Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A53326
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A present for teeming vvomen, or, Scripture-directions for women with child how to prepare for the houre of travel / written first for the private use of a gentlewoman of quality in the West, and now published for the common good by John Oliver.
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Oliver, John, 1601-1661.
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1663
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Wing O276; ESTC R30076
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85,614
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176
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with her father-in-law Gen. 38.38 2. Rahab an harlot Heb. 11.31 3. Ruth who came of Moab the son Levi by incest with his own daughter Gen. 19.37 4. Bathsheba and she was guilty of adultery Why is all this but to shew that free grace is no respecter of persons except it be to have most tender regard to the most miserable object and to pardon those most readily who see themselves most guilty and to wash them as white as snow whose sins were of a scarlet dye And for your further increase of faith I would advise you if you can conveniently have it that you would with all humility and earnest desires of favour with God go to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ where you may see Christ crucified for you and may receive such symbols and pledges of his good-will towards you as will be so many Seals to his Promises and there you shall find his flesh to be meat indeed Joh. 6.53 54 55.56 and his blood drink indeed He is the living bread which shall strengthen your heart and his love is stronger then wine and shall make glad your heart I doubt that the seldome or careless use of this blessed ordinance is one great cause why so many Christians are of weak faith And if with other endeavours and inquiries for comfort this were more frequently and rightly used we should find their strangeness from God which is the chief cause of their fears to cease and delight in him and love to him and consequently peace of conscience to encrease by this neerer converse and communion with him Mary Magdalene as they say being near her end came and received the Body and Blood of our Lord in the place of their Christian assembly and there comfortably exspired before the Table of the Lord. Also peruse Davids Psalms and as you easily may take notice of those especially that contain complaints of Sin Fear Calamities and also praises to God for hearing and delivering and promises of the like mercy of God to all his people in their several exigencies And sing these Psalms leisurèly and considerately alone by your self You will find the voice to quicken your meditation upon the matter the matter to affect your heart and the blessing of God to attend his owne ordinance who hath commanded us to admonish our selves (a) Eph. 5.19 in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs Besides it is most unquestionably pleasant to those good Angels who are ministring Spirits to attend you for good But if you are not satisfied by Promises Sacraments Psalms c. then look beyond all these to the goodness of God which is infinite His goodness is the fountain of the Promises and therefore it is that the streams make glad the people of God Now it is an acceptable work of Faith if we cannot see a Promise speaking directly to us or are not able to apply them yet even then to cast our selves upon infinite goodness to trust in the name of the Lord Isa 50 10. Psal 9.10 and to stay our selves upon our God For his Goodness contains more in it then Promises do express It never entred into the tongues of men or Angels fully to express the heighth and depth and length and breadth thereof Let this therefore keep you in a dutiful and quiet expectation of comfort that there is mercy with God an inexhaustible treasure of mercy riches of grace an overflowing fulness which can as well cease to be as to be faithful and compassionate Isa 57.15 in dwelling with the contrite and humble to revive the hearts of the humble and to revive the spirits of the contrite ones CHAP. XIII Trusting in the Lord for deliverance the duty of women with child THough trusting in God exclude not the use of means and Gods providence over us doth not discharge us from provision for our selves and preventing what we can of the danger and hurt of any approaching evil yet it surely excludes our trust in any thing besides him And therefore whatever estate friends helps strength you have yet trust not to these For God onely brings to the birth and gives strength to bring forth Rachels Midwife could bid hen be of good comfort but she could not give her the comfort of a happy deliverance Miserable comforters are Midwives Neighbours and Kindred if God withhold the fruit of the womb And if he speak the word after others have tormented the labouring woman and tried themselves with fruitless endeavours and at last given over any hopes of success I say if he speak the word she shall so on be delivered for He shutteth and none can open he openeth and none can shut he letteth and none can work he worketh and none can let He can let out the imprisoned infant raise up the fainting mother bring strength out of weakness and life out of death Wherefore furnishing your self with such promises as he hath made to his people in all their extremities strengthen your faith hope in the Lord and quietly wait for his salvation Among the many promises of this kind I shall mention a few which are obvious and leave you to observe the rest in your own private reading His anger endureth but a moment in his favour is life Weeping may endure for a night Ps 30.5 but joy cometh in the morning For I will not contend for ever neither will I be alwayes wroth Isa 57.16 for the spirit should fail before me and the soules which I have made Like as a father pitieth his children Psal 103.15 so the Lord pitieth them that fear him For he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are but dust By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged Isa 27.9 and this is all the fruit to take away his sin When we are judged 1 Cor. 11.32 we are chastned of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world For our light affliction 2 Cor. 4.17 which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more eternal and exceeding weight of glory He maketh sore Job 5.13 and he bindeth up he woundeth and his hands make whole He shall deliver thee in six troubles Ver. 19. yea in seven there shall no evil touch thee Behold Ps 33.18 the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him upon them that hope in his mercy to deliver their soul from death and to keep them alive in famine The righteous cry Ps 34.17 and the Lord heareth them and delivereth them out of all their troubles God is our refuge and strength Ps 46.1 a very present help in trouble Fear thou not Isa 41.10 for I am with thee be not dismayed for I am thy God I will strengthen thee yea I will help thee yea I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousnesse For God hath comforted his people Isa 49.14 and will have
