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	power_n	soul_n	2,506	5	5.3976	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74852	The Christians desire, shewing, how and for what causes a man may desire death. / By William Houghton, preacher at Bicknor in Kent.	Houghton, William, preacher at Bicknor in Kent.	1650 (1650)	Thomason E602_4; ESTC R206406	20,817	23

cannot thy name fly over this Caucasus nor swim over this Ganges Thou seest how small a thing the earth is and that sea pointing to the Atlantick which ye call the great sea and the main ocean which though it have so great a name thou seest how small a thing it is This was but a Philosophers dream yet 'c is pleasant to consider how far those men went Let us that are Christians seriously consider the excellency of heaven and vanity of earthly things let us mount aloft upon the wings of divine contemplation and our mindes being there all things here below will be as nothing to us Seek those things saith the Apostle that are above or on high What where the Orbs and Planets are No higher then so Col. 3.2 where Angels and Arch-angels are No higher yet where Christ sits on the right hand of God Oh if the soul of any here present were with Paul rapt up into the third heavens to be there but one hour to see what he saw how would he be ready to trample these things under his feet as vile and despicable he would count them trash in comparison of Jesus Christ as dung to that pearl It may be said all this is but matter of speculation therefore in the second place Give thy self to the practise of mortification desire to have all things mortified unto thee then thou wilt not care so much for them Offer what yee will to a dead man he regards it not So let us labour to get our affections whether covetous or pleasurable mortified and we shall not care for these things Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth fornication uncleannesse inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousnesse Col. 3.5 Indeed this mortification of all evil affections is a hard work for as it is with men that have strong bodies and suffer violent deaths you see what a lamentable conflict there is what strugling between life and death and when you think the man quite dead a good while after he gives a great sigh or groan nature then gathering all her strength to withstand death flying as it were in the very face of death either to vanquish or to be overcome Even thus it is if we go about to take away the life of our dearest lusts they will gather all the forces they can either make of themselves or the devil and the world can supply them withall to stand before them and defend them that we may not come at them but if for all that we break through and smite them so that we give them their deaths-wound yet they will gather strength again and rise up to hurt us and do us a mischief afterwards Oh 't is hard 't is hard and many a Christian is forced even with tears in his eyes to cry out to heaven for help when he is at this work yet this yee see is that we are * Gal. 5.24 Rom. 6.6.8.13 calld to that which every regenerate man and woman sets himself to and he who hath in good earnest set himself to it and endeavoured the mortifying of his sins will not be afraid of death but rather see great cause why he should desire it whatsoever pains it brings he is provided for it and may say thus Oh death I regard not any sting thou canst sting my body withall for sin thy worst sting wherewith thou wouldest sting my soul to death is in some measure mortified and subdued by the power of Gods Spirit that conflict thou art now about to bring upon my body will be but short to that I have endured in my soul these so many years Oh welcome death come do thine office I have been endeavouring a long time the death of my sins and something through the power and mercy of God I have done though not so much as I would come lend me thy hand to finish this work I have oft smote my sins thinking to lay them in the dust yet they have risen again one stroke now of thy hand will cause them to dye that they shall never rise up any more Thirdly let us think oft and consider what our condition is while we are here subject to sin and misery do what we can we cannot so mortifie sin that it shall not be in us Non hîc sumus sine peccato fed exibimus sine peccato Aug. its true the old man hath received his deaths wound in every regenerate man and is bleeding out his life by degrees and at death shall quite expire and bleed his last but not till then Paul saith of himself I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind who shall deliver me from this body of death Rom. 7.23 24. or oh that I were delivered from it There will be a body of sin and death in us so long as we carry this body of earth and flesh about us this is plain then as long as we live here we shall sin and what Christian desires to live to sin and to offend God! Oh ye that love the Lord hate sin saith the Psalmist hate that which is evil We should therefore desire it for this cause Psal 97.10 Fourthly let us oft look at death Plato said that the life of a Philosopher should be nothing else but a meditation of death much more the life of a Christian It was a custome amongst the Greek Emperours a Stone-cutter came to the Emperour on the day of his Coronation presented divers stones before him and desired to know of him which of those stones he would have for his Sepulchre And I have read of a people who at their feasts were wont to drink to one another out of dead-mens skuls to mind them of death Joseph of Arimathea who brought the Gospel hither into England he had his sepulchre hewn out of a rock Joh. 19.41 standing ready for him in his garden So let us when the world seems to crown us with its chiefest delights then remember death when we eat and drink think we see death on our tables when we are in our private Gardens then also let us take a turn with death and let us act death before it comes As a man that would fain fall asleep shuts his eyes draws the curtains layes his head to the pillow and so composeth himself to sleep so do thou oft think with thy self in what manner death will surprise thee look at it before it comes and it will be the easier when it comes And lastly as we must look at it so we must also look beyond it indeed it is a terrible thing to look at death but cast thine eye now beyond it and there will be no terrour in it Think of Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how it will be far better with us then then now in regard of Place Company our Bodies and our Soules But indeed as I noted to you before that glory is unspeakable As the Queen of Sheba said of Solomons glory She heard a great deal yet not half of it was told her the same may we say of eternall happinesse that we cannot declare half of it unto you meditate we may and ought of that glory yet this we must know that we come exceeding far short This therefore should make us go with as great desire to the grave as they use to go to a marriage because then we shall be married to Christ Jesus And as Travellers when the day is well spent and the Sun grows low come chearfully into their Inns at night so should we to this common Inne of Death FINIS

