Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	eternal_a	good_a	work_n	4,394	5	6.6946	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A80008	The hinge of faith and religion or, a proof of the deity against atheists and profane persons, by reason, and the testimony of Holy Scripture: the divinity of which is demonstrated, / by L. Cappel, Doctour and Professour in Divinity ; translated out of French by Philip Marinel, M.A. and fellow of Pembroke-College in Oxford.; Piuot de la foy et religion. English	Cappel, Louis, 1585-1658.; Marinel, Philip.	1660 (1660)	Wing C482; Thomason E1845_2; Thomason E2265_1; ESTC R209659	84,739	200

time place and likelihood that they could be made to believe forged Tales and could he take them to witness those things which they never saw nor knew Will it be said That he never made this Sermon That we only suppose it to be so That he hath not writ these Books Or That these Writings so replenished of Fabulous Stories have been hid for a long time and have not been published of a great while after he was dead when the Memory of those things which happened at the going out of Egypt and in the Desart was past and abolish'd in this people which was very glad and content to receive and believe these fine Tales as tending to the Honour of their Nation Or else will it be objected That some body after his death hath framed and published these Books under his Name First This is objected without the least Colour Appearance or Ground in Reason Secondly This is against the Testimony of the most ancient Monuments of History which father these Books upon none other then Moses and accuse no body of having compiled them for him Diodorus Siculus writeth that Moses gave the Jews their Laws and that he received them from the God called Jaoh which is the proper Name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thirdly The Authour of those Books doth not flatter that Nation but represent it to us as the most perverse and stiff-necked in the World Fourthly How could these pretended impostures have so universally in so many Ages taken so deep a rooting in the spirit of this Nation Fifthly The best part of their Laws and Political and Ecclesiastical Constitutions are grounded and have their Foundation upon these Narrations which these men do pretend to be fabulous These I say are wholy built upon them as the Pass-over the Feast of Tabernacles the Jubilee the year of Release c. Again The Tabernacle so splendid so ingeniously and artificially erected so divine and admirable by whose Model and Pattern Solomon that glorious and magnificent King hath afterwards builded his Temple that stupendious and wonderfull piece of workmanship to which the most sumptuous Buildings which the Vanity Power and Riches of the most potent Monarchs have erected is nothing comparable with all its Services and the Order of its Ceremonies which is so admirable where all the Mysteries of Christian Faith and Religion are seen pourtraied and as it were drawn to the Life as we know it by the Relation which the Sacred Writers of the New Testament do make and in their imitation the Fathers and Doctours of the Church could this be an Invention and Chimara of Moses's own fancying or of some body else after him Could he have divined so many Ages before all that our Lord Jesus Christ should do teach and suffer for the Salvation of men and accordingly erect this Tabernacle with all its Ceremonies and Appertenances which were so perfect and accomplished a Model of these things Now since there is no ground to doubt that Moses hath invented these things which he writeth of the Children of Israel's deliverance of their going out of Egypt or their going through the Red Sea of their Adventures through the Desart for the space of fourty years since he relates these things himself to a multitude of six hundred thousand men which could have given him the lye if he had forged these things Why should not he be believed in all those things which he recites to us in the Histories of Abraham Isaac Jacob and his Children of the Deluge of the Tower of Babel of Sodom and to go yet higher of the Creation of the World What is in all this more incredible then the History of the Children of Israel in Egypt and in the Desart The same may be said of all that which is recited to us in the Books of Joshua of the Judges and of the Kings for all this is not more incredible then this History of Egypt and of the Desart and it hath an indissoluble connexion with all the Narrations of Moses And why shall we esteem them past belief since they are represented to us as the Works and Effects of a God which is Eternal Infinite Almighty all-All-good All-wise Infinitely-exalted above Nature seeing it is he who hath given its being to Nature And that we have shewed by so many preceding Arguments that above this Nature there ought to be such a Deity the Cause and Rise of it Again It cannot be denyed but that Moses and the Prophets have promised and fore-told that the Messias should come and he came The Jews expected him they thinking that his time was come or near at hand For to this very day they are forced to confess that that time is past by above fifteen hundred years And when they are urged upon this Confession they have presently recourse to a pitifull and impertinent evasion to wit that this time hath been prolonged because of their sins and that the coming of the Messias hath been retarded upon this account although they are not able to shew what great sin they have committed that may have been the cause of this delay and of so signal a Desolation in their Nation And the Apostles and Christians do evidently prove that this promised Messias is come in the time prefixed by their Prophets and that this is Jesus Christ whom they have rejected upon no other account but that they falsly imagined to themselves that the Messias was to be a Great and Potent Monarch who was to free them from the slavery they suffered under the Romanes and give them Domination over all other People of the Earth An imagination quite contrary to the intention of the Spirit of God which the Prophets were inspired withall Neither can it be denyed but that Moses and the Prophets and Jesus Christ and his Apostles after them have fore-told the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple by the Romanes and that miserable Dispersion of the Jewish Nation wherein they have been for so many Ages their Rejection their Exclusion from the Covenants of God and the Vocation of the Gentiles in their stead and their being brought to the Service of the God of Abrabam Isaac and Jacob who is Creatour of Heaven and Earth with the utter abolishing of all the Heathenish Superftition All which hath came to pass since these sixteen hundred years as it was fore-told by them which is an invincible Argument that these Predictions were not made at adventure neither can they be any product of Humane Wit which cannot dive so far into Future Events nor foretell so certainly and constantly by so many different person those wonderfull Effects which so many Ages since have came to pass To these we might add the Miracles of Jesus Christ and of his Apostles which the Jews themselvs though they be their sworn enemies do not deny although they falsly and foolishly impute them to I know not what imaginary Virtue of the Name of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉

these Verses Parcus deorum cultor infrequens Jusanientis dum sapientiae Consultus erre CHAP. VIII The sixth Argument Drawn from the Immortality of the soule THose that do deny a Deity do also consequently deny that there is another life after this and that mans soule is immortall and will acknowledge neither Paradise nor Hell nor Angells nor Devills and these things indeed are so firmely conjoyned together that whosoever denyeth or affirmeth one of them ought also to affirm or deny the rest So that the Sadduces among the Jewes who denyed that there was either Angell Spirit or Resurrection were in effect right Epicures and Atheists like those of these times who for the feare of the Lawes and shame of the World not daring openly to say what they think make an outward Profession of the Religion which is Publiquely received in the Land or State of which they are members though they really believe nothing of it but laugh and gibe at it secretly and hold it to be a meere tale The Reason of this impiety and Prophanesse is that which we have noted in the beginning viz. That these persons are wholy sensuall and carnall bewitched with the pleasures and sweets of this World in which they constitute their supream good happinesse which is that that makes them to hold for Fables all that is said of another Life after this and the Happinesse and Misery which attends men there They hold also that the Soule dyeth and perisheth with the Body neither will they acknowledge that there are any Angells or Devills that so they may not be forced to confesse that the Soule is immortall and that there is an Eternall punishment of the wicked after this Life and by this means they do deny also the Deity and his Providence For they plainly perceive that if there is a God he is a just Judge and a Revenger of the sins and iniquities of men and that the God of Epicurus is in effect nothing but an Idoll and a vain imagination From the Deity they cannot expect or promise to themselves any favour since that they do not love and cherish Virtue but only desire to satisfie their evill Concupiscences in which they think the Summum bonum is contained which is that that makes them to deny the Deity the Immortality of the Soule and another Life where there is a Hell and a Paradise their Conscience telling them that they cannot have a part in the Paradise and that Hell if there is any is for them and their like On the other side if the Soule is immortall there is another Life and in it a place of pleasure or sorrow for man there are also Angels Copartners of this Joy and Devills the Executioners of these Supplices and above all a God who doth justly reward the one and punish the other For if the Soule is immortall being as it is naturally very active it cannot be alwaies without any sentiment and remain so forever for that would be little lesse then death it must needs then follow that it participates of some joy and content or that it is tormented and hath an infinite share of sorrow and that for the Reward of that good or evill vice or virtue to which it hath been addicted in this Life for we have shewed heretofore that Virtue is worthy of Commendation and Reward and Vice of shame and of sorrow Which not being sufficiently according to their merits rewarded in this Life it must needs be rewarded in the other otherwise both vice virtue should be deprived of their due which is against Nature and Right Reason And this is to grant a Paradise and a Hell And if the Soule is immortall there is no reason to deny that there are Angells and Devills since either of them are immateriall spirituall and incorporeall substances And indeed nothing makes these men to deny that there are Angells and Devills but that if they grant this they must also confesse that the soule is immortall and so that there is a Heaven and a Hell which is that which they so much feare and tremble at Now it may be proved both by testimony and by reason that the soule is immortall by the Testimony I say of all men that are or have ever been upon the face of the Earth for if the records of Antiquity be looked into and History both Ancient and Modern be read it will be found that there never was yet neither at this day is there any People or Nation whether civiliz'd or not which doth not acknowledge that the soule of man doth subsist and lives after the death of the body but of the strength of this proofe we will speak hereafter as for the arguments that prove the immortality of the Soule they cannot be a priori for there is none but God that is the cause of it whose existency we are now about to demonstrate These arguments then must be taken a posteriori and we must prove this immortality by the effects of the Soule and indeed they are such effects so great and admirable as cannot proceed from a mortall and materiall cause Now its effects and operations are either internall in the soule it selfe and those either in the Intellect as Knowledge or in the Will as the Virtues or externall as the Speech and the motions of the body and the parts of it whence doe proceed the wonderfull and stupendious works of liberall and mechanicall arts In all the things that are seen in this great World there are severall degrees of the excellency of things the one being above the other by which as by so many Ladders we ascend at last to the knowledge of immateriall and eternall things the lower degree of these is of insensible things that have neither Life nor Motion as Stones Metalls c. The second is of those that have some life by which they grow and are nourished c. The third is of those that besides this kind of life have a sensitive facultie and locall motion by which they are carried from one place to another as all the Animalls Amongst which there are severall degrees of perfection For there are some of them that have only the sense of feeling as Oysters some besides the sense of feeling have the sense of tasting also as Bees and many other Insects Others again have the senses of smelling and hearing as the Moles or Wants And finally these are the most perfect Animalls which have the five externall senses and among these there are some that excell in one sence some in another as the Eagles which have a very quick and sharp sight and the Vultures Wolves and Dogs have a very exqisite faculty of smelling These Senses do receive in them the Spcies and Ideas of the materiall qualities that are inherent in their Subjects from these senses they are afterwards conveyed to the Imagination or common sence which receiveth them and from which doth straightwaies proceed the knowledge of the things