Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	workman_n	workmanship_n	world_n	16	3	4.3751	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41383	A discourse of Christianity laying open the abuses thereof in the anti-Christian lives and worship of many of its professors, especially the Romanists : and shewing the way to a holy life in the character of a true Christian / written originally in French by the famous Monsieur de Gombaud ; and now done into English by P Lorrain.	Gombauld, Jean Ogier de, d. 1666.; Lorrain, P. (Paul), d. 1719.	1693 (1693)	Wing G1023; ESTC R14522	47,226	176

to oppose the Truth VIII But since they will acknowledge no Wit paramount to their own perhaps 't is by their Care and Power that the Earth is counterpois'd by its own Weight and surrounded with so vast an Ocean without being drown'd in it Belike 't is by their Industry and Providence that so solid an Element is pierced in so many places by such a vast number of Canals springing with Waters that quench the thirst of all Living Creatures and constitute Rivers so abounding with Fish so Fertile and Conducive to Commerce through the whole World 'T is by their Order no doubt that the Sun rises at the set time to enlighten them when they are satisfied with Sleep and that the Seasons return to fill their Senses with all variety of Pleasures Now if in this they can't but own their Weakness what folly is it in them not to grant that there are Intellects more powerful and sublime than theirs employ'd in these wonderful Operations and that we must at last come up to and stop at some one that is Superiour to all others which being finite have a Beginning and consequently depend upon That which has none and is Infinite For otherwise proceeding from the smallest to the greatest Men would endlesly pass from one Cause to another and never find the First and Last which alone deserves the Name of DEITY O shame of Men that now a-days we must be at the pains to prove a GOD What greater affront can be put upon our Kind than to shew them that which is continually present to all their Senses Is not this to go about to teach the Art of Seeing to them whose Eyes are open and that of Reason to such as profess themselves to be Men Or shall we need to add to these Considerations their continual Repetitions who have undertaken so high but withal so reasonable a Defence Indeed if God were not how could the World exist Or must it be its own Workman and Workmanship or have had a being before it was How could both these stand and yet be but one and the same World Or if it were Eternal and Independent upon any Superiour Cause that admirable Oeconomy which cannot proceed but from an infinite Intellect and those stupendous Virtues which it severally Communicates to all its Parts would insome sort prove what many have fancied it to be a God For what the least appearance is there that its Beauty Order and Duration should be the effect of blind and heedless Chance or that we owe to her Conduct Prudence and Power so steady and well regulated a Succession of Times and Motions and that such is her Wisdom and Might as to make Causes so remote one from another to co-operate one and the self-same end After all their pains this would be still a God though under another Name and these Monstrous Blasphemers would still find in every place what their guilty Souls desire to meet no where For what is Fortune or Chance but an empty Name a Vain Idol that subsists only in our imagination and to which we through Error attribute all Events and the Effects of all Causes unknown to us to whom it appears greater or lesser according as we have more or less knowledge and if we could banish Ignorance out of the World Fortune would be fain to pack with her This therefore is the Deity of the Ignorant to whom the Wise pay no Vows nor make Offerings and I am astonish'd how they can think they have any reason that speak for it since according to their Scheme they must believe that it is to Chance they owe their Being and consequently can neither move act nor speak but by Chance Others there are who would seem to believe a God but are so solicitous and concern'd for his repose as to take from him the Care if not of the whole World at least of all Sublunary Beings fancying this would be too much trouble for him as if he stood in need of their Impious folly to ease him Is not this to deny him whilst they pretend to acknowledge him and rashly confine the Actions of a Power that in its Nature is infinite Is not this to frame to ones self a God that does not so much as perform the part of a Man and to attribute to him an Understanding depriv'd of Council a Will without Effect and a Bounty without Communicativeness and to say all in one Word a Being without being and less than that of the Elements which is next to Non-Entity IX For not to insist any more upon that Universal Relation and Concatenation of Causes and Actions which plainly demonstrate that things Superiour stand in need of the help of those that are Inferiour and that it necessarily depends upon the same Wisdom and Power both to make them and preserve them Let these Gigantick Wits stand forth and tell me Who is it that chastises Kings and People in his wrath that removes Scepters from one Hand into another that changes as it were in an instant the Face of States and Empires and that to shew it is HE that does it fails not of denouncing it a long time before by the Mouth of his Messengers Prophets and Ministers Who was it that did once punish the Sins of Men with so dreadful a Deluge own'd by all Nations and by whose Advice was it that one single Family was then sav'd Who is it that promised the like Flood should never happen any more and has so well kept his Promise What Intellect did foresee three or four thousand Years before the Event the Coming of the MESSIAS of whom also Prophets did speak in such a manner as one would think they had no less seen him than the Apostles From whom but God himself or some Angel sent by him could proceed those Predictions concerning the Posterity of Abraham the Throne of David and the Lamp that was to be preserved for him in his Family the dispersed and rejected Jews and the Converted Nations If they tell me there are Mathematicians Astrologers and Magicians that can predict future Events I will still ask them what Hand did write them in Heaven in such fair Characters as Men might read them And who has put the signs of these things in the Stars or rather the Virtues and Causes which the same Men cannot comprehend They that are not touched with these Considerations must needs be strangely possess'd with a blind Passion that diverts their Reason to somewhat else and makes them pass from Custom to Hardness and from Ignorance to Security And yet we see these Men very Wise and Prudent in Worldly Concerns Their Ignorance and Stupidity seem only to be about Divine Matters And I am much mistaken if most of them do not carry their Accusers and Judge in their own Bosom who sooner or later will force them to cry out as well as many others We have wearied our selves in the ways of Iniquity and are consumed in our own Wickedness