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	sin_n	4,328	5	4.6860	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93662	Aphonologos. A dumb speech. Or, A sermon made, but no sermon preached, at the funerall of the right vertuous Mrs Mary Overman, wife to Mr Thomas Overman the younger. Of the parish, formerly called, Saint Saviours, or vulgarly Mary Overis, in Southwarke. By B. Spencer, minister of Bromley.	Spencer, Benjamin, b. 1595?	1646 (1646)	Wing S4942; Thomason E1180_3; Thomason C.54.aa.1(3); ESTC R208123	32,914	87

a day may bring forth Being without well-being is not worth our desires wee must looke to another life if wee desire to see good dayes and that is the life Christian which doth difference our lives from all others For our life is hid with Christ in God Coloss 3.3 and from this life wee are denominated as righteousnesse doth a righteous man for as Non vivere sed valere est vita not to live but to be in health is life the rest is sicknes and deaths equipage so not to live is a Christian life but to live godly God lookes Non tam multum sed quam bene not how long but how well wee live there is therefore not onely a life naturall but a life spirituall which prepares us for a life eternall as the wildernes of Sin and the Kingdome of Bashan did lead to Canaan This is when wee lead a naturall life after a spirituall manner as to be a Mary in contemplation and so anticipate the joyes of heaven or a Martha by good actions and so become our own rewarders by laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come that wee may lay hold of eternall life or like Lazarus to come out of the grave at the call of Christ or to make Christ our pattern who hath left us an example that wee should follow his steps or like St. Paul to make Christ our life that death may be our gain So I come to that life which puts a difference between other men The life different of a Christian and a Christian viz. to be their life Of this St. Paul speakes who made not the world his life nor his pleasure his life but as the worke of Christ was his meat and drinke so Christ was his life also This may be understood Operativè Or Objectivè First Operatively that is if I live Christ is my life by the operation of faith Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himselfe for me For Christ lives in a man by his Spirit by faith and by love First by his Spirit justifying me that his righteousnes is mine in the merit of it that he hath deserved for me to be held guiltlesse of all sin in the sight of God so by his spirit also sanctifying me to a new and true spirituall obedience lastly Rom. 8.16 exciting me by the same spirit to every good worke To this purpose St. Paul saith The spirit witnesseth to our spirits that wee are the sons of God This is Pignus salutis the pledge of our salvation Greg. which never goeth alone without the other for that spirit that gives the pledge of salvation giveth also the Robur vitae the strength of life by which those things are easie which before seemed hard and lastly Lumen scientiae the life of knowledge which like light doth illuminate what was darke and produceth what lay hid in our earthy natures Secondly Christ lives in me by faith urging me to believe that by his grace I am that I am Thirdly He lives in me by love by which fayth worketh me first to acknowledge my selfe to be his in all true obliegement and then to do him all manner of service Therefore St. Austin prayeth to God that his spirit may thus live in him Sanctum semper opus in me spira ut cogitem suade ut diligam urge ut faciam inspire me with thy holy worke perswade me to love urge me to do And so comes in the second sence of this text viz. Objectivè which I take to be here especially meant namely To me to live is Christ that is I accompt my life Christs to be spent and disposed of in him and for him to be spent in his service as David saith Psal 116.16 I am thy servant So all the Apostles write themselves CHRISTS and the CHURCHES servants the Pope writes himselfe so but t is meerly titular he Lords it too much over Gods inheritance to be a servant This is a good Christian complement when it is essentiall that whether wee live wee live to to the Lord or whether wee dye Rom. 14.8 wee dye to the Lord. Secondly To live to me is Christ if my life be willingly at his disposall as St. Paul said Acts 21.13 I am not ready onely to be bound but to dye for the Lord Iesus so that here we see if Christ be our life then our life must be Christs the one of these depends upon the other Christ hath bought us wee are not our owne Glorifie therefore saith the Apostle God in your bodies and in your spirits for they are Gods Wee must not live to our selves 1 Cor. 6.20 2 Cor. 5.15 let us first find that Christ is our life then the other wil be found also that our life shall be Christs for such an unionthere is between Christ and us as there is between the Head and the Members the Vine and the branches If the Body have a living Head the sense of the Body is derived from the Head and disposed of to the good of the Head and therfore here is set down that Christ is to me life because Christ is all in all to them that are his in the flux reflux of grace in the preventing operating in the donation and retribution Quest How shall I know Christ to be in me that I may say comfortably to my selfe That Christ is life to me Answ By the Spirit that he hath given us 1. Joh. 3.24 which Spirit is known by divers motions First by a purpose to obey God and an inclination to that purpose Therefore Christ minded Gods work with David Joh. 4.34 more then his dayly food and he was straitned till that was accomplished that he was sent to suffer but you must observe this purpose and inclination is in us not onely in extremities as in Pharaoh Exo. 9.28 while the rod was upon him he promised fair but even while we are in health and have the world at will God loves to be chosen as freely as he was forsaken and it is a great comfort to a man and a good token of Gods spirit when a man can say This good I did embrace and this evill I did forsake meerely for Gods cause without any other respect or constraint as Ioseph did Gen. 39 9. How can I do this great wickednes and sin against God The Devil as the Proverb is when he was sick would be a Monke which savours of more religion then those Monkes who while they be well will be devils but being well he was the devill still so many of us cry in affliction and pretend repentance but the storme being over we doe as he did that vowed to a Saint if he came safe to shore a wax Candle of twelve pound weight but when he came there he gave one

