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	reason_n	see_v	3,316	5	3.1434	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61522	The Bishop of Worcester's answer to Mr. Locke's letter, concerning some passages relating to his Essay of humane understanding, mention'd in the late Discourse in vindication of the Trinity with a postscript in answer to some reflections made on that treatise in a late Socinian pamphlet.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1697 (1697)	Wing S5557; ESTC R18564	64,712	157

you confess that you think that the argument from the Idea will not hold but however you will not give up the argument from Ideas Against which I urged your own argument That from the Consideration of what we find in our selves and in our Constitutions our Reason leads us to the Knowledge of this certain and evident Truth that there is an eternal most powerfull and most knowing Being All which I said I did readily yield but we see plainly the Certainty is not placed in the Idea but in good and sound Reason from the Consideration of our selves and our Constitutions To which you reply That you never thought the Consideration of our selves and our Constitutions excluded the Consideration of the Idea of Being or of Thinking two of the Ideas that make a part of the Complex Idea a Man hath of himself But is the Reason you speak of which leads us from thence to the Knowledge of an eternal most powerfull and most knowing Being con●ained in the Complex Idea of a Man or not A Complex Idea is made up of simple Ideas all simple Ideas come in by Sensation or Reflection and upon comparing these simple Ideas our Certainty you say is sounded What simple Ideas then are there in Man upon which you ground the Certainty of this Proposition That there is a God I grant you that there is a Certainty grounded upon our Beings and the Frame of our Natures but this I still say is a Certainty of Reason and not of Ideas You say You do not well understand what I mean by being not placed in the Idea for you see no such Opposition but that Ideas and sound Reason may stand together i. e. in Reason rightly managing those Ideas so as to produce Evidence by them But what need all this great noise about Ideas and Certainty true and real Certainty by Ideas if after all it comes only to this that our Ideas only represent to us such things from whence we bring arguments to prove the Truth of things But the World hath been strangely amuzed with Ideas of late and we have been told that strange things might be done by the help of Ideas and yet these Ideas at last come to be only common Notions of things which we must make use of in our Reasoning You say in that Chapter about the Existence of God you thought it most proper to express your self in the most usual and familiar way by common Words and Expressions I would you had done so quite through your Book for then you had never given that Occasion to the Enemies of our Faith to take up your new way of Ideas as an effectual Battery as they imagin'd against the Mysteries of the Christian Faith But you might have enjoy'd the satisfaction of your Ideas long enough before I had taken notice of them unless I had found them employ'd in doing Mischief But at last you tell me That whether I will call it placing the Certainty in the Idea or placing the Certainty in Reason or if I will say it is not the Idea that gives us the Argument but the Argument it is indifferent to you And if you mean no more by your Certainty from Ideas but a Certainty from Reason I am not such an unreasonable Man to disagree with you The next Argument for the Existence of God stands thus as I have summ'd it up We find in our selves Perception and Knowledge So that there is some Knowing Intelligent Being in the World And there must have been a Knowing Being from Eternity or an Unknowing for something must have been from Eternity but if an Unknowing then it is impossible there ever should have been any Knowledge it being as impossible for a thing without Knowledge to produce it as that a Triangle should make three Angles bigger than two right ones To which I added that allowing the Argument to be good yet it is not taken from the Idea but from Principles of true Reason as that no Man can doubt his own Perception that every thing we see must have a Cause that this Cause must either have Knowledge or not if it have the point is gain'd if it hath not nothing can produce nothing and consequently a not knowing Being cannot produce a Knowing In your Answer to this I must first take notice of your Exception to that Expression Allowing the Argument to be Good which you say seems to imply that I thought the Argument not to be Good which was very far from my meaning For I had said before That you brought very good Arguments to prove the Existence of a God in that Chapter and afterwards That I was far from weakning the force of your Arguments And so I hope that Exception is removed You except not you say against my Arguments or Principles of Reason but you think still this is an Argument taken from Ideas if you will think so I cannot help it But you endeavour to shew That the very Principles you allow are founded upon Ideas As that a man cannot doubt of his own Perception This you say is by perceiving the necessary Agreement of the two Ideas of Perception and Self-Consciousness But I rather think it is from that Self-Evidence which attends the immediate Perception of our own Acts which is so great that as S. Augustin observes the Academicks had nothing to say against that kind of Certainty but only against that which arose from things convey'd by our Senses to our Mind The next Principle that every thing must have a Cause must be understood of the Matter treated of i. e. the things we see and perceive in the World You say It is a true Principle that every thing that hath a Beginning must have a Cause because by contemplating our Ideas we find that the Idea of Beginning is connected with the Idea of some Operation and that with the Idea of something operating which we call a Cause and so the Beginning to be is perceived to agree with the Idea of a Cause as is expressed in the Proposition Is not here a great ado to make a thing plain by Ideas which was plainer without them For is not any Man who understands the meaning of plain Words satisfied that nothing can produce it self or That what is not cannot make it self to be And so the evidence doth not depend on the Agreement of the Ideas of Beginning and Operation and Cause but upon the Repugnancy of the contrary Supposition As in that Principle That it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time If you say that this depends upon the Disagreement of the Ideas of Not-Being and Being it will be to little purpose for me to say any more about it But there is one thing which deserves to be consider'd which is the Connexion between the Idea of an Eternal Actual Knowing Being with the Idea of Immateriality This was the thing I look'd for And