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	life_n	soul_n	5,160	5	5.5664	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46692	Ta kannakou the tragedies of sin contemplated in the ruine of the angels, fall of man, destruction of the old world, confusion of Babel, conflagration of Sodom &c. : humbly recommended to the present age, for the designed ends of caution and terrour : together with Remarques on the life of the great Abraham / by Steph. Jay, rector of Chinner ...	Jay, Stephen, d. 1689.	1689 (1689)	Wing J498; ESTC R36028	189,911	392

Hell Who but these have rais'd up all the Assassinations and Massacres upon the Body of the Church not only by Heathenish and Pagan Instruments but have sent their thousands and ten thousands into Death by the less merciful hands of those who Drunk with Blood have yet the blasphemous Impudence to call themselves by the Name of Jesus Who but these had the Brow to move the Court of Heaven for the subversion of the whole Colledge of the Apostles at once and with an equal Insolence to endeavour the utter evacuating the whole Project of our Eternal Redemption by tempting the great Authour of it to cast himself upon sinful and unwarrantable Means of Preservation and directly tending to his Ruine and when that would not take consult together more effectually to work their Ends by the cursed Treachery of his own Servant In a word these are they that have wrought all the late Storms and Tempests in the World 't is they have wrought all the Devastations that Turkish and Gallican Tyranny have executed for them The unnatural Wars in our own Bowels the horrid Massacres of the Church in France and Ireland the deplorable Fewds among our selves these have kindled our Fires burnt up our Cities enflamed our Spirits contrived the Plots of our Ruine and are yet at work very briskly to bring them to Perfection And all this from the Inveterate Hatred they bear to God and Man roaring as Lyons to devour twisting themselves as Serpents to deceive by all subtle wayes and wiles beyond all imagination by secret and invisible Engines and Artifices profound Stratagems and Devices making use of all sorts of Means and Instruments as well by real Friends as professed Enemies to the very Wife of thy Bosom nay to the dividing thy self and making a Party for themselves in thy Heart And yet we snore in our security and dally in an insensibleness of any danger while yet these mighty Enemies are round about they fill the Air we breath in and hover over our Heads and are prying into all our most retired Actions and are Witnesses to all our Villanies to give Evidence against us in the last Day Nay they mingle themselves with our very Affections and Passions and fly-blow our very Prayers and Devotions and Charities endeavouring to render tham all fruitless and unprofitable to us and unacceptable to God. In short instead of wishing well to us assisting us in our Work rejoycing in our Conversion and ministring to our Comfort the service of the good Angels these repine at our Welfare hinder our Repentance Lull us along in our Security terrifie our Spirits imbitter our Lives enrage our Enemies enstrange our Friends disease our Bodies and betray our Souls For all which and infinite other unmentioned Calamities and Disasters from them whom may we justly Curse and execrate as the Original cause of all but Sin which by its malignant Influences and wicked Inchantments from being amiable Creatures of the sweetest Inclinations and Affections hath transformed them into real Furies and Devils against us Come hither Reader and with that Roman Souldier envy me the Honour of preparing the Funerals of the great Pompy alone but bring with thee all the Luminaries of thy Soul gather all the straggling forces of thine utmost reason and considering Faculties and all too little to ruminate as thou oughtest on this rueful Spectacle David once bitterly Mourned at the Bier of one Prince of Israel Slain by the Treachery of an insolent Traytor But who hath slain all these Heaps upon heaps once glorious Princes of Heaven O see what a slaughter sin hath made upon them And then consider the weight of that Argument presented to thee by Peter and Jude If God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down into Hell and delivered them into Chains of darkness to be reserved unto Judgment How will he spare thee They were Angels Infinitely above thee in the Dignity of their Nature and Creation yet Greatness was no Argument for Mercy They were a Multitude in the confederacy yet neither did the Number of the Offenders move pity in the least but one and all Thousands of them to