in Galen his Booke De usu partium as in Suarez Metaphysicks had Aristotle been as curious in the enquiry of this cause as he was of the other he had not left behind him an imperfect p●ece of Philosophy but an absolute tract of Divinity Natura nihil agit frustra is the onely and indisputable axiome in Philosophy there is no Grotesco in nature nor any thing framed to fill up empty cantons and unnecessary spaces in the most imperfect creatures such as were not preserved in the Arke but having their seeds and principles in the wombe of nature are every where where the power of the Sun is in those is the wisdome of his hand discovered Out of this ranke Solomon chose the object of his admiration indeed what wisdome may not goe to schoole to the wisdome of Bees Aunts and Spiders what wise hand teacheth them to doe what reason cannot teach us while ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature as Elephants Dromedaries and Camels these I confesse are the Colossus and Majesticke pieces of her hand but in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematickes and the civility of these little Citizens more neatly sets forth the wisdome of their Maker Who admires not Regio-Montanus his Fly beyond his Eagle or wonders not more at the operation of two soules in those little bodies than but one in the truncke of a Cedar I could never content my contemplation with those generall pieces of wonders the flux and reflux of the Sea the encrease of Nile the conversion of the Needle of the North and have studyed to match and parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of Nature which without further travell I can doe in the Cosmography of my selfe we carry with us the wonders we seeke without us There is all Africa and all her prodigies within us we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature which he that studies wisely learnes in a compendium what others labour at in a divided piece and endlesse volume Thus there are two bookes from whence I collect my Divinity besides that written one of God another of his servant Nature that universall and publique Manuscript that lies exposed to the eyes of all those that never saw him in the one have discovered him in the other This was the Scripture and Theology of the Heathens the naturall motion of the Sunne made them more admire him than