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	punishment_n	sin_n	1,661	5	5.5146	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55617	A practical discourse of patience Setting forth the excellency usefulness and rewards thereof. By a divine of the Church of England.	Divine of the Church of England.	1693 (1693)	Wing P3151; ESTC R219500	112,790	279

in the Contest For it was this Thought Minut. Foel Dialog as Caecilius hath observed which raised the Christians Courage above the Threats of their Enemies their Liberty above the Power of Kings and Princes their Pleasure above the Punishments and Torments they endured made them insult over their Judges as they condemn'd them contemn the Grimness and Horror of their Executioner's Face and Dress and the affrightful Horror with which their Death was set out which all instructed them to gain what they contended for the Crown of Martyrdom It would be no less advantageous than commendable piece of Prudence to make the one the frequent Subject of our Meditations and to set the other before our Thoughts as an Observer of our Deportment in order to be a Rewarder of it as a Judge hereafter 2. Consider we ought that we S. 7. § 2. Consid That we have reduced our selves to the necessity of suffering Troubles as a Punishment for our sins have reduced our selves to the necessity of Afflictions as the just and deserved Punishment for the manifold Offences we have committed against the Majesty of God and we are to look on these as the occasion and procuring Cause of those For as it is well observed by Eliphaz Affliction cometh not out of the Dust neither doth Trouble Job 5. 6. spring out of the ground i. e. Their Original is not fortuitous as that of Mushrooms or Weeds or the like things which shoot out of the Earth all of a sudden in a night or a Thunder Shower or things without any Order and Method seems to be Nor yet have they a natural Cause as Plants propagated from their proper Seeds committed to the Ground and form'd and actuated by it's seminal Vertue have but a moral and meritorious one which is our sins The Transgression of our first Parents gave the first Rise to Trouble brought it with it self as a Companion or Attendant into the World or drew it after its self as its proper Reward Then by way of equal Recompence for having eat of that Fruit God forbad them he condemned Man to eat for ever after of the Fruit of the Ground in the Sweat of his Brow and the Woman to bring forth hers Job 5. 6. Gen. 3. 16 17 18 19. for Children are the Fruits of the Womb in Pangs and Sorrow Their Disobedience administred to N. 1. They are Punishments which our sins have merited their Affliction and God doom'd them to Labour and Pain as fit Chastisements for their Luxury in tasting that Food which lay under a particular Interdict of his and used these as suitable means for the avenging himself and vindicating his Honour which they had insolently affronted by going directly against his express Command Immediately upon this as the Earth by God's Curse upon it for Man's sake brought forth Briars and Thorns to molest him which is what the Scripture affirms and prickles began to grow up with the Rose-tree to scratch their Hands if they would gather them which is what St. Basil and St. Ambrose S. Basil in Hexaem Hom. 13. S Ambros Hexaem l. 5. c. 11. have deliver'd upon this Point So Sorrow and Trouble and Care and Pain began to disquet and vex to prick and tear their Minds This was the first Nativity of them and ever since Sin hath continued to be the fruitful Parent of them and Men cease not to bring them upon their own Heads Wisd 1. 12 by the Error of their ways and the Works of their own Hands Our ways Jer. 4. 18. and our doings procure them unto us as God tells Israel of her Calamities Fools such are all the Workers of Wickedness and such are we all because of their Transgression and because of their Iniquities are afflicted Ps 107. 17. Since therefore God was provoked at first by Man's Impieties and Iniquities to treat him so roughly and the daily renewing of those provokes him now to repeat the same usage we ought in all reason to bear the Calamity we have brought upon our selves by our sins especially since we have not been only caution'd against every one of them by a direct or virtual but plain Prohibition of them but had express notice of those very dismal Consequences being entailed upon them For it 's very inequal to complain of V. S. Ambrose ut supr God and murmur against him for having made our selves miserable to speak hardly of him for the Troubles we have raised and the Difficulties we have created to our selves The Prophets Expostulation about it implies the Absurdities of such a Behaviour Why doth the living man complain Lam. 3. 39. for the punishment of his sins Nor is his arguing and thus debating the case with Man a sharper Remonstrance against the Iniquity of a froward Carriage under Afflictions than the Churches Resolution under hard and pressing Circumstances as it is declared by another Prophet to take a flat contrary Course and quietly submit under her distressed Condition a plain Note and Direction how we ought to demean our selves I will bear Mich. 9. 3. saith Jerusalem the Church there the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him I will bear the stroke of the Lord as the Arabick and Syriack Translations have rendred it viz. My Desolation is my own and my Captivity and Bondage in a Foreign Land forasmuch as my Offences have merited his Anger and it was but Justice and Congruity that I should behold the manifestation of it in all these Tokens or feel it in all these effects upon me Eli's Resolution to submit patiently to God's Pleasure the signification of which was brought him in that terrible Denunciation Samuel had command to deliver him That he would judge 1 Sam. 2. 13. 18. his House for ever for the Iniquity he knew of as he declared it in the Answer he made thereupon It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good was not form'd meerly upon a Consideration that by his Power he was able to do all this and there was no resisting or opposing that but was the result of an inward Conviction that such a proceedure would be just being conscious that his Sons had made themselves vile and as much as in them lay the Offerings of the Lord and their holy Order by their Rapine and Violence and Uncleanness and he had not refrained or checked them for this by interposing his Paternal and Sacerdotal Authority as he ought And the Judgment of that Faculty forced him to conclude thereupon That they for the Villany they had committed and he for his tame Connivance at it had deserved to suffer all that was contained in the threatning Message Hezekiah's Reply to the Prophet Isaiah when he had discharged himself of what he had in Commission and Instruction from God to acquaint him with sc The uncomfortable prediction 2 Kings 20. 19. That his Imperial City and Pallace should be sack'd and