Hell without Mercy yet it was the first Offence too they sinned but once and some think but in Thought and Justice seized upon them to Execution and God dealt not with them as with thee and me Reader on whom he hath long waited even while we have been multiplying provocations and stirring up his wrath to destroy us yet still hath he waited to be gracious to us And methinks 't were pity to make a God wait in vain upon us to lose all the Expences of his Patience and Expectation from us We would do well to think on it and the force of the Apostles most Pathetick Argument Despisest Thou the riches of his Goodness and Patience and Long-suffering Thou that art but a poor Worm a Clod of the Earth and no Angel a Creature of Yesterday and who art crushed before the Moth and whose Foundation is in the Dust Despisest thou And who art thou that should despise a God And to despise him too To entertain low and unbecoming thoughts of Him that could Nod thee into Hell and send thee to accompany Devils in Torments Not so much as to have an Eye towards him or to spend a Look upon him or to concern thy Thoughts about him thinkest him unworthy of thy Notice or Observation and yet a God and such a one on whom Angels and blessed Spirits Gaze with unspeakable Admiration and Delight not to have the least sense of him No neither whilst he is flowing out to thee in the sweetest of his Communications that of his Goodness to despise Goodness and that Goodness not to others but thy self thy self Reader to despise a God who hath been so long good to thee The very Fountain of all the good Mercies thou hast enjoyed and herein good as not to punish thee for the abuse of those Mercies but is still waiting Now if thy reason be not drench'd into a perfect Bruitishness be thine own Judge whether such Goodness should not lead thee to Repentance A mercy he never vouchsafed to the Angels never waited to see whether they would return or no but for the first Sin delivers them to Justice layes them in Chains and reserves them to destruction while yet he is still Courting thee to come in and submit Declares himself unwilling to ruin thee makes Oath of it That he hath no delight in thy Blood but infinitely rather that thou shouldest return and Live and thou may'st believe him Reader thou hast his very Heart in that Protestation Well 't is not unworthy thy most serious Reflection to fix a while on Gods Severity towards these Angels who are now under Chains of wrath and thou art walking presumptuously on the snares of Death too but should thy feet stumble on the dark Mountains as they will and the fall of thy Body shall burst out thy

by that Covenant He proceeds now to a discovery of a better Inheritance than Canaan and perfectly adequate too to the more pure and refined inclinations of those better Children of Abraham on whom the very Features of his brave Soul should survive and appear and who should not idley boast in the priviledge of his Blood running in their Veins when they bore not the least shadow of his Faith and Goodness in their Hearts For these express Images of their Fathers Graces He knows no better Heritage to confer upon them than his own most Blessed Self He hath portion enough that hath a God Blessed is the People whose God is the Lord. Nothing less than He can be a proportionable Portion for the Spiritual Heirs of Abraham's Faith. Therefore to let him see the unexpressible Riches of his Grace and the high Contrivances of his Heart which was ever working into more and greater Manifestations of his Love towards him he passes from Heaven to break in pieces all the Barrs of Opposition and Despair not only that little one of his Wife's Barrenness which obstructed all his hopes of an Heir but also those mighty ones of Sin and Hell which hinder the World of the blessings of a Saviour Now the better to Illustrate the Glory of that Grace which he is ready to Seal to his Dearest Abraham He will lay the Foundation of it in a more Conspicuous and Brighter Revelation of Himself to him than ever yet he had the Happiness to enjoy By drawing the Curtain from the profound Abyss of the Incomprehensible Deity and flashing out a clearer Beam of his Majesty upon his Understanding and Mind in the further Light and Joy whereof he shall henceforth walk all the days of his Life as in the Shine of a thousand Suns Knowledge is the foundation of Faith and the greater Degrees of it are the enlarging the Field wherein the Contemplations of the Soul more unlimitedly walk with sweeter Liberty while Her desires stretch out themselves by the utmost Extensions after the Infinite Good they discover And though they despair