Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	angle_n	equal_a	side_n	2,221	5	9.5367	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27428	The folly and unreasonableness of atheism demonstrated from the advantage and pleasure of a religious life, the faculties of humane souls, the structure of animate bodies, & the origin and frame of the world : in eight sermons preached at the lecture founded by ... Robert BOyle, Esquire, in the first year MDCXCII / by Richard Bentley ...	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.	1699 (1699)	Wing B1931; ESTC R21357	132,610	286

and Blood should be upon this Earth under a settled constitution of Nature these supposed Inconveniences as they were foreseen and permitted by the Author of that Nature as necessary consequences of such a constitution so they cannot inferr the least imperfection in his Wisdom and Goodness And to murmure at them is as unreasonable as to complain that he hath made us Men and not Angels that he hath placed us upon this Planet and not upon some other in this or another System which may be thought better than Ours Let them also consider that this objected Deformity is in our Imaginations only and not really in Things themselves There is no Universal Reason I mean such as is not confined to Humane Fancy but will reach through the whole Intellectual Universe that a Figure by us called Regular which hath equal Sides and Angles is absolutely more beautifull than any irregular one All Pulchritude is relative and all Bodies are truly and physically beautifull under all possible Shapes and Proportions that are good in their Kind that are fit for their proper uses and ends of their Natures We ought not then to believe that the Banks of the Ocean are really deformed because they have not the form of a regular Bulwark nor that the Mountains are out of shape because they are not exact Pyramids or Cones nor that the Stars are unskilfully placed because they are not all situated at uniform distances These are not Natural Irregularities but with respect to our Fancies only nor are they incommodious to the true Uses of Life and the Designs of Man's Being on the Earth And let them further consider that these Ranges of barren Mountains by condensing the Vapors and producing Rains and Fountains and Rivers give the very Plains and Valleys themselves that Fertility they boast of that those Hills and Mountains supply Us and the Stock of Nature with a great variety of excellent Plants If there were no inequalities in the Surface of the Earth nor in the Seasons of the Year we should lose a considerable share of the Vegetable Kingdom for all Plants will not grow in an uniform Level and the same temper of Soil nor with the same degree of Heat Nay let them lastly consider that to those Hills and Mountains we are obliged for all our Metals and with them for all the conveniencies and comforts of Life To deprive us of Metals is to make us mere Savages to change our Corn or Rice for the old Arcadian Diet our Houses and Cities for Dens and Caves and our Cloathing for Skins of Beasts 't is to bereave us of all Arts and Sciences of History and Letters nay of Revealed Religion too that inestimable favour of Heaven for without the benefit of Letters the whole Gospel would be a mere Tradition and old Cabbala without certainty without authority Who would part with these Solid and Substantial Blessings for the little fantastical pleasantness of a smooth uniform Convexity and Rotundity of a Globe And yet the misfortune of it is that the pleasant View of their imaginary Globe as well as the deformed Spectacle of our true one is founded upon impossible Suppositions For that equal Convexity could never be seen and enjoyed by any man living The Inhabitants of such an Earth could have only the short prospect of a little Circular Plane about three Miles around them tho' neither Woods nor Hedges nor artificial Banks should intercept it which little too would appear to have an Acclivity on all sides from the Spectators so that every man would have the displeasure of fancying himself the lowest and that he always dwelt and moved in a Bottom Nay considering that in such a constitution of the Earth they could have no means nor instruments of Mathematical Knowledge there is great reason to believe that the period of the final Dissolution might overtake them ere they would have known or had any Suspicion that they walked upon a round Ball. Must we therefore to make this Convexity of the Earth discernible to the Eye suppose a man to be lifted up a great height in the Air that he may have a very spacious Horizon under one View But then again because of the distance the convexity and gibbousness would vanish away he would only see below him a great circular Flat as level to his thinking as the face of the Moon Are there then such ravishing Charms in a dull unvaried Flat to make a sufficient compensation for the chief things of the ancient Mountains and for the precious things of the lasting Hills Nay we appeal to the sentence of Mankind If a Land of Hills and Valleys has not more Pleasure too and Beauty than an uniform Flat which Flat if ever it may be said to be very delightfull is then only when 't is viewed from the top of a Hill What were the Tempe of Thessaly so celebrated in ancient story for their unparallelled pleasantness but a Vale divided with a River and terminated with Hills Are not all the descriptions of Poets embellish'd with such Ideas when they would represent any places of Superlative Delight any blissfull Seats of the Muses or the Nymphs any sacred habitations of Gods or Goddesses They will never admit that a wide Flat can be pleasant no not in the very Elysian Fields but those too must be diversified with depressed Valleys and swelling Ascents They cannot imagin even Paradise to be a place of Pleasure nor Heaven it self to be Heaven without them Let this therefore be another Argument of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness that the Surface of the Earth is not uniformly Convex as many think it would naturally have been if mechanically formed by a Chaos but distinguished with Mountains and Valleys and furrowed from Pole to Pole with the Deep Channel of the Sea and that because of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is better that it should be so Give me leave to make one short Inference from what has been said which shall finish this present Discourse and with it our Task for the Year We have clearly discovered many Final Causes and Characters of Wisdom and Contrivance in the Frame of the inanimate World as well as in the Organical Fabrick of the Bodies of Animals Now from hence ariseth a new and invincible Argument that the present Frame of the World hath not existed from all Eternity For such an usefulness of things or a fitness of means to Ends as neither proceeds from the necessity of their Beings nor can happen to them by Chance doth necessarily inferr that there was an Intelligent Being which was the Author and Contriver of that Usefulness We have formerly demonstrated that the Body of a Man which consists of an incomprehensible variety of Parts all admirably fitted for their peculiar Functions and the Conservation of the Whole could no more be formed fortuitously than the Aeneis of Virgil or any other long Poem with good Sense and just Measures could