Selected quad for the lemma: soul_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
soul_n	body_n	consist_v	whole_a	3,665	5	5.7620	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29780	Miracles, work's above and contrary to nature, or, An answer to a late translation out of Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus, Mr. Hobbs's Leviathan, &c. published to undermine the truth and authority of miracles, Scripture, and religion, in a treatise entituled, Miracles no violation of the laws of nature.	Browne, Thomas, 1654?-1741.	1683 (1683)	Wing B5062; ESTC R1298	42,132	76

rewards or punishes them here in this life Yet the demonstration of Gods Providence is not the proper and primary end of supernatural Effects but 4. A Miracle is properly intended to prove 1. Immediately the immediate power and presence of God Acting himself in an extraordinary manner in the working of it 2. By Vertue of this evident Demonstration of Gods immediate extraordinary presence the Divine Authority and Mission of that person whom God has been pleased to make his Instrument in the effecting of it at whose word or request the Order of Nature is suspended which we cannot suppose God would permit either for no end at all or for one so repugnant to his Sanctity and Goodness as to assist an Imposture Thus much therefore we may know by miracles not what God is in his Nature nor his Existence any better than we may know it by any Effect of Nature but his Providence his extraordinary presence and power and the Authority of that person whose Divine Mission it attests We are next to enquire whether his Arguments are more sufficient to disprove the authority of Miracles in this regard His arguments for the Truth of his second Proposition are from Reason and Scripture From Reason he attempts to prove it three wayes 1. Because the belief of the possibility of a Miracle does vertually introduce meer Scepticisme and consequently is so far from proving the Essence Existence or Providence of God that it takes away the certainty both of the existence of a Deity and every thing else 2. Because a Miracle is a work that transcends our Capacity to understand it and therefore what we understand not it self cannot lead us to the understanding of any thing else 3. Because a Miracle is a thing finite and therefore cannot be a fit Medium to prove the being of an Agent of infinite Power 1. The belief of the possibility of a Miracle virtually introduces meer Scepticisme and so takes away the certainty both of the being of God and every thing else This Argument strikes as much at the belief of Miracles themselves as of any thing else upon their Credit and Authority for there can be no Reason to believe any thing which to believe obliges me to doubt of every thing else as impossible to be certainly known The ground whereupon he asserts that the belief of Miracles leads us to Scepticisme is because it takes away the certain Truth of those Notions from whence we conclude the being of a God or any thing else that we know and that this it does in as much as it supposes a Power in God able to alter the Truth of these Notions for this too he must be able to do if able to change the course of Nature By these Notions may be understood two things 1. The Principles of Truth where upon we build all our knowledge 2. Our own Idea's and apprehensions of things The former are either the common Principles of Natural Light viz. Axioms evident upon the first apprehension of the Terms as That a thing cannot be and not be at the same time the whole is greater than any part c. Or 2. the definitions of things and propositions ascribing to them their Nature and Properties as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rationale Triangulum habet tres angulos aequales duobus rectis c. Or 3. Propositions containing the mutual respects of things as that Cruelty and Injustice are repugnant to the Nature of God Theft and Murder to the Nature of a sociable Creature c. Now these principles of Truth are all necessary and immutable and the Truth of them does not depend upon the being or order of Nature a possibility therefore of change in the order of Nature does not imply that by the same Power the truth of these Notions may be altered They are first necessary and immutable because it implies a contradiction for them to be false v. c. for the whole to be no greater than any part Man not to be a rational creature God to be cruel or unjust c. 2. They are true independently upon the being or order of Nature If God should destroy the whole frame of Nature yet it were true notwithstanding that the whole Body were bigger than any part If he should reduce Mankind into nothing it were still true notwithstanding That the nature of Man consists in the Vnion of a rational Soul and a Body endued with life and sense God may turn one thing into another and make the same Matter appear under a Form above or contrary to what it should have by the course of Nature but he cannot make it be and not be be of this Nature and of another at the same time He can suspend the Actions of his Creatures but yet cannot make them Act and not Act both together In short however God by his Power may alter or suspend the Order of Generations in Nature yet this Principle will hold true that in an order of successive generations of Men there must be some first Man and this first Man must have a Cause that is not Man and this Cause must either be it self or lead us at last to an infinite Supream Being So that the existence of a God may be deduced from certain and necessary Principles though the Order of Nature be capable of being changed by his Almighty Power The altering therefore of the course of Nature makes no alteration in the principles of Knowledg But does it not infer a Power in God to change our Notions and Apprehensions of them and of every thing else A Physical Power indeed it does as it proves him Omnipotent but this will not drive us to Scepticisme while we are certain that it is as much repugnant to his Veracity and Goodness as compatible to his Power barely considered For it is impossible that a Being infinitely Good and Holy should impose upon his Creatures and implant such Notions in their Minds as would necessarily induce them to believe a Lye or so alter their apprehensions of things as to make it impossible for them to make a true Judgment by the use of their own reason The belief of Miracles therefore does not lead us unto Scepticisme and so does not take away the certainty of the Being of a God but yet perhaps it may not be a fit Medium to prove either his Existence or his Proovidence or to declare bis Nature to us And this upon two Accounts 1. Because a Miracle is a Work that transcends our capacity to understand it and therefore what we understand not it self cannot lead us to the understanding of any thing else 2. Because a Miracle is a thing finite and therefore cannot be a fit Medium to prove the being of an Agent of infinite Power To the First a Miracle is a Work that transcends our capacity to understand it i. e. it is beyond the compass of our Knowledge to deduce it from natural Causes and good reason because

