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	matter_n	soul_n	1,472	5	5.2309	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A15393	Eliah's vvish a prayer for death. A sermon preached at the funerall of the Right Honourable Viscount Sudbury, Lord Bayning. By Ro: Willan D.D. Chaplaine to his Maiesty.	Willan, Robert, d. 1630.; Spencer, John, d. 1680.	1630 (1630)	STC 25670; ESTC S120043	16,811	52

employment in the seruice of God then he may say Egredere anima mea go out my soule why shouldst thou feare approaching vnto him whom thou hast serued so long when Elias can plead a sufficit then tolle animam may come after it O the secure life of good men when death is expected without feare entertained with chearefull welcome nay prayed and wished for with sweet deuotion In the second Argument take notice of his modesty he esteemes himselfe though wonderfully qualified no better then his Fathers If some small portion of Elias modesty were left in the world any blush of vertuous bashfulnesse the vile would not in the Prophets phrase presume aboue the Honourable nor the vpstart so highly disdaine their Ancesters preferring the false and fading beauty of recent opinions before the amiable wrinkles in the face of aged truth St. Paul says he serued God from his elders and progenitors from whom hee receiued his being and existencie from them hee tooke his piety and religion and he commends the deriuatiue faith of Timothy descending from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice And here Elias making honourable mention of his Predecessors tels vs wee owe vnto them a double memory First of their liues as Adamants to draw vs to the imitating of their vertues Secondly of their deaths as monitors to put vs in minde of our owne mortality All vertues Morall and Diuine haue beene by our Ancestors most fully exemplified when a Poet would encourage a young Sparke to noble vndertakings hee doth it by this very way Te Pater Aeneas auunculus excitet Hector Let thy father Aeneas and thy vncle Hector bee thy Guides Would you learne faith and confidence in God thinke vpon your Predecessor Abraham the Father of the faithfull Desire you to leade a pure chaste life thinke vpon your Predecessor Joseph Would you meekly sustaine afflictions of minde and tormenting diseases of body thinke vpon your Predecessor Iob would you bee zealous in the cause of God and his Orthodox truth thinke vpon your Predecessor Elias The Wisemen of the East had but one Starre to guide them vnto our Sauiours cradle but we so many of our Predecessors as haue led holy and Regular liues so many Starres enlightning our way so many Loadstones to draw vs vnto goodnesse our Ancestors hauing runne their Race resigned the torches of their life and withall left vs the lampes and lights of their example 2. It is very good and wholsome for them also who spend their dayes in sinne and vanity to reflect their eye vpon theyr Predecessors Let the couetous ayming at wealth and doing no good with it thinke vpon his Predecessor Nabal who tenne dayes together lay as a block without sence motion or shew of life Let the Ambitious aspirer thinke vpon his Predecessor Absolon meeting with a tree in the forrest which heard not his fathers Caueat for his life but became the Reuenger of his ingratitude and the fatall instrument of his destruction Let the Lasciuious wanton wallowing in sensuall delights thinke of his Predecessor Zimri dying in the act of his sinne Let the Capacious Funnell able to do as much alone as Zerxes multitudinous Army dry vp an Hellespont thinke vpon his Predecessor Balthazar perishing in his carowsing Bowles Let the vayne-glorious boaster proud of what is not his own think of his predecessor worm-eaten Herode cut off in the midst of his glorious Harangue And let all true Repentant sinners thinke on theyr Predecessor Dauid whose bed swamme in teares and of the three sillables reconciling his angry God vnto him of his Predecessor Peter recouering more grace by weeping then hee lost by sinning of his Predecessor Mary Magdalen who became a Lebete Phiala of a Cauldron seething and boyling in lust a Christall viall of pure Chastity And let all disconsolate soules flying with Elias for shelten to the Iunipertree thinke of their Predecessor Jesus who dyed on the tree vnder his Crosse is the true shade Oh good and desirable is the shadow vnder thy wings Lord Jesus there is the safe Sanctuary to flye vnto the most comfortable refreshing of all sinne and sorrow whatsoeuer cups of affliction this life propines vnto vs is nothing to the bitter draughts hee dranke vpon the Crosse who inuites to heauen Let vs