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	inward_a	outward_a	1,389	5	6.9281	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A85988	A soveraign antidote against sinful errors, the epidemical plague of these latter dayes. Extracted out of divine records, the dispensatory of Christianity: for the prevention and cure of our spiritual distempers. By Claudius Gilbert, B.D. and minister of the Gospel at Limrick in Ireland.	Gilbert, Claudius, d. 1696?	1658 (1658)	Wing G704; Thomason E939_4; ESTC R202212	152,383	185

retain some ill humors that will augment too much Putrefaction if not timely removed Thence the cause of so many Diseases that hinder the growth of the inward and outward man But how dreadful is their condition that stil feed their disease and love nothing but what increases distempers Corrupt nature stil will bring like to like and undo it self by pampering self God provides us very wholsom food in his Ordinances but like foolish children we frowardly dislike it and prefer any trash rather We feed on crude and corrupt matter which breeds choler phlegm and worms a pace Thence an increase of putrefaction which spoils our appetite and taints our palate Want of exercise and orderly care in the wayes of Christ makes us such weaklings and such punies in his Grace and Knowledge How doth it trouble us to see our children wasting with Rickets worms and Feavers through their own folly Is not our case much worse under our many spiritual consumptions stil contracted by our negligence Let is humble us and make us ashamed that we grow so little in that which is good and so fast in that which is evil is it not our folly and our misery Should not it be our shame and sorrow Vse 3. Examination Doth your spiritual Life appear to your self and others by your growth Is it universal proportional and continual Living things do grow in every part stil with proportion and continuance Do you thus spiritually grow in the gracious Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Observe it in the particulars 1. Is it an universal growth both internally and externally 1. Internally do you grow in every faculty and power of the inward man Doth your mind and Judgement your reason and conscience your will and Affections your memory and Sense grow more spiritual solid and substantial Are you better acquainted with his Person and Office Progress and Purchase Relation and Influence Do you feel thereby more vigor and strength flowing into your soul out of his fulness Do you find his Spirit quickning your spirit by every Ordinance and Providence of his to an higher Degree of Grace and Knowledge Are you more sensible of your need thereof as of your own insufficiency to support and supply you in every Relation Do you long for it and delight in it grieving for the want striving after it restless without it refreshed with it Is Christ sweeter and sin bitterer to your soul more and more 2. Externally do your leaves buds and fruit encrease in Loveliness towards God and man Do you grow as Christ did in Grace and Favour Is it your study design and labour to perfect holiness in the fear of God by putting away every filthiness of flesh and spirit through the improvement of his precious Promises Is your growth uniform in its universal augment Do you abhor sins of Omission as much as you do sins of Commission Have you an eye still to the second Table in minding the first and to the first in minding the second Do you make conscience of the least Precept in improving every Promise Doth not your Interest encroach upon Christ or your Neighbours various concernments Are you more sincere and self-denying more couragious and zealous for Truth and for Peace Do you grow in Patience and Prudence also as in diligence and Dependency Are formality and hypocrifie more loathsome stil to you as to God Doth your hand grow stronger and steadier in all offices of Justice and Charity as of Piety and true Devotion Is your speech active and lively is your life speaking 2. Is your growth proportional Doth it answer the measure of every part It s a Monster that grows not aright in Nature and Grace for quantity order and quality Observe how Plants spread with fit proportions and sensitives in every member mind the very growth of your own others Bodies to compare your spiritual case therewith Do you grow downward in self-denial and humility as well as upward in knowledge and comfort Is there no disproportion between your profession and Conversation your parts and practice Are not you sick of spiritual Rickets that puff up the head and waste other limbs Do your sence and motion grow spiritually orderly and fitly Are you not like Mushroms of a sudden monstrous disproportionable growth Hath every faculty its proper increase for the service of all other parts Do you digest well spiritual Nourishment which every part must assimilate into its proper substance and use Doth your increase of Gifts and Knowledge make you to grow in all Judgement of Christian helpfulness towards every Relation above you about you under you Do all the parts of the New creature keep an harmonious symmetry and orderly motion within you Is there no excrescence or