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	true_a	2,464	5	5.4141	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A08482	Lifes brevitie and deaths debility Evidently declared in a sermon preached at the funerall of that hopeful and uertuous yong gentleman Edvvard Levvkenor esquire, &c. In whose death is ended the name of that renowned family of the Lewkenors in Suffolke. By Tymothy Oldmayne minister of the Word of God at Denham in Suffolke. Our dayes on earth are as a shaddow, and there is none abiding. Also an elegy and an epitaph on the death of that worthy gentleman, by I.G. Dr. of D.	Oldmayne, Timothy.; Garnons, John, fl. 1636.	1636 (1636)	STC 18806; ESTC S120802	49,291	128

1 King 21 13. Get thee to thine owne house and when thy feete enter into the City the childe shall dye and all Israel shall mourne for him and bury him for he onely of Ieroboam shall come to the grave because in him is found some good thing toward the Lord God in the house of Ieroboam Lastly who would not have thought but some one or other sinne committed by himselfe or some of his Ancestors had been the cause why Iosiah the mirrour of Kings fell in battaile in the flower of his dayes by the sword of Pharao Necho King of Egypt True it is that sin was one cause and a maine one for sin causeth every calamity as the distemper of humours every ordinary Ague but this was not the true cause 2 Chro. 35.25 and end that God aymed at in his suddaine death but that by this means he being the sooner freed from trouble and vexation of heart might enter his grave in peace Isay 57.1 and might not see the evill to come From all which examples two things by the way offer themselves unto us worthy of our due consideration The first is that men in censuring Gods heavy chastisements lightning on the backs of the righteous do usually misse the true and right end in inflicting of the same taking them as fiery Scorpions of his wrath when as they are indeede the fruites of his Fatherly affection toward them 2 That when Almighty God performeth not his promise to his children in regard of outward blessings then his usuall manner is to provide Heb. 11. Better things for them For instance when he denieth them this outward trash and transitory riches to give them Riches never fading but alwaies blossoming Hee denieth them outward comfort and filleth their soules with glee and mirth They weepe for a time and laugh eternally Lastly hence we may learne to be very wary how wee doe rashly passe our Verdicts in cases of this nature for feare least missing Gods ayme wee overshoot our selues and highly offend But above all that we take heed of playing the Cantharides or stinking flye where wee see the least skinne off there to bee sucking and opening agayne the skars and blemishes that were long since healed with the blood of Christ Crying out with those clamorous Iewes Men of Israel Act 21.28 these be the men so wee these are the sinnes that have procured wrath and undone this Family Nay brethren let us rather hearken to Davids blessing Psalm 41.1.2 Blessed is the man that considereth wisely of the poore the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble Colo. 3.14 And to that sweete counsell that the Apostle giveth Above all things my brethren sayth hee let us put on love which is the bond of perfectnesse So shall wee with her faire mantle not onely cover a multitude of sinnes but construe things in a better sense 1 Peter 4 drawing our conclusions not from hatred but from a far milder Roote namely From the loue of God 1. To this young Gentleman himselfe 2. In him to us all 1 1 To him 1 1. In taking this noble plant from the evil to come 1. Of sinne Isay 57.1 2 Of punishment 2 2. In providing for him a Richer and more noble inheritance even the sure mercies of David Isay 55.3 Isay 55.3 2 2. To us all if fairely we can draw honie out of the Eater and wholsome instruction out of the dead carkasse of this dead Lyon as God grant wee may Fourthly it must bee remembred that though the name of the Family in Suffolke bee quite extinguished yet that the Family it selfe is not blessed bee the name of God utterly destroyed It is falne here but it flourisheth elsewhere For amongst many other outward blessings wherewith Almighty God marvailously enriched the Grand-father of this young Gentleman he added that of Iosephs Gen 49 25 namely Vbertatem uberum vulvae the blessing of the breasts and of the wombe So that hee had Numerosam prolem plenty of children two Sonnes and seaven daughters a goodly off spring and which increaseth more the blessing not one of them but was the choisest shaft of a thousand Certainly Psal 126. he need not be a shamed For he might speak boldly with his Enemy in the gate Now in the younger sonne of that honourable Knight younger I meane then his Brother but deserving indeede the Elders place in any Family of his degree is the ancient and Worshipfull name of this Family still continued and beeing rich in Sonnes with the Favour of the Almighty is like for many ages so to bee And besides it is the masculine and manly blood of the Lukenors onely heere in Suffolke which by the untimely fall of