Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	ghost_n	holy_a	sin_n	3,325	5	4.9847	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89672	A conference with a theist. Part II. Shewing the defects of natural religion; the necessity of divine inspiration; the rationale of the mosaical laws, and defence of his miracles : together with an account of the deluge, the origin of sacrifices, and the reasonableness of Christ's mediatorship. / By William Nicholls ...	Nicholls, William, 1664-1712.	1699 (1699)	Wing N1094A; ESTC R181001	142,863	328

How does the old Levitical Law plainly appear to be but the Sciography or rough draught of the Gospel and the Characters and Lines of one exactly visible in the other For my part I think it impossible for so many though judicious and wise Men without assistance from God to carry any one design with that exactness that the Penmen of the Holy Scripture have but I am sure it is the greatest of Absurdities to assert that such a noble and uniform Design should be carried on through so many Ages by a parcel of wild Enthusiasts So that let the Writers of the Bible be what you please to style them either Inspired Men or Impostors I shall not dispute that now they must needs be Men well in their Wits and what is more Men of good sense Prophets had the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost 2. It is very evident from Scripture That Prophecy proceeded from another Cause viz. the Influence of God's Holy Spirit The innumerable Instances in Scripture of the Prophets and Apostles being in the Spirit of the Spirit 's coming upon them of their speaking things by command and of the Lord of their being caught up into heaven c. are undeniable Proofs of the cause of their Revelation viz. the Holy Ghost or the Spirit of God Indeed it is not easy to give a Philosophical and Notional account of this supernatural Influence or by what means it was conveyed or by what criterion or marks they could distinguish it from a Delusion because we who are not honoured with these supernatural Gifts and therefore can have no Idea of these things as having never been the Objects of our Understandings but it is not to be doubted but these Holy Men had as absolute certainty of the Truth of them as we have of things that do immediately strike our senses and did as perfectly know them to be the word of God as that those things are which we see to be and that they could as little question their Inspiration as we do our Senses For as the Senses are only the ordinary way of God's conveying Ideas to us and these are so clear to us by their familiarity and repeated Trials of their faithfulness that we cannot but rely upon them and cannot but give assent to them so the Inspiration of God to the Prophets by their clear Evidence continually and by their wonted Experience of it left no more doubt in them of the Truth of it than the Appearance of the Sun does leave in us that it is Day or that what we see is really seen by us and is not the Delusion of a Dream To say we ordinary Persons can have no notion of this Extraordinary Influx of God and therefore it cannot be is only to expose our own Ignorance and a Blind Man might with as much Modesty pretend to demonstrate against the Existence of Colours or a Clown laugh at Mathematical Theorems as we pretend to dispute against the certainty of this supernatural Influence which God Almighty has been pleased to give us no notices of Might not God Almighty as well have given us Ten Senses as Five And if he has been pleased to make an extraordinary Impression upon some Mens Minds which his does not on all must we therefore assert this as impossible because we who do not experience it do not perceive it Must all Men be blind because we are so Or must every Man be Mad and Enthusiastical that hath better Eyes than we I am sure this is a very mad way of Arguing and yet there is no more reason for Men to question the Truth of the Revelation of the Prophets than blind Men have to question our sight Nay the miraculous power which did usually attend Prophecy was more undeniable Evidence to the Beholders of their Divine Influence than the joint assertion of the generality of Mankind can be that there is such a Thing as Sight or Colours to a Blind Man Because Sensation is a greater degree of Evidence than Testimony and because a Man will sooner believe his senses than a Thousand Witnesses A Blind Man cannot believe there are Colours but only by being told so but when I see a Prophet doing Miracles I am sure he is influenced by God because I see he does works above the power of Nature 3. You are very much mistaken Prophecy not inconsistent with Wisdom when you assert that prophecy is inconsistent with Wisdom and that Men of good sense such as Solomon Kalcol Heman c. were no Prophets but only poor Shepherds Women and other Persons of mean parts were endowed with that Gift One would wonder how Men could lay down an Assertion which is so easy to be confuted as this is Pray what must be thought of Moses to whom there arose not since in Israel a Prophet like unto Does his noble Genius his invincible Courage his sagacious Prudence his vast Depth in Philosophy argue him a Man of mean parts Methinks the Heathen Longinus his Character of him that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 No mean Man should be enough to free him at least from his share in this Calumny What do you think of Nathan Israel and Daniel who were bred up Courtiers and made a great figure in the Ages when they lived and the Writings of two of them shew them to be Men of fine parts But I think you have a little outshot your self in the instance of Solomon in denying him to be a Prophet For it is recorded in Scripture that God revealed himself twice unto Solomon First at his Entrance upon his Kingdom when he asked Wisdom of God 2 Chron. 1.8 Secondly upon his finishing the Temple 2 Chron. 7.12 Nay what do you think of David who was a Prophet as well as a King And as for your Instances of Kalkol and Heman those great Masters of Musick as if they were Men of too good sense to be Prophets if you please to turn to 1 Chron. 25.5 you shall there find that one of them viz. Heman is there expresly called the King 's Se●● or Prophet Prophecies no● variable according to the Prophets Passions 4. You lay down also another very false Supposition that the Prophecies vari●d always according to the different Passions and Dispositions of the Prophets and therefore would hence conclude that their Prophecy was only Imagination But this is very false and very Illogical First it is false For Moses who is Characterized to be the meekest of all Men did Prophecy as dreadful judgments against the Israelites as any of the Prophets Vid. Lev. 26.14 Isaiah his Prophecy is in the several places very different sometimes he Prophesies joyful at other times very dismal things And even Jeremiah the most mournful Prophet of all does foretel the Jews joyful deliverance from their Captivity as well as the Captivity it self And Daniel at that very time when he was mourning and fasting in Sackcloth and Ashes had revealed to him by the Angel

