Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	woman_n	word_n	write_a	12	3	9.5740	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A05259	The mothers blessing. Or The godly counsaile of a gentle-woman not long since deceased, left behind her for her children containing many good exhortations, and godly admonitions, profitable for all parents to leaue as a legacy to their children, but especially for those, who by reason of their young yeeres stand most in need of instruction. By Mris. Dorothy Leigh.	Leigh, Dorothy.	1616 (1616)	STC 15402; ESTC S113606	65,870	296

mother to her children is hardly contained within the bounds of reason Neither must you my sonnes when you come to bee of iudgement blame me for writing to you since Nature telleth me that I cannot long bee here to speake vnto you and this my mind will continue long after mee in writing and yet not my mind but I seeke to put you in minde of the words of our Sauiour Christ which saith Labour not for the meate that perisheth c. where you see that the food of the soule is to bee gotten by labour Why stand you here sayth Christ here is not time to be idle they that will rest with Christ in heauen must labour to follow him here on earth Blessed are the dead which dye in the Lord for they rest from their labour Thus you see if you will goe to the place which Christ hath bought for you you must labour to follow Christ he labour'd to get it for you or els all your labour would haue been as nothing and now you must labour to lay hold on him or els all your labour will bee worth nothing Many there bee that labour the cleane contrary way for they leaue Christ and take hold of traditions and a number loyter and by that meanes neuer get holde on Christ. And this is the cause why I write vnto you that you might neuer fly from him with the one nor yet loyter with the other but that you might learne to follow him and to take hold of him in the written Word of God where you shall find him as Christ himselfe witnesseth and no where else Search the Scriptures sayth he for they testifie of mee Labour therefore that you may come vnto Christ. CHAP. 4. The second cause is to stirre them vp to write THe second cause my sonnes why I write vnto you for you may thinke that had I had but one cause I would not haue changed the vsuall order of women is needfull to be knowne and may doe much good For where I saw the great mercy of God toward you in making you men and placing you amongst the wife where you may learne the true written Word of God which is the path-way to all happinesse and which will bring you to the chiefe Citty new Ierusalem and the seuen liberall sciences whereby you shall haue at least a superficiall sight in all things I thought it fit to giue you good example and by writing to intreate you that when it shall please God to giue both vertue and grace with your learning he hauing made you men that you may write and speake the Word of God without offending any that then you would remember to write a booke vnto your children of the right and true way to happinesse which may remaine with them and theirs for euer CHAP. 5. The third cause is to moue women to bee carefull of their children THe third is to encourage women who I feare will blush at my boldnesse not to bee ashamed to shew their infirmities but to giue men the first and chiefe place yet let vs labour to come in the second and because wee must needs confesse that sin entred by vs into our posterity let vs shew how carefull we are to seeke to Christ to cast it out of vs and our posterity and how fearefull we are that our sinne should sinke any of them to the lowest part of the earth wherefore let vs call vpon them to follow Christ who will carry them to the height of heauen CHAP. 6. The fourth cause is to arme them against pouerty THe fourth cause is to desire you that you will neuer feare pouerty but alwaies know it is the state of the children of GOD to bee poore in the world Christ sayth Ye shall haue the poore with you alwaies It may be he hath appointed you or yours to bee of this poore number doe not striue against Christ. It is as hard sayth he for a rich man to enter into heaven as for a Camell to goe thorow the eye of a needle Saint Iames sayth Woe bee to you that are rich S. Paul sayth The desire of mony is the roote of all euill Which if it be true as it is not to be doubted of and you feare pouerty then doth it necessarily follow that you will desire the roote of all euil which is money and so become good for nothing The feare of pouerty maketh men run into a thousand sins which nothing els could draw them to for many fearing the cold stormes of pouerty which neuer last long run on to the hot fire of hell which neuer hath an end This matter requireth many words for it is hard to perswade the nature of man from the feare of pouerty wherefore I wil speake more of that afterwards onely I now say Feare not to bee poore with Lazariu but feare a thousand times to be rich with Diues CHAP. 7. The fift cause is not to feare death THe fift cause is to desire you neuer to feare death for the feare of death hath made many to deny the knowne truth and so haue brought a heauy iudgement of God vpon themselues A great reason why you should not feare death is because you can by no meanes shun it you must needes indure it and therefore it is meet that you should be alwaies prepared for it and neuer feare it Hee that will saue his life sayth Christ shall lose it and he that will lose his life for my sake and the Gospels shall finde it Doe not feare the paines of death in what shape soeuer hee come for perhaps thou shalt haue more paines vpon thy bed and be worse prouided to beare them by reason of some grieuous sicknesse then thou art like to feele when God shal call thee forth to witnesse his truth The only way not to feare death is alwaies to be prouided to dye And that thou mayest alwaies be prouided to dye thou must be continually strengthening thy faith with the promises of the Gospell as Hee that liueth and beleeueth shall not dye and though he were dead yet shall he liue Meditate in the laws of the Lord day and night as the Psalmist saith and then thou shalt be fit to bring forth fruit in due season then thou shalt bee fit to serue God thy King and country both in thy life and in thy death and alwayes shalt shew thy selfe a good member of IESVS Christ a faithfull subiect to thy Prince and alwaies fit to gouerne in the Christian common-wealth and then thou mayest faithfully and truely say Whether I liue or dye I am the Lords But without continuall meditation of the Word this cannot bee done And this was one of the chiefe causes why I writ vnto you to tell you that you must meditate in the Word of God for many reade it and are neuer the better for want of meditation If yee heare the Word and read it without meditating

