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
A62646	Two discourses The first, of evil-speaking: by His Grace, John, late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. The second, of the government of the thoughts: by His Grace, John, Lord Archbishop of York. Both preach'd before Their Majesties, 1694.	Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.; Sharp, John, 1645-1714. Sermon about the government of the thoughts. aut	1698 (1698)	Wing T1270B; ESTC R219325	32,275	64

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 T●oughts 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 whilest 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 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 Melancholly 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 the Thoughts And I cannot blame them because their Thoughts are certainly very Troublesome But truly if we would 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 then 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 Thoughts 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 Clothes Splendid Equipage Sensuat 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