Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	affliction_n	great_a	sin_n	1,620	5	5.2580	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27995	The book of Job paraphras'd by Symon Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1679 (1679)	Wing B2639; ESTC R38814	190,572	364

Eliphaz endeavours to establish this for a certain truth That as Afflictions do not come by chance but by the Providence of God so they are sent for the sins of men and therefore without all doubt Job was a great offendour which was the cause he was handled on this manner This opinion says Maimonides he held to the last onely was fain to adde in conclusion that all the ways whereby we deserve punishment do not appear Then after him when Job had argued against this comes Bildad who produces a new opinion grounded upon the doctrine of permutation or recompence as they speak That is he believed the Evils which Job indured here should if he proved innocent be changed into good things and in the issue be highly serviceable to him in another world After whom succeeds Zophar with a different resolution from all these which was that God acts according to his own pleasure and that we are not to search for any cause of his actions out of his own will nor to say why doth he this and not that In short we are not to seek the way of equity and the decree of wisedom in his doings for it necessarily belongs to his Essence that He doe what He will and our understanding is too shallow to comprehend the secrets of his Wisedom whose right and propriety it is that He may do according to his Pleasure and for no other cause And these four Opinions about Providence Maimonides undertakes to shew have had their several Assertors since who have propagated them among their Scholars Job's opinion he saith is the same with Aristotle's who attributed all to accident Bildad was followed by the Sect of Mutazali a kind of Pharisees among the Ismaelites who ascribed all to Wisedom Zophar by the Sect of Assaria who attributed all to will and pleasure And Eliphaz he fancies held the opinion of the Law which is that God deals with men according to their works But when all that these men had disputed nothing moved Job there stands up another whose name was Elihu who first proves the Providence of God from prophetical dreams XXXIII 13. and to those things which Eliphaz had said adds according to the imagination of Menasseh Ben-Israel the doctrine of the transmigration of Souls which he labours to find in v. 14. and thereby in a wonderfull way says he resolves all the doubt by determining that Job and other just men may be punished for sins which they committed in a former body But as there is no footstep that I can see for this fond conceit which he honours with the name of a mystery so it is evident these men follow their own vain inventions in all this discourse directly contrary to the Book it self For they make Job's opinion the very worst of all the rest when the Lord himself tells Eliphaz in the conclusion of the Book XLII 7. that He was angry with him and his two other Friends because they had not spoken of him so rightly as Job had And it doth not appear by their speeches that they held several opinions about Providence and took every one of them a different way that 's a meer Rabbinical subtilty to solve the doubt wherein Job's unusual sufferings had perplexed them But they seem to have harped all of them upon one and the same string as I have represented in the Arguments before each Chapter which it is thought fit should be here set down by themselves that the Reader may take a view of the whole work all together From whence the conclusion of Maimonides will be very evident which is the best thing he says that The scope of the Book is to establish the great Article of Providence and thereby to preserve us from errour in thinking that God's Knowledge is like our Knowledge or his Intention Providence and Government like our Intention Providence and Government Which foundation being laid nothing will seem hard to a man whatsoever happens Nor will he fall into dubious thoughts concerning God whether He knows what is befaln us or no and whether He takes any care of us But rather he will be inflamed the more vehemently in the love of God as it is said in the end of this Prophecy Wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes So say our Wise men They that act out of love will rejoyce in Chastisements THE ARGUMENTS TO THE SEVERAL CHAPTERS CHAP. I. ARGUMENT THIS Chapter is a plain Narration of the flourishing condition wherein Job lived before the envy and malice of the Devil brought upon him the sorest Calamities which are particularly described with the occasion of them and his admirable Constancy under them whereby he became as eminent an example of Patience in Adversity as he had been of Piety and all manner of Vertue in his Prosperity fol. 1 CHAP. II. ARGUMENT The first part of this Chapter is a continuation of the Narration which was begun in the foregoing of the Calamities which befell this good man whom God suffered the Devil to afflict in his Body as he had already done in his Goods and Children And then follows a farther testimony of his Constancy notwithstanding his Wife 's angry and profane accusation of the Divine Providence Though it is true he was so much dejected to see himself reduced to this extremity of Misery that neither he nor his Friends that came to visit him were able for several days to speak a word fol. 11 CHAP. III. ARGUMENT Here begin the Discourses which Job and his Friends had about his Affliction which are all represented by the Authour of this Book poetically not as hitherto in a plain simple Narration but in most elegant verse And being overcharged with Grief without the least word of comfort from his Friends he that had for some time born the weight of his Asslictions with an admirable Constancy could not contain himself any longer but bursts out to such a degree was the anguish of his spirit increased into the most passionate Camplaints of the Miseries of humane Life The consideration of which made him prefer Death much before it and wish that either he had never come into the world or gone presently out of it again or at least might now forthwith he dismissed fol. 17 CHAP. IV. ARGUMENT Eliphaz incensed at this Complaint of Job in stead of condoling with him and pitying the Miseries which had put him into this Agony and applying fitting Lenitives to his Anguish bluntly rebukes him for not following the good Advice that he used to give to others in their Adversity and tells him he had reason to suspect his Piety because the Innocent were not wont to suffer such things but onely wicked Oppressours whom though never so mighty God had always humbled Witness the Horims who dwelt in Seir II. Deut. 12. whom the ancestours of Eliphaz XXXVI Gen. 11. had overcome though they were as fierce as Lions To those Beasts of prey of all sorts he compares the Tyrants whom

