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
A41384	The fundamentals of the Protestant religion asserted by reason as well as Scriptvre written in French by the famous Monsieur de Gombaud ; made English by Sidnet Lodge ; to which is added his Letters to Monsieur de Militiere and other personages of the French-court upon the same subject.	Gombauld, Jean Ogier de, d. 1666.; Lodge, Sidney, b. 1648 or 9.	1682 (1682)	Wing G1024; ESTC R14808	82,659	180

finding the first or last which alone merits the name of Divinity To what are we come that we must even now with Industry endeavour to prove the Truth of the being of a God! Is not this indeed to affront men as reasonable as our selves to shew 'em what each particular Sence does constantly prove to ' em Is not this to teach those to see who have their Eyes open and tell others they have the use of Reason who profess themselves men Shall we add to these Considerations the frequently repealed Arguments of those who have undertaken so high but just and reasonable a Defence In effect if there was no God How could the World be Could it be the Workmanship and the Workman of it self Could it be before it was How can these agree and yet but the same World If it be eternal and is independent on any first Cause that Order which we observe and must be an effect of admirable Wisdom with all those Powers which are differently communicated to each part would in a manner prove what some have fancied That it is God himself For it is not in the least probable that it's Beauty it 's Order and Duration can be the effects of blind and confus'd Chance Can we imagine that from thence could proceed such long and regular Successions of Time and Motion Can we attribute to that so much Care and Wisdom as to be able to make so different Causes tend to the same Effect This certainly under another Name would be God himself and his Blasphemers would meet in every place what their guilty Souls are afraid of finding any where otherwise What is this Fortune but a vain and insignificant Title an imaginary Idol that exists but in our Fancies to which we erroniously attribute such Effects of whose Causes we are ignorant She appears to us less or greater according to our Proportion of Knowledge and if we could but free the World from Ignorance the Notion of Fortune would be laid aside 'T is then the Deity of the ignorant which no wise man adores and I cannot but wonder how those who plead for her can believe themselves reasonable since according to the Opinion they have of all things they must confess they were made by Chance and consequently that they move act and speak so There are amongst these some who pretend to believe a God but at the same time make him careless and idle slothful and wholly unconcern'd in the Affairs of the Universe at least in all sublunary things imagining perhaps says one that this would be too great Trouble to him As if their Impieties could give him any Comfort or Satisfaction Is not this to deny whilst they own him and boldly to confine the Actions of an infinite Power Is not this to make to themselves a God who cannot barely act as a Man to allow him Understanding without Counsel a Will without Freedom Goodness without Communication in a Word a Being without a Being and less than that of the Elements which comes nearest to no Being at all But not to insist farther on the universal chain of Causes with their Effects which plainly demonstrate that things of the sublimest nature are assisted by those of the lowest and that these necessarily depend on the same Wisdom and Power by which they are made and conserv'd Who is he that in his Anger chastises both Kings and People that removes the Scepter from one and gives it to another that overturns Empires and in an instant changes the Face of Estates and to shew that this is done by his Power has long since foretold it by the Mouth of his Messengers and Prophets Who was it that punish'd the Sins of men by a miraculous Flood acknowledged by all the World and by whose Advice was one only Family saved from it Who was it that promis'd such a Deluge should never return and who has so faithfully kept his Promise What Spirit foresaw the coming of the Messias three or four thousand years of whom the Prophets have so particularly spoke as if they as well as the Apostles had seen him From whom but God himself or some Angel sent from him were those Predictions of the Posterity of Abraham of the Throne of David and of that Lamp which should be kept in his Family of the dispersing and rejecting of the Jews and the Conversion of the Gentiles If it be told me that there are Mathematicians Astrologers and Wise men who foretell things to come I must ask by what hand they are writ in the Heavens in such Characters that men can read 'em and who has plac'd the Signs in the Stars or rather their Vertues and Causes which the same men cannot comprehend It must needs be that those who are not touch'd with these Considerations are blinded with Passion that prevents their Reason who from Custom become obstinate and from Ignorance stupid We find that there are many very wise and knowing in all worldly things nay are ignorant and insensible of nothing but Divine ones But if I am not deceived most bear in their Breast both their Accuser and Judge and will earlier or later be forc'd to say as others have done We are so weary of the ways of Iniquity that we can endure 'em no longer CHAP. III. THUS whatever presents it self to our sight do's speak of a God and prove that he is but what he is neither all those Objects nor all our Reason can discover to us Yet so much as we know of him is sufficient to make us believe and worship what we don 't perfectly know Let it be then that the continu'd course of Causes and Effects is not infinite that all things either reach or tend visibly to their End that from the Ancientest of Books in respect of which all others are but new and imperfect we know the Origine and Rise of all Nations That the Powers of the Heavens are become weak that the Age and Strength of Men are impaired in comparison of that account we receive of 'em in Sacred and Profane History it does evidently appear that God created the World and for an additional Perfection to his greatest Work made Man after his own Image that is wholly conformable to his Will not in Essence but Imitation and as Perfect and as Happy as the Noblest Creature could be He was plac'd in an honourable Station between Beasts and Angels was the Bond of the Universe the End of all created things over which he had eternally commanded had he been only but obedient to his Creator But not content with those abundant Favours he had received rashly aspires to a degree above his Sovereign endeavours to rise higher than the Top it self and aiming at something in nothing was near returning to that first Nothing from whence he came How strangely bold What high Presumption is it to covet being equal with God! What base Incredulity to accuse him of falshood or Envy What horrid Ingratitude and Rebellion to

