Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	apostle_n	church_n	word_n	1,489	5	3.9514	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A01344	Ioseph's partie-colored coat containing, a comment on part of the 11. chapter of the 1. epistle of S. Paul to the Corinthians : together with severall sermons, namely, [brace] 1. Growth in grace, 2. How farre examples may be followed, 3. An ill match well broken off, 4. Good from bad friends, 5. A glasse for gluttons, 6. How farre grace may be entayled, 7. A christning sermon, 8. Faction confuted / by T.F.	Fuller, Thomas, 1608-1661.	1640 (1640)	STC 11466.3; ESTC S4310	83,852	200

hand but it concernes every one of us to make a punctuall and direct answer thereunto Vpon examination all will confesse themselves guilty except a dumbe Devill or a Pharisaicall spirit hath possessed any Yet are there degrees of guiltinesse Some are guilty that they have not these graces at all but the opposite vices in stead of them in stead of knowledge ignorance All the reason Laban could render Iacob in cozening him with the elder sister for the younger was but pleading the custome of the countrey Gen. 29.26 And this is the best account some can giue why they receive the Sacrament It is an old ceremony a fashion of their Fore-fathers a custome of the Church that young men and maidens at such an age use to receive and so of the rest in stead of repentance obstinacy in sin in lieu of faith unbeliefe in place of charity malice an indifferency for desire and ingratitude for thankfulnesse these in no case must presume to receive but tarry till these vices are amended and graces in some degree begotten in them Others are guilty that though they have them in sincerity yet they have them not in perfection these are bound to come to Gods table his dainties are provided properly for such guests by his blessing these holy mysteries may worke in them what is wanting and strengthen what is weak And to conclude as the father of the lunatick child cryed out Mar. 9.24 Lord I beleeve help my unbeliefe so may the best of us all when we come to communicate call out with teares Lord I come with knowledge helpe my want of knowledge Lord I come with repentance help my want of repentance Lord I come with faith helpe my want of faith Lord I come with love help my want of love Lord I come c. VERS 30. For this cause many are weake and sicke among you and many sleepe RIght at this time there raged and raigned in the Church of Corinth an Epidemicall disease and my Apostle in my Text tels them the Fountaine from which it flowed namely from the unprepared and unreverent receiving of the Sacrament The words containe the punishment and the cause thereof I must confesse in the Heraldry of nature the cause is to be handled before the effect but because the punishment being the effect discovered it selfe first while the cause was yet unknown we will first treat thereof The punishment containes three steps to the Grave 1. Weaknesse 2. Sicknesse 3. Temporal death called sleep Learne God inflicteth not the same punishment for all but hath variety of correction In his Quiver some Arrowes are blunt some sharpe and of these some he drawes halfe way some to the head And the Reason is because there are divers degrees of mens sinnes some sinne out of Ignorance others out of Knowledge some out of Infirmity others of Presumption some once others often some at the seducing of others others seduce others God therefore doth not like the unskilfull Empiricks who prescribe the same quantity of the same receit at all times to all ages tempers and diseases But wisely he varieth his physick few strips to those that knew not his will and many stripes for them who knew his wil and did it not Sometimes hee shooteth halfe canon weaknesse sometime full canon sicknesse sometimes murthering Peeces death it selfe Let us endeavour to amend when God layeth his least judgement upon us let us humble our selves with true Repentance under his hand when hee layeth his little finger upon us lest we cause him to lay his loynes on us let us be bettered when he scourgeth us with rods lest we give him occasion to Sting us with Scorpions for light punishments neglected wil draw heavier upon us Let Magistrates and men in authority mitigate or increase the punishment according to the nature of the offence Let there be as well the stocks for the Drunkard the house of correction for the idle Drone the whip for the petty Lassoner as the brand for the fellon and the Gallowes for the Murtherer Let mercy improve it selfe to obtaine if not a pardon yet a lighter punishment for those in vvhose faces are read the performance of present sorrovv and promise of future amendment Let severity lay load on their backs vvhich are old and incorrigable sinnes so that there is more feare of their perverting others than hope of their converting Then shal the gods in earth be like to the God in Heaven and Magistrates here imitate the patterne which God setteth in my Text For probable it is that those Corinthians who are least offenders in the irreverent receiving of the Sacrament were punished with weaknesse the greater with sicknesse the greatest of all with death temporall called Sleepe in my Text The death of the Godly in Scripture language is often stiled sleepe And indeed sleepe and death are two twins sleepe is the elder brother for Adam slept in Paradise but death liveth longest for the last enemy that shall bee destroyed is death But some will object was Saint Paul so charitably opinioned to these Corinthians as to thinke that they some wereof were drunken at the receiving of the Sacrament that they slept that is dyed and went to Heaven me thinkes so strong a charity argues too weake a judgement I answer the Apostle had perceived in these mens lives the strength of unfained piety and though God suffered them to fall into a sin of so high a nature as this must be confest to be yet Saint Paul did Christianly beleeve that this sinne by Repentance and faith in Christ was pardoned and their soules eternally saved Let us measure the estates of men after death by the rule of their lives and though wee see some commit grievous sinnes yea such sinnes for which they are brought to exemplary death perchance by the orderly proceeding of the Law yet withall if wee had knowne that the drift and scope of their lives had beene to fear God wee may and must charitably conceive of their finall estate and that with the Corinthians in my Text they are fallen asleepe So much for the punishment wee come now to the cause For this cause many are weake All sicknesses of the body proceed from the sinne of the soule I am not ignorant that the Lethurgy ariseth from the coldnesse of the braine that the dropsie floweth from waterish blood in an ill affected Liver that the spleen is caused from melancholly wind gathered in the midriffe but the cause of all these causes the Fountaine of all these Fountaines is the sinne of the soule And not onely the sinnes which wee have lately committed and still lye fresh bleeding on our consciences but even those which wee have committed long agoe and which processe of time hath since scarred over Iob 13.26 For thou writest bitter things against me and makest me possesse the sinnes of my youth So that Iob being gray is punished for Iob being greene Iob in the autumn of his age smarts