what happened to my greater griefe I speake it for it added much to my affliction then you were dismist without your spirituall banquet Uncivill men dispoyled you of your Feast and having fasted from it ever since you needs must have it now And here it is Fall to it when you please I doe perswade my selfe you came so well resolved as that you meant to profit by the dead why should I frustrate this chiefe end of yours I need not others did who promised well but ill performd it They spake of peace yet would not let it follow her to the grave If to excuse themselves they aske What profit is a Sermon to the dead I must answer it is the businesse of the living who were by them defrauded of this excellent Sermon wherein the Prophet Ezechiels dead and dry bones are gathered together to a happy Resurrection Death it selfe enlivened by the pious Authors eloquence into a profitable life By whose skilfull guidance thou mayst be instructed so to live that thou shalt never dye and so to dye that thou shalt live for ever What kind of Adders then were those who did not onely stoppe their owne but others eares against the voyce of this wise Charmer here Who how injuriously he was accused upon suspicion for this Sermon has by the publication of it made you judges and the world besides And now high time it is to cloze with you deare Mother and to remove my foot a little from this house of sorrow at least from the depth of it to comfort you And you will give me leave to say after the story of so much goodnesse eminent in our departed friend wee have something to rejoyce in in the midst of all our teares that she both lived and dyed so exemplarily well It hath pleased God indeed to call you and me in a more especiall manner to the house of mourning A sad truth if wee consult with flesh and blood onely God hath of late deprived us of a very neere relation to each of us You of an obedient daughter in her youth Me of a bosome friend too soone Both these were deare relations in our affections which having had a Benjamins portion in our love must needs have the same proportion in our sorrow for her losse I can no more forget my wife then you your daughter I must acknowledge the separation of an obedient daughter from an indulgent mother to be cause sufficient of lamentation yet you will pardon me if I say that I have more If you consider us in those sacred bonds wherein heaven had joyned us where I met with so much mutuall conversation and affection with such an union that as living I could not over-love so neither now over-grieve the separation The tribute of my teares must needs be larger then who beare a larger share in the same losse But we will not vie teares in this sad contention but rather strive to beare our selves as Christian Mourners Not so full of teares as hope She dyed in hope let us mourne too as for our Freind who is but gone before to that place of joy whither we hope to follow her in Gods due time Hee onely make us ready as she was and then wee shall not need to feare our Masters call how soone or late soever So shall not death over-master us but we shall conquer it through him that tooke away its hurtfull sting And let us now remember all teares are wiped from her eyes why should ours then stand full of teares for her If all her sorrowes be fallen asleepe and buried in the grave Why should ours live too passionatly to bemoane her Let us not then drop a teare more here but rather lend each other both our hands to helpe us beare this weighty crosse betweene us I must confesse no crosses doe so much affect us as those which teare away the things wee dearliest love and when the cheife object of our affections is taken from us a generall lamentation followes it through all the powers both of soule and body We cannot suffer it to be divided from us without abundance of teares I neede not applie it Yet must I give my Soule this consolation for the losse If I doe not so miscall the blessed death of my deare Spouse she is not dead but sleepeth And if no more I may thinke further Worldly occasions have many nights separated our bodies when the next morning has rejoyned us and it is but one night one short night of this dull life she shall be from me when the morning of glory shall appeare wee shall appear together And since this comfort of my life could not here stay with me this comfort is my stay of life that a little time of patience will bring mee to her And for you deare Mother the Argument is as good you may mourn excessively as David did for Absalom Yet you must expect a loab to chide you for it So much the more in that David had more cause to bewaile his Absolom then you your Mary hee knew not how God would deale with that rebellious Sonne but you cannot doubt but he has dealt well with your obedient daughter My advice therefore to you shall be no other then this in briefe neither too much to remember nor altogether to forget so good a daughter Could she not have dyed it had been worthy of wonder not at all that she is dead I might save you and my selfe this quere Whether we loved her whom we lately have forgone and could we love her and not wish her happie Could she be happie and not die God gave you this daughter as a gift and me this wife and hee hath againe taken her as his due may hee not doe with his Theodosia his owne gift as hee pleases It was Iobs saying in the midst of all his losses The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the Name of the Lord. In all afflictions we must consider both what we have lost and what we have left and blesse God in every losse that we have lost no more having so many things to be deprived of T is some comfort in calamity not to be altogether miserable And it is as much as we can expect whilst we are here to part with our earthly happinesse by degrees t is but a kindlie passage to those eternall ones above which will sufficiently recompence all our losses here below This must be the consideration which in this and the like occasions must satisfy both you and me For any other satisfaction we must not expect Nor must the deniall of that Christian solemnity which was designed for her more honourable interment afflict or trouble us we know the times and men And if we looke abroad we shall behold great noble farnous persons thrust into their graves with lesser ceremony And we must not thinke much to sympathize a little with the disquiet of the times And if yet any be so censorious to look upon this speech or that Sermon with an ill aspect in respect that it is now made publicke It suffices me that I have hereby given my cheife freinds their owne content which is my duty For sure I am they were sufficiently discontented with what befell at the Funerall And I have hereby decently interred my deare Wife having no ether way left me to performe it as became the last duty of an affectionate Husband For till now she was buried in silence whom no man can blame me if I perpetually speake of as well as continually remember And I must further professe that both the Preacher and my selfe have modestly and truly deciphered her proper Character as became her by the law of Christianity to be reported of If now all this vertue and goodnesse make thee whoever thou art that readest presse forward to the same practise Thou wilt sufficiently justifie the justnesse of this true though ceremonious commendation And you my freinds as you will acknowledge that I have thus but paid the honour I owed to her beloved ashes So you will confesse your selves honoured by the interests and relations you once had to so deserving a Saint And for her sake retaine with love the antient respects and freindship to her lately beloved Husband and still your freind and Servant THO OVERMAN FINIS