exuberance no dislocation or disruption there willingly suffered Are not you like Hydropical Bodies puffed up with wind water and humours Is your Judgement sound and affections warm your will supple and conscience tender your tongue seasoned and your whole man strengthened daily by this gracious Knowledge Doth your Growth answer Christ provisions 3. Is it continual Is it stil your desire and delight design and labour to be found ripening towards Gods Harvest Is your way stil as the morning Light which shines more and more to the perfect day Do you hold on in that gracious course waxing stronger and stronger as he that hath pure hands Do you abhor sinful Remissions and intermissions in your self and others Observe the growth of all living things how they hasten stil after their proper 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perfection Is it so with you on a spiritual score Have you learned with Paul to forget things behind and stil press forward Do you therefore labour to cast off every weight that doth hinder you and the sin that so easily besets you The Lord is continually dropping down fatness from Heaven upon you Do you Return thither answer your Receipts thence Are you like a Plant in the Lords Garden spiritual and civil in Church and State ripening still towards a better state Do you mark and bewail your failings neglects Do your fals and slips quicken your pace and your watchfulness Doth others folly teach you more wisdom to walk more steadily in this slippery age whilst the Seducers do wax worse and worse both in deceiving and being deceived Are you stil striving to grow better and better Are you not like the high way stony or thorny ground which are but for a time but like the good ground fruitful to perfection Do you Resemble those true Believers who through faith patience inherited the Promises rather then Judas and Alexander Anannias and Saphira with thousands more that failed half-way Do Hymeneus Philetas and Demas awaken your care and quicken your diligence that you may not prove like to them in forsaking Christ Do you give your Lusts neither Peace nor Truce in your

Latitude according to the variation of its aggravations As diseases do vary in their gradual recess from health being either simple or compound either more or less malignant hurtfull Thus Errors admit of many adjuncts which render them more or less sinful and injurious In every Error there is a sinfulness an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a defect of Truth privative a disposition to falshood positive As in every disease there is an evil deflection from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sound disposition of the body so in Error from that of the mind But this deflection is not alike in all but is cloathed with numerical differences and personal aggravations Some Errors are more and others less rooted Some are more single and others complicate Some are more submissively held and others more pertinaciously some are kept close others published some have more of the Will and Affections attending them others less some are more and others less pernicious some are more quiet others more turbulent As the malignity of infectious diseases admits of a great Latitude as the variety of venomous Creatures whether Plants Minerals or Sensitives is multipliciously diversified by the variations of their clime intentions of degrees c. some being cold as Hemlock others hot as Euphorbium some in the first or second others in the third or fourth degree some working more slowly others more quickly some by their Tail as the Scorpion some by their Teeth as the Viper and Rattle-snake some by their Tongue others by their Excrements some more sensibly as a mad Dog some more insensibly as the Asp So do Errors appear under variety of offensive qualities and adjuncts 5. The Cause of Error also as of every disease is multipliciously observable especially in a three-fold Division of Evident Antecedent and Continent 1. An Evident Cause among Physicians is much from Externals if not altogether whereby a Distemper is occasioned in the body So in mans soul this sickness of Error may be occasioned by external Causes as by infection ill company bad books various Temptations c. 2. An Antecedent Cause of sickness bodily is from some thing within whether vapor humor or Spirit distempering any part disabling it from its proper Action Thus the foregoing Cause of this spiritual disease lies in some flatuous humorous or spiritual evil that disorders the mind from its right discerning of the Truth causing it to deviate into the way of falshood Habitual Corruption within flowing from Adams first sin which is ours by Imputation attended with the want of original Righteousness and often called original sin because the womb of all sin in us is the chief cause from which all other evils flow that breed and increase these sad distempers This Corruption acts variously in the way of Pride and Self-seeking Security and Worldliness c. 3. The Continent Cause of a corporal distemper is that immediate thing which cherishes it being cherished from the remote cause whether corrupt blood wind water gravel c. So the continent Cause