this flourishing branch is thus perished as wee see and quite dryed up otherwise much of that honourable blood runneth yet along although in a milder straine through the pure veines of those three truely vertuous Sisters no waies inferiour to those daughters of Zelophehad yea Num. 27.1 besides these there is a little Ruth left a pledge of his love to his deare wife and now sorrowfull widow who although a daughter yet by the pious and religious education of that wise and vertuous Gentlewoman her mother wee are to hope will in Gods good time build up againe this decayed and shattered family of Elimelech Fiftly and lastly to close up all in a word we must not be ignorant how that most of the richest promises which our heavenly father hath in his great love and free mercy made to his dearest children are not usually and ordinarily fulfilled here in this life Sometimes they are but commonly they are not and if they be yet but in part for the full recompence is reserved till afterwards 1 Cor. 15. And if it were not so of all others saith the Apostle we are most miserable as the truth is they had bin Their holinesse and piety being accompted no better then madnesse and folly and their whole religion Exitiabilem superstitionem unde cuncta atrocia et pudenda confluunt A damnable superstition and the mother of all villany And that we may see this yet the better let us I pray you look a little into the lives of some few omitting multitudes of the choysest servants of God and see their reward heere in this world And first Iohn the Baptist a great Prophet and one of a most austere life and unspotted conversation the fore-runner and bright morning starre making way for the Sunne of righteousnesse arising in his full strength what was the reward he reaped for all his preaching and paines taking in the Church of God his thundring out of judgements against the wicked without all partiality and promising mercies to the true penitent and afflicted soule surely to have his head struck off from his shoulders at the command of an arrant strumpet and his body to be cast forth as dung upon the earth onely here was his

pious and charitable actions performed by his honourable Ancestors their gracing of true Religion with a most holy life and conversation what is all come to this All lost and gone For answere of all these Answere first it must be held as an infalliable ground a truth without all contradiction which the preacher delivereth Ecles 2.16 As the wise man dyeth so dyeth the foole neither Is love and hatred to be discerned by any outward thing whatsoever Ecles 9.2 Secondly that as there are periods of Kingdomes so are there of private and particular families It was a question that Pompey once propounded to a certain Philosopher a sage wise man of those times having lately before received by Caesar an unrecoverable losse and overthrow why Caesar having so bad a cause in hand and himselfe so good yet Caesar should so mightily prevaile as he did and he fall in his righteous cause more and more under his adversaries victorious sword My Lord answered he Sunt periodi Regnorum there are periods of Kingdomes and it is probable that the period of the Roman State is come to an end and that the manner of the present government wil suddenly be changed as not long after it came to passe And so may I truely say by experience of particular families that they have their periods and one family passeth and another commeth in the place thereof Shew me else what is become not onely of those holy families of which we have such honourable mention in holy writ but also of those families of whom Heathen records speake so honourably The Syrgij Appij Fabij Valerij Bruti and the like that stood so much upon their Gentility and eminents of blood contemning all others as Novi homines new upstarts in comparison of themselves If Families have not their periods when we see it hourely before our eyes this family cut off and another comming in the place thereof one ending and another beginning so that what is come to this is befalne to millions before neither is it a new thing under the Sunne Eccles 1.9 Thirdly it must be remembred that Almighty God passeth none of his promises but upon a twofold condition 1. His Glory then 2. The good of the party Now God alwayes glorifies himselfe two wayes 1. In his Mercy 2. In his Justice First in his mercy in showring downe his richest blessings upon the House and Family of the righteous man Pal 85.10 so that within the wals therof mercy and truth do daily meete righteousnesse and peace do kisse and imbrace one another Yea those that by continuance in well doing seeke glory and honour and immortality Eternall life is sayth the Apostle Glory and honour Rom. 2.10 and peace to the Iew first and also to the Greek Secondly in Justice in visiting of sinne with an unpartiall eye not onely on the Fathers but likewise on their children yea oftimes so hotly that the Father sinneth Jer. 31.22 and the child suffereth The Fathers eat sower grapes the childrens teeth are iustly set on edge Secondly for the good of the party And here it must be remembred that it is a thing most usuall with