â—â—perbissiâ—oruÌ„ origo Plin. nat â—ist l. 7. c. 7. The child in my womb is made of the like substance as I was And though I now have growth strength beauty or comelinesse yet I was once imperfect enough when I was newly begotten of man and conceived in the womans womb Alas how vile are those materials of which my body was made Scripture draws a veyl of modest and metaphorical expressions over this unsightly act of generation And when I consider oh my soul the poor original of my body Alas what preheminence have I herein above a beast what cause to abhorre all thoughts of pride and to walk humbly all my dayes If the Peacock let fall his plumes when he beholds his black feet have not I cause to be cast down with a less esteem of my self Phil. 3.21 when I consider my vile body In nothing more vile then in its first coagulation of ignoble matter MEDITATION 5. Thou hast cloathed me with skin and flesh Job 10.11 thou hast fenced me with bones and sinews Though in regard of the matter and manner of my generation my body is no better then a bag of flegm a lump of blood a moistened clod of earth yet when I raise my mind to the work of my Creator who fashioned me round about covered me in my mothers womb and formed me in the lowest parts of the earth I have then no cause to say to my Father what hast thou begotten or to my Creator why hast thou made me thus If I may in every creature see some prints and footsteps of the wisdome power and goodnesse of God in their formation production and conservation of their kind in a continual succession for the use of man how much more cause have I to search out this work of God in which there is as much of excellency curiosity and exactnesse of skill as in all the creation besides Much is said by Philosophers Physicians Anatomists c. concerning this great secret of Nature the Child in the Womb. They speak with much probability and rational conjecture of the manner and matter of generation conceptions of the very day when the womb by its natural heat begins to operate towards it when it receives its first change into a fleshy substance what day the brain heart and liver begin to be distinguished and when it receives a humane shape in other parts though the whole be no bigger then a small flie Also how it is nourished and in what place and posture it lies if male and in what if female What day it receives by the gift of God a living soul and when it begins to stir and calcitrate in the womb c. But the further I dive and search into this matter the more I am at a loss still new questions do arise which I cannot resolve Ps 139.6 Even this knowledge is too wonderfull for me Solomon hath put a question which I think himself could hardly answer Knowest thou how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child Eccls 11.5 Therefore oh my soul let mesing that song of David and if possible with Davids heart I will praise thee Psal 139.14 15 16 17. for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect and in thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there were none of them How precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God how great is the summe of them But I must not I cannot here leave off this delightful Meditation but must again praise the Lord for that he hath not executed the curse of Adam to the uttermost upon us Though sin hath robbed us of many most desirable perfections yet there is that left with which and for which we may glorifie God If we survey the frame and building of this earthly tabernacle we shall find that rare fitness of every part and that symmetry of the whole that we cannot but say its builder and maker is God What shall I say of the several members and particles of our bodies of the scituation of the more noble parts and subordination of the rest of the influences of the higher parts on those that are less noble of the many channels of conveyance whereby the inner parts transmit bloud strength and spirits to the exteriour and most remote What of the beauty strength tenderness majesty and singular faculties of some parts of the contiguities and artificial connexion of all parts what of the sagacity of the five senses the mixture of the four elements the correspondence our bodies have with all creatures the resemblance of the three regions yea of the three heavens c. For which causes Man is called a little world the measure of all things the pattern of the Vniverse the miracle of miracles c. Yea mans body is yet in regard of its majesty strength beauty and noble faculties of its several parts in some measure after the image of God (a) 2 Chr. 16.9 Dan. 9.18 Psal 34.16 Job 40 9. Psal 74.3 Isa 49.16 c. And God himself is pleased to represent his perfections and operations by several parts of the body of man If therefore the serious prying into any one part take up the time and study of the learned insomuch that Galen was turned from Atheism in studying the secrets of mans body and presently praised and acknowledged our Creatour then oh my soul let that which made him a Christian make me a more thankful Christian that I may more zealously glorifie God with my body and may hereafter have all its primitive perfections restored at the Resurrection when God shall raise it in honour and incorruption and make it like the glorious body of Jesus Christ MEDITATION 6. Anatomists themselves are utterly to seek what reason to give for the opening and shutting of the womb But though I know not the natural causes hereof yet I find by the effects that the child is quick within me And oh that I could say with like certainty that though I know not the way of the Spirit or how grace comes in and sin goes out how Christ enters and Satan is dispossessed yet I feel by the effects that whereas lust did once conceive and bring forth sin yet now grace conceives holy motions and brings forth religious actions that whereas my heart was a cage of unclean spirits and barren of goodness yet now Christ is formed within me now I feel by happy effects that grace is quick within me and quickens me to every good work Psal 103.1 Wherefore blesse the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me blesse his holy name Luk. 1.43.49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great