Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	love_n	3,006	5	5.2017	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49757	Christ's power over bodily diseases Preached in several sermons on Mat. 8. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. And published for the instruction especially of the more ignorant people in the great dutie of preparation for sickness and death. By Edward Lawrence, M.A. minister of the gospel at Baschurch in the county of Salop.	Lawrence, Edward, 1623-1695.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1672 (1672)	Wing L653; ESTC R223651	140,079	330

other affliction to come and bring it down Grace grows to such a strength that now it 's able to bear a trial a storm is ready to fall therefore saith God now it 's to time to fetch my childe home The Christian is grown so ripe that it's time to bring him to heaven as a shock of corn in its season Thus you see for your comfort that sickness and death come from Christ in the best and fittest season Sickness never comes but to bring thee nearer heaven and Death shall never come but to loose thee into heaven Ah Christian heaven and happiness never come out of season Secondly Comfort in respect of the end of all sicknesses and death they come from Jesus Christ for our good We read 2 Cor. 4.17 Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory where we see that in all our afflictions there is a secret Power working us to heaven and salvation As for example in a Fever Ague or Consumption c. we feel a Power working outwardly against us against our health strength case and life so there is a mighty Power working inwardly for us working us from sin and the world to God and Christ and Heaven Hence is that known and tryed Scripture I say it 's a tryed Scripture it hath comforted many thousand hearts I mean Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are called according to his purpose Methinks this Scripture is a Spring which always runs with new and fresh comfort and it 's a sure way to finde comfort to look upon all our diseases and other afflictions through this Scripture Now to apply the comfort of it to the present case consider what is that good which all things work together for and this you may know by the following verses wherein the Apostle demonstrates this truth That all things work together for our good therefore saith he vers 31. What shall we say to these things If God be for us who can be against us that is let us look upon all our afflictions and miseries and then look upon our Predestination Vocation Justification and Glorification mentioned vers 29 30. And we may joyfully conclude that seeing God is for us so as to predestinate call justifie and glorifie us and these links can never be broken then nothing can be against us but all shall work for our good so that the great good that all things work for is not to make the godly the great Gallants of the world but to bring them grace and peace here and glory hereafter and all sicknesses diseases and deaths and all other dispensations are united and joyned together in this work to bring Soul-saving good to them that love God And the clear cause of this is in the Doctrine viz. because our Saviour hath the working of all these things he sends and rules and governs them and therefore there must needs be a Fatherly work in them because Jesus Christ as our Father and Saviour sends them to us and orders them for us That of the Apostle makes clearly for this 1 Cor. 3.23 Death is yours and by the same rule sickness is ours and for our good But why ours Answ Because the Lord of sickness and death is ours Hence we read Phil. 1.21 To die is gain Sickness is gain and death is gain to Gods Children Many a Childe of God gains more by a moneths sickness then by the outward mercies of many years and death will bring you more gain in one hour then all the prayers and Sacraments and Sermons of a whole age and therefore labour to see your gains as real and present to the eye of Faith as your pains troubles and losses are to the eye of Sense and in your sad parting with those things which sickness and death take you from comfort your hearts with those things which they bring you unto say Farewel my dear and pleasant Country thou hast fed me well and cloathed me well but I must leave thee for a better Country that is an heavenly Hebr. 11.26 Farewel my inward and faithful friends farewel my dear Jonathans How pleasant have you been to me Your love to me is wonderful Methinks when I am with you I feel the truth of Tertullians saying of the fellowship of the Primitive Christians Animo animáque miscemur Our very hearts and souls do enter into and are mingled and united with one another Many a sweet meeting and sad parting I have had with you but I must leave you a while to go to better friends in Heaven Magnus illie nos charorum numerus expectat I have a great company of dear friends in the other world which look for me and will rejoyce to see me with them with whom I shall always be serious yet never sad always merry and yet never vain Farewel my sweet Sabbaths savoury Sermons melting Sacraments farewel my dear Bible and all the blessed Ordinances wherein I have seen the Lord even the Lord in the land of the living I must no longer look in these glasses but go where I shall see him face to face Farewel my dear yoke-fellow parents my sweet children my beloved brothers and sisters I must leave you all to go to a better Father and Husband and Brother in heaven Farewel my good and convenient house my sweet place of secret and Family-worship I must be gone to my house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Farewel my poor but precious body go thou and sleep in Jesus in the earth whilst my Soul is raigning with Jesus in heaven where I shall remember thee and long to see thee till I meet thee again cloathed with Immortality and Glory These things Christians are the comforts of a sick-bed the sweet joys of a death-bed 3. Comfort in respect of the godly who are visited Herein is thy comfort that thou art a true part and member of Jesus Christ from whom all diseases come so that whatsoever Christ doth to thee he doth to himself I was sick saith Christ when his members were sick Mat. 25.36 So when the body is dead the poor ghastly corpse continues still joyned and united to Jesus Christ Hence the bodies of believers are said to sleep in Jesus and are called the dead in Christ 1 Thes 4.14 16. and it 's a most sweet and savoury consideration when a man looks on such a sad spectacle as a loathsome diseased body or thinks on the rotten carkass when the body is dead and sown in corruption then to fix the eye of Faith upon his glorious head at the right hand of the Father As thus look on thy face covered with the Small Pox and then look on the Face of Jesus Christ look on thy bones staring upon thee in a Consumption and then look upon the glory and beauty of Jesus Christ Nay go further look upon