to reach it here below for God is Great and we know him not so great that we cannot know him yet 't is no small delight to them to enjoy a Pisgah-sight of that Glorious Canaan God had already shewn unto Abraham what he would be unto him under Metaphorical Expressions of Shield and Reward But he knows not yet distinctly enough what he is in Himself and he should be infinitely happier in a more satisfactory discovery of his Nature such as might brighten his Judgment and Apprehensions The greatest part of the Worlds Religion is Samaritan Men worship they know not what but Abraham shall know Him he worships and shall be guided by the light of such an Attribute that shall open his Intellectuals into the Sence of the Divine Nature and such a One too as shall be most naturally effectual to work up his other Faculties into a chearful and unreserved Resignation of his whole Person and Actions to the Will of God when he shall find that he hath all those Infinite Perfections in him which compleat and fill up the Blessedness of a God without going out of Himself to fetch in any Contributions to make him more Happy than he is already If therefore such a God would make over Himself to him and give him an Interest in that All-sufficiency which he himself both is and hath Abraham should have little cause to complain of Defects in the Perfection of his Felicity since he hath every thing according to his Capacity whatsoever an All-sufficient God hath to make himself perfectly Happy Let him stretch out the Appetites of his Soul to the remotest expansions of Eternity even thither will this God follow him to Supply and Perfect up all his desires This is the delicious Prospect that his Spiritual Eyes shall be Irradiated to gaze on far transcending all the outward Objects of a Transitory World or the Canaan in it that formerly he had commanded him to View This is that Luscious Banquet he prepares for Abraham's Faith and Affections to Feast on And methinks Reader thou hast no reason to complain of Scarcity when thou art placed after him at the same Table with an Addition of many more Viands which his Great Son hath brought from Heaven with him The standing Dish that every Son of Abraham is commanded to break his Fast on is God Himself And he is enough without any other Sallads from Canaan Yet hath he strangely Improved himself under the Gospel where he hath dressed and set out himself with all the pleasing advantages to our Palats imaginable And when all this is done how few are there found that relish any Sweetness in him Our Squeamish Stomacks with those nice Children of Abraham Will none of him Our Sick Souls Loath this precious Manna But art thou in Health Reader that thy Soul tasts not a God Does Onions and Garlick Wind and Vanity please thee better Go take thy Repast with Ephraim and see whether thou beest not grip'd at the last 'T is himself indeed that must give us eyes to behold his own Beauties and holy Senses to relish his own Sweetness Do but observe with what Extasie of Passion the great Abraham's Soul was seized at the first Breaking out of so transcendent a Mercy He Bows himself to the Earth with the same Prostration as a poor Indigent would do that had Scepters and Kingdoms Sealed up to him by a Royal Hand and Bounty The former Largesses of Canaan cost him but a few humble Cringes but here he Sinks down flat under the weight of this excessive Glory the having a God secured to him by Covenant He lies Astonished on the Ground before him struck down in Amazement at the thought of so vast a Condescention of a God making over Himself with all the Glories of Heaven and Earth to a contemptible Worm extracted no higher than the poor Dust he lay on When the frequent Sound of the same miraculous Grace beating into the Ears of thee and me Reader hath not the least Energy upon our Hearts nor hath wrought any greater Concern upon us than if we had been hearing Lectures of Happiness in the Kingdom of the Moon and promising hopes of Promotion in Eutopia Yet is God so pleased to see Abraham thus Lowly that taking him when he is Down He Dubs him a Knight of the Holy Order and adds a Sacred Syllable more to his Name who from the single Honour of being the Great Father of the Thousands of Israel shall be now inaugurated the true Pope of the Vniversal Church of God next and immediately under his own Son. And Kings by more Natural Bonds than those of Civility and Complement shall truly call him Father and be proud too to derive their Royal Descent from the direct Line of his Blood. Thus is Abraham placed in a Chair of State upon a Throne with all the Scepters of the World humbly lying