Pauls example who saith here he desired to be dissolved but it was not meerly to be rid of pain so himself tels us bonds and afflictions waited for him in every place yet he made no reckoning of them as you may see Act. 20.21 and 23. compared together Many a man would be ready to break prison but to be loosed from such bonds that is iron bonds or chains but Paul gloried in these yet cryes out of the chains of his sinnes and wisheth himself loosed from them Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death he doth not say oh miserable man how am I afflicted Rom. 7.24 I am in deaths oft who shall deliver me from this death of the body but who shall deliver me from this body of death This this is it which makes many a godly Christian even to sigh and groan within himself longing for a dissolution that so the body of sin might be wholly destroyed who yet is willing patiently to bear any crosse his heavenly Father shall lay upon him to render him conformable to his head Christ and therefore they do very ill and shew that they have not learnt that self-denyall that becomes Christians who assoon as they begin to be afflicted in their bodies or estates presently call for death to come and take them away It was Jonas fault Oh saith he that thou wouldest take away my life from me he comes in a pelting chafe Jonah 4.3.8 in a pettish humour So many when they are crost of their wills wish with him they were out of the world that they were dead and laid in their graves who God knowes are but badly prepared and would be found in an ill case should death come indeed Therefore let this be a second Caution Thirdly this desire must never cause us to use any means to hasten our death I have read of one Hegesias a Philosopher of that eloquence and power in perswading that when he was pleased to represent before his auditours the miseries of this life his words struck such an impression in them that many of them went and made away themselves And in Hollingsheads Chronicles there 's a story of a great man in this Kingdome who in the times of the Barons wars being much perplext in his mind calld the Keeper of his Park to him told him he feared his Deer were stolen charged him every night to go into the woods to walk his rounds and if he spied any man that would not stand at the first word to shoot him some two or three nights after out of the depth of melancholly the Devil that Prince of darknesse working upon that black humour he himself rose out of his bed went into his Park the keeper spying him calld to him and bid him stand he answered not but walking on amongst the trees the Keeper took his Crosse-bow and shot his own Lord dead in the place thus he fell by his own counsell and procured his own death by the hand of his Keeper And if reports Lucernam non extinguebant sed ultro consumi Plut. Q. Rom. 468. Et tibi Publi piis omnibus retinendus est animus in custodia corporis nec injuslu ejus à quo ille est nobis datus ex hominum vita migrandum est ne munus humanum assignatum à Dco defugisse videamini Somn. Scip. or papers may be credited some have been brought to the same passe by reason of the sore pressure of our late troubles Now when I say that a man may desire death it is far from my meaning that a man should bring it upon himself in any such way grace teacheth us not to offer violence to nature and therefore as amongst the Romans the lights of the Temple were not to be put out but suffered to burn as long as they lasted so this candle of our lives must not be extinguisht till it consume and go out of it self or till God shall require it in the defence of some lawfull cause we must retain the soul in the custody of the body it must not be forced out of it till he that gave it call for it lest we should seek to forsake that office and imployment which God hath assigned us This is a third Caution Fourthly we ought also to consider that this is a kind of mixt desire as you may see here in S. Paul he desires death because it was so advantageous to him yet is content to stay for the benefit of Gods people To stay saith he is more expedient for you but for my self I desire rather to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better here 's you see a mixture of desires this is better one way that another for their private advantage Gods children desire to be in heaven for the benefit of others they are content to stay still in this world It is with them in this case as it is with a chast and loving wife her husband being gone from home she desires his coming home yet thinks sometimes oh that my husband would not come yet till such a businesse be dispatched such a room drest and made ready for his coming therefore keeps her self doing that nothing may offend the eye of her Lord when he comes and brings his guests with him So the godly Christian desires the coming of Christ above all Oh that thou wouldest rent the heavens and come down Come Lord Jesus Isa 64.1 come quickly Rev. 22.20 but because he knowes not what hour his Lord will come in deed therefore he busies himself in preparing and making all ready against his coming It is written of Ortelius that great Cosmographer that in his declining age he set up the Globe of the world in his Study Bucolch chron 803. with this inscription Contemno orno mente manu with his heart he contemnd the world though with his hand he adornd it This Embleme may teach us our duty Let us seek to adorn the world by the works of our hands let us endeavour what we can that the world might be bettered by us while we live in it yet let the world be in no esteem with us let our minds sit loose from the world ready to leave it whensoever the Lord shall call us and this is that we may learn out of that heavenly prayer of Christ They are not of the world even as I am not of the world I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world Joh. 17.14.15 but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil In which words he meets with an Objection Object Might some say If the Saints be not of this world as Christ is not of this world why do they not then follow Christ he is going out of the world why do not they go along with him Answ Oh no They must stay their time they must not go yet saith Christ I will not have them presently taken out of

