Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	place_n	see_v	time_n	2,364	5	3.2293	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30486	A short consideration of Mr. Erasmus Warren's defence of his exceptions against the theory of the earth in a letter to a friend.	Burnet, Thomas, 1635?-1715.	1691 (1691)	Wing B5947; ESTC R36301	36,168	44

judgment as to rank this Arguer in any of the three orders if you have patience to read over his Pamphlet you will best see how and where to set him in his proper place We now proceed to those passages in the answer which probably have most exasperated the Author of the Exceptions and the Defence In his Exceptions he had said The Moon being present or in her present place in the Firmament at the time of the Chaos she would certainly trouble and discompose it as she does now the waters of the Sea and by that means hinder the formation of the Earth To this we answer'd that the Moon that was made the 4th day could not hinder the formation of the Earth which was made the 3d. day This was a plain intelligible answer and at the same time discover'd such a manifest blunder in the objection as could not but give an uneasie thought to him that made it However we must not deny but that he makes some attempt to shift it off in his Reply For he says the Earth formed the 3d. day was Moses's Earth which the Excepter contends for but the Earth he disputes against is the Theorist's which could not be formed the 3d. day He should have added and therefore would be hinder'd by the Moon otherwise this takes off nothing And now the question comes to a clear state for when the Excepter says the Moon would have hinder'd the formation of the Earth either he speaks upon Moses's hypothesis or upon the Theorist's hypothesis Not upon the Theorist's Hypothesis for the Theorist does not suppose the Moon present then And if he speaks upon Moses's Hypothesis the Moon that was made the 4th day must have hinder'd the formation of the Earth the 3d. day So that the objection is a blunder upon either Hypothesis Furthermore whereas he suggests that the Answerer makes use of Moses's hypothesis to confute his adversary but does not follow it himself 'T is so far true that the Theorist never said that Moses's six-days Creation was to be understood literally but however it is justly urg'd against those that understand it literally and they must not contradict that interpretation which they own and defend So much for the Moon and this first passage which I suppose was troublesome to our Author But he makes the same blunder in another place as to the Sun Both the Luminaries it seems stood in his way In the 10th Chapter of his Exceptions he gives us a new Hypothesis about the Origin of Mountains which in short is this that they were drawn or suckt out of the Earth by the influence and instrumentality of the Sun Whereas the Sun was not made according to Moses till the 4th day and the Earth was form'd the 3d. day 'T is an unhappy thing to split twice upon the same rock and upon a rock so visible He that can but reckon to four can tell whether the 3d. day or 4th day came sooner To cure this Hypothesis about the Origin of Mountains he takes great pains in his Defence and attempts to do it chiefly by help of a distinction dividing Mountains into Maritime and Inland Now 't is true says he These maritime Mountains and such as were made with the hollow of the Sea must rise when that was sunk or deprest namely the 3d. day Yet Inland ones he says might be raised some earlier and some later and by the influence of the Sun This is a weak and vain attempt to defend his notion for besides that this distinction of Maritime and Inland Mountains as arising from different causes and at different times is without any ground either in Scripture or reason if their different origin was admitted the Sun 's extracting these Inland Mountains out of the Earth would still be absurd and incongruous upon other accounts Scripture I say makes no such distinction of Mountains made at different times and from different causes This is plain seeing Moses does not mention Mountains at all in his six-days Creation nor any where else till the Deluge What authority have we then to make this distinction or to suppose that all the great Mountains of the Earth were not made together Besides what length of time would you require for the production of these Inland Mountains were they not all made within the six-days Creation hear what Moses says at the end of the 6th day Thus the Heavens and the Earth were finished and all the host of them And on the 7th day God ended his work which he had made Now if the Excepter say that the Mountains were all made within these six-days we will not stand with him for a day or two for that would make little difference as to the action of the Sun But if he will not confine their production to Moses's six days how does he keep to the Mosaical Hypothesis or how shall we know where he will stop in his own way for if they were not made within the six days for any thing he knows they might not be made till the Deluge seeing Scripture no where mentions Mountains before the Flood And as Scripture makes no distinction of Maritime and Inland Mountains so neither hath this distinction any foundation in Nature or Reason For there is no apparent or discernible difference betwixt Maritime and Inland Mountains nor any reason why they should be thought to proceed from different causes or to be rais'd at different times The Maritime Mountains are as rocky as ruderous and as irregular and various in their shape and posture as the Inland Mountains They have no distinctive characters nor any different properties internal or external in their matter form or composition that can give us any ground to believe that they came from a different Original So that this distinction is meerly precarious neither founded in Scripture nor reason but made for the nonce to serve a turn Besides what bounds will you give to these Maritime Mountains are they distinguisht from Inland Mountains barely by their distance from the Sea or by some other Character If barely by distance tell us then how far from the Sea do the Maritime Mountains reach and where do the Inland begin and how shall we know the Terminalis Lapis Especially in a continued chain of Mountains that reach from the Sea many hundreds of miles Inland as the Alpes from the Ocean to Pontus Euxinus and Taurus as he says fifteen hundred miles in length from the Chinese Ocean to the Sea of Pamphylia In such an uninterrupted Ridge of Mountains where do the Land-Mountains end and the Sea-mountains begin Or what mark is there whereby we may know that they are not all of the same race or do not all spring from the same original Such obvious enquiries as these shew sufficiently that the distinction is meerly arbitrary and fictitious But suppose this distinction was admitted and the Maritime Mountains made the 3d. day but Inland Mountains I know not

