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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	evil_a	good_a	indifferent_a	2,973	5	9.5052	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A31401	Christian tranquility, or, The government of the passions of joy and grief in a sermon preached at Shenton in Leicestershire, upon the occasion of the much lamented death of that hopeful young gentleman, Mr. Francis Wollatson ... / by John Cave ...	Cave, John, d. 1690.	1685 (1685)	Wing C1580; ESTC R36287	20,948	37

read in Psal 34.19 that the afflictions of the righteous are many And we read in the same verse that they are not lasting The Lord delivereth him out of them all Sorrow may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning Psal 30.5 And both these were remarkably exemplified in good Job His afflictions were sore and numerous The sudden unhappy death of ten children the perverseness of his wife the loss of all his great stock plagues on his body and terror in his mind the scorn of vile persons the contempt of his servants the censures and reproaches of his Friends yet time blew over all those clouds the Lord delivered him out of all these troubles and blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning Jonah out-lived the withering of his Gourd In the New Testament our Saviour makes the afflicted of the number whom he pronounceth happy and that because they are passing into a better state Blessed are they that mourn now for they shall be comforted Blessed are they tho they mourn because they only mourn now in this short point of time 1 Pet. 1.6 St. Peter comforts the sufferers he wrote unto upon this very consideration Ye have reason to rejoice because it is but now for a season that ye are in heaviness 2 Cor. 4.15 And St. Paul reckons the heaviest afflictions of the first Christians but light because momentary To sense and natural apprehension our sufferings seem long and our refreshments late But the Reason of an Heathen made a wiser judgment Dabit Deus his quoque sinem And the Faith of a Christian thinks any thing short in comparison which hath an end Death if nothing else puts us out of our pain and sorrow and in the grave the weary are at rest No Torments are intolerably long but those of Hell which are eternal Nay the Christians sufferings are not only short because they have an end but I may add they are salutiferous too because they have a good an happy end Omnes paenae non exterminantes sunt medicinales All punishments that do not end us end well like the launcings of a wound which let out the ulcerated matter they are intended to heal and save us Our heavenly Father chastens us not after his own pleasure to shew his Soveraignty but for our profit to impart his Holiness He designs our quiet by our trouble the peaceable fruits of righteousness by the afflictions which are most grievous to Nature After God had wrestled with Jacob he blessed him And he usually comforts his servants according to the days that he hath afflicted them and according to the years that they have seen evil Psal 90.15 Many sad accidents in mens account have proved the means or occasions of singular temporal benefits and great worldly prosperity The case of Joseph is upon famous Record in Scripture And in Church-History we read of one Eudoxia who was unkindly thrust out of her Fathers house by her unnatural Brethren and making her complaint to the Emperor Theodosius the younger she found love as well as pity he received her into his Palace and made her his Queen when she wanted house and Harbour the ordinary necessaries and comforts of Life And it was a strange Observation which Cardan made of himself That never any good befel him In his Life written by himself but what was occasioned by some foregoing evil Indeed the Sun evermore shines most pleasantly after a Storm and it is the usual method of the Divine Providence to usher in his mercies with the black Rod thereby enhansing and endearing our subsequent refreshments O quid solutis est beatius curis We are a great deal more happy in a deliverance out of misery than if we had never been in it But if our seeming evils are not in this respect real blessings yet with St. Hierom Brevia mala putemus Epist ad Paulam sup obit Blesilloe filiae quae finis melior subsequetur We may well account all those sufferings short which end happily as ours will if we bear them patiently and penitently 1 Pet. 5.6 Humble your selves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time But this minds me to pass from the Proposition or Doctrine of my Text The time is short to the Applicatory part of it the practical inferences in these words It remains that those that weep be as if they wept not and they that rejoyce as tho they rejoyced not The Devil hath two general ways or means of working our ruin per blanda aut per aspera by Pleasure or Pain Prosperity or Adversity and our Apostle who was not ignorant of his devices endeavours here to arm and secure us against the dangers of both by making this general use of the shortness of our lives and the vicissitude of our Fortunes to perswade us to Equanimity and Moderation to an even temper of Spirit in every Condition whether comfortable or calamitous To instruct us both how to be abased and how to abound how to bear Prosperity without Insolence and Adversity without Impatience and in all our projects and defeats in all the changes of worldly things to keep a mind unchanged neither elevated nor depressed above measure in the difference of Conditions nor in the greatest contrarieties of Events As it was observed of Aristippus he scarce ever changed Countenance in any Alteration of his Affairs if at any time he sought to mend his Circumstances yet he never seemed discontented with them And Cicero notes it of Pythagoras that his looks never discovered the least inconstancy in his mind that no one ever saw him rejoyce or weep if he did so indeed it was as our Apostle would have us do as if he did not In the Text there seems to be an allusion to that of the Prophet Ezekiel The time is come the day draweth near let not the buyer rejoyce Chap. 7.7.12 or the seller mourn For thus he proceeds in the following words They that buy as tho they possessed not and they that use this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Seneca who perhaps was not altogether a Stranger to our St. Paul hath somewhat like this in his 78 Ep. to Lucilius Interim tene hoc mordicus adversis non succumbere laetis non credere Keep close to this rule not to despond in adversity or confide in prosperity And he gives the reason in another place why we ought to be so indifferent in our Affections viz. because the things or states are of an indifferent nature nec bona nec mala neither good nor evil in themselves but may become either to us as we use or abuse them A continued course of intense passion seems very incongruous towards such discontinuing such indifferent things It best becomes us so to govern our Desires our Sorrows and Delights that they may be propotionate to the nature and value of

