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
A59549	Fifteen sermons preach'd on several occasions the last of which was never before printed / by ... John, Lord Arch-Bishop of York ...	Sharp, John, 1645-1714.	1700 (1700)	Wing S2977; ESTC R4705	231,778	520

do so perversly apply to their own Case as thereby to increase their trouble but not to get any relief I have known several well-disposed Persons and some of them sincerely Pious that have been in this Condition What now is to be said to this Why it is very certain that all these Thoughts and Fancies are thrust upon them and are not the free natural voluntary Operations of their own Minds but the effects of Vapours or Hypochondriac Melancholy Nor can the Persons themselves any more help their thus Thinking or Fancying than they can help the Disturbances of their Dreams when they have a mind to sleep quietly Indeed we may properly enough call these Fancies of theirs their waking Dreams as their Dreams are their sleeping Fancies Well but now of all Persons whatsoever these People are most desirous to have Rules given them for the Government of their Thoughts And I cannot blame them because their Thoughts are certainly very Troublesome But truely if we should speak pertinently to their Case instead of giving them Advices for the regulating their Thoughts they should rather be advised to look after their Bodies and by the help of good Prescriptions to get rid of those Fumes and Vapours which occasion these Fancies When the Cause is removed the effect will soon cease I do not in the least doubt whatever these People may think of their own Case but that this is as properly a Bodily Disease as a Feaver or Fits of the Falling Sickness In the mean time while they are in this Condition whatever Rules are proper to be given to other Persons for the Government of the Thoughts of all People living those Rules do the least concern them For those Thoughts which they complain of do not at all fall under Regulation or Government because they are suggested to their Minds whether they will or no. And for my part I think it a great deal more advisable if it could be to neglect and despise them than to be perpetually strugling and disputing with them and vexing themselves about them But you will say If Men be such Slaves to their Thoughts and are thus necessarily passive under them where is the Freedom of Thought To this I answer In the fourth place out of these three Cases I before mentioned we have Liberty of Thinking and may chuse our own Thoughts And that Liberty and Freedom we have in Thinking doth to my apprehension mainly consist in this viz. That all of us who are not in the Circumstances I have been hitherto speaking of can if we please apply our Minds more vigorously to one sort of thing than to another and accordingly as we do thus apply our Minds so will the most of our Thoughts be It is in our power among the multitude of Objects which present themselves to our Mind as for Instance God Vertue Holiness Heaven Wealth Power Greatness Preferments Fine Cloaths Splendid Equipage Sensual Pleasures Recreations Divertisements Knowledge Learning Arts and the like I say that among all this multitude of Objects that present themselves to our Minds it is in our power to determine our selves which of them we will dwell upon and make a Business of And accordingly when at any time we have pitched upon any of them as a Business it is in our power to mind that Business either more or less diligently And if it be such a one as that we mean in good earnest to concern our selves about it it will then so fill our Minds as that by attending to that we shall either prevent in a great measure other Thoughts from coming into our Heads or if they do come in they will not long stay there but will very speedily give place to that which is our main Business at that time And the Reason of this is plain Because our Natures are of that Make that two things at once cannot well possess our Minds and therefore if we be intent about one thing we cannot have much room or leisure for Thoughts of another Nature But then Fifthly and lastly Though this that I have said be the true Nature of that power we have over our Thoughts as to the directing them to a particular Object Yet there is another power we have over them that ought here more especially to be considered because in it are laid the very Foundations of Vertue and Vice and upon account of it all our thoughts become either morally good or evil That which I mean is this Though we cannot in many Cases think always of what we would nay though we cannot hinder abundance of Thoughts from coming into our Minds against our will Yet it is always in our power to assent to our Thoughts or to deny our Consent to them And here it is that the Morality of our Thoughts begins According as we Assent or Dissent to the Motions that are made in our Minds so will our Thoughts have the Notion of Vertuous or Sinful Thoughts When any Temptations are presented to us from without we cannot perhaps as I said before avoid the feeling an irregular Passion or Motion or Inclination stirring within us upon occasion thereof But yet at that very time it is in our power whether we will comply with those Passions and Inclinations or not whether we will consent to them or not whether we will pursue them further or not Now if we do not consent to them but endeavour to stop and stifle and resist them as soon as we are aware of them there is yet no harm done Our Thoughts how undecent or irregular soever they were are rather to be accounted the Infirmities of our Corrupt Nature than our Sins properly so called And thus it is likewise as to our Wandring Thoughts in our Prayers If we strive against them and endeavour to keep our Minds in a Devout Composed Temper and attend as well as we can to the Duty we are about I say if we do this I hope those Distractions and Wandrings will never rise up in Judgment against us And as for the frightful Blasphemous Fancies which as I told you some even Pious Persons are tormented with As to them I say they of all other irregular Thoughts have the least danger of Sin in them though they be not so solemnly and formally disputed with and contested against Because indeed they are so terrible in their own Nature that no Man in his Wits and that hath any sense of God or Goodness can be supposed to consent to them They are indeed great Infelicities but by no means any Sin any farther than we approve of them and to approve of them for any tolerable good Man is impossible But then on the other side If we consent to any wicked Motion or Inclination that we feel in our selves let it come in how it will never so suddenly never so unexpectedly if we close with any Thought that prompts us to Evil so as to be pleased with it to delight in it to think of pursuing it till

