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	work_n	work_v	96	3	6.3578	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55308	Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either practically exemplified in Jesus Christ, set forth in the Gospel, or may be reasonably deduced from thence / by Edward Polhill ..., Esq.	Polhill, Edward, 1622-1694?	1678 (1678)	Wing P2757; ESTC R4756	269,279	440

working When Satan who labours to emulate Divine Works doth wonders the end of them declares their Original suitably to the Author they serve only to lead men into lies and Idolatries Antichrist comes with lying wonders 2 Thes 2.9 Lying wonders in themselves as being phantasms and mockeries of sense and lying wonders as tending to confirm men in false Doctrine and Worship but the Miracles of Christ being real ones were done to ratifie the super-natural Truths and pure Worship of God The Jews have a rule that we should believe him who doth Miracles unless he be the Author of Idolatrous Worship had they adhered to this rule they could not but have embraced our Saviour who with so many Miracles sealed up the true Doctrine and Worship of God 2. The Miracles of Christ were not a few but very numerous not in one or two places but diffused over the Creation thereby to proclaim that the Creator was come down to redeem the World There were Miracles upon the Water he turned it into Wine John 2.9 Shewing himself to be the Lord of Nature here doing that in an instant which he doth every year in the Vine Miracles in the Sea a fish brings him the tribute-money Matth. 17.27 to declare that all Creatures were Tributaries to him After an whole nights toil to no purpose the Net being let down at his word enclosed a great multitude of fishes Luk. 5.5 6. So that the awe of his Divine Power fell upon all the Spectators Miracles upon the Sea and Air together in a Tempest he rebuked the winds and the Sea and there was a great calm Matth. 8.26 as a proof that all the Elements were his servants Miracles upon the loaves in multiplying of them John 6.11 and upon the fig-tree in making it to wither away Matth. 21.19 as a clear demonstration that his blessing and curse were great things Miracles upon the bodies of men in healing all manner of sickness and disease Matth. 4.23 and upon their souls too in making them every whit whole John 7.23 in token that he was the great Physician of both Miracles in Heaven at his Birth a star conducted the Wise-men to him Matth. 2.2 at his passion the Sun was darkned Matth. 27.45 The star waited upon its Creator at his Birth the Sun sympathized with him in his Passion Miracles upon the Devils in casting them out by his Word Matth. 8.16 A sure sign that the Powers of Hell could not stand it out against him Very various are the Miracles of our Saviour recorded in Scripture But if all had been written the world could not have contained the books saith St. John Chap. 21. vers 25. The words are Hyperbolical yet they import that many of his Works were not committed to Writing Arnobius enumerates the miraculous Works of Christ and then cries out Adv. Gent. l. 1 Quid simile Dii omnes a quibus opem dicitis aegris periclitantibus latam When did the Pagan Cods do the like from whom you say that help is afforded to men in sickness or danger Never was there such plenty of Miracles as here 3. The Miracles of Christ were very great He did those works which no other man did Joh. 15.24 It was never so seen in Israel Matth. 9.33 I shall instance in two or three things First he raised up the dead The maid in her Fathers house the young man carried out upon the byer and Lazarus four days dead and stinking in the Grave What things are these How much above all the Powers in Nature In the sixth Council at Constantinople Crab. Tom. 2.386 Polychronius a Monothelite in Confirmation of his opinion offered to raise up a dead man but upon tryal he could do nothing at all which made the people cry out Novo Simoni Anathema Polychronio seductori populi Anathema The Emperor Basilius being in great grief for his deceased Son Spondan Annal 879. Theodorus Santabarenus presented his Son to him as alive but this was but a meer spectrum an illusion of sense After a few kisses and embraces the Emperor saw his Son no more Apollonius did call up the Ghost of Achilles that is to say a Devil De Verit. Relig. as the noble Mornay speaks Elisha raised the Shunamites Son to life but he was only a Minister and a Type of Christ the Power of God did the work but our Saviour raised the dead by his own Divine Power Another instance is his restoring sight to one born blind John 9. Touching which the blind man saith Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind vers 32. It was a work fit for the Messiah It is indeed storied that Vespasian the Emperor restored sight to the blind but it may be the person was not really blind at least not naturally Satan as Bellarmine well observes might possibly reside in his Eye and impede the use of that part that he might seem to cure when he did but cease to hurt But our Saviour by a Power above Nature and Art did cure one really and naturally blind and that with Clay a thing in it self more probable to put out Eyes than to cure them And so there was as the Rabbins speak Miraculum in miraculo one Miracle within another much as it was when the bitter waters were made sweet by salt 2 King 2.21 Another instance we have in his casting out Devils this was the Finger and Power of God It is said indeed that Apollonius did cast Devils out of Men But how Rayn de lib. Ap. Tom. 2. fol. 990 991. It was in the very Method and Discipline of Devils by such words and symbols as they themselves had prescribed so it was not an ejection but a going out by consent to honour the Sacraments of their own making But our Saviour did not cast them out in their own way but whether they would or not by his Almighty Power It is further to be noted that soon after the Death of our Saviour the Devils Oracles were struck Dumb. The Oracle told Augustus That the Hebrew Child bid him leave that house and be gone to Hell no more answers were to be expected from thence Whereupon Augustus erected an Altar in the Capitol with this inscription upon it Haec ara est primogeniti Dei the Altar of the first-begotten of God The Evangelical light made the Oracles cease the Priests of Delphos were brought to beggery Plutarch Morn de Ver. writing touching the ceasing of Oracles at last cometh to this point That the Spirits were mortal and by their Death the Oracles ceased Oh! what an one was our Saviour who made the Pagan Gods shrink and hide their heads What a Divine Light was he who chased away those false Lights These Works were for Greatness such as became God manifest in the flesh 4. The Miracles of Christ were excellently suited to the Evangelical design Miracles in their general Nature are

