Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	know_v	life_n	2,879	5	4.5653	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A16210	Michaels combat with the diuel: or, Moses his funerall Delivered in a sermon preached in St. Pauls Church, on Sunday morning, being the Feast of St. Michael, 1639. By Iohn Blenkovv, LL.B. sometime Fellow of S. Iohn Bap. Coll. in Oxford.	Blenkow, John, b. 1609.	1640 (1640)	STC 3133; ESTC S115575	14,528	30

and put to flight And in this stands our comfort that maugre all his malice wee shall be able to be conquerours yea more then conquerours in him that loveth us and gave himself for us Roare he may Lion as he is fasten he cannot seeke his pray he must if happily hee can so finde it readily fetch it he cannot wait hee must upon God for what he hath Gods permission is the Divels commission where he pleaseth to give up his right there onely the Divell takes possession and of this we are sure that he will never fayle those who put themselves under the shadow of his wings And thus much of the persons contending Come wee now to the matter of their contention in the next words The body of Moses There are that hold that Moses never died and interpret Gods burying of him Deut. 34.6 of his Translation or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and some of the Fathers have made mention of a Booke intituled to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ascension or assumption of Moses into Heaven as after we reade of Elijah The which they rather beleeve because they are sayd both of them to appeare Matt. 17.2 and talke with Christ in the transfiguration Others have thought that though Moses indeed died yet God did not bury him but that God appointed him the place of his Sepulchre and he there made a Cave into the which he entred and dyed according to the word of the Lord and had no other maner or ceremony of interring or inhumation and so it came to passe that no man ever yet knew of his Sepulchre But it is certaine that both these are false For first that Moses died is evident So Moses the servant of the Lord died Deut. 34.5 And that being dead he buried not himselfe is likewise plain in the words that follow that The Lord buried him Verse 6. And had it not beene so his Sepulchre had never continued to this day unknowne Let Moses bury himselfe never so secretly the Divell would have beene privy to it as we see he is heere notwithstanding and no doubt would have easily acquainted those with it whom it might concern for the future It is certayne enough then that God buried him that is as Interpreters generally agree by the Ministry of the Archangell in the Text or at least together with some other appointed for that purpose Michael yet having the chiefest hand in the designe And surely some neede there was Moses is no sooner dead and going to his grave but the Divel would have arrested the corps and hence grew the present contention betweene Michael and him The contents of this strife hath bred a various conceit amongst Interpreters and as it ordinarily falleth out in matters of this nature one sayth one thing another another Ten severall opinions are cited by Lorinus concerning this matter I forbeare to cite them The most generall and setled determination is That whereas Michael would have buried Moses privately as God commanded the Divel would have him buried openly and in publike view And whereas Michael would not have his Sepulchre knowne the Divel laboured by all meanes to publish it Upon this Michael resists him the Divel urgeth the contrary and hence arose the strife The Divels intent as it could not be good so it might easily be ghest viz. to wit that thereby he might draw the people of Israel to Idolatry which were happily too prone already Which God knowing prevented them in This as a further occasion conveying his body away from them It is easie to be conceived that they who worshipt the Brazen Serpent might in time to come worship the setter up of it Neyther could those many signes and wonders which he did amongst them chuse but heighten the conceit of a deity and cause them to worship him as a God after his death whom they so extraordinarily honoured in his life Their present estimation must needes be easily improoved into future superstition Besides they had sometime heard that of God to Moses Exod. 7.1 I have made thee a God to Pharaoh and Aaron shal be thy Prophet And what comment they might have made upon those words may probably be imagined And though a dead body may seeme but a cold argument to perswade divinity and a spectacle of Mortality might well have dasht the conceit of a Deity Yet considering how foolish superstition hath ever beene Superstitio semper stolida Superstition was ever foolish * Illos pro diis venerantur quorum sepulchra habent Lact. And how feazable a thing it is in it selfe it will not be hard to conceive how the body of Moses might easily have become an Idoll What were all those numberlesse Deities Antiquity so fondly and devoutly worshipt Were they not men famous in their generations and the glory of their times as the Wiseman speaketh Good Kings Honourable Parents Noble Benefactors Couragious Warriours And to this Arnobius Lactantius have ascribed the first original of all Idolatry viz. the superstitious having of mēs persons in admiration after their deaths Iupiter Mercury Saturne c. what were they but men who for their benefits and deserts came at the first to be accounted for deities And what Was Moses behinde any of these yea what were they in respect of him There arose not a Prophet since in Israel like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face In all the signes and wonders which the LORD sent him to doe in the Land of Aegypt to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land and in all that mighty hand and in all the great terrour which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel Deut. ult v. 10. 11. 12. Could all Israel know this and not bee rapt with more then an ordinary conceit of his person after his death whom they welnigh adored in his life To put this out of question it was without doubt the cause why God hid his body Neither can there bee any reason assigned why hee should so doe saith Cor. a Lapide but lest the Iews should worship him This the Divel wel knew In Loc. and that made him so earnestly contend for his body only that he might make an Idoll of it And if this may yet be thought incredible let his dayly practice prove it by experience What greater superstition hath hee brought in in these later dayes then by these meanes What pilgrimages prayers devotions have beene given in way of homage to the Shrines of deceased Martyrs What a treasure of precious reliques hath hee raked out of the dusty graves of departed Saints with which he besots the misled fancyes of these dayes We cannot but see to what excellent purpose the body of Moses would have served when we see so many armes legges hands feet fingers of Martyrs to be had in such reverent if not divine estimation Good reason there was therfore that Michael should stand up in the defence of it vindicate