hinder their salvation but still the infinite power of Christ is working and prevailing to bring them to heaven End 8. Christ by sickness doth change his people more and more into his own likeness So that as the fire melts and softens the gold and thereby fits it for the stamp so these sicknesses soften the hearts of the godly and thereby fit them to receive the stamp of Gods Image Hence many a Saint comes more full of God from a sick bed then he did from a Sermon or Sacrament for many a day before To this purpose agrees the saying of learned and holy Rolloc on his sick bed I am not ashamed saith he to profess that I never attained to such a great measure of the knowledge of God as I have gained by this sickness The Apostle assures us that this is Gods end in all our corrections Heb. 12.10 He chasteneth us for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness If we lose by corrections one way as in our health liberty or estates profit comes in another way in holiness in graces and in comforts There is a fit proof of this 2 Cor. 4.16 Though the outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day In v. 12. as was observed before he tells us that death worketh in them Death was busily working to take away their lives Well saith he but though the outward man perish that is though the body and bodily things perish and decay yet the inward man that is the new man the spiritual man is renewed day by day To apply this to our particular case we often see that whilst sickness is withering and wasting the body the outward man there comes a newness of life and spirit from Jesus Christ to quicken and renew the inward man So that although the outward man be feeble speech weak and hands weak and limbs weak yet look in the inward man and you shall see every thing in its prime faith strong and love strong and patience strong and comfort strong so that as the outward man is wasting and falling towards the earth the inward man is rising and ripening towards heaven End 9. Christ visits his people with sickness to try whether they will cleave to him notwithstanding he thus visit them Beloved you often hear and read of the tryals of Gods people I shall therefore acquaint you what this tryal is whereby you will more clearly understand this end of Gods Visitation A tryal is that whereby God puts his people to give a proof and experiment of their graces As for example there was a question between God and Satan concerning the integrity of Job God testifies of Job c. 1.8 That he was a perfect and upright man one that feared God and eschewed evil Satan denies this and undertakes to prove Job to be an Hypocrite and a Dissembler vers 9 10 11. Doth Job fear God for nought No marvel if he fear thee thou payest him well for it thou hast made a hedge about him that no body must hurt him but he makes but a Trade of Religion do but throw down the hedge about him and he will quickly throw down his service and obedience he will curse thee to thy face Now upon this Job is put to the tryal but though in a few hours he is changed from a man of great riches c. to a poor Job yet still he holds fast his integrity as God witnesseth of him Job 2.3 Afterwards ariseth another question Whether Job will prove a hypocrite if God visit him with sickness for sa ith Satan Job 2.5 Touch his bone and his flesh and he will curse thee to thy face Upon this Job is put to another tryal he is sorely and sadly diseased from top to toe v. 7. yet his heart proves sound still v. 10. In all this did not Job sin with his lips And if we observe him in the whole course of his tryal though the infirmities of a man appeared in him yet he would never be baffled out of his integrity and at last he comes out of the furnace like gold Job 23.13 And thus God often visits his people to try their graces I shall leave this particular only I shall direct you how to prove sound in all the tryals which can befal you as thus Make that a ground of your Religion which no tryal can ever take away if thou wilt be Religious because it brings thee credit or profit c. then if a tryal comes and God and Mammon clash and thou must be either a Martyr or an Apostate thy Religion is then gone and lost because the ground and reason of it is gone but if thou trust God and love God because he commands thee and because he is a faithful and good God here is a cause and ground and reason for thy Religion which nothing can take away and so thy holiness and godliness is everlasting because it is built and grounded upon an everlasting foundation End 10. To try his people whether they will leave this world and come to him in the other world Beloved we should live in this world so as to be always ready at an hours warning to leave all and to go into Eternity Now when God sends a sickness we should look upon it as a Call into Eternity and be ready to give a willing and obedient answer Job 14.1 Thou shalt call that is saith Lavater call me out of this life and I will come I will answer thee And thus in a Fever or Consumption c. God stands as it were by the sick bed and calls Come away Husband from thy Wife come away Wife from thy Husband come away Father from thy Children now we should be ready to leave all and to come home to God for this is one choice part of our obedience to yield up our lives to God as his right and due when he calls for them Hence saith Paul 2 Tim. 4.6 I am now ready to be offered Every believer should look upon his life as a sacrifice sanctified and set apart for God and to be always ready to be offered to him at his will and pleasure It is observeable of Moses Deut. 32.48 49 50. God there appoints Moses to go up to Mount Nebo and die and did not Moses think ye go up with a heavy heart No he chearfully and obediently submits and thither he goes up and there he dies Deut. 34. So if God say to thee by his Providence Go into a Fever and die or go into a Dropsie and die go upon thy sick-bed and die thou must yield thou must go at the pleasure of God And certainly if Believers did but clearly see whither sickness and death would bring them it would be a thousand times harder duty to be content to live then to be willing to die End 11. To try his people if they will resigne their friends to God when he calls for them by sickness a friend is a choice treasure he