Christ The Jewish Rabbins distinguish of a twofold Work of God they call his ordinary Works of Nature opus Bereshith from the first words of Genesis and his miraculous works opus Merchebha from Ezekiels Chariot A miracle is a work lifted up above the Order and Power of Nature it is a specimen of Creation something is made out of nothing What second causes cannot reach that is done by the first no Man no Angel can do such a work These are but parts of Nature and therefore cannot in their Operations exceed Nature Quod est totaliter sub ordine constitutum non potest ultra istius naturae ordinem agere it is only Gods Prerogative to work Miracles He that set the order of Nature can work above it he can lift Nature off the hinges and set it on again and when he doth it he doth it as becomes his infinite Wisdom upon very great and weighty Reasons When he brought his People out of Egypt then his wonders appeared when he delivered his Law on Sinai his wonders appeared again In those great dispensations he shewed himself not in the ordinary dress of Nature but in Royal State and Majesty much more did he do so when his Son very God was manifested in the flesh Then the water was turned into Wine the Wind and the Seas did obeysance to their incarnate Creator the blind received their sight the lame did walk the Lepers were cleansed the deaf did hear the dead were raised the devils were cast out of Men. Here the right hand of the Lord was glorious in Power Nature did as it were leap and triumph in miraculous elevations above it self at the coming down of its Creator to redeem the world a mighty train of wonders attended on that greatest wonder of all God incarnate a life of Miracles ensued upon his miraculous Conception Now touching the Miracles of Christ there are three or four things to be taken notice of 1. The Miracles of Christ were true and that upon a double account The one is this They were true in the History of them they were really done we have them upon Record in the Sacred Volume of Scripture they were not done in a corner or before a few but openly and before multitudes there were thousands of eye-witnesses from whom the truth of them hath been handed down in all ages of the Church There is no colour at all to imagine that those first reporters did utter an untruth or go about to put a cheat upon the world their own integrity would not suffer it neither was the thing it self indeed practicable How should so many thousands for the most part unknown to and distant from each other ever agree and conspire together in the very same story Or if they could what should they propose to themselves or which way could they think that a Relation of things to have been done openly if false should ever pass in a contradicting World They knew very well that there were innumerable prying malicious Enemies round about them who would persecute them for that Relation though true and brand them as lyars for it if false Christianity was then a poor persecuted thing and it would have been strange folly and madness in them to have ventured their lives and estates meerly to broach a lye unto the world especially seeing it must have been such an one as would have been surely discovered to be such and severely punished upon the Authors In all reason therefore what the first Witnesses spake was true and what after-ages heard was but the Eccho of their report The Miracles wrought by our Saviour were so great that none of the Adversaries ever durst deny that they were done The Jews did not deny it P. Gal. de Arc. l. 8. c. 5. their ancient Rabbins take those words of the Prophet Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped the lame shall leap as the hart and the tongue of the dumb shall sing Isa 35.5 6. to be spoken of the Messiah Their own Josephus speaks of Jesus as one more than a man and a worker of great Miracles only the Jews out of their desperate malice against our Saviour defamed his Miracles as done by Magick and as Dr. Lightfoot tells us Harm fol. 30. it is said in Talm. Bab. that Ben Sarda which is a blasphemous name they give to Jesus of Nazareth did bring inchantments out of Egypt in incision in his flesh But there cannot be a vainer thought than to imagine that Satan should contribute wonders to confirm that Doctrine which he knew would utterly ruin his Kingdom When the Pharisees said that Christ did cast out Devils by Beelzebub He answered two things First that Satans Kingdom if divided could not stand Matth. 12.26 And then that they in saying so did maliciously oppose their light and run into the unpardonable sin vers 31 32. But when the Jews saw that this pretence would not serve their turn they betook themselves to a contrary shift and said That the Messiah when he came should do no Miracles at all The Pagans did not deny Christs Miracles In Pilates Letter to the Emperor Tiberius there is an enumeration made of his Miracles In the Epistle of Lentulus to Tiberius he is stiled Magd. Hist Cent. 1. l. 1. c. 10. Homo magnae virtutis The Pagans conscious to themselves that the thing was not to be denied Aug. de Consensu Evang. l. 1. c. 9. cryed up Aesculapius and Apollonins in opposition to Christ and withal framed an impudent lye that our Saviour had Magical Books according to which he did his Miracles Such devices as these were I suppose first started by Julian the Apostate and by him instilled into others The Mahometans fairer than the other confess Christs Miracles to have been done and that from God Morn de Ver. Christ Relig. c. 33. Their Alcoran saith That Gods Spirit was a help and witness to Jesus that the Soul of God was given to him Thus it appears on all hands that the matter of Fact touching our Saviours Miracles cannot be denied The other is this They were true for the nature of Miracles they were not as the Devils wonders are meer Spectrum's or Apparitions but real Miracles things which are above the order of Nature and lye within the line of Omnipotence only the matter mode and end signally declare them to be such Some Miracles of Christ such as raising the dead were such for the matter of them that no conatus of nature no concurrence or conjunction of created Powers could ever have effected them no not in Millions of Ages some of them such as Curing the sick Nature might have done but in a tract of time and with the help of second Causes But our Saviour dispatched them out of hand instantly immediately with a word or a touch To operate after this sort is only proper to God who is excellent in