Wherfore bring vp your daughters as Susanna's Parents brought vp her teach them the lawe of the Lord continually and alwayes perswade them to embrace this vertue of chastity It may be that some of you will maruaile since I set downe names for the imitation of their vertues that bore them why I placed not Mary in the first place a woman vertuous aboue all other women My reason was this because I presumed that there was no woman so senselesse as not to looke what a blessing God hath sent to vs women through that gracious Virgin by whom it pleased GOD to take away the shame vvhich EVE our Grandmother had brought vs to For before men might say The woman beguiled me and I did eate the poysoned fruit of disobedience and I dye But now man may say if he say truly The woman brought me a Sauiour and I feede of him by faith and liue Here is this great and wofull shame taken from women by God working in a woman man can claime no part in it the shame is taken from vs and from our posterity for euer The seede of the woman hath taken downe the Serpents head and now whosoeuer can take hold of the seed of the woman by faith shall surely liue for euer And therefore all generations shal say that she was blessed who broght vs a Sauiour the fruit of obedience that whosoeuer feedeth of shall liue foreuer and except they feed of the seed of the woman they haue no life Will not therefore all women seek out this great grace of God that by Mary hath taken away the shame which before was due vnto vs euer since the fall of man Mary was filled with the Holy Ghost and with all goodnesse and yet is called the blessed Virgin as if our God should as he doth indeed in briefe comprehend all other vertues vnder this one vertue of chastity wherfore I desire that all women what name so euer they beare woule learne of this blessed Virgin to bee chaste for though shee were more replenished with grace then any other and more freely beloued of the Lord yet the greatest title that she had was that shee was a blessed and pure Virgin which is a great cause to moue all women whether they be maids or wiues both which estates shee honoured to liue chastly to whom for this cause God hath giuen a cold and temperate disposition bound them with these words Thy desire shall be subiect to thy husband As if God in mercy to women should say You of your selues shal haue no desires only they shall be subiect to your husbands w ch hath been verified in Heathen women so as it is almost incredible to be beleeued for many of them before they would be defiled haue been carelesse of their liues and so haue endured all those torments that men would deuise to inflict vpon them rather then they would lose the name of a modest mayd or a chaste Matrone Yea and so farre they haue beene from consenting to any immodestie that if at any time they haue been rauished they haue either made away themselues or at least haue separated themselues from company not thinking themselues worthy of any society after they haue once bin deflowred though against their wils Wherfore the woman that is infected with the sin of vncleannesse is worse then a beast because it desireth but for nature and shee to satisfie her corrupt lusts Some of the Fathers haue written that it is not enough for a woman to be chaste but euen so to behaue her selfe that no man may thinke or deeme her to be vnchaste Wee read that in the Primitiue Church when there were warres betweene the Christians and the Pagans if at any time the Pagans had gotten the victory that then they would seeke to deflowre the Virgins to the which sinne before the Christians would yeeld they would continually laye violent hands vpon themselues in so much that the Doctours of the Church were often-times constrained to make diuers Sermons and Orations to them to disswade them from that crueltie which they inflicted vpon themselues rather then they would suffer themselues to be deflowred such a disgrace did they think it to haue but one spot of vncleannesse and yet none of these were so holy as this Mary this pure and vndefiled Virgin Some godly and reuerend men of the Church haue gathered this that there were fiue women of great vertue in the time of the Lawe the first letters of whose names doe make her whole name to shewe that shee had all their vertues wholly combined in her as namely Michal Abigail Rachel Iudith Anna She was as faithfull to her husband as Michal who saued her husband Dauid from the fury of Saul although hee were her father and her King not preferring her owne life before the safety of her husband She was as wise as Abigail who is highly commended for her wisedome amiable in the sight of her husband as Rachel stout and magnanimous in the time of trouble as Iudith patient and zealous in prayer as Anna. Seeing then that by this one name so many vertues are called to remembrance I thinke it meete that good names be giuen to all women that they might call to minde the vertues of those women whose names they beare but especially aboue all other morall Vertues let women be perswaded by this discourse to imbrace chastity without which we are meere beasts and no women CHAP. 10. Reasons of giuing good names to Children IF ye shall thinke me too teadious about the naming your children I tel you that I haue some reason for it and the first is this to make them reade in the Bible the things which are written of those Saints and learne to imitate their vertues Secondly because many haue made a God of the virgin Marie the Scripture warranting no such thing and haue prayed to her though there they shal find that she was a woman yea and a comfort to all women for she hath taken away the reproch w ch of right belonged vnto vs and by the seed of the womā we are al saued it was therefore fit I should speake largely of that name Thirdly seeing many haue heretofore and now doe make Images of Saints to put them in minde of the Saints and so by little and little haue at last worshipped the workes of their own hands and for feare of forgetting the Saints haue forgotten the second Commandements I thought it better to haue you remember them by bearing their names and by reading what they taught vs in the Scripture and how they led their liues then by looking vpon a painted piece of Paper or a carued stone And this by the way may bee maruelled at that they which loue to worship Images neuer loue to name their Children after the names of the Saints for if they had so done by this time wee should haue had no other names but