long use and many tryals obtained a greater power over their Thoughts than others Again the same Persons that at some times have a greater power over the motions of their Minds may at other times have a less Command over them and this according as their Health or their Business or a hundred Contingencies of outward things do affect them So that all that can be done as to this matter is to lay down some general Propositions which every Body is to apply to himself as there is Occasion And Five of this kind I have to offer and which I think will take in all or the greatest part of what belongs to this Argument The first Proposition I lay down is this That the first Motions of our Minds are very little if at all in our power By the first motions of our Minds I mean those sudden Thoughts or Apprehensions or Passions or Desires which are excited in our Minds by any Object that is at that time presented to our Imagination As to these I say we are not so much Masters of our selves as to be able to stop them nay tho' perhaps they be very irregular And the Reason is because they are produced so quick that there is not time enough given for Reason to interpose There is no necessity indeed that a Man should give Consent to these Motions but as for their coming into his Mind he can no more help it than he can help his present Temper or the present Circumstances he is ingaged in Thus for Instance Do you think it possible for a Man that is of a Fiery Passionate Temper to avoid the feeling a sudden Resentment of Anger arising in his Mind if he meets with any unexpected Affront or other great Provocation Or for a Man that desires to be well thought of not to entertain some Vanity of Imagination when he hears himself commended or flatter'd Or for a Man that is addicted to Pleasures not to feel some irregular Inclinations in himself towards the gratifying his Appetites in those things when he hath all the Temptations before him And thus in all other Cases I grant indeed that a Man by long Consideration and a serious exercising himself in the ways of Vertue and Piety may bring himself to that Temper that he shall not have so many irregular undecent Motions in his own Mind upon any occasion whatsoever as he was wont to have and that those that were formerly Temptations to him will at last be none But still I say the first Motions and Workings of his Mind however they be occasioned are in a great measure out of his power he cannot stop them and therefore the Art of governing his Thoughts doth not lye there The second Proposition I lay down is this When a Man's Mind is vigorously affected and possessed either with the outward Objects of sense or with inward Passions of any kind in that Case he hath little or no Command of his Thoughts His Mind at that time will be in a manner wholly taken up with that it is then full of Nor will he be able till those Impressions be worn off to think freely of what he pleaseth Thus for Instance When a Man is under a sharp tormenting Pain as he cannot avoid the feeling of that Pain so neither can he avoid the thinking of it When one is full of Grief for the loss of a dear Relation or transported with Passion for some unworthy usage he hath met with It is in vain to say Pray think not of these Matters for these things must and will in a great measure imploy his Thoughts till his Passions do cool and the Impressions that caused them be vanished Thus for a Man to come from some Business in which he is more than ordinarily concerned or from the hearing some very good or very bad News I say to come fresh from this to the saying his Prayers I do not I cannot wonder that in this case his Mind will be much upon his Business or his News notwithstanding all his endeavours to the contrary For the Nature of Man is such that he cannot so of a sudden turn his mind from one Business to another but that if he did closely and vigorously apply himself to the first Business his Thoughts will for some time run upon it even after he hath applied his Mind to the other I do not deny but that a Man may often so order his Affairs as to be able to keep his Mind clear and free from such Prepossessions as I am now speaking of so as that when he comes to apply himself to any Business he hath a mind to he may intend it with his whole Might But this I say If our Minds be once engaged with warm Thoughts about any thing it is very hard if not impossible to get them disengaged on a sudden So that the Art of Governing our Thoughts doth not much lie in that neither Thirdly There are some Cases likewise where a Man's Thoughts are in a manner forced upon him from the present Temper and Indisposition of his Body So that though he be in no Passion though there be no unusual Objects of Sense that excite those Thoughts in him nay though he never so much resolve not to think upon those things yet so long as that Habit of Body lasts he cannot avoid those kind of thoughts So that in this Case also there is little room left for the Government of Thoughts That which I now say happens frequently not only in all sorts of Distempers where the Brain is visibly disturbed as in Feavers and the like which often cause a thousand delirous Fancies and sometimes down-right Madness and Distraction But also in other Cases where there seems to be no Feaver or other visible Distemper nor doth the Brain as to other matters seem to be at all disorder'd but the persons in all appearance are sound both in Body and Mind And this is the Case of some deeply Hypochondriac Persons many of which will be haunted with a Sett of Thoughts and Fancies that they can by no means get rid of though they desire it never so earnestly Sometimes they cannot get it out of their Heads but that they are Atheists and Infidels they neither believe in God nor in Jesus Christ nor have any sense at all of Religion Sometimes they are tormented with Blasphemous Thoughts and they cannot set themselves to the Performance of any Office of Devotion but a thousand impious Fancies will come in and spoil all Sometimes they fancy they are guilty of several grievous Crimes which it is to be hoped it was hardly possible they should be guilty of nay you cannot convince them but that they do every day commit some of these Crimes because they imagine they give consent to them And whilst these sorts of Thoughts fill their Imaginations there is not a Passage in the Bible that they read nor a Sermon that they hear but they find something in it which they