wipe away all tears from the eyes of his children and then he saith there shall be no more death neither sorrow Revel 21.4 nor crying neither shall there be any more pain Mark God will first take away tears and sin the cause of tears that shall be covered with the garment of Christs righteousnesse and then as with a handkerchief he will dry up their tears he will first do away sin from their souls then t will be easie to wipe away tears from their eyes it is sin makes so many tears stand in the eyes of Gods children therefore when sin is once done away all sorrow and tears all crying and pains will cease Thus for the evils we shall be freed from Now for the good and benefit we shall be partakers of by death and after My text saith We shall be with Christ and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 far better If shall be far better then then now in these four respects 1. Propter elongationem suam à consuetudine nostra a rebus seculi istius non est facile c. Paris 696. The Place of our habitation 2. Our Society and Company 3. Our Bodies and 4. In respect of our souls There is indeed a great elongation or estrangement between us and things of eternity and that shall come to passe hereafter by reason of our earthly mould and temper let faith therefore which is the substance of things hoped for here act and stir up it self carrying us above our selves and above our senses whilest we are speaking of these particulars I begin with the Place This world is a Sea of glasse a Sea for trouble and glasse Place Rev. 15.2 for brittlenesse it is a vale of misery as you have heard but Heaven is a haven of rest a Paradise of pleasures and delights The earth is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ill-favoured dark squallid filthy place 2 Pet. 1.19 but in heaven is light inaccessible Now if a man that had lived in a dark cell or dungeon should be taken thence to live in some great and sumptuous palace he would think the world well amended or if a man that had lived thirty or fourtie years in some mud-wall-Cottage in the countrey should change his dwelling and live in the chiefest City of the Kingdome and enjoy the treasure and riches of it he would think himself a happier man then ever he was before Job 4.19 We now dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust but the City of God is a most glorious City the very gates of it Rev. 21.10 11. Saint John saith are of Pearl and they that do his commandments Rev. 22.14 shall enter in through the gates into the City Oh how glorious shall things appear when we shall come to the gates of that City but when we shall passe through those gates how shall our souls be ravisht with joy to see the things are there to be seen The very streets he tels us are of pure gold But alas What are Pearls What is Gold Indeed we see no better things here and that 's the reason the spirit of God sets forth the glory of heaven by these things otherwise they were not good enough to be compared or worthy to be named the same day with heavens glory And should you imagine such a City as he there describes whose gates were pearl and streets gold the glory of it would not so far exceed the glory of the meanest village or hamlet as the glory of heaven would surmount and go beyond it Think then with your selves how desirous a place heaven is S. Peter you know when he was upon the holy Mount Mat. 17.4 and beheld Christ transfigured was not his own man but fell a talking of building Tabernacles and I know not what but how would he have been ravisht if himself had been transfigured and translated into the place of the Blessed and S. Paul being rapt up thither was not able 2 Cor. 12.2 of fourteen years after to tell us whether he was in the body or out of the body such and so glorious is that place But what shall be our company there not that which is now a vexation to our spirits the company of swearers drunkards c. but of Angels Patriarchs Prophets Apostles Martyrs c. Company Oh praeclarum diem cum in illud animorum concilium coetúmque proficiscar ex hac turba colluvione discedam That is Oh happy day when I shall depart out of this place of filth and loathsomnesse and go into that Synod of souls an excellent saying to come out of the mouth of a Heathen So let us say with David Oh when shall I come and appear in the presence of God and with Paul When shall I enter into the City of the living God Psal 42.2 the heavenly Jerusalem When shall I be amongst that innumerable company of Angels and that generall Assembly When shall my soul be gathered to the souls of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant Heb. 12.22 Oh when shall I rest in my center Christ Jesus when shall I be wholly his and he be wholly mine Oh this is our happinesse to be with Christ with him who is the desire of all Nations with him who suffered an accursed death on the Crosse for our sins with him Joh. 17.24 whom our soule loveth to be with him and to behold the glory which the father hath given him this is that shall make us happy for ever and ever Object But all this that is place and company seems to be but the happinesse of the object what shall be the happinesse of the subject Answ It shall be in our bodies and in our souls For the body it shall not then be subject to any change passion or wearinesse Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which are tour excellent properties of a glorified body Naz. orat funebr Mat. 26.41 Phil. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it shall not be so dull and lumpish as now but most agile and nimble it shall not then stand in need of sleep meat and drink which chain us so fast by the teeth here Now the spirit is sometimes willing but the flesh is weak our souls would fly up to heaven but the flesh clogs them and keeps them down then it shall not be so but the body as a ready and willing instrument shall follow the motions and desires of the soul or spirit The Lord shall change our vile bodie or our body of humiliation that it may be fashioned and made like unto his glorious body it is sown in weaknesse raised again in power it is sown a naturall body it is raised a spirituall body a body still but adorned with spirituall qualities Now will not faith cause us earnestly to desire a dissolution though nature shrink a little at the thought of it when we shall consider that this mutable