may urge to these Doctors to be eaten by the most abject Creatures of the Earth But let us pass by in silence these many Inconveniences which they themselves infer from this so ill-grounded Doctrine and to palliate 'em are oblig'd to have Recourse to Rules and Canons which were they not Superstitious we would call Ridiculous Let us only add that if the Body of Jesus Christ be inclos'd in the Sacrament we may eat it without believing in him Thus Infidels obtain more than they require They eat of Celestial Food they have not asked for nay their very Contempt of it does not hinder 'em from it since they cannot receive the Sacrament without eating it but they are so far from eating it that Believers themselves do it not as 't is understood by the Church of Rome They receive not with the Sacrament the Divine Essence but the Virtue and Essicacy of the Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ and since the Wicked cannot partake of his Graces it follows that those Graces are not joyn'd to it by Consecration 'T is not the Words pronounc'd but believed that make Jesus Christ communicated in the Sacrament 'T would be strange if he must be unworthily eaten by his very Enemies and that he who is Holiness it self should every day enter into their defiled bodies only to render 'em more guilty and that he might have more Reason to condemn and punish ' em On the contrary 't is the Devil that would enter into 'em as he did Judas when our Lord gave him the Sop. How is it possible these two Guests so irreconcileable can agree together It is not credible that being fill'd with the most sovereign Good we should only have a sense of Evil from it we receive our Saviour that we may be saved the Wicked take only the consecrated Signs and because such they commit Sacriledge and render themselves guilty of Treason against the Divine Majesty because they have no regard to the Institution of Our Lord contemn his Offers in it and deny it's Vertue They publickly take his Enemies part they again spit in his Face they crown him with Thorns they strike and crucifie him 'T is thus they eat of this Bread and drink of this Cup unworthily 't is thus they eat their own Condemnation not discerning the Body of Jesus Christ For the Symboles Seals and Pledges of his Love are accounted himself by those who believe in him it being Faith alone which makes the Signs inseparable from the thing signified 'T is heavenly Food given to no one for his Condemnation but only for his Justification for Life and not for Death not being under the Accidents of Bread or in the Bread it self but in the Heart of those who receive it Thus the Bread ceases not to be Bread but to be common Bread it loses not it's Substance but acquires Sanctification which changes not it's Nature but adds Grace to Nature for the sake of those that believe The Mystery of the Incarnation unites us to the Body of our Saviour Faith with which he inspires us by his Word unites us to his Spirit which double Union is confirm'd to us by the Communion of Sacraments But as our Union with Jesus Christ cannot be perfect in this World by reason of our Sins and Death which is a Consequence of 'em so though we take the Symboles he gives us corporally yet 't is neither possible or necessary for us to take what they signifie but spiritually For if we take his Body as the Church of Rome imagines it does our Infirmities could not bear his Glory the stronger would overcome the weaker we shou'd doubtless perish or his Vertue would even then blot out all our sins we should in an instant be transform'd and become incorruptible and glorious we should be assured never to see Death But we partake not of one of all these but by the comfort the Spirit gives us but by Faith by which we rely on his Promises and but by that Hope we have of a Life to come Thus to eat the Body of Jesus Christ is to hear his Word is to believe in him to behold him on the Cross loaded with our Sins to be truly sensible of his Wounds and Sorrows and to confess that by the Satisfaction of the Son whose Merit is infinite we satisfie the Father whom we have infinitely offended 'T is to be inflam'd with the love of him who has so very much loved us and to assure him as we do all those we love that he is alwayes in our Thoughts that he fully possesses our Hearts that he is the Soul of our Souls and to use his own terms that He dwells in us and we in him In fine To eat the Body of Jesus Christ is to have a fresh and lively sense of those Favours he has bestow'd on us and to think that we are not only his Servants and Friends but his Brethren his own blood bone of his bones flesh of his flesh and that we are part of that Church whom he has honour'd so far as to make his Eternal Spouse Behold what is the Meat and the Drink which are not given to all sorts of Persons which satisfie and quench the Thirst of those only who hunger and thirst after Righteousness But the Men of this World have not truly relish'd the Simplicity of this Institution they would heighten the Lustre of this double Sacrament and do all things according to the Example or rather in Emulation of the Superstitions of the World The Name of Religion of a Church and even of God himself who serv'd 'em but as a pretence to make themselves more honourable to procure with more Ease earthly Advantages and Preferments Besides this I have often thought what lawful and necessary use they could make of this Transubstantiation 't is what they themselves could scarce tell if so be they would consider the common cause of Salvation as well that of the Jews as of the Gentiles These prodigious Errors are the true Causes of all that Mischief which happens in the World and Mankind will be so long infested with Judgments as Superstition continues to corrupt Religion But the Divine Oracles give us Reason to hope that the days of Sorrow will be shorten'd and that God will confound the Wicked by the Breath of his Mouth The Time will come that Children shall abhor and detest the Belief of their Fathers and will say Is it possible that our Predecessors have been so silly and stupid or so extreamly harden'd by Custom or so very careless in search of the Truth to have believ'd things altogether incredible What Spirit of Pride what high Presumption has possess'd these Councils who have imagin'd they could appoint better Orders for Divine Service than the Providence of God himself had done by the Mouth of his own Son I will then conclude with the Wise Man or at least with his Translator who makes him speak after this manner Ecclesiastes chap. 3.