Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	reason_n	4,119	5	4.6993	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61603	A sermon preached before the King, March 13, 1666/7 by Edward Stillingfleet ...	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1667 (1667)	Wing S5641; ESTC R14240	17,312	42

the unavoidable frailty of humane nature or the impossibility of keeping the Laws of Heaven But that none of these will serve to excuse them from the just imputation of folly is our present business to discover 1. The fatall necessity of all humane actions Those who upon any other terms are unwilling enough to own either God or Providence yet if they can but make these serve their turn to justifie their sins by their quarrell against them then ceaseth as being much more willing that God should bear the blame of their sins than themselvs But yet the very fears of a Deity suggest so many dreadfull thoughts of his Majesty Iustice and Power that they are very well contented to have him wholly left out and then to suppose Man to be a meer Engine that is necessarily moved by such a train and series of causes that there is no action how bad soever that is done by him which it was any more possible for him not to have done than for the fire not to burn when it pleases If this be true farewell all the differences of good and evil in mens actions farewell all expectations of future rewards and punishments Religion becomes but a meer name and righteousness but an art to live by But it is with this as it is with the other arguments they use against Religion there is something within which checks and controlls them in what they say and that inward remorse of conscience which such men sometimes feel in their evil actions when conscience is forced to recoil by the foulness of them doth effectually confute their own hypothesis and makes them not believe those actions to be necessary for which they suffer so much in themselves because they knew they did them freely Or is it as fatall for man to believe himself free when he is not so as it is for him to act when his choice is determined but what series of causes is there that doth so necessarily impose upon the common sense of all mankind It seems very strange that man should have so little sense of his own interest to be still necessitated to the worst of actions and yet torment himself with the thoughts that he did them freely Or is it only the freedome of action and not of choice that men have an experience of within themselves But surely however men may subtilly dispute of the difference between these two no man would ever believe himself to be free in what he does unless he first thought himself to be so in what he determines And if we suppose man to have as great a freedom of choice in all his evil actions which is the liberty we are now speaking of as any persons assert or contend for we cannot suppose that he should have a greater experience of it than now he hath So that either it is impossible for man to know when his choice is free or if it may be known the constant experience of all evil men in the world will testifie that it is so now Is it possible for the most intemperate person to believe when the most pleasing temptations to lust or gluttony are presented to him that no considerations whatever could restrain his appetite or keep him from the satisfaction of his brutish inclinations Will not the sudden though groundless apprehension of poyson in the Cup make the Drunkards heart to ake and hand to tremble and to let fall the supposed fatall mixture in the midst of all his jollity and excess How often have persons who have designed the greatest mischief to the lives and fortunes of others when all opportunities have fallen out beyond their expectation for accomplishing their ends through some sudden thoughts which have surprized them almost in the very act been diverted from their intended purposes Did ever any yet imagine that the charms of beauty and allurements of lust were so irresistible that if men knew before hand they should surely dye in the embraces of an adulterous bed they could not yet withstand the temptations to it If then some considerations which are quite of another nature from all the objects which are presented to him may quite hinder the force and efficacy of them upon the mind of man as we see in Ioseph's resisting the importunate Caresses of his Mistris what reason can there be to imagine that man is a meer machine moved only as outward objects determine him And if the considerations of present fear and danger may divert men from the practice of evil actions shall not the far more weighty considerations of eternity have at least an equall if not a far greater power and efficacy upon mens minds to keep them from everlasting misery Is an immortall soul and the eternal happiness of it so mean a thing in our esteem and value that we will not deny our selves those sensuall pleasures for the sake of that which we would renounce for some present danger Are the flames of another world such painted fires that they deserve only to be laughed at and not seriously considered by us Fond man art thou only free to ruine and destroy thy self a strange fatality indeed when nothing but what is mean and triviall shall determine thy choice when matters of the highest moment are therefore less regarded because they are such Hast thou no other plea for thy self but that thy sins were fatal thou hast no reason then to believe but that thy misery shall be so too But if thou ownest a God and Providence assure thy self that justice and righteousness are not meer Titles of his Honour but the reall properties of his nature And he who hath appointed the rewards and punishments of the great day will then call the sinner to account not only for all his other sins but for offering to lay the imputation of them upon himself For if the greatest abhorrency of mens evil wayes the rigour of his Laws the severity of his judgements the exactness of his justice the greatest care used to reclaim men from their sins and the highest assurance that he is not the cause of their ruine may be any vindication of the holiness of God now and his justice in the life to come we have the greatest reason to lay the blame of all our evil actions upon our selves as to attribute the glory of all our good unto himself alone 2. The frailty of humane nature those who find themselves to be free enough to do their souls mischief and yet continue still in the doing of it find nothing more ready to plead for themselves than the unhappiness of mans composition and the degenerate state of the world If God had designed they are ready to say that man should lead a life free from sin why did he confine the soul of man to a body so apt to taint and pollute it But who art thou O man that thus findest fault with thy Maker Was not his kindness the greater in not only giving thee a soul capable