thereof 12. If these observations be not sufficient to convince thee hear what God himself secretly whispered to me 13. In thoughts from the visions of the night when deep sleep falleth on men 13. As I was ruminating one night when all were asleep of some Visions which I had had 14. Fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake 14. I was on a sudden seized with such a fear that it made every joynt of my body tremble 15. Then a spirit passed before my face the hair of my flesh stood up 15. Whereupon I saw a Spirit pass by me which made mine hair stand an end 16. It stood still but I could not discern the form thereof an image was before mine eyes there was silence and I heard a voice saying 16. I am not able to describe what it was like for though it stood still and I saw an image of something yet I can onely tell what I heard in a still voice saying 17. Shall mortal man be more just then God shall a man be more pure then his maker 17. Can any one think that a miserable Man is more righteous then God his Judge or that it is possible for any-body to be more unreprovable then He that made him 18. Behold he put no trust in his servants and his angels he charged with folly 18. The Heavenly Ministers themselves may fail for they are not perfectly wise though they have no flesh and bloud as we have 19. How much less on them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust which are crushed before the moth 19. How can we then pretend to Perfection who dwell in bodies of dirt which stand upon no firm foundation but are as subject to be destroyed as a garment to be fretted with moths 20. They are destroyed from morning to evening they perish for ever without any regarding it 20. We see continual examples of those that are cut off they are quite taken away when no-body thinks of it 21. Doth not their excellency which is in them go away they die even without wisedome 21. Though their Dignities be never so great and their Posterity never so numerous all go away with them and they die like so many Beasts who have no understanding of their latter end CHAP. V. ARGUMENT Eliphaz still prosecutes the very same Argument endeavouring to confirm it from the opinion and observation of other men as well as from his own And thereupon exhorts him to Repentance as the surest way to find mercy with God and to be not onely restored to his former Prosperity but to be preserved hereafter from the Incursions of savage people or of wild beasts and from all the rest of the Disasters which had befaln him Of this he bids him in the conclusion to be assured for it was a point he had studied 1. CALL now if there be any that will answer thee and to which of the saints wilt thou turn 1. IF thou dost not believe me thou mayst enquire of others There is no good man but is of this opinion and if an Angel should appear to thee as there did to me thou wouldst have no other information but this 2. For wrath killeth the foolish man and envy slayeth the silly one 2. That God in his anger and indignation destroys the wicked and him that errs from his Precepts 3. I have seen the foolish taking root but suddenly I cursed his habitation 3. This is so certain that I have predicted his downfall when he seemed most firmly settled in his Prosperity 4. His children are far from safety and they are crushed in the gate neither is there any to deliver them 4. His Children also fell with him Justice took hold of them and would not let them escape 5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up and taketh it even out of the thorns and the robber swalloweth up their substance 5. The hungry Souldier devoured their harvest there was no fence could secure it but the rest of their riches became a prey to the Robber 6. Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust neither doth trouble spring out of the ground 6. For we are not to ascribe the Trouble and Misery of mankind merely to earthly Causes which are but the instruments of God's Justice 7. Yet man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward 7. Who hath made it as natural to Man to suffer having offended Him as it is for the sparks to fly upward 8. I would seek unto God and unto God would I commit my cause 8. Wherefore if I were in thy case I would humbly address my self to God and desire Him to order all things as He pleases 9. Which doeth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number 9. For He is the Authour of all those wonderfull things whose Causes we can no more find out then we can count their number 10. Who giveth rain upon the earth and sendeth waters upon the fields 10. Of the Rain for instance in its season and of the Springs which run in the fields 11. To set up on high those that below that those which mourn may be exalted to safety 11. Whereby men of low condition are inriched and grow great as the plants and corn shoot out of the earth after they are moistned with Showrs 12. He disappointeth the devices of the crafty so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise 12. And on the contrary He defeats the craftiest Designs of subtle men to raise themselves and it is not in their power to effect that which they have most wisely contrived 13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong 13. Nay they produce that which they studied to avoid and when they think themselves sure make too much haste to their ruine 14. They meet with darkness in the day-time and grope in the noon-day as in the night 14. They trip in the plainest way and see not their danger when it is visible to every-body but themselves 15. But he saveth the poor from the sword from their mouth and from the hand of the mighty 15. Whereby many a helpless man is delivered both from the open force and from the treacherous flatteries or calumnies of those that are too strong for them 16. So the poor hath hope and iniquity stoppeth her mouth 16. And therefore he that is oppressed should not despair nor should the Oppressours boast themselves for there is hope that God will save the one to the utter destruction of the other 17. Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty 17. Behold then how little reason there is to complain of God's Chastisements which if thou dost not refuse He is able to turn to thy good 18. For he