all thinke of our Predecessor treading the Paths of death before vs wee haue erred with our Fathers wee are Pilgrimes and strangers vpon earth as all our Fathers were wee must dye as our Fathers did For we are no better then our Fathers The third and last part is the prayer it selfe Tolle animam out of it there doe naturally flow these two Corallaries The first that life is no such Iewell but a good man may finde time and cause to bee weary of it or else Elias had neuer beene at tolle animam The second that there is a more blessed life after this life or else Elias could not haue bene so mad as prodigally to cast away his life present To the first Life may be considered two wayes First as God at first gaue it Secondly as wee now enioy it The life which God gaue had fiue prerogatiues two without man three within him without him God and his blessed Angels to protect him besides Paradise the pleasing seate of his Habitation Within him Knowledge Righteousnesse and Immortality his knowledge exceeding ours in three particulars First in amplitude and extent reaching to God the creatures and himselfe Secondly in the excellent manner not as we by coniecturall probability deriued from effects but by euident demonstration out of the causes Thirdly for duration or continuance ours is gotten with difficulty aud easily lost either by discontinued intermission and cessation or the braine and fancy may be distempered as in a Phrensy or the memory dulled as in a Lethargy Secondly man was created Righteous that Righteousnesse was the rectitude and integrity of the whole man whereby his soule was obedient vnto God his body to the soule This was the Crowne and Diadem of mans life Thou hast Crowned him with glory and worshippe adorned him with grace and holinesse An happy life was that wherein Methusalem liuing almost a thousand yeeres should not haue offended once whereas now the most righteous man fals seauen times that is often-times a day Lastly that was a kinde of Immortall life a thing is said to be incorruptible three wayes First in respect of the matter either which it hath not as the Angels are immortall those pure and immateriall substances or in respect of the matter which it hath as the Heauens the matter whereof they are made being insusceptible of any forme but one Secondly in regard of the forme so the body of Adam was immortall as the widdowes oyle lasted in the cruse without diminution so might his body haue endured without corruption and that by the third the efficient cause not by any inherent quality or disposition in the body but

by a supernaturall dowry of the soule God endewed the first soule with such a powerfull vertue as enabled it to preserue the body whereto it was vnited from corruption as a Candle enlightens the lanthorne wherein it is contained So the blessednesse of the soule reflecting vpon the body should haue kept it in perpetuall vigour and health That was a free noble innocent liuely life But man being in Honour forgot his God and lost this life What is the life we now enioy take a short view of the seuerall ages of the seuerall estates of the inseparable adiuncts of our life and you will finde meerely to liue is no great happinesse First an Infant that 's a life of pitty tenne months close prisoner in the dungeon of the wombe not beholding the light which when hee comes into how sadly he salutes it presaging his hard welcome shaming that hee is naked lamenting that hee is borne repining that he is borne to misery then if his cradle proues not his coffin hee liues a child that 's a life of folly in his speech thoughts and actions youth succeedes that 's a life of sinne reason is weake passion strong concupiscence itcheth lust rageth sinne reigneth Manhood the flower of all is a life of vanity Man in his best estate is altogether vanity Lastly an old man that 's a life of death The Apostles word is of Abraham Sarah when they were old they were as dead the head is gray the face withered the skinne wrinkled the limmes stiffe the stomacke weake the memory frayle the body crooked the vitall powers decayed the spirits spent this is the life in ages what is it in callings Man liues eyther single and that is a free life but vncomfortable or he takes a wife wedlock is the schoole of Patience demure Sarah chid with Abrabam bleare-eyed Leah wrangled with Jacob scornefull Micol scoffed at Dauid stubborne Vashtai will not come at Ahasshuerus call and t is no better in the men Discreet Abigail lights vpon a churlish Nabal Pilat was as vnkind a husband as an vnrighteous Iudge denying his wife the life of our blessed Sauiour This life is eyther priuate or