of the 29th Verse This I say brethren the time is short it remaineth that both they that have wives be as if they had none and they that weep as tho they wept not c. I shall consider my Text in its dependance and speak first of the Proposition from which it is inferred This I say brethren the time is short And in it I shall observe 1. The Preface This I say brethren 2. The Matter or Doctrine The time is short This I say brethren It is such an Introduction as frequently occurs in Scripture And here in our Text it seems to carry in it a Threefold Emphasis 1. It is a word of Authority This I say i. e. I require you to mark well and observe what I say for I say it in Gods Name not by permission only but by Warrant and Command from him And when we deliver our Messages as the Embassadors of Heaven we may do it with confidence and assurance because we do it with Commission and Authority Philem. 8. We may be bold in Christ as our Apostle speaks in another place 2. This I say brethren It is an expression of kindness and Pastoral Affection I say it out of my true love tenderness and bowels towards you I say it with an unfeigned desire that you may edifie and receive good direction and comfort by it That you may number your days and moderate your affections in all temporal concernments That your desires may not be long when your time is short That all your delights and sorrows may bear an equal proportion to their respective Objects And because as the Wiseman saith there is a time to mourn and a time to laugh you may do neither out of time and measure It was a tender affectionate Address as the Compellation implies This I say brethren 3. It is a word of comprehension or recapitulation wherein the Apostle sums up all in effect which he had said before Having treated of Virginity of Marriage of Callings and directed how we should stand affected to them and behave our selves in them as becomes our Relation and Circumstances In the Text he gives them the sum of all by perswading to moderation in all estates and conditions of life with respect to the mutability and short continuance of them This I say as the Upshot and Epitomy of my whole discourse as the Royal Preacher Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Eccles 12.13 c. So here in the Text. It stands indeed in the middle and so may more properly be said to be the Substance or if you will the Centre of the whole matter This I say and this I would have you take notice of as the sum of all my other sayings and advices both before and after Thus much for the Preface or Form of Address and the importance thereof The Saying it self the Matter or Doctrine follows The time is short it remaineth that they that weep be as though they wept not and they that rejoice as though they rejoiced not The words together contain a Doctrine and Two proper Vses we are to make of it The Doctrine is The time is short The Vses are therefore not to enlarge our affections either 1. By over-grieving at our sufferings Or 2. By over joying at our prosperity The time is short 1. The time of Life 2. The time of the coming of the Lord. 3. The time of Joy and Prosperity 4. The time of Persecution and Trouble is short 1. The time of this present Life is very short Man that is born of a woman is but of a few days If he lives to the utmost extent of Nature and becomes wondrous old What is Fourscore years to Eternity It is but a minute in comparison rather a Cypher than a Figure in David's account Mine age is as nothing before thee Seneca Punctum est quod vivimus adhuc puncto minus It is but a point that we live yea less if it may be It is the Language not only of Philosophers but of the Holy Ghost concerning all the Nations of men that they are as nothing less than nothing Isa 40. De die tecum loquitur atque hoc ipso fugiente Sen. de brevitate vitae Job 4.20 and vanity Our Life in Scripture is termed but a day for the most part And in this day saith Eliphaz in Job We are destroyed from morning until evening from the morning of our birth or coming into the world till the evening of our death or going out of the world we are declining and wasting and shall be so till we come to the dust of death Childhood and Youth are vanity and many a man dies when he seems to be in his full strength when his breasts are full of milk Job 21.23 and his bones moistened with marrow A thousand Accidents lie in ambush to surprize us in our most sound and secure state And I might present you with many famous instances of great persons falling by little and unlikely instruments but shall only in compliance with my Text observe That some have died with excess of grief as Homer Rutilius and Pomperanus And others have been carried off with sudden joy Plutarch Val. Max. A. Gellius as Polycritta Philippida and Diagoras Alas what a vain and defenceless creature is man Even in the pride of his strength the most contemptible accident can destroy him the smallest chance affright him every possibility of evil can loosen and dissinew the courage of his mind and his own imagination without any real stroke frequently proves his Executioner Therefore as the time of every mans Life is short so the time of many mens is contracted or made short and that sometimes by the justice and sometimes by the mercy of the Divine Providence 1. The days of the wicked are often shortned for the glorifying of Gods Justice in their exemplary punishment God shall shoot at them with an arrow suddainly shall they be wounded And this Job calls a putting out of their candle Psal 64.7 before it burns out of it self Ungodly men are thrust out of the World many times that they may do no more mischