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	disease_n	fever_n	1,543	5	9.5930	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39696	Two treatises the first of fear, from Isa. 8, v. 12, 13, and part of the 14 : the second, The righteous man's refuge in the evil day, from Isaiah 26, verse 20 / by John Flavell.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing F1204; ESTC R177117	170,738	308

grievously wounded my own Conscience To this wounded and trembling conscience is opposed the spirit of a sound mind mentioned 2 Tim. 1. 7. God hath not given us the spirit of fear but of power of love and of a sound mind A sound mind is in this place the same thing with a pure and peaceable Conscience a mind or Conscience not infirmed or wounded with guilt as we say a sound or heal body which hath no disease to infirm it such a mind is opposed to the spirit of fear it will make a man bold as a Lion Nil conscire tibi nullâ Pallescere culpâ hic mu●●● aheneus esto An evil and guilty Conscience foments fears and terrours three ways 1. by aggravating small matters and blowing them up to the height of the most fatal and destructive evils so it was with Cain Gen. 4. 14. Every one that meets me will slay me Now every child was a Giant in his eye and any body he met his over-match A guilty Conscience gives a man no sight of his enemy but through a magnifying or a multiplying glass 2 It begets Fears by interpreting all doubtful cases in the worst sense that can befastened upon them Pessimus in dubiis Augur timor If the Swallows do but chatter in the chimney Bessus interprets it to be a discovery of his crime that they are telling take of him and saying Bessus killed a man Nay 3 If a guilty Conscience have nothing to aggravate and magnifie nor any doubtful matter to interpret in a frightful sense it can and often doth create fears and terrors out of nothing at all the rules of Fear 〈◊〉 not like the rules in Arithmetick where many nothings make nothing but fear can make something out of nothing yea many thing● and great things out of nothing at all Psal. 53 5. there wer● they in great fea● where no fear was here was a great fear raise● or created out of nothing at all● had their fear been examined an● hunted home to its original it would have bee● found a pure creature of fancy a Chimaera have●●● no fundamentum in re no other foundation but 〈◊〉 troubled fancy and a guilty Conscience thus it 〈◊〉 with Pashur he was a very wicked man and a bit●● enemy to the Prophet Ieremy and if there be none 〈◊〉 fright and terrifie from abroad rather than he 〈◊〉 want it he shall be a terror to himself Ier. 20. 3 4. he was his own bug bear afraid of his own shadow and truly this is a great plague and misery he that is a terror to himself can no more flee from terrors than he can flee from himself O the effic●cy of Conscience how doth it arrest the stoutest sinners and make them tremble when there is no visible external cause of fear Nemo sejudice nocens absolvitur 1. Object But may not a good man whose sins are pardoned be affrighted with his own fancies and scared with his own imaginations Sol. No doubt he may for there is a twofold fountain of fears one in the body another in the soul one in the constitution another in the conscience it is the affliction and infelicity of many pardoned and gracious souls to be united and married to such distempered and ill habited bodies as shall afflict them without any real cause from within and wound them by their own diseases and distempers and these wounds can no more be prevented or cured by their reason or Religion than any other bodily disease suppose an Ague or a Feaver can be so cured Thus Physicians tell us when adust choler and melancholy overflows and abounds in the body as in the Hypochondriacal distemper c. what sad effects it hath upon the mind as well as upon the body there is not only a sad and fearful aspect or countenance without but sorrow fear and afflicting thoughts within this is a sore affliction to many good men whose Consciences are sprinkled with the bloud of Christ from guilt but yet God sees good to clog them with such afflictions as this for their humiliation and for the prevention of worse evils 2. Object But many bold and daring sinners are found who notwithstanding all the guilt with which their consciences are loaded can look dangers in the face without trembling yea they can look death it self the King of terrors in the face with less fear than better men Sol. True but the reason of that is from a spiritual judgment of God upon their hearts and consciences whereby they are hardened and seared as with an hot iron 2. Tim. 4. 2. and so Conscience is disabled for the present to do its office it cannot put forth its efficacy and activity now when it might be useful to their salvation but it will do it to purpose hereafter when their case shall be remediless 3. Cause 3. We see what a forge of Fears a guilty Conscience is and no less is the sin of Unbelief the real and proper cause of most distracting and afflictive fears so much as our Souls are empty of faith they are in times of trouble filled with fear We read of some that have died by no other hand but their own fears but we never read of any that died by fear who were once brought to live by faith If men would but dig to the root of their fears they should certainly find unbelief there Matth. 8. 26. Why are ye fearful Oye of little faith The less faith still the more fear Fear is generated by unbelief and unbelief strengthened by fear as in nature there is an observable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 circular generation vapours beget showers and showers new vapours so it is in things moral and therefore all the skill in the world can never cure us of the disease of fear till God first cure us of our unbelief Christ therefore took the right method to rid the disciples of their fear by rebuking their unbelief The remains of this sin in Gods own people is the cause and fountain of their fears and more particularly to shew how fear is generated by unbelief let a few particulars be heedfully adverted 1. Unbelief weakens and stumbles the assenting act of Faith and thereby cuts off from the soul in a great measure its principal relief against dangers and troubles It is the use and office of Faith to reallize to the Soul the invisible things of the world to come and thereby encourage it against the fears and dangers of the present world Thus Moses forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible Heb. 11. 27. If this assentting act of Faith be weakned or staggered in the soul if once invisibles seem uncertainties and visibles the only realities no wonder we are so scared and frighted when these visible and sensible comforts are exposed and endangered as they often are and will be in this mutable world That man must needs be afraid to stand his ground that

search back only to the 17 verse where you find the poor captived Church under despondency of mind comparing her co●dition to that of a woman in travail who hath many sharp pains and bitter throws yet cannot be delivered much like that in 2 Kings 19. 3. The children are come to the birth and there is no strength to bring forth Against this discouragement a double relief is applyed in the following Verses the one is a Promise of full deliverance at last the other an Invitation into a sure Sanctuary and place of defence for present until the time of their full deliverance came The promise we have in verse 19. Thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust c. Their captivity was a civil death and Babylon as a grave to them So it is elsewhere described Ezek. 37. v. 1 3 12. I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel And therefore their deliverance is carried under the notion of a resurrection in that promise Objection Yea might they reply the hopes of deliverance at last is some comfort but alas that may be far off How shall we subsist till then Sol. Well enough for as you have in that promise a sure ground of deliverance at last so in the interim here is a gracious Invitation into a place of security for the present Come my people enter thou into thy chambers In which invitation Four things call for our close attention 1. The Form of the invitation including in it the qualified subject Come my people Gods own peculiar people who have chosen God for their portion and resigned up themselves sincerely to him in the Covenant are the persons here invited the same which he before called the righteous nation that kept the truth verse 2. he means ●hose that remained faithful to God as many of them did in Babylon witness their sorrow for Sion Psal. 137 per totum and their solemn Appeal to God that their hearts were not turned back nor had their steps declined though they were ●ore broken in the place of Dragons and covered with the shadow of death Psal. 44. 18 19 20. These are the people invited to the chambers of security And the form of invitation is full of tender compassion Come my people like a tender father that sees a storm coming upon his children in the fields and takes them by the hand saying Come away my dear children hasten home with me le●t the storm overtake you or as the Lord said to Noah before the Deluge Come thou and all thy house into the Ark and God shut him in Gen. 7. 1. 16. This is the form of the invitation Come my people 2. The priviledge invited to Enter thou into thy chambers There is some variety and indeed variety rather than contrariety in the exposition of these words In this all are agreed that by their Chambers is not meant the Chambers of their own houses for alas their houses were left unto them desolate and if not yet they could be no security to them now when neither their own houses nor their fortified city was able to defend them before Grotius expounds it of the Grave and makes these Chambers the same Grot. in loc with the Chambers of death Ite in cubiqula h. e. sepulchra vestra The grave indeed is a place of security where God sometimes hides some of his people in troublesome times as is plain in Isa. 57. 1 2. but I cannot allow this to be the sence of this Text God doth not comfort his captives with a natural against a civil death but with protection in their troubles upon earth as is evident from the scope of the whole Chapter By Chambers therefore others understand the chambers of Divine providence where the S●ints are hid in evil days So our Annotatons on the place and no doubt but this is in part the special intendment of the Text. Others understand the Attributes and Promises of God to be here meant as well as his providences And I conceive all three make the sence of the Text full i. e. the Divine Attributes engaged in the promises and exercised or actuated in the providences of God these are the sanctuaries and refuges of Gods people in days of trouble Calvin understands it of the quiet repose of the Believers mind in God but that is rather the effect of his security than the place of it It 's Gods Attributes or his name which is the same thing to which the righteous fly and are safe Prov. 18. 10. Object But you will say why are they called their Chambers Those Attributes are not their● but Gods Sol. The answer is easie though they be Gods Properties yet they are his peoples priviledges and benefits for when God makes over himself to them in Covenant to be their God he doth as it were deliver to them the Keys of all his Attributes for their benefit and security and is as if he should say my wisdom is yours to contrive for your good my power is yours to protect your persons my mercy yours to forgive your sins my all-sufficiency yours to supply your wants all that I am and all that I have is for your benefit and comfort These are the Chambers provided for the Saints lodgings and into these they are invited to enter Enter thou into thy chambers By entring into them understand their actual faith exercised in acts of affiance and resignation to God in all their dangers So Psal. 56. 3. At what time I am afraid said David I will trust in thee q. d. Lord if a Storm come I will make bold to shelter my self from it under thy wings by faith look as unbelief shuts the doors of all Gods Attributes and promises against us so faith opens them all to the Soul and so much of the priviledge invited to which is the second thing 3. We have here a needful caution for the securing of this priviledge to our selves in evil times shut thy doors about thee Or as the Syriack renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 behind or after thee i. e. ●aith Calvin Diligenter cavendum ne ulla rimula diabolo ad nos pau●t Care must be taken that no passage be left open to the Devil to creep in after us and drive us out of our refuge for so it falls out too often with Gods people when they are at rest in Gods name or promises Satan creeps in by unbelieving doubts and puzling objections and beats them out of their refuge back again into trouble it is therefore of great concernment in such times especially not to give place to the Devil as the phrase is Eph. 4. 17. but ●●eave to God by a resolved reliance 4. Lastly we are to note with what Arguments or motives they are prest to betake themselves to this refuge There are two found in the Text the