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	sin_n	sting_n	2,094	5	13.1353	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59579	Tanḥumim, or, Divine comforts antidoting inward perplexities of mind in a discourse upon Psal. XCIV, ver. 19 / by T. Sharp ... ; with some short remarks upon the author.	Sharp, Thomas, 1633-1693.	1700 (1700)	Wing S3007; ESTC R15146	256,568	440

Land of Light that New Jerusalem It cannot be expected that a Compleat Draught of this worthy Man's Life should be drawn by any Pencil but his own May these hints of so rare a Patern of Piety have influence upon his surviving Relations and Hearers to transform them into the same Image that this Legacy of so Rational a Discourse may have a perswasive Power to attract Souls to a Capacity for Divine Consolations and such a real Example have a compulsive Power to draw many to follow this Heroe and others into Eternal Mansions if both do not effect these Ends the Spectator and Reader have more to Answer for ERRATA PAge 2. line 24. read near Series l. 32. r a Prolepsis p. 3. l. 1. r. our collapsed p. 4. l. 14. blot out in p. 5. l. 28. r. interline p. 6. l. 24. r. my Troublers p. 8. l. 33. r. Trmenters p. 21. l. 11. r. the Pharisees p. 38. l. 17. r. this Notion p. 40. l. 15. r. together with it p. 63. l. 10. r. anothers l. 32. r. mediately p. 73. l. 21. r. born and live and act p. 8● l. 10. f. ●ar r. care p. 83. l. 29. r. the Minisery p. 87. l. 26. r. intension p. 1●● l. 34. r. good life p. 123. l. 3. r. und●vercibly p. 124. l. 6. the Parenthesis ends with ●e● p. 125. l. 30. r. Image p. 136. l. 30. r. a more ready p. 142. l. 16. r of God p. 143. l. 13. blot out the second and. l. 21. f. the r. this p. 144. l. 13. r. express p. 158. l. 25. r. his p. 160 l. 1. r. own p. 162. l. 26. r. unsupp●rtable p. 165. l. 2. r. and P●tency l. 33. r. own p. 186. l. 3. r. whatever p. 198. l. 21. r. enjoy'd p. 205. l. 21. blot out u● p. 208. l 33. r. mere p. 214 l. 33. r. le p 215. l. 24. r. Though l. 32. r. summ p. 2●7 l. 16. r. he●ghtned or transferr'd p. 237. l. 9. r. these p. 240. l. 5. r. combines p. 242. l. 22. r. in Wisdom p. 245. l. 2. r. and in all l. 25. blot out in p. 248. l. 7. r. true Comforts p. 250. l. 14. r. 9. p. 258. l. 28 r. might hence derive p. 260. l. 26. r. in nocency l. 35●36 ● make a comma before from and after which p 280 l. 36. insert an Interpreter and r. shew me p. 285. l. 13. blot out 30. p. 303● l. 20. blot out 4. p. 307. l 17. r. store l. 31. r. ●hat Pers●● p. 31● l. 23. r. 〈◊〉 l. 36. blot out that p. 361. l. 4. r. they THE Nature Origin Subject-Matter Character Method and Means of COMFORT CHAP. I. The Introduction with the Explication of the Words and their Sense Critical and Moral PSAL. XCIV 19. In the Multitude of my Thoughts within me thy Comforts delight my Soul LORD I am Hell but thou art Heaven Bp Hooper was the pathetick Exclamation of the Spirit of Martyrdom in a devout Soul Here you have a prospect of both Tormenting Thoughts are the veriest Fiends nothing can make us miserable without them nor in the enjoyment of the sweet Delectation of those divine desirable Joys which are most suitable and proper to rational Nature and the appetite of an immortal Spirit The former are our natural Inheritance these the free Donations of infinite Goodness or the unmerited communications of Fidelity and Righteousness 1 Job 1.9 By our Apostacy from God we rendered our selves insufficient to attain that Felicity which our innocent Estate did entitle us unto and possess no sufficiency to any thing but the making our selves the most wretched of the whole Creation and are relievable by nothing but the All-sufficiency of Heaven The inanimate Creatures may indeed be dispossest of their Heaven viz. their Centre and Rest but the Evil thereof they can neither fear nor feel Vegetables may live in a Hell through the burning Fever of a Summer's drought but cannot smart and be in pain Sensitive Natures may be farther divested of their Happiness be driven out of their Paradise in Gilead and Bashan and be yet more miserable under the Servitude of that torturing Devil the Lust of degenerate man but a final period is put to all their Infelicities by that which if infinite Grace prevent not will be only the beginning of our remediless Woe at the worst they can but die and 't is without the sting of a cruciating Fear that a Life without end after Death will introduce a Series of never-ending Plagues But Immortality the highest Prerogative of humane Nature is through Sin become its most dismal