publike the priuate is simply the best Joseph saw it when hee aduised his brethren rather to continew Shepheards then to stay with him in Pharoahs Court Old Barzillay found it refusing Dauid his courteous offer and would not exchange his priuate Roguel for tumultuary Jerusalem The Oracle accounted him the most hapy man of his time who liuing vntill hee was purely old neuer did see any house but his owne Whether we eate the bread of carefull industry or the sweete vnswet-for bread of an vnacquired patrimony in the most retired quiet plentifull condition something still falles out verifying that of our Sauiour Sufficient to the day is the sorrow of it The publike life is eyther in Church or Common wealth The Churchman whether in Chayre or cure leades a laborious an enuious a dangerous life his labour neuer at an end Dauid tunes his Harp to driue away Sauls Melancholy and hee darts his Iauelin at him a liuely Emblem of the Pastor most people When Elias prayers haue procured a blessing from heauen his best reward is a Caue in the wildernesse St Augustine wept when hee tooke holy Orders they were Prognosticating teares forerunning his infinite paynes in washing Blackmores whose sowles were more tawny then their hides His perpetual bickerings and encounters with Hereticks for such was God his especiall prouidence that hee and Pelagius should come into the world much about one yeare that the Antidote might be contemporall to the poyson His wearisome employment in determining secular causes for then very good Christians beleeued their suites could not be happily ended vnlesse they came through the cleare and sinceare hands of vpright Church-men T was a graue witty conceyt of one of the Pope Vrbans who putting his Rochet on wondred that being made of so light stuffe it was so ponderous weighty Aboue all affrighting is that speech of Chrysostome Of all men sayes hee I could wish there were no day of iudgement why so Others shall answer for themselues alone but I for my people as Judah was pledge for Beniamin so many Talents as God giues so many torments if they be not well employed There is but one comfort in that calling they doe cooperate with God in reducing soules vnto himselfe In the Commonwealth great places are like Pictures fairest furthest off looke vpon them at a neere distance and there lyes vnder the thinne skinne of Honour and dignity a vaste corps of trouble and vexation Let all Histories be searched diuine humane Moses the first Gouernor of Gods people so tyred with the cumber of his place as he desires to be rid of his life Kill mee Lord and I will accompt it for a fauour Augustus had relinquished his Soueraignty as soone as he obtained it but for the pride of his wife Liuia Dioclesian did surrender it and turning Gardiner found his Plants more pliable then his people and Charles the fifth enioyed more sweete repose in a Monastery then in a Monarchy As in Supreme so in subordinate Gouernors Hee that with care and conscience doth execute the duties of his place although hee liue vpon drowsie Poppies and stupifying Mandragora's shall hardly get time for secure rest but bee like the Roman who in all his life had neuer leasure to keepe Holiday You Pethahiahs who are at the Kings hand in matters concerning the People did it become modesty to rifle your secret thoughts you haue your share in Elias his prayer when iust commands are more questioned then obeyed and sincere Actions meete with sinister interpretations when common and easie burthens are not borne with dutifull chearefulnesse nor publike cares sweetened with benigne acceptance nay when all possible endeauour that people may lead godly quiet and peaceable liues is performed and requited with murmuring instead of blessing is not this enough to produce Elias Wish Euen the poore beasts when they are weary make haste home Thus passeth Man's life in the callings The Adiuncts of life are two Sinne Misery In my priuate meditations vpon this Point I purposed to describe vnto you the Actions wherewith the sinfull life of man is distained but when I surueyed the liues of wicked men so many sinnes presented themselues that I knew not where to ranke them so vgly in shape as I durst not looke vpon them and when I considered the liues of the best and the woe denounced vnto the most laudable life of men that the whole life of a deuoutbSaint was but sinne and barrennesse I stood amazed vntill I remembred there was a veyle to couer them the Integument of Christ his Righteousnesse and a Sponge to blot them out God his meere Mercy and mans true Repentance What a Torment is it to a good Soule to be perpetually strugling with