same universal Purpose and Decrees of God might settle the order of the Suns motion and thereupon it be necessary and true ab aeterno that the Sun shall move in this Order and yet withal ordain that at such times notwithstanding the Sun should stand still or go back and thereupon it be as necessary and true ab aeterno that at those points of time the Sun should go back or stand still The Laws therefore of Natural Agents may in this sense be the Decrees of God and involve eternal necessity and truth and yet it may be possible for some certain effects to fall out contrary to them viz. without that compass within which they are limited to take effect and no farther But if Spinoza will have it That whatever God wills to come to pass in such a time must therefore be always or that whatever Order God settles for such a determinate compass must because he wills and settles it hold eternally I deny that in this sense every Law and Decree of God involves eternal Necessity and Truth It is eternally necessary and true That whatever God Decrees to be shall be if he decree any thing to be and endure to perpetuity it is eternally true and necessary that it shall be perpetually if he decree it to such a compass it is ab aeterno necessary and true that it shall hold so long and his Decree or the truth and necessity of the Effect consequent thereupon is not violated if it hold no longer So much therefore may be said in Answer to his first Argument to prove that Nothing can happen contrary to Nature c. The Sum is That he mistakes the meaning of the Terms of the Question That he makes Nature the same with God and so besides his taking the word in a sense of his own he in effect rejects the Existence of a Deity in Order to overthrow the belief of Miracles Lastly That in the sense wherein I have considered his Argument it may be true and yet his Conclusion not follow from it His Second Argument is Because the Power of Nature is the power of God and therefore as infinite as himself E. Nothing can fall out without its compass or contrary to it His ground whereupon he proceeds in this Argument is to be sure the very same conception of the Divine Nature viz. That Nature is nothing but an infinite variety of Modifications of the Divine Essence and the power of it consequently nothing but the infinite fecundity of the Divine Essence determining it necessarily to exert it self in all the infinite variety of the modes of its being I shall therefore onely give this Argument so much consideration as it may require setting aside his Principles The power of Nature is the force that natural causes have to act each in their several manners and the vertue and efficacy of the whole arising from the joynt concurrence of the several parts in their distinct Operations This to speak properly is all resolved into a Vismotrix impressed upon matter enabled to act by Gods Power and determined to do it by his Will This therefore certainly must be different from the power of its Author in as much as the powers must be different if the Subjects differ to which they belong But granting that the power of Nature is virtually and origionally though not formally the Divine Power exerting it self in Nature as its Instrument Yet it no more follows thereupon that the power of Nature must be infinite then it follows that because the motion of the Sun is the motion of Nature therefore it is of as great extent as the motion of the whole frame of Nature besides Or because the Power that moves the hand is the power of the Soul that therefore the whole Sphere of the Souls Power in the Body is no larger than the hand The Argument is from a particular to an universal Gods power though simple and indivisible is yet unlimited It may act far beyond that compass wherein it does and therefore infinitly beyond the limits of Nature It exerts it self both in a natural and supernatural way and both kinds of effects proceed from one and the same indivisible omnipotence which is no more multiplied by the variety of effects that flow from it than the power of the Soul as it moves the hands and the feet the eye and the tongue These are all the Arguments he brings for the proof of his first Proposition The rest is the Conclusion he draws from the whole viz. What a Miracle is That it being proved that all Supernatural Effects are impossible a Miracle can be only an effect inexplicable by our own observation or the Principle of Nature known to us Having therefore proved that supernatural Effects are not impossible and answered his Arguments for the contrary I may take leave to draw a Conclusion contradictory to his That a Miracle is not only what he says but an Effect beside above or contrary to the Order of Nature The second thing he undertakes is To prove that by Miracles we cannot know the Essence Existence or Providence of God but that all these may be better known by the fixt and immutable Order of Nature His Design in this seems to be to destroy the Authority and Credit of Miracles by shewing that they are not proofs sufficient of what they are designed for But in the framing of this Proposition he mistakes the end for which they are design'd For 1. The design of Miracles is not to make a discovevery at least immediately and by themselves of the Essence of God They are proper and meet evidences of the truth of any Revelation and if in that Revelation it please God to make any supernatural display of his own Nature then Miracles may be said mediately to discover to us the Essence of God otherways they demonstrate no other Attribute of God but his power viz. as it is able to suspend the Operations of Nature or to act above it 2. Neither do they tend in any peculiar manner to prove the Existence of a Deity but rather suppose it viz. That there is a Supream Being who is the Author of Nature who gave it such a Power and set it such Laws whereby to act which Power and which Laws a Miracle being either above or contrary to proves thereupon not that God is but that it is he who then acts by his own immediate hand and not Nature But for any proof it gives us of the Being of a God it is onely in the same way that every natural Effect demonstrates it by leading us to a first Cause 3. Miracles are indeed sufficient Evidences of the Divine Providence that God does take upon him and actually exercise the Government of the World that he does not leave Nature to her self but sometimes interposes and sets her aside That he does not sit an unconcerned Spectator of the Actions of Men but sometimes in a most signal manner