of Error is that peculiar Corruption whether Ignorance or Pride self-conceitedness or worldliness c. which sticks close to the mind to breed and cherish its several dyscrasies and distempers Thence such clouding of mens Iudgements and disorders in their Reasonings hence perverse Disputings of men that are reprobate concerning the Faith as Ambition and Pride carried Simon and Menander Nestorius and Macedonius away Discontent and Envy prevailed with Arrius Covetousness carried on Demetrius and his Comrads There is a Complication of such causes in most 6. The Effects of Error as of every corporal disease are likewise variously numerous according to the variations of its numerical Idea of its specifical nature of its descent gradations causes This spiritual sickness is a Tendency to further sin eternal Death as every bodily sickness is the beginning of corporal death The wages of sin is death sin deserves it it binds ever it leads to it it fits for it it begins it As much as there is of sinfulness so much is there of death attending it Corporal civil spiritual and Eternal Grace indeed doth restrain and limit it pardons and subdues it purges out gradually and at last exterminates all sin in Gods Elect yet it changes not the Nature or desert of sin though it chances the sinners nature and relation Providence limits and over-rules this sinfulness also in the Reprobate As the wise Physitian corrects his Opium in a Confection so doth God correct sin remaining in his Children As the same Physitian appoints fit means against infection to all indefinitely so doth our Soveraign Physician by shewing the dangerous effects of Error As the effects of Poisons are very various yet always sad so are sin and sorrrw inseparable Twins Error was set forth to the Life by that Leprosiy of the head which had a peculiar mark of Ignominy Infection and danger It s like to those poisonous Minerals and Vegetables which strike first ai the head and thence at all other parts It s a spiritual Plague which cannot but be mischievous still though not in all alike All sorts of men in all relations are made to feel the sad Consequents thereof It s a fruitfull womb a breeding dung hill a poisoned spring Lerna malorum It engages and leads insensibly to more evil notional and practical It disgraces God opposes his Truth distempers mens souls endangers their families blasts their Profession stains their Repute scandalizes many ensnares divers troubles Church and State and complies with Satan in his various designes by nursing of his brood This Age gives sad demonstations thereof As Cephalical diseases are on many accounts the most dangerous of all in the Body so are these heady distempers in the soul which are easily communicated to all the vital inferior parts The poison of some works in a stupifying way as Opium Henbane Hemlock c. others venom acts by an enraging quality as Elaterium Euphorbium Scammony The effect of some is more speedily mortal as in the Touches of a Basilisk and Asp of the Viper and rattle Snake if not very timely look'd to others are more slow and less dangerous as in the operations of various simples appears The Parallel of spiritual Poisons therewith is easily drawn by an observing Christian 7. The Symptoms or Signs of Error as of Corporal deseases are of divers sorts some more Common others more Proper 1. The common signs are such as attend divers distempers in a general way as enfeebling of the parts change of complexion Indiposition to action c. Thus Errors have their Common signs wherein many of them agree appearing much in their sad effects against Gods Honor and mans good though often under far Colors like that Indian Apple in the Western Islands which seems beautifull and yet is rank poison 2. There are proper Tokens and characteristical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and notes of each

places in Ezekiel and other Scriptures hold this forth to the Life by the increase and Improvement of the Sanctuary-waters A fruitfull Parable the Lord himself spreads before us to express this emphatically by a large and pregnant Allegory whose divine Branches have been elaborately trimmed to this purpose by a very worthy Pen. The God of all Grace likes not to see his gracious Off-spring wasted with Rickets in a decaying posture His Messages from Heaven to the seven Churches of Asia testifie the same and hold forth a lively resemblance of his various dealings with his people from that time hitherto according to the various proportions of their Growth or Decay Reason 1. Their Nature requires it full of Spirit and Life they are and must needs grow The more of Life in any thing the more of Growth The more of Spirit the more of liveliness Grace is spiritual Life the seed of Glory and eternal Life It s the Life of Christ the operation of his holy Spirit as far as man is capable thereof The best of a mans natural Life is but dull and dead in comparison of this gracious Life Union to the living God and Communion with him in Christ through the Spirit is the Principle of this supernatural Life The new Creature must needs grow that Partakes so much of the divine Nature in similitude though not in sameness