Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	wonder_n	wonder_v	wrought_v	26	3	7.3093	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92898	The Christian man: or, The reparation of nature by grace. VVritten in French by John Francis Senault; and now Englished.; Homme chrestien. English	Senault, Jean-François, 1601-1672.	1650 (1650)	Wing S2499; Thomason E776_8; ESTC R203535	457,785	419

first Communion and having received the Body of the Son of God became so resplendant with light that the Jews had taken them for Jesus Christ in the Garden of Olives had not the traitor Judas prevented their mistake by the perfidious kiss he gave his Master If this sacred Nutriment always produce not this Miracle at least we must acknowledge it gives us an Earnest of the Resurrection and a right to Immortality In which respect I finde it as powerful and as happie as the fruit of the Tree of Life One of the wonders of this Tree was in the judgement of all the Fathers to secure Man from dissolution and so firmly to unite the soul with the body that the number of yeers could not separate them Death respected not onely Original righteousness but the fruit of the Tree of Life and though it might grow from the mixture of the Elements which composed the body of Man it durst not set upon him as long as original righteousness maintained their good correspondence or this convenient remedy hindered their division Thus Man was not Immortal so much by his own constitution as by a borrowed assistance that the obligation he had to make use of it might instruct him that he owed all these advantages to the liberality of his Creator Now it is certain that the Eucharist works all these Miracles daily in the Church for it imprints an occult vertue in our bodies which is as a Pledge of the Resurrection it sheds abroad in our members the seeds of an eternal life and by a holy contagion which corruption it self cannot deprive us of communicates a certain right to Immortality For we have the word of the Son of God for a caution of this immutable verity and after the solemn promises he hath made in the Gospel we may without wronging his Greatness affirm that his Justice obligeth him to give the Christians a Resurrection and that he cannot deny a habitation in heaven to those bodies that have served him for temples upon the earth If he prevent not Death but suffer this faithful minister of his Vengeance to exercise so many cruelties upon our body 't is to deliver us from him with greater pomp and power if he give him leave to reduce us to dust 't is to make us rise out of the Grave as the Phoenix from her funeral-pile 't is finally that having had a part in his Shame we may share in his Glory and that it may be said of all the Elect what S. Augustine said heretofore of Lazarus that the Son of God forbore to cure him that he might raise him and was unwilling to lift him from his Bed that he might call him out of his Grave and seal his love by the greatness of his Miracle The Third DISCOURSE That the Body of Jesus Christ is the same to the Christian that Manna was to the Jews THe Types and Figures of the Old Testament are in respect of our Mysteries what Enigma's are in respect of Truth They conceal and discover them to our eyes their shadows have some glimmerings of light and these transparent clouds occasion the bright breaking forth of those Stars they rob us of They instruct the Learned and the least measure of understanding they have of the Gospel makes them easily conceive what the jews were not able to comprehend When this people saw the Manna descend in the wilderness they never minded the secrets to come and without diving into the designes of God believed that his Divine Providence was pleased to give them that miraculous bread in a place where Humane Prudence could not possibly procure any But there is not the meanest Christian instructed in the School of Jesus Christ but understands that it was a Figure of the Eucharist and that God intending to prepare our mindes for his Master-piece by this essay wrought this Miracle for no other end but to perswade us of those he would one day exhibit upon our Altars Indeed there is so much resemblance between the Manna and the holy Sacrament that if it be an Enigma 't is also a Glass wherein may be observed all the wonders that render it commendable That miraculous meat took its original from heaven it was formed according to the opinion of S. Augustine In illa superiori parte terrae ubi grando nix gignitur nascebatur manna in cibum inferioris terrae partis hominibus per angelos administrabatur Aug. where storms and rain are hatched The credulous multitude did not imagine it onely the work of Angels but dull gross as they were were perswaded that those blessed spirits fed upon it and that God to deal with them as he did with those Intelligences had given them the food of Angels Angelorum esca nutrivisti populum tuum That which the Jews conceited of Manna we have reason to believe of the Eucharist because the meat we eat being the work of the Priests may well be called the work of Angels For all Scripture teacheth us that the Ministers that wait at the Altars of the living God are Angels that more happie then those pure spirits they produce the body of their Master by their words and give a new life to him who is the Eternal Word of his Father This Bread came down from heaven by better right then Manna because Jesus Christ took his beginning from his Father who dwells in heaven and though conceived in Nazareth and born in Bethlehem was notwithstanding as truely denominated the dew of heaven as the fruit of the earth Manna took its name from the astonishment of the Jews Dixerunt ad invicem Manhu quod significat quid est hoc Ignorabant ● enim quid esset Exod. 16. the people enquiring into the cause of this prodigie named it in wondering at it and taught us that so great a Miracle could not be sufficiently expressed but by wonder and silent admiration The holy Scripture hath left it this glorious name that entering in the minde of this people we may admire the wonders God wrought to nourish them in the desarts But certainly we may truely say without offending the Israelites that their wonder arose from their ignorance that they had not been so ravished with this prodigie had they but known that the same Vapours which compound the Clouds might form Manna and that it was as easie for the Providence of God to nourish them with this meat as to nourish all the people of the earth with Rain and Dew They had certainly reserved their wonderment for the Eucharist had they had the knowledge of our mysteries For indeed it is the strangest and most glorious it seems the Son of God hath drained his power in producing it and recollecting all the miracles of his life would sum them up in this stupendious Sacrament He makes use of the mouth of a man to exhibit a God he will have a transient and perishable word produce the Eternal and Divine Word he will

