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	life_n	see_v	2,826	5	3.2572	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44521	The first fruits of reason, or, A discourse shewing the necessity of applying our selves betimes to the serious practice of religion by Anthony Horneck ...	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1686 (1686)	Wing H2830; ESTC R4566	37,544	144

not the Cyprian Bishop but another to 115. Not to mention any more and most Historians agree in it that one great means to prolong their years was their spare diet and frequent abstinence and Fasts in obedience to Religion Besides Religion commands Obedience Respect and Tenderness to Parents and to that a special blessing of long life is affixed by promise in the fifth Commandment Honour thy Father and thy Mother that thy days may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God gives thee It bids us also shun all apparent occasions of mischief particularly of evil company where great rudenesses insolencies debaucheries and many times Murthers are committed to the endangering both of health and life Add to all this that Religion doth peremptorily prohibit all ill language which is too often the unhappy cause of quarrels strife fighting blows duelling and assassinations which signally shorten the life of man in allusion to which David tells us Psal. 34.12 13. What man is he that desires life and loves many days that he may see good keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile So that if a man remembers his Creator betimes makes Conscience of the duties Religion prescribes and continues in doing so he lays a foundation for a long and healthy life 2. This early remembrance of God gives a man a title to Gods special Providence and what the effect of that is the Psalmist will inform us Psal. 91.14 16. Because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I deliver him with long life will I satisfie him and shew him my salvation That there is a special Providence attending those who fear God is the unanimous voice of all the inspired Writers and they all agree in this that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the world to shew himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is upright toward him as it is said 2 Chron. 16.9 And with respect to this special Providence it is that Solomon gives this advice to the Disciple of wisdom Prov. 3.1 2. My son forget not my Law and let thy heart attend unto my commandment for length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee By this special Providence a man is preserved from numberless dangers which otherwise would crush both health and life It s this blesses his meat and drink to him be it more or less wholesom or unwholesom removes from it what is noxious and pestilential gives it a nutritive power and many times preserves him without meat and drink for man doth not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God as we are told Matth. 4.4 However this serious remembrance of our Creator or which is all one the fear of God makes a man immortal more effectually than Books and Monuments or Pillars or Tombstones or Fabricks or Pyramids For these onely keep up an empty name but this conscientious fear makes the man himself immortal Such a person leads a happy life here and his natural death makes no other alteration in that happy life than that it gives it greater brightness greater splendour greater lustre and adds to it higher degrees of happiness And of this Fear or serious Remembrance of God it may be said as it was of the Bread which came down from Heaven that it is Meat indeed and Drink indeed and he that feeds upon it shall never die For such a mans Soul which is the principal part of him at the end or period of his days here is onely transplanted into a richer ground and conveyed to a nobler Soil to better Land to a larger House to more pleasant Mansions and to a more ample Theater And being removed from hence it doth not change its nature but onely her abode from a Prison from a Cave from a Cottage from a Dungeon to a more spacious Pallace where she hath more Elbow-room and like a Bird freed from her Cage acts with greater liberty and sings with greater cheerfulness And her Body too sleeps onely for a few years lies down upon a bed of Turf till the Soul is throughly setled in her new Habitation and then even that at the sound of the Arch-Angels Trumpet shall awake to a happy immortality as Christ assures us Job 11.26 And though it 's true that many who sincerely remember their Creator and fear him are cut off in the prime and flower of their age and live but a short time in this world yet that early removal contradicts not the natural tendency of the Fear of God Still this is the natural course of that stream and if it met with no extraordinary stop it would certainly prolong life even here upon earth But God for special reasons puts a stop sometimes to its natural course as he hindred the Sun from going down in Joshua's time and from shining out at noon-day in our Saviour's time and the Iron from sinking in Elishah's time and the Fire from scorching in Nebucadnezzar's time and the greedy Whale from consuming or devouring Jonas These creatures had they been left to their natural course would have acted otherwise but an Almighty hand interposing its power and influence they were restrained in their natural bent and inclination So the Fear of God though its natural tendency be to prolong health and life yet God doth not so tie himself to the natural course of things but that sometimes for reasons best known to himself he may and doth make an alteration in that natural tendency nor is that alteration any just discouragement from the Fear of God no more than a mans being sometimes disappointed in his designs is a discouragement from prosecuting his Trade or Calling or Profession So that when God makes an alteration in the natural course or tendency of this holy Fear and cuts off men that conscientiously remember him in the prime and slower of their age it may be either to advance his own Glory or to accelerate their happiness or to keep them from the evil to come or to chastise their Relatives who were too fond of these outward Comforts or to wicked men who as they are by the death of such persons deprived of examples and monitors and means of grace so through just Judgement of God thereby hardned in their sins which brings on their everlasting misery Though if we consider the happiness of the next world in conjunction with this present as it makes one entire thred or web in a person that truly fears God still there can be no greater truth than that the Fear of God prolongs life for it prolongs it to all Eternity Not to mention that abundance of persons who seem to fear God do fear him very imperfectly or not exactly according to the Rules before laid down which may be the reason why they do not see this promise fulfilled to them in all the measures of its latitude It is confest that even men that do