for what he hath done in the spring of his age and as those which have beene given to violent exercises in their youth when they are old reade the admonitions of their former folly in the aches of their bones so they who have prodigally ryoted their youth out in vitious courses in their old age find the smart of it in their weak and diseased bodies Doe wee then desire to lead our old age in health I know no better preservative or dyet drinke can bee prescribed then in our youth to keepe our soules from sin for now wee sow the seeds of health or sicknesse which perchance wee shall reape twenty yeares after But how came Saint Paul to know that this sicknesse of the Corinthians proceeded from the irreverent receiving of the Sacrament especially sithence there were four other grand sinnes which then raigned in their Church each whereof upon hew and cry might be taken as suspitious to be the cause of this disease 1. Factious affecting of one Minister above another to the disgrace of God and the Gospel 1 Corinthians 1.12 Now this I say that every one of you saith I am of Paul I am of Apollo I am of Cephas and I am of Christ 2. Suffering an incestuous person husband to his mother and sonne to his wife to live amongst them without publike penance and punishment For though this incest as it was committed but by one man was but a particular and personall sin yet as it was connived at and not punished it began gangreenlike to spread and leaving its nature of personality it intituled it selfe to be a publike generall Church-sin of the Corinthians 3. Going to law one with another under heathen Iudges 1 Cor. 6.1 Dare any of you having busines against another be judged by the unjust and not by the Saints 4. Denying the Resurrection of the body 1 Cor. 15.12 How say some among you that there is no Resurrection of the dead Sithence therefore at the same time the Corinthians were guilty of factious affecting of their Ministers going to law under Pagan Iudges suffering an incestuous person to live amongst them unpunished denying of the Resurrection of the body why might not Saint Paul thinke that any one or all of these might be the cause of this disease in the Church of Corinth as well as the irreverent receiving of the Sacrament Because this sinne was the sinne paramount like Saul higher then his fellowes from the shoulders upwards the other four sins were fellony robbing God of his glory but the irreverent receiving of the Sacrament was high treason against the person of Christ so against God himselfe The other for sins were Tetrarchs raigning over the Corinthians but this was as Augustus the Emperour over the Tetrarchs more conspicuous then any of the rest Learn we then that though God of his goodnesse may be pleased graciously to pardon and passe by sins of an inferior nature and meaner alloy yet he wil not hold them guiltless let them escape unpunished who irreverently receive the body and blood of his Sonne This stentor sin shouts in Gods eares for revenge Saint Anselme saith that many diseases that raigne in the summer though Physicians may impute them to other second causes proceeds from peoples irreverent receiving the Sacrament at Easter Because the Apostle perceived some resemblance betwixt the sin committed and the punishment inflicted For as a Physician when he comes to his Patient and finds him strangely affected so that the disease puzles al his rules of art to reduce it to some naturall cause then he will be ready to suspect that his Patient hath eaten some poyson which hath strangely invenomed the estate of his body so Saint Paul seeing the Corinthians to be punished with a strange and unusuall sicknesse some conceive it was the plague presently suspected that they had eaten some poysenous thing and on inquiry he finds that it was the Sacrament irreverently received It being just with God to turne that which was appoynted to bee preservative for the soule to prove poyson to the body being not received with due preparation And here I may adventure upon a profitable discourse how a man in his sicknesse may come to know the very particular sin for which God hath inflicted that sicknesse upon him It is not a meer curiosity which will afford the ground work of much good meditation nor an impossibility though a difficulty to arrive at the knowledge of it Wherefore let a man in such a case summon all his great sins to make a personall appearance in his memory and not onely those of the last edition but even those whose impression is almost out of the date of his memory such as were committed long agoe in his youth This done all the matter will bee to find out which is the veriest sinne for which God punisheth him at that time and here I must confesse my candels to be but dim but I will light the more of them First see to which sin the punishment thou sufferest bears the most proportion of resemblance for God commonly punisheth like with the like Thus one may see Gods hand in the cutting of one of Adonibezecks fingers he being served as hee had served 72. Kings And thus King Ioram who had cruelly slaughtered his brethren on a stone was troubled with an incurable disease that his bowels fell out and just it was that he should have no bowels that had no compassion 2. See if thou canst not find some proportion in the disproportion and likenesse in the unlikenes of some sin to this punishment God oft times punishing by the contrary Thus those who out of nicenesse and curiosity have tooke more then comes to the share of a corrupt creature are commonly sent to their graves by some nasty and loathsome disease as proud Herod whom the wormes impatient to stay so long till death had dished him for their palate devoured him alive 3. Something may be gathered from the place or part wherein the disease lieth For if it be in the eyes it is probable it s inflicted for the shooting out of lustfull lascivious glances or looking with envious and covetous sight on the meanes of others if in the eares for giving audience to wanton sonnets or for being over credulous in the hearing ill reports of others if in the tongue for lying swearing c. 4. See whether Chronology or the time wherein the sicknesse seizeth upon thee will not something advantage thee for the discovering the cause thereof Thus as one observes the Lord Hastings was beheaded at London that very selfe-same day twelve-moneth yea the same houre and if curiosity may goe further the same minute wherein he had conspired the death of the Queenes kinred at Pomfret Castle 5. Consider what sinne it is for the committing whereof thou hast conceived the least sorrow For though wee can never bee condignly sorry for our least sinne yet we may be more penitent for