in quality though not in equality Want of lively Principles makes so many glorious Professors to wither and waste so miserably They were but seeming Branches as Cions meerly fastened about the stock but never incorporated therein intimately They that have their root and Life from earthly Nature still may for a while flourish but will soon be blasted The Root and Life of the new man is above in Gods bosom in the heart of Christ still supplied by his Spirit to safeguard them from all winter-blasts of renewed Temptations and corruptions Reason 2. Gods honour cals for it All things are made for him as they were framed by him Of him through him and to him are all things as in Nature so in Grace peculiarly This people hath he formed for his praises They are the plants of his setting the work of his hand that he may be glorified And herein is their Father glorified that they bring forth much fruit The growth of his Garden is the glory of that Divine Husbandman The thriving of his children must needs commend his Fatherly care His Love and service cannot but press thereto If his children be so unlike him they can neither honour nor serve him aright He hat much work for all his servants in every Relation and occasion If they be sickly and wasting what are they fit for Must not his people be lively like him that they may be stil faithful and successful The more Christ is known in a gracious way the more doth sin waste and Grace flourish The vigor of a Christian is still in his Christ The Love of Christ must needs constrain him to live more to him in being more like him Much strength and Spirit is still required in every part of the Lords service He would have us fervent in spirit as Paul himself was therein which doth require a spiritual growth to make us vigorous Reason 3. Mans Interest challenges it their credit and comfort their honour and happiness depend upon their growth Their profit and pleasure their helpfulness to others still attend the same A wasting sickly life is as uncomfortable as unserviceable to our selves and others Rickets and Consumptions render our children useless and burthensom spiritual decaies are far more offensive unto Gods children They can neither help themselves nor others that are thus pining and consuming The life of our life is in our health and strength without it we cannot receive nor do good to any purpose A diseased Life is but a living Death and a dying Life Christ must be known more graciously stil that we may enjoy more of his comforts and be more useful to all his members The more any Limb receives from the head the more assistance may the same afford unto its Body We must still be deriving from Christ what we are stil to communicate to our fellow members Christian sympathie and communion will still challenge serviceableness from every part of his mystical Body Vse 1. See the Necessity and Benefit of a perpetual Ministry and Ordinances They are the special means appointed and blessed for the promoting of this spiritual growth He gave Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the Work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ untill we all come into a perfect man in him to the full measure of his stature that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro with every wind of Doctrine but speaking the Truth in Love may grow up into him in all things who is the Head even Christ The slighting of Christs Institutions makes so many to decay apace in their profession and affection in their parts and practice They are the food and refreshings of Gods House suited to the case of all his children and servants therein The neglect abuse and poisoning thereof must needs be very sinful and woful How can they but languish and perish that scorn and defile that spoil and pervert the precious Means of their Life and growth Providence ever knits the End and the Means What the Lord appoints he doth surely and seasonably bless Out of his road he will not be look'd for nor assure his Grace where he Records not his Name His General presence fils all places indeed and Rules in hell it self Judicially But his favourable and fatherly presence is to be sought and found in his gracious Ordinances What can Rebels expect from a Soveraign whose Orders they stil oppose and reject Who can look for the Blessing of Heaven in following the waies of darkness What hope of growing in any good things without answerable supplies and relief We waste a pace and need refreshing still that we may grow in the knowledge of Christ Vse 2. It may convince and humble all ignorant and negligent Christians It s our sin let it be our shame and sorrow that we grow so little under such helps in the Lords husbandry This evil reigns in most it remains in the best Most continue in the love under the power thereof making a trade and a sport of it the best find much cause to be still judging themselves for the sad Reliques of these unhappy weeds The dunghil abounds continually with filth and Vermin so doth mans unrenewed heart The best Garden will ever be troubled with some trash or other to be look'd after Their case is saddest that are most sensless of it and secure in it The soundest bodies