its superficial region when it came first out of a Chaos If there was there was also in the Chaos out of which that Earth was immediately made And if there was no oleagineous matter in the new-made Earth how came the soil to be so fertile so fat so unctuous I say not only fertile but particularly fat and unctuous for he uses these very words frequently in the description of that soil And all fat and unctuous liquors are oleagineous and accordingly we have us'd those words promiscuously in the description of that Region Eng. Theor. Chap. 5. understanding only such unctuous liquors as are lighter than water and swim above it and consequently would stop and entangle the terrestrial particles in their fall or descent And seeing such unctuous and oleagineous particles were in the new-made Earth they must certainly have been in the matter out of which it was immediately form'd namely in the Chaos All the rest of this Chapter we are willing to leave in its full force apprehending the Theory or the Answer to be in no danger from such argumentations or reflections The 4th Chap. is very short and hath nothing argumentative The 5th Chap. is concerning the cold in the circumpolar parts which was spoken to in the Answer sufficiently and we stand to that What is added about extraordinary providence will be treated of in its proper place The 6th Chap. is also short against this particular that it is not safe to argue upon suppositions actually false And I think there needs no more to prove it than what was said in the Answer Chap. 7. is chiefly about texts of Scripture concerning which I see no occasion of saying any more than what is said in the Review of the Theory He says p. 49. that the Theorist catches himself in a trap by allowing that Ps. 33. 7. is to be understood of the ordinary posture of the waters and yet applying it to their extraordinary posture under the vault of the Earth But that was not an extraordinary posture according to the Theorist but their natural posture in the first Earth Yet I allow the expression might have been better thus in a level or spherical convexity as the Earth He interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 53. which we render the Garden of the Lord not to be Paradise but any pleasant Garden yet gives us no authority either of ancient Commentator or Version for this novel and paradoxical interpretation The Septuagint render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Vulgate Paradisus Domini and all ancient Versions that I have seen render it to the same sence Does he expect then that his single word and authority should countervail all the ancient Translators and Interpreters To the last place alledged by the Theorist Prov. 8. 28. he says the Answerer charges him unjustly that he understands by that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no more than the rotundity or spherical figure of the Abyss Which he says is a point of nonsence I did not think the charge had been so high however seeing some Interpreters understand it so But if he understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the banks or shores of the Sea then he should have told us how those banks or shores are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 super faciem Abyssi as it is in the Text. Pag. 59. He says the Excepter does not misrepresent the Theorist when he makes him to affirm the construction of the First Earth to have been meerly mechanical and he cites to this purpose two places which only prove that the Theorist made use of no other causes nor see any defect in them but never affirm'd that these were the only causes You may see his words to this purpose expresly Engl. Theor. p. 65. whereof the Excepter was minded in the Answer p. 3. In the last Paragraph of this Chapter if he affirms any thing he will have the Pillars of the Earth to be understood literally Where then pray do these Pillars stand that bear up the Earth or if they bear up the Earth what bears them up what are their Pedestals or their foundations But he says Hypotheses must not regulate Scripture though in natural things but be regulated by it and by the letter of it I would gladly know then how his Hypothesis of the motion of the Earth is regulated by Scripture and by the letter of it And he unhappily gives an instance just contrary to himself namely of the Anthropomorphites for they regulate natural reason and philosophy by the letter or literal sence of Scripture and therein fall into a gross errour Yet we must not call the Author injudicious for fear of giving offence The 8th Chap. begins with the Earths being carried directly under the Equinoctial before its change of situation without any manner of obliquity in her site or declination towards either of the Tropicks in HER COVRSE Here you see when the Earth chang'd its situation it chang'd according to his Astronomy two things its site and its course its site upon its axis and its course in the heavens And so he says again in the next paragraph put the case the Earth shift her posture and also her CIRCVIT about the Sun in which she persisted till the Deluge Here is plainly the same notion repeated that the Earth chang'd not only its site but also its road or course about the Sun And in consequence of this he supposes its course formerly to have been under the Equinoctial and now under the Ecliptick it being translated out of the one into the other at its change Yet he seems now to be sensible of the absurdity of this doctrine and therefore will not own it to have been his sence and as an argument that he meant otherwise he alledges that he declar'd before that by the Earths ritght situation to the Sun is meant that the axis of the Earth was always kept in a parallelism to that of the Ecliptick But what 's this to the purpose This speaks only of the site of the Earth whereas his errour was in supposing its course or annual orbit about the Sun as well as its site upon its own axis to have been different and chang'd at the Deluge as his words already produc'd against him plainly testifie What follows in this Chapter is concerning the perpetual Equinox And as to the reasoning part of what he says in defence of his Exceptions we do not grudge him the benefit of it let it do him what service it can And as to the Historical part he will not allow a witness to be a good witness as to matter of fact if he did not assign true causes of that matter of fact To which I only reply tho' Tiverton Steeple was not the cause of Goodwin sands as the Kentish men thought yet their testimony was so far good That there were such Sands and such a Steeple He also commits an errour as to the nature of Tradition When a