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	natural_a	reason_n	1,505	5	4.9161	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96627	The vvay to life and death. Laid down in a sermon, 1629. before the Lord Major of London then being. / By N. Waker M.A. late minister of Jesus Christ at Lawndon in Buckinghamshire. Now published for the reasonableness of the advice therein given, touching the five controverted points, viz. predestination, general redemption, freewill, conversion, and perseverance of the siants. Directing a safe way for the practice of private Christians, as confessed by the disputants on both sides.	Waker, Nathaniel.; Waker, John.	1655 (1655)	Wing W281; Thomason E1639_1; ESTC R209056	41,542	102

year to shed a tear the debt in time would be discharged And though this be an unconceivable time yet it would comfort a little if then there might be an end or a mitigation of the torment but here the worm dieth not the fire never goes out here death ever lives want knows not how to be desective the end ever beginneth and death which we now so fear as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most fearful of all other fearful things for it is indeed the king of fears will they then desire as a Paradise but it will fly from them and that second death will feed on them as grasse which suffers a continual death being cropt by the cattel and yet still lives in the root If God preserve the three children in the flames that they be not burnt if mount Aetna sends forth flashes continually and it is not consumed It s St. Aug. argument If the Salamander live perpetually in the fire why cannot he by his power support their nature to live for ever that they may ever dye Oh how much better were it for them that they had never been or as they had lived like beasts so they might die like beasts to be no more So we see the consolations of the flesh are the desolations of the soul Carnis consolationes sunt animi desolationes Hell never restores those whom it once receives Infernus quos semel recipit nunquam restituit saith Cassiod So Aug. sins are bound and loosed here in the world to come is nothing but remuneration and condemnation Hic ligantur solvuntur peccata in futuro seculo nihil est nisi remuneratio condemnatio no end no ease no intermission And thus you have heard the reward of the wicked and the fearful doome o them that live after the flesh This is the cause why the man is deprived of comfort and filled with sorrow in this world why the soul is deprived of God in spiritual death and the body of the soul in corporal this is the reason why the soul is deprived both of God and the world from the natural death to the resurrection and why both soul and body are deprived of the vision and fruition of God to all eternity Nor must you think this to be a meer fable or Poetical fiction or that we make the matter worse then indeed it is the singular purity of God cannot abide sin therefore it must be purged by blood or fire God will have his justice magnified therefore will not spare an onely Son he will have truth maintained who often hath declared this in his Word it s an irrevocable decree that they who live after the flesh shall dye In the first decree he said to Adam Moriemini but his goodnesse reversed it to Nineveh Ye shall be destroyed but yet upon their repentance spared and so may these else know this is a branch of the second Covenant which shall not be abrogated For what can God give better then his Son on his part or upon what easier termes can he capitulate with us His wisdome hath thought meet that there should be som bounds to his mercy else he should seem prodigal of it and be thought to have absolute need of his creature and therefore notwithstanding Christ his satisfaction to declare his justice against contemners of his grace and haters of purity he hath said and sworn that unbelievers shall not enter into his rest and hath peremptorily decreed without hope of repeal or mitigation of the censure that If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye It 's not finis operantis but operis for they would live after the flesh and not dye they would live like Devils and dye like Saints the life of Balaam but the death of the righteous But he that sins voluntarily must suffer involuntarily there is a connexion of these ab ordine justitiae divinae He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reape corruption Let not man then separate what God hath joyned and though he assay it he shall never be able to do it If they will live after the flesh they shall dye But as St. Gregory upon the Parable of the rich man Recordatione magis eget versus iste quam expositione so I may say of this therefore we will draw hence some Corollaries which may be for our Spiritual direction First then will sin cousen us thus The Use for Information who would have suspected that such beginings that promised such delight would have ended thus that so glorious a Sun-shine morning would have closed with such gloomy blasts with such thunder and lightning stormes and tempests then let no child of God envy the wicked their delight in sin not grudge at his delicious fare Silkes and Sattins Much good may do Nabal with his good chear and Haman with his preferment I envy not the whole world to Alexander upon such hard terms there is poyson in their delicates and clothes are fafcinated their advancement prefers them to the gibbet their very life is but a continual death and how bitter shall be the death of these men Rather let me have Jacobs pillow and Canopy so I may have his dream let me have John Baptists hair-cloth so I may have his conscience No I admire those worthies of old that would choose to do or suffer any thing rather then split themselves upon these rocks Oh happy confessors and thrice blessed Martyrs that passed thorow fire and water and refused no torment no death that they might be delivered from the second death Let me passe under Esayes saw and endure Jeremies showres of stormes let me not refuse Zacharies sword nor the Lyons den with Daniel let me be beheaded with St. Paul or crucified with Andrew and Peter let me be flayed with Bartholomew or my braines dasht out with St. James let me be put into a vessel of scalding liquor with St. John or broyled on the Gridiron with Laurence let me suffer abstinence affliction persecution exile imprisonment with those holy Fathers of old Chrysostome Athanasius Ambrose Hierom let me be given to the wilde beasts with Polycarpus and Ignatius yea if it were possible let all these meet and the tormentots prompted by the Devil himself see if they can invent any torment more exquisite let me suffer in this world what humane nature is capable of rather then be forsaken by God and dye ever Oh blessed Christians that would offer your selves rather to your persecutors in the dayes of Tertullian Ego sum Christianus Christianus et ego I shall ever subscribe to that of holy St. Aug. Domine hic ure hic seca ut in aeternum parcas and again Do de me poenas ut ille parcat I had rather suffer Gods chastisement then his punishment And I would to God this might be an advertisement to us all how we live after the flesh though it be pleasing and profitable for a while yet the event should deter wise men

〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unfruitful works Of Elements none so fruitful as water stinking puddles bring forth most troops of vermine Some grounds yield two crops every year some trees bear fruit twice this all the year some creatures breed every moneth this every moment and these brats are even conceived and born at once How many kinds are there of sins and how many millions of each kind Gal. 5.21 There is some of the progeny it is progenies viperarum all those irregular thoughts affections words and actions that passe from a man come from hence Now this body hath its activenesse from the parents the father is the devil a compasser the soul the mother in perpetual motion and agitation Now his own will enticeth him to these deeds and he that is wilfully bent upon a thing who can stay him The Devil continually spurs him on and he must needs go whom the Devil drives he is further provoked by the world by the men of the world their perswasion as Solomon their threats as Nebuchadnezzar their promises as Balaam their example as Jeroboam by the things of the world there is at least a seeming lustre in the object that doth allure Bathsheba's beauty the rich wedge of gold and the Babylonish garment When the Vessel sailes with the tide and the sailes blown with such a gale it must needs go apace There are deeds of the body which are natural to eat drink sleep voluntary to walk c. but these are motus opera carnis peccatricis these are they that must be mortified that is the second thing in the duty Mortifie The body of death must be slain that we may live What it is to mortifie Thus if we will become wise we must first be fooles if rich and have a Kingdome poor in spirit if free put our necks under Christs yoke if save our life first lose it if have a true being old men must be born again if have the life of grace here and glory hereafter first kill our sinful selves To mortifie is a Metaphor taken from Chirurgeons that use to mortifie that part they mean to cut off so we must mortifie sin that it may not live or if it live such a life as is left in the limbs when the head is struck off or as in those that have an Epilepsie Rom. 4.19 or as in old Abrahams body which was as good as dead unfit for generation The efficacy and power of these lusts must be slain that they produce not new Monsters and so bring forth fruit unto death that is as Cajetan tells us insur gentes compescendo ne insurgant domando so mortifie them that they make no rebellion or if they do make insurrection beat them down that they domineer not So much for the second thing the act I come now to the causes The efficient cause principal the Spirit The principal is the Spirit By the Spirit here to omit other acceptations we understand either the grace of the Spirit or the Spirit of grace If the former then so far forth as it is enlivened and actuated by the latter The Spirit dwells in all creatures by a general influence in Christ by hypostatical union in some men by creating in them extraordinary gifts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the elect by effectual operation And if the essence of the Spirit be in us it is in us not as an essential part that were to deify man nor united personally unto us for then should the third person be incarnate as well as the second but dwelling in Christ as the head in an unspeakable manner diffused unto us Thus the devil dwells in the children of disobedience not by communicating his essence to them for then they should be incarnate devills but taking possession of them as his vassals blinding their minds hardening their hearts infusing malice into their wills leading them captive till at the last he bring them to the pit of destruction But hath man the command of the Spirit But the Spirit and Gods Ordinances are not separated unlesse for our fault But is the Spirit our instrument No but we the Spirits for God infuseth into us this supernatural principle whereby we are inabled to work and then quickeneth it up by moral perswasion But how doth the Spirit mortifie It 's that light that doth detect those deeds of the body it 's contrary to them and stirs up hatred against them it 's the Spirit of grace which makes us pray against them it 's our remembrance that brings to our mind the Scripture that declares the odiousnesse and danger of them it 's the mighty power of God that crusheth these brats in pieces it 's that which doth co-operate with the Word and prayer and tears and affliction and fasting whereby the flesh is beaten down That the Spirit worketh we evidently feel but how we cannot certainly define for if the operation of the wind the framing of the body in the womb be so strange much more that of the Spirit The lesse-principal cause We. The lesse-principal We. The Spirit quickens us being dead and being quickened we must act by the Spirit In the receiving the first grace man is a meer passive habet se ut materia in the second partly active partly passive active we must mortify passive for it must be by the Spirit and as St. Aug. Gratia non credit non resipiscit non sperat non obtemperat Deo sed homo per gratiam Grace believes not repents not hopes not obeys not God but man by grace So we say Spiritus non mortificat sed homo per Spiritum The Spirit mortifies not but man by the Spirit that we might not be proud or self confident not we but the Spirit that we might not be slothful or negligent we must do it by the Spirit that we might avoid all straines of Popery and Pelagianism it is the Spirit which quickens us at the first and doth continually send us fresh supplies against the flesh that we might not be taken with the idle fancies or doting dreames and crotchets of the Familists we must mortifie by the Spirit As we cannot mortifie without the Spirit so the Spirit will not without us Ye shall live Having now done with the duty What life here meant we come to the reward and what is better then life God is pleased to be stiled a living God This is that which every eye looks at every heart breaths after in which the vastest desire is satisfied beyond which the mind knowes nothing nor the will desires any thing that might make it happy By life here we do not understand the uncreated life of God but the created life of man which is twofold corporal the union of the soul with the body spiritual the union of God with the soul Indeed there is a natural life of the soul like that of Angels in which sense damned spirits may be said to live this was the eternity the