Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	let_v	lord_n	2,934	5	3.6705	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44239	The Holy fast of Lent defended against all its prophaners, or, A Discourse shewing that Lent-fast was first taught the world by the apostles, as Dr. Gunning, now Bishop of Ely learnedly proved in a sermon printed by him in the year 1662 by His Majesties special command together with a practical direction how to fast.	Gunning, Peter, 1614-1684.	1677 (1677)	Wing H2525; ESTC R40999	45,046	54

manifestly impede our designed end least we pull down with one hand what we go about to build up with the other and make our Spirits as vain and light by frothy Conversations and other Divertisements as we make them grave and sober by Fasting and Abstinence Hear the 4th Council of Toledo c. 5. In omnibus c. In all the foresaid days of Lent we ought to insist on Fasting and Mourning to cover the body with Hair-cloath and Ashes to humble our mind with Mournings to change our Ioy into Heaviness until the time of the Resurrection of Christ when we are with joy to sing Allelujah and turn our heaviness into gladness For this the consent of the Vniversal Church in all parts of the Earth hath confirmed Fiftly Spend more time in Prayer Meditation of Divine things and Spiritual reading and hearing of Sermons for one great end of Fasting is the better to dispose us for these Spiritual exercises Venter non habet aures The pampered paunch is to nothing deafer than to Divine Inspirations Impletus venter non vult studere libenter The full belly has no great mind to study but much less to speak to God-Almighty by devout Prayer or to hear him speak to it by spiritual reading and hearing of Sermons Thus the Antient people of God the Iews spent the fourth part of their days of publick Fasting and Atonement in reading and hearing the Law of Almighty God and another fourth part in worshipping the same God with devout prayers Nehem. 9. v. 1 2 3. Now in the twenty and fourth day of this moneth the Children of Israel were Assembled with Fasting and with Sack-cloathes and Earth upon them And the Seed of Israel separated themselves from all Strangers and stood and confessed their Sins and the Iniquities of their Fathers And they stood up in their place and read in the Book of the Law of the Lord their God one fourth part of the day and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God And the Church of Christ has ever in Lent to Prayers and Fastings annexed more frequent hearing and Preaching God's Word and many of S. Crysostoms Golden Homilies as likewise of others of the Antient Fathers were Sermons Preached day by day in Lent to the people Hear S. Crysostom upon those words of our Blessed Saviour This kind goes not out but by Prayer and Fasting Qui orat c. He that prays with Fasting hath two Wings and those lighter than the Winds themselves for such an one doth not stretch himself or yawn or is drowsie in his Prayer He that fasteth is light and winged and prays with Vigilancy and extinguishes his own evil Lusts and renders God propitious to himself and humbles his own soul that was lift up For this cause also the Apostles in a manner continually Fasted Fasting with Faith brings into the soul a great force and much Philosophy and makes of a man an Angel and helps him to fight with incorporeal powers Sixthly What we defraud our own Appetite of by Fasting let our Lord Jesus eat by the mouth of his Poor And this indeed is another end and fruit of Fasting to make us more able and more willing to relieve those in necessity To feel some hunger our selves sometimes makes us more tenderly compassionate of those who in a manner are continually hungry and its manifest the less we expend on our selves the more we have to bestow on the Needy and Indigents and daily experience teaches us that none are more liberally Chari●●●ble to others then those who are most Christianly severe to themselves And no wonder their frequent Abstinences demonstratively convincing them that the best use of wealth is to spend as little as they can upon themselves and as much as they can upon their necessitous Neighbors And hence also follows another admirable fruit of Religious Fasting to wit an absolute indifferency to worldly riches and abundance For who will break his Sleep or weary his Limbs to get that which he believes when he has gotten the best use he can make of it is to give it away to others Hear the Antient and Learned Origen Hom. 10. in Levit. 16. Habemus c. We have the days of Lent Consecrated to Fastings we have the 4th and 6th days of the week whereon we solemnly Fast There is also yet another Religious way of Fasting whose praise is set forth in writing from certain of the Apostles for we find in a certain Book that it was said by the Apostles Blessed is he who fasts also for that end that he may relieve the Poor This Mans Fast is much accepted with God Hear S. Chrysolog Serm. 8. de Jejun Eleemosynae c Alms and Prayers are the wings of Fasting by which 't is carryed up to Heaven without which it lyes dead and spiritless upon the Earth Let us therefore O my Brethren when we Fast deposit our Dinner in the hand of the Poor that their hand may preserve for us what our belly would have lost us The hand of the Poor is the Treasury of Christ He that Fasts not to the Poor doth but feign a Fast to God Fasting without works of mercy is but an empty Image of Hunger Without pitty to others 't is but an occasion taken of Covetousness Because by such sparing what is taken down in the flesh swells in the bag In fine hear God-Almighty himself Isa. 58. Is not this the Fast that I have chosen Is it not to deal thy Bread to the Hungry and that thou bring the Poor that are cast out into thy house When thou seest the Naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thy self from thine own flesh And now would all Pretenders to fast in Lent and upon other Set-days Fast in some tolerable manner according to what right reason Holy Scriptures and Antient Fathers direct us as has been showen the Devil himself would be ashamed to call such Fasting the Doctrin of Daemons Will-worship or Superstition But to Fast truly and Christianly is troublesome to flesh and blood It cannot be denyed And this is indeed the true cause we have so 〈…〉 s of Lent-Fast amongst us The want of express Scrip●●● 〈…〉 of Superstition is pretended but the true reason in 〈…〉 om Fast is the difficulty flesh and blood finds in Fasting But as to this we must help our selvas sometimes by calling to mind the bitter eternal torments we have deserved for our sins and this will make us ashamed to complain of the gentle Pennance of the most rigorous Lent-Fast Had God-Almighty upon the account of our manifold sins and wickednesses required of us some great matter for example To have Fasted our whole Lives with Bread and Water ought we not gladly to have done it How much rather then ought we to comply most willingly with his most equitable and gentle command of Fasting moderately sometimes How gladly would a Damned Soul accept of a Methusalem's Age of rigorous