Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	death_n	life_n	3,302	5	4.8128	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49388	Humane life: or, A second part of the enquiry after happiness. By the author of Practical Christianity; Enquiry after happiness. Part 2	Lucas, Richard, 1648-1715.	1690 (1690)	Wing L3398; ESTC R212935	101,152	265

the Bed ill made when the cause of my uneasiness is in the Body And lastly when I have reduced the Evil to its own natural size generally 't is of such a Pigmy Dwarfish growth that I can securely slight it I can master it with very little trouble and industry or at worst with a very little patience and that I may not be wanting here I look upon it as a Task I am born to as an Inconvenience that I can no more shun than any natural Defects in my Body or my Mind or than I can the Cares and Fatigues of my Calling Thirdly I labour above all things to fill my Soul with great and ravishing Pleasures to inflame it with a generous Ambition and in one word to possess it with that habitual Poverty of Spirit Meekness Purity Charity commended to his Disciples by our Lord and Master that I am generally above the buz and fluttering of these rather Impertinences than Evils of Humane Life and do often suffer them without being sensible of them but I can never often enough put the World in mind of the vast difference there is between the fits and habits of these Vertues What we could do in a pious humour that we should always do were but the weak Impression once converted into Nature the short-liv'd Passion changed into steady habit but 't is high time to pursue my Design I am almost afraid I dwell so long upon a Head that the most pertinent Parts of my Discourse may now and then look like Digression The next thing to be considered after the Cheerfulness of the Mind is Secondly The Health of the Body Life does so apparently depend on this that in the vulgar Notion it signifies much the same thing 'T is notorious Life decays and expires with the health and strength of the Body and when it is protracted after these are gone it scarce deserves the Name of Life any more than the Noise of an ill-strung and ill-tuned Instrument does that of Musick But I need not teach any Body the value of Health or press them to the preservation of the Body I should be sufficiently obliging to the World if I could teach it any Art by which they might be restored to that Blessing which it enjoyed before the Flood a long Life of many hundreds of years But I know no Art that can raise Nature above its own Laws or retrieve its Youth if it be now in its Decrepitude One thing I know that we too commonly debauch and corrupt Nature first and then load her with our Reproaches and Accusations we should undoubtedly live much longer and this Life would be more healthy and verdant that is more vital than it is did we but observe the dictates of Religion the Laws of Vertue and not prefer before them those of Lust and Fancy How much soever Men complain of the shortness of Life 't is little to be doubted but that most Men do notwithstanding shorten it themselves by some Crime or Error or other If we could consult the sickly crasie part of Mankind I mean such as are so in the middle or almost beginning of their years and demand of them what blasted their Beauty and impaired their Strength what thus violated and contaminated their Nature we should soon be resolved to what Original their Diseases were owing if at least their shame and blushes would give them leave to inform us And if we should endeavour to trace the Deaths of most of those who are gone hence before their time back to their first Cause I do not think but that our search would soon end in some Vice or Folly or other this Man drank too much the other too much indulged his Appetite one was devoted to his Lust and another putrified in his Sloth all of them in our common phrase did live too fast but in truth and propriety of Speech died too fast for since Life is nothing else but acting by Reason every Deviation from it is an Approach towards Death But to proceed 'T is not unusual to see Pride kill one Passion another Avarice and Ambition a third while to gratifie these Affections the Body is either exposed to dangers or worn out by labour Now if we can generally find the Causes of most early Deaths in Mens Vices when so little of other Mens Lives comes to our knowledge what think you should we not be able to discover if we could enter into the Retirements and penetrate all the Secrets of Mankind how many hidden Passions do gnaw the Heart how many secret Sins do waste and consume the Strength where not only Concealment excludes the Eye but a show of probity nay a real and eminent practice of some particular Vertue excludes even Suspition and Jealousie If then Immorality do often contract the term of Life 't is evident what is to be prescribed for the prolonging it Religion or Vertue is the best Physick It has often mended an ill Constitution but never spoiled a good one When did ever Chastity impoverish the Body or deflour the Face when did ever Temperance inflame the Blood or oppress the Spirits when did ever Industry or Vigilance four the Humours and enfeeble the Nerves No Crudities no Plethories no Obstructions no Assidities no Stagnations Extravasations and I know not what hard Names and harder Things derive themselves from Vertue or Religion 'T is true a Man may be Righteous over-much he may entitle his Folly his Melancholy his particular Fancy or his particular Completion or Constitution Religion and this may prove mischievous to him to his health to his strength but then this is not the fault of Religion but the Man and to speak properly this is not Righteousness nor Religion thô it be called so but it is Fancy and Folly or an ill Constitution disguised under the garb and the meen of Religion Vertue then is the most probable way to a long Life or if not so at least to a more comfortable and honourable Death for where an early Death is the Result of a Providence not a Crime we must needs meet it with less Amazement our selves and our Friends behold it with less Regret and Affliction Thirdly The third way of prolonging Life is to engage the Providence of God in its Preservation If all the Promises God has made the Vertues of a long Life did really signifie nothing I cannot see how we could put up any Request to God relating to Temporal Protection with Faith or Fervor or as much as Sincerity but if they signifie any thing then surely they must signifie that his Providence is actively imployed for the preservation of vertuous Men And how great a Security is this What can be impossible to him who is the Governour and Creator of the World in whose disposal all created Means are and in whose Power it is if these be unsufficient to create new ones To him whose unerring Laws can never miss of those ends he aims at or if they could