God our heavenly Father intending the good of his servants partly for their bodies but principally for their soules in disposing of these outward things for speciall reasons best knowne unto himselfe to seeme after a sort to crosse his own word and promise made unto them So that whereas hee promiseth health they meete with sicknesse length of dayes shortnesse of Life the Sunne shine of prosperity and behold they meete the sad and gloomy dayes of adversity yea it is ordinary with him to dispose of all sublunary blessings as Queene Hester for a time bestowed her chiefest favours not upon them shee loved best but upon him shee hated most For whereas Mordecay her Uncle and other her kindred and neerest alliance were seldome named or it may be hardly looked on as may without wronging the text Hest 2.10 20 not unprobably be gathered Haman that cruel Tyger and bloody enemy to her stock and Nation hath in the meane while what heart could wish and all the honour done him which so mighty a Princesse could possibly bestow uppon one that was her vassall and inferiour Or like olde Isaac's dealing with his two sonnes Esau and Iacob making on a Lord and cockering him under his Wing and the other the true heire of the promise he turneth out of his doores with his staffe in his hand to seeke him a service Gen. 28.1 2 3. upon which hee might afterwards live by the sweate of his browes Many more instances of Gods dealing with his children in this kinde I could produce which for brevity sake I doe heere omit onely I could wish wee finding Almighty God walking in this ordinary way and course of his that wee should not by our uncharitable surmises and rash conclusions eyther too rigidly censure his righteous actions or measure at all his blessed steppes by the rule and compasse of our shallow reach remembring that there are Arcana Providentiae secrets and mysteries of Divine providence into which with the strength of our dazled eye wee are no way able at all to pierce So that we may thinke yea verily beleeve this or that to be the true cause and reason of this or the like heavy accident and yet be nothing so but a meere phantasie of our owne And truely this have others done before us standing upon Record in holy writ who verily beleeved they had as sure a ground to walke upon and as much reason to judge in divers cases as we possibly can haue and yet when matters came to scanning were miserably deceived For instance to take 2. or 3. examples amongst many who would not have judged the blindnesse of that poore man Iohn 9 who wanting sight from his birth and never beholding the Sun walking in his strength had bin either for his owne or the sin of his parents and this was the opinion of most as may appeare by the Disciples words after Ioh. 9.2 3 Master who did sin this man or his parents that he was borne blind But Christ tels another reasō in the verse following Neither this man nor his parents but the true cause saith hee is this that the workes of God should be made manifest in him Or secondly who would not have thought that the true reason why Almighty God shortned as hee did the dayes and life of that young noble Prince the hope of the ten Tribes and honor of the house of Ieroboam had beene the fiercenesse of his wrath bent against that ungodly Family for the horrible abhominations daily therein committed but it is not the reason that is alleadged by the Prophet but it is the goodnesse of the vertuous Prince as hee affirmeth that occasioneth his untimely death For so saith the Prophet Ahijah to the wife of Ieroboam masking her self in the weeds of another

him and much to bee desired in these impudent daies of ours wherein blushing is helde the essentiall marke of a base and ignoble Spirit and an whores fore-head is reputed the onely rare feature and especiall grace Phil. 4.5 whereas St. Paul in the 4. of the Phil. 5. teacheth the Phillipians another lesson willing them to cloath themselves as with other vertues so saith hee with modestie And an ancient Father saith that modesty is Ornamentum nobilium nobilitas ignobilium the noble mans beauty and the poore mans dignity Yea the Lacedemonian state and Common-wealth received it as a Maxime and maine principle from Lycurgus their Law-giver that aboue all things they should accustome their youth to bashfulnesse and modesty He onely by the light of nature finding that which daily experience teacheth us that impudency and boldnesse in youth is an evill signe and the breeder of much vice and vanity The third Uertue was his temperance fit to bee joyned with the former not onely for that modesty and temperance as the heathen could say in eodem choro sunt are companions in the same ranke but for that the Apostle describeth them as loving sisters daughters of the same Spirit walking hand in hand together Gal. 5. Now this temperance of his appeared as in other things so likewise in these two First in his ordinary habit attire which although it were farre from basenesse so was it usually much lower then the highth of his meanes he rather respecting that indumentum fidej the inward cloathing of the mind then the outward cloathing of the body and himselfe to be an ornament to his cloathes rather then his cloathes to be an ornament to him Secondly it appeared in keeping himselfe free from three raging sinnes over-flowing the bankes of Modesty and Temperance in this age of ours viz. 1. Swearing or blasphemy 2. Ebriety or Drunkennesse 3. Venery or uncleannesse In regard of all which three his innocent and spotlesse life was such as the blackest tongue can no way soyle or blemish his blessed memory Yea let it bee written in Cedar tables or in golden letters upon his Tombe or Hearse to his eternall and immortall prayse that when these sinnes most raged then was not hee with them the least way touched but like a blessed River kept himselfe in his pure streame from beeing infected with this brackish and over-flowing Ocean which to too many are over-whelmed in in these our sinfull dayes and perilous times The fourth and last Uertue of his wherewith I will bound my discourse this way was his liberall and bountifull disposition witnessed both by many charitable actions of his to divers whom hee knew stood in need of his present helpe as also by many worthy and cheereful promises of his future helpe favour both to his tenants and also his poorest neighbours The consideration whereof together with his hopeful life begun so untimely ended causeth this generall sorrow which wee see in all especially in those formerly mentioned it beeing a received opinion as well it might that through the Almighties helpe he would suddainly have raysed agayne the name and honour of his ancient Family not suffering his Fathers house to stand as most of our Gentlemens houses do now a dayes like a paynted Mercury in the way to tell the Travailer whose formerly it was Or else like a wracke upon the Sea to discover onely where that noble Lady Hospitality fatally perished And this shall serue to bee spoken of the first act of his Life I wil now come to the second and therein speake a word or two of his Death the which being briefly done I wil then draw the Curtayn and so conclude this sorrowful Sceane In the very entrance whereof me-thinkes I find a wonderful correspondency and agreement betwixt his and the death of other of his next and honourable friends as for example 1. His Death was paynefull and somewhat contagious occasioned by the small poxe a disease fatall to that Family 2. His death was suddain very dolorous 3. His Death was ful of Piety and exceeding Religious 1. In the first you have the Death of his grand father and grand-mother 2. In the second the death of his Father 3. And in the last the death of all three or if you will the death of the Righteous So that a man may safely say of his Life and death compared with theirs as that holy King David long since spake of Sauls and Ionathans the Father and the sonne 2 Sam. 1. 2 Sam. 1 They were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their deaths they were not divided But leaving this and looking yet more narrowly into his Christian end wee cannot if wee doe but hearken to the credible report of those who were continually with him from the beginning of his sicknesse to the delivering up of his last breath but take special notice amongst many other of these two things right commendable in him 1. His admirable patience 2. His true and hearty repentance The one in induring the other in desiring the one in performing the other in promising And first for his Patience it was such that considering the tendernesse of his Age the frailty of Youth and want of experience in sicknesse that as it is generally reported it was a matter of great admiration to all about him For however our heavenly Father gave way as it seemeth to the disease to fanne and winnow him as Corne is fann'd and winnowed to the utter-most yet did he in the meane while so support and stay him with the hand of his Mercy that neyther his hope lost her hold or his faith failed So that howsoever the outward man suffered yet the inward man was renewed daily 2 Cor. 4.16 2 Cor. 4.16 How ever his body was not his owne being under the hand of a sharpe Chyrurgion Luke 21.1 yet in patience he did possesse his soule of all which hee gave sufficient testimony both by his milde and sweete behaviour as also by his comfortable words and Christian language For here were no impatient speeches no murmurring and repining no crying out upon the disease no accusing of secondary causes but a patient silence interrupted now and then with short prayers and Divine ejaculations wherein he craved at the hands of God eyther mitigation of his payne or supply of strength eyther to be eased or graciously to be supported And heere wee have an Embleme or a patterne of true Magnanimity appearing plainely in this that when the stormes of temptation and trouble raged most and these sharpe cutting winds blew lowdest yet hee carryed himselfe so close under the shield of Faith that hee was not at all daunted or driven from that obedience which hee did owe to God or his duty towards his neighbour The which as it is a noble and excellent vertue and quality of the spirit so was it questionlesse and without doubt much holpen 1. By the true sight hee had of