Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	body_n	earth_n	element_n	7,308	5	10.1853	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A69557	A confutation of atheism from the origin and frame of the world. Part II a sermon preached at St. Martin's in the Fields, November the 7th, 1692 : being the seventh of the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle ... / by Richard Bentley ...	Bentley, Richard, 1662-1742.; Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1692 (1692)	Wing B1917; ESTC R15263	17,373	40

A Confutation of Atheism FROM THE Origin and Frame of the WORLD PART II. A SERMON Preached at St. Martin's in the Fields NOVEMBER the 7 th 1692. Being the Seventh of the Lecture Founded by the Honourable ROBERT BOYLE Esquire By RICHARD BENTLEY M. A. Chaplain to the Right Reverend Father in God EDWARD Lord Bishop of Worcester LONDON Printed for H. Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Paul's Church-yard 1693. Imprimatur Ra. Barker R mo in Christo Patriac D no D no Johanni Archiep. Cantuar à Sacris Domest LAMBHITH Novemb. 10. 1692. Acts XIV 15 c. That ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God who made Heaven and Earth and the Sea and all things that are therein Who in times past suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways Nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did Good and gave us Rain from Heaven and fruitfull Seasons filling our hearts with Food and Gladness WHen we first enter'd upon this Topic the demonstration of God's Existence from the Origin and Frame of the World we offer'd to prove four Propositions 1. That this present System of Heaven and Earth cannot possibly have subsisted from all Eternity 2. That Matter consider'd generally and abstractly from any particular Form and Concretion cannot possibly have been eternal Or if Matter could be so yet Motion cannot have coexisted with it eternally as an inherent property and essential attribute of Matter These two we have already established in the preceding Discourse we shall now shew in the third place 3. That though we should allow the Atheists that Matter and Motion may have been from everlasting yet if as they now suppose there were once no Sun nor Starrs nor Earth nor Planets but the Particles that now constitute them were diffused in the mundane Space in manner of a Chaos without any concretion and coalition those dispersed Particles could never of themselves by any kind of Natural motion whether call'd Fortuitous or Mechanical have conven'd into this present or any other like Frame of Heaven and Earth I. And first as to that ordinary Cant of illiterate and puny Atheists the fortuitous or casual concourse of Atoms that compendious and easy Dispatch of the most important and difficult affair the Formation of a World besides that in our next undertaking it will be refuted all along I shall now briefly dispatch it from what hath been formerly said concerning the true notions of Fortune and Chance Whereby it is evident that in the Atheistical Hypothesis of the World's production Fortuitous and Mechanical must be the self-same thing Because Fortune is no real entity nor physical essence but a mere relative signification denoting only this That such a thing said to fall out by Fortune was really effected by material and necessary Causes but the Person with regard to whom it is called Fortuitous was ignorant of those Causes or their tendencies and did not design nor foresee such an effect This is the only allowable and genuine notion of the word Fortune But thus to affirm that the World was made fortuitously is as much as to say That before the World was made there was some Intelligent Agent or Spectator who designing to do something else or expecting that something else would be done with the Materials of the World there were some occult and unknown motions and tendencies in Matter which mechanically formed the World beside his design or expectation Now the Atheists we may presume will be loth to assert a fortuitous Formation in this proper sense and meaning whereby they will make Understanding to be older than Heaven and Earth Or if they should so assert it yet unless they will affirm that the Intelligent Agent did dispose and direct the inanimate Matter which is what we would bring them to they must still leave their Atoms to their mechanical Affections not able to make one step toward the production of a World beyond the necessary Laws of Motion It is plain then that Fortune as to the matter before us is but a synonymous word with Nature and Necessity It remains that we examin the adequate meaning of Chance which properly signifies That all events called Casual among inanimate Bodies are mechanically and naturally produced according to the determinate figures and textures and motions of those Bodies with this negation only That those inanimate Bodies are not conscious of their own operations nor contrive and cast about how to bring such events to pass So that thus to say that the World was made casually by the concourse of Atoms is no more than to affirm that the Atoms composed the World mechanically and fatally only they were not sensible of it nor studied and consider'd about so noble an undertaking For if Atoms formed the World according to the essential properties of Bulk Figure and Motion they formed it mechanically and if they formed it mechanically without perception and design they formed it casually So that this negation of Consciousness being all that the notion of Chance can add to that of Mechanism We that do not dispute this matter with the Atheists nor believe that Atoms ever acted by Counsel and Thought may have leave to consider the several names of Fortune and Chance and Nature and Mechanism as one and the same Hypothesis Wherefore once for all to overthrow all possible Explications which Atheists have or may assign for the formation of the World we will undertake to evince this following Proposition II. That the Atoms or Particles which now constitute Heaven and Earth being once separate and diffused in the Mundane Space like the supposed Chaos could never without a God by their Mechanical affections have convened into this present Frame of Things or any other like it Which that we may perform with the greater clearness and conviction it will be necessary in a discourse about the Formation of the World to give you a brief account of some of the most principal and systematical Phaenomena that occurr in the World now that it is formed 1. The most considerable Phaenomenon belonging to Terrestrial Bodies is the general action of Gravitation whereby All known Bodies in the vicinity of the Earth do tend and press toward its Center not only such as are sensibly and evidently Heavy but even those that are comparatively the Lighted and even in their proper place and natural Elements as they usually speak as Air gravitates even in Air and Water in Water This hath been demonstrated and experimentally proved beyond contradiction by several ingenious Persons of the present Age but by none so perspicuously and copiously and accurately as by the Honourable Founder of this Lecture in his incomparable Treatises of the Air and Hydrostaticks 2. Now this is the constant Property of Gravitation That the weight of all Bodies around the Earth is ever proportional to the Quantity of their Matter As for instance a Pound weight examin'd Hydrostatically of all kinds of Bodies