a severe Sentence upon it yet can it not be denied but that Isaiah 47. Jeremiah 10. and other places of holy Writ seem to look upon it with no very favourable or benign Aspect As to the Prescience of God I see not how the denial of a Fatal Period of Humane Life clashes with this on the quite contrary he seems to me injuriously to limit and retrain the knowledge of God who thinks he foreknows nothing but because he peremptorily predetermined it this if we will speak sense is to magnifie his Power but to reduce and confine his Knowledge or at leastwise to depress and debase it for thus it would not be a primary and essential Perfection but would result from or depend upon an Arbitrary Will an unguided Power for my part I cannot think it necessary if I could not reconcile God's fore-knowledge with contingency in Events therefore with the Socinian to deny the one or with the Fatalist the other 't is enough to me that I learn from Scripture that is from God who cannot err that Prescience belongs to the Creator and Contingency to the Creature the measures and bounds of these if there be any let who will seek 't is not my Business now But yet after all this if any Man will contend for such a kind of Fate as is not rigid and inflexible but submits to the interposal of the Divine Prerogative and leave sufficient Encouragement for the Labour Vertue and Prayers of Man I oppose it not Nature has its Laws but such as God whenever he pleases over-rules the Government of Man is not without order and method much less the Government of God we are born into the World with different Constitutions but yet the unhealthy one may be rectified and mended by Vertue the healthy corrupted by Vice and Irreligion such a sort of Fate or Destiny as this that is flexible and accommodated to the Interest of Religion in which the Evil may be corrected or the good perverted such a Fate as this thô the Word be improper I readily admit but no other No other I say in the general for as to those particular Exceptions and Reservations which at any time God may and often does make from any general Rule or Law for causes always weighty and importent and generally hidden and inscrutable these I meddle not with Having thus evinced that the Period of Humane Life is not fatally fixed that no peremptory and unconditional Decree no insuperable Connection or Concatination of Causes does supersede our Vigilance and Industry for the preservation of this Blessing I will now proceed to the second thing proposed and consider which way the Date of Life may be lengthened Sect. 2. Of the ways of prolonging Life 'T is obvious and manifest to every one that Life depends upon these three Things The cheerfulness of the Mind The health of the Body And a favourable Providence of God by which as none will deny who admit of Providence we may at least be protected from violence and unlucky Accidents such as Humane Prudence cannot foresee And to these three may for ought I know be added the good will of Man whose Ministry and Service is very often of excellent use to us in this Point First The first thing then I am now to enquire into is briefly what Cheerfulness of Mind does contribute to the preservation of Life and then more fully how we may possess our selves of it 'T is true the morose and sour the froward the passionate and the sullen those stains and Blots of Humane Nature do often prolong their Lives to a great Age as if Nature were renewed and repaired by this kind of Fermentation or the Blood and Spirits kept sweet like Water by a perpetual Agitation but 't is as true that the loose and debauched the intemporate and incontinent do sometimes thô rarely live long and descend into the Grave rather oppressed by their years than their Excesses and if from such extraordinary Instances as these we shall take the Liberty to form Rules of Life and to contradict known and received Truths we shall ever live at the mercy of Fancy and never find any sure and firm footing to rest upon I will not therefore doubt notwithstanding these rare Instances but that the cheerfulness of the Mind has a very propitious its discontent a very malign influence upon the Life of Man the contentment of the Mind preserves the Balsom of the Blood and the Pleasure of it enlarges the Heart raises the Spirits actuates and invigorates all our Powers so that when the Mind shines serene and bright it seems to impart a new warmth and new life to the Body a new Spring and new Verdure to this Earth On the contrary a diseased Mind does as it were scatter its Contagion through the Body Discontent and Melancholy sours the Blood and clogs the Spirits Envy pines away and Passion frets and wears out our strength and life In few words there is an intimate conjunction between the Mind and Body and so close is the dependance of the latter upon the former that the face of inferiour Nature does evidently vary wither or flourish according to that variety of Weather it makes in the Sky about it as the Mind smiles or lowrs upon it and accordingly if we appeal to Experience and Observation I believe we may safely pronounce that generally such live longest who either think very little or whose thoughts are always calm and cheerful such who are stupid and have no Passions or are wise and good and have none but such as are regular and delightful to this purpose in part is that of Solomon The Spirit of Man will sustain his Infirmity but a wounded Spirit who can bear All this I think is not contested and all the difficulty lies in possessing our selves of this satisfaction and contentment of Mind Men seek it in every thing and even those things which are Diometrically opposite to one another do each pretend to be infallible Guides to it Atheism and Religion Philosophy and Ignorance Worldly Prudence or Policy and an affected contempt of it which I know no name for do all promise to teach us the Art of Satisfaction but it will not be a very difficult task when we have examined the pretences of each to resolve which we are to follow Ignorance Lust and Fancy are too blind rash and violent for us to abandon our selves to their Conduct nor are they more giddy and inconstant in themselves than weak and subject to all the Changes and odd Accidents of the World so that should they lead us on to Pleasure we have reason to apprehend Pain the next moment and at best they leave us not in a Condition either rationally to approve our Enjoyments or to fortifie our selves against the loss of them Worldly Policy is built wholly upon Mistakes it proposes to us things under the notion of great and good which when we have examined we find not worth our