cause of horrour and in being better than the rest of the inferiour Creation we through our own default are only render'd capable of being worse both in another and even in this present life as far as our dreadful Expectations become prolepsis or pre-occupation of those Sufferings which are no less durable than intolerable Neither can we be eas'd by the hopes that the least part or degree hereof is avoidable through the efficacy of our home-bred endowments or any thing we can scrape out of the rubbish of collapsed Natures since by experience we find that our greatest preventive care is not able totally to exclude and keep down those prepossessing horrible anticipations nor the Furniture we are enrich'd with of power to support and ease our minds under much less to antidote those real Plagues which actually infest and sink us towards a State much more insupportable our hope and help must needs therefore perish from within our relief is wholly from without yet not from Earth but Heaven There 's no Malady so perplexing so dangerous but there 's a sufficient and suitable Remedy in God In Bedlam I have seen a Man under the Severity of that most rigid and most uncomfortable Confinement so not only unconcern'd but triumphant as to bear up himself in the Port and Majesty of a King and in his imaginary height and glory with a disdainful stateliness converse with those little shreds of Mortality who were blest as he thought in the Honour of his Empire and Government and sometimes with a stately humbleness invite them to glory in his Condescensions with such a creative power is Fancy endow'd that it can produce almost any thing out of nothing dwindle substantial Woes into Shadows convert a Hell into an Elysium Of such Madmen the World is full We as the Prisoners of Justice carry our Chains about with us and they sit and sink into our Flesh yea our very bones yet as if we possest an unconfinable liberty we jovially dance about and solace our selves with this lamentable dream till our real Miseries confute our false Imaginations For a Man's state may be miserable yet the Man so rationally stoically or brutishly mad as not to be miserable That is since nothing can make a Man unhappy but by the mediation of something within him his Fancy his Folly his Fears his Feeling his Reasonable

themselves both think and speak highly of themselves and by consequence basely scornfully slightingly of those that are not like themselves in Wickedness and therefore of those qualities that difference both Parties speak well of Wickedness that denominates and delights them but ill of Godliness which they oppose yet both perhaps under the disguise of other Names plausible for their one Wickedness disgraceful for Holyness as the manner and guise of the World alway has been and will be this has not a little of guilt and grief in it Sin is asham'd of its own Name and therefore sights against Goodness under borrowed Colours transferring its own title to that which it opposes and it cannot but be grief to an Innocent to suffer under the notion of a Malefactor to have his Name murdered as well as his Person whilst his Adversaries add Ignominy to Cruelty but especially it afflicts his Soul that God and Religion and Holiness suffer in the repute of the ignorant and sequacious Multitude which is led in its judgment of things by the Hand rather than Head by the power and opinion of its Masters without making any disquisition or inspection into the reality of matters taking all upon trust whether it be true or false good or evil A Beast that with a strong Bridle and sharp Spurs will ride freely Blindfold post hast into Hell but is infinitely malapert and restive in the course toward Heaven its Eyes like those of a Fly consisting of infinite little dim Atoms without a due proportion of Brains of their own to govern them and therefore are as wild and wanton in their motions To this may I join the trouble which the Psalmist seem'd to be affected with through other perverse speeches of those wicked Persons which though not so expresly yet may implicitly seem to relate to Pride because interpos'd between the mention thereof and the effect of it in Boasting ver 4. How long 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall they pour out as a Fountain does Water and speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies things hardned with age yet upon the point to be remov'd and pass away as may be gathered from the use and signification of its root These hard things they spoke I take to refer unto others chiefly as what follows did to themselves 1. Hard things in Enoch's Prophecy recited Jude 15. were spoken against God May not our Psalmist refer to that Prophecy which no doubt came to his knowledge either by Tradition or the Prophetick Spirit If so then may they possibly be those recited ver 7. or such like false Atheistical Blasphemous against God his Providence VVord VVays People 2. Hard things Psal 31.18 were spoke against the Righteous proudly and contemptuously in Reproach ver 11. and Slaunder 13. whence his Eye was consumed and his life spent with grief ver 9 10. To this Head then may we reduce all those troubles which arise from the Persecution of the Tongue Threatnings Aspersings Defamations Detractions Censurings uncharitable rash Judgings Mockings and Deridings and cloathing Goodness and good Men with Reproaches branding them with odious Names contrary to their real Nature speaking all manner of Evil Matth. 5.11 3. Persecution which here was bloody and barbarously cruel ver 5 6. They break in pieces thy People O Lord and afflict thine Heritage they slay the Widow and the Stranger and murther the Fatherless Wherein both their Inhumanity and base Cowardice manifest themselves in that they rage against the weak impotent and friendless that have none to plead for succour relieve and help them alive or revenge them when dead This is justly imputable to Dreg and Saul The former by killing the Priests of the Lord 1 Sam. 22.18 did exceedingly afflict God's Heritage and People and brake them in pieces and made many Fatherless and Widows and afterward murdred them in a savage unparallell'd manner ver 19. and when he had done boasted of it Psal 52.1 as the Wicked here if that was not the same fact Saul also slew the Gibeonites 2 Sam. 21.1 2 5. call'd Strangers 2 Chron. 2.17 These may be here understood as well as Proselytes Here then David lost his Friends and Favourers by a violent Death and hither may we refer the loss of Friends and Relations by a natural Death A cause of Grief as just as common But especially to this Head belongs the troubles for the Miseries and Calamities both of Church and State When the Gates of Sion mourn we are but ill Members thereof if it create not some kind of Sympathy in our Hearts 4. Atheism disbelief of God's Omniscience and Providence Ver. 7. Yet they say the Lord shall not see neither shall the God of Jacob regard it This was indeed the spring of all their other Sins and therefore as Asaph in another like case was affected with it Psal 73.11 They say how doth God know and is there knowledge in the most High c So here is David very much concern'd about it and so much the more because Divine Vengeance seem'd to be concern'd so little ver 1. whence he spends the 4 following Verses to evince and convince them of the infinite unlimitable Knowledge of God whereas he contents himself with a bare mentioning their other Sins without such reasoning against them And indeed any serious Heart that duly ponders its dependance for Life Motion and Being upon God will be tenderly sensible of all Affronts put upon him will not with patience indure that he should fall under Disparagement As a dutiful Child will hear untoucht the Reproaches cast upon a Stranger or any other rather than its Father He who can be content that God should go less than infinite in all Perfections can be well pleas'd that he should not be God and that the World be depriv'd and destitute of his Government and Providence which would be the greatest mischief to it conceivable Better infinitely that the whole Universe should be hurry'd back again into its Primitive Chaos and Confusion than God be lessen'd in any one of his Excellencies If ungodly Souls disavow any Divine Attribute and seek to rob God of the honour of that without which a good Man cannot live or live comfortably 't is a Dagger at the Heart and wounds the very Soul and so ought to do in all that are tender of the Glory of their Creator For our own sakes we have reason to abhor Atheism in every degree and form of it because if there were not a God or if he were not of infinite Understanding we were of all Creatures most miserable not only as depriv'd of our true Felicity and the hopes of it for how should he reward us did he not know or regard us and our Integrity but we should fatally be expos'd to all the vilest Indignities and most deplorable Calamities the Wit and Rage of Men and Devils could devise and inflict upon Earth and since their and our Beings are altogether incorruptible as far as