the Comet is a watry Atmosphere much grosser than the Tail so as to afford nine times as much Water to the Earth passing through that as through the Tail for the Ring is by some curious observers thought to be only the curling and winding round of the smoke rising at first to a determinate height from all parts of the Comet and then making off to the part opposite to the Sun as you may see Fig. III. Neither do I fancy that the Earth passing even through the Atmosphere of a Comet could gain any more Water by that than any thing can do by passing through the smoke of a Chimney for both of them are but smoke only the former is the thinner as being the Fume arising from the Terreous part of the Comet by its Parelion almost vitrified and calcined the aqueous parts being first evaporated and sent off farther in the extremity of the Tail And besides I cannot conceive how the Earth should not almost have been fired and Noah and his Ark burnt to powder by the glowing heat of the melted Planet for according to my little Philosophy I should imagine it as comfortable living in a red hot Oven for an hour or two as in such a sultry Atmosphere as this And it is hard to think that this Comet should give no more disturbance in this part of the Universe but only to turn the Earths Annual Orbit from a Circle to an Ellipsis for according to Mr. Newton's Principles if the Comet had been bigger than the Earth it had carried it away to rights in its Parabola through the vast extra-Saturnine spaces and if it had been less it had been stopt by the Earth and so we had been troubled with its smoaky Tail about us ever since Or if it had been of the same bigness with the Earth and if it had well nigh the same celerity with the Earth we should have had the same troublesom Companion nevertheless or however it is ten thousand to one but it would have run away with our Moon if it had happened to have come nigher to That than the Earth does Nor does it ly easy upon my mind how such a prodigious quantity of Water that he supposes to have come from the Comet could be disposed of it is impossible it could be one quarter of it suspended in the Air or lodged in the Channels of the Seas for the Channels could bear no proportion to it Nor can I think the Seas were so much as inlarged by the Deluge but that they both before and since have been growing less and less by the prodigious quantities of Water employ'd in the production of Trees and Plants which are reduced afterward into Mold and always retain the species of Earth or ly buried in the Ground and never return to the Sea again To say nothing of how much more is employed in the concretion of Stones and conchous substances how much is licked up by the Aether out of the Atmosphere as the Earth is swiming through it how much more flies over in vapours to the Poles notwithstanding the Barricado of the Hills is frozen there and never returns again unless some few Particles it may be of them at some seasons of the Year in Winds and to pass over the observations of the Channels of great Rivers near the Sea which seem formerly to have been far broader than they are now and the many great Countries which the Sea has deserted And besides lastly in my mind it is impossible that the swelling of the Abyss should alter the figure of the Earths Crust from a Circle or Oval to a Sphaeroide that the Water had force enough to do it or that this effect could happen without shattering the whole Compages being of a brittle saxeous substance into pieces These are my reasons why I cannot acquiesce in the Hypothesis of that ingenious and learned Gentleman as exactly True Yet I think it a curious Essay to shew the Infidels not only the possibility of the Mosaick History but how finely it may be made to correspond with Philosophy and after all that 't is easier to find faults with this Theory than to compose another so good Phil. Well! Now you see how these great Wits are miserably at a loss to explain this unaccountable History and therefore it is in vain to try any further to explain that which will admit of no solution So that you had better ingenuously give up the Cause and own that it is an impossible Relation calculated only for the Illiterateness of those times to make the Jews stand in fear of the Deity when they were told that such a Tragical Punishment was inflicted by him upon Mankind for their Sins Cred. If God was the cause of the Deluge as our Religion supposes and not Natural and Mechanical Causes of their own proper Tendency then God might bring it to pass a thousand ways that we know nothing of for his Omnipotence will be able to bear up against all the pretended Impossibilities that you are able to raise against the History of the Deluge Tradition in all Nations of a Deluge 1. But if this History of the Deluge be such an impossible unaccountable History how come all the Nations of the World to have such an impossible Notion got into their Heads Though several Men might have the same unaccountable fancies yet it is hard to think that all Men should be troubled with the same Dreams And it seems to me to have more impossibility that all Nations should have Traditions of a Deluge if there had been no such thing as a Deluge than any you can shew me in the Deluge it self The Babylonians Phoenicians Assyrians in their Histories make mention of a Deluge as you may see in Eusebius and Josephus Deucalion's Flood was so famous in all the Greek and Latin Mythologists and Poets that nothing more need be said of it Martinius in his History of China relates the same of the Chinese and so does Josephus Acosta Herera and De Laet of the Americans And Lucian * De Deâ Syriâ relates the ancient Tradition they had of the Deluge at Hierapolis in Syria which is almost as exact as the Mosaick relation of it The account though it be something long is not unpleasant and deserves consideration This Race of Men which now is was not the first but that Race was quite destroyed But these are of a second Generation and from their first Progenitor Deucalion have increased to so great a Multitude as we see Now of those former Men they tell this story They being contentious did very unrighteous things they neither kept their Oaths nor were hospitable to strangers for which this great misfortune befel them All of a sudden the Earth gave out of her self a great quantity of Water there were mighty showers the Rivers overflowed the Sea was much higher by which all things became Water and all Men perished Only Deucalion was left unto the second