to make them fructifie by good works whoever neglects this care cannot preserve his grace any long time and he that resists not Temptation which remains after sin is in great danger to be speedily deprived of the Innocence of Baptism To all these internal evils which seize us may be added those external ones which surround us for if Regeneration reform not the disorders of our soul nor of our body it never asswageth the persecution of the Elements Though we be justified by Baptism we are not instated in our primitive advantages The Curse issued out against the Creatures is not taken away by Grace and as we experience revolts in our person we resent them also in our state The Earth hath not recovered her former fruitfulness it brings forth thorns to this day to punish us it nourisheth monsters that make war against us it rends asunder in gaping chasms to swallow us up and levels mountains to overwhelm us Every Element mindes us of our misery they make no difference between an Infidel and a Christian Though the Angels respect their character Creatures despise it or know it not The Sea drowns Our Vessels as well as those of the Turks To be reconciled with God makes us not friends with the Windes a man must be a Saint that commands the Waves And if together with our Charity we have not also the gift of Miracles we know not how to calm the Sea nor to appease Tempests The Fire spares not all Innocents it hath burnt Martyrs who had no less faith then the Three Children that walk'd untouch'd in the midst of the fiery furnace it sometimes blends it self with Thunder and being blinde strikes the Just as often as the Guilty The Church canonizeth some Saints which that element hath reduced to Powder and because she knows that the sentence of our death speaks of dust and ashes she wonders not if Thunder have the same operation upon some Saints which Time is designed to have upon All men Finally all the Elements teach us that we are Miserable though we be not Criminal Baptism that delivers us from Sin frees us not from Punishment God will have the World persecute us that we may hate it he hath ordained the place of our banishment to be troublesome lest it should make us forget our Country This is the Advantage we draw from our Evil the Comfort we retain in our Miseries and 't is enough to make us stoop with all humility to the Justice of God inasmuch as we know that our Punishment may as well be serviceable to our own Salvation as to his Glory The Second TREATISE Of the Spirit of a Christian The first DISCOURSE That every Body hath its Spirit and what that of the Churches is IN Nature every thing hath its own Spirit and if we believe Chymists there is no element though never so simple out of which the Essent though never so simple out of which the Essence may not be extracted They make daily Experiments hereof with the Fire and dividing what Nature had united they separate the Form from the Matter The World according to the relation of some Philosophers hath a Soul that inanimates it which is shed abroad thorow all its parts and which according to their divers dispositions produceth divers effects 'T is this Divine Spirit that gives it motion that waters it with fruitfulness whereby it hatcheth all those wonders whose causes men are ignorant of As Artificial things are the images of Natural neither do men make any thing whereof they take not the Copie from Nature as from a perfect Original there is not any Sect that hath not its particular humour and difference The Peripateticks take all their light from Argumentation and Experience Alii alia de anima disceptant prout aut Platonis honor aut Zenonis vigor aut Aristotolis tenor aut Empedoclis furor aut Epicuri stupor aut Heracliti maeror persuascrunt Tert. de Ani. Authority hath no credit in their School they desert their Master when he agrees not with Truth and laughing at the blinde obedience of the Pythagoreans they believe nothing but what they discover by Sense or by Discourse The Platonicks march upon the higher ground but less certain less solid Animus cernit animus audit reliquae surda caeca sunt impedimentum est corpus non socium ad cognoscendam veritatem Tert. de Plato for they withdraw from the Senses as from the enemies of truth they look upon them as upon faithless ministers or pleasing impostors which beholding nought but the shadows of things present us with nothing but Errors and falshoods Their Spirit savours more of Intelligence then of Science as if individuals were unworthy of their observation they consider nothing but generals and leaving men and beasts Iste Academicue quiae omnia esse contendit incerta indignus est qui habeat ulld in his rebus authoritatem August de Cice. they contemplate only Angels and Ideas The Academicks are parted between these two they allow something to Reason and Intelligence they are more noble then the Peripateticks but not so credulous as the Platonicks they make the senses servants to Reason but having a minde to see a part of what they believe they make a Sect whose principall difference is doubt and uncertainty The Stoicks are as capacious as they are proud Magna promittitis quae optari quidem nedum credi possint deinde sublato alte supercilio in eadem quae caeteri desceuditis mutatis rerum nominibus Seneca ordinary proceedings please them not nothing seems generous that is not extravagant all common Opinions stumble them they judge so ill of the people that they take all their votes for Errours Their Pride which is the very soul of their Sect formes Ideas of vertue which not one of them can reach unto and they propound a Sage so exactly perfect to their Disciples that they put them past all hope of imitating him at the very same time they stirre up a desire in them to become their Proselytes The Epicures search after nothing but pleasure because they conceive it inseparable from vertue Their Sect which is soft onely in expressions is austere really and in deed Mea quidem sententia est Epicurum sancta recta praecipere si propius accesseris tristia voluptas enim illa ad parvum exile revocatur quam nos virtuti legem dicimus eam ille dicit voluptati Jubet illam parere naturae parum est autem luxuriae quod naturae satis est Senec de vita beat cap. 13. they reduce the desires of men to things meerly necessary they part with superfluities joyfully and placing their felicity in their Conscience they count themselves happy in the midst of Torments These Philosophers speak not of pleasure but to make their Disciples in love with vertue and if there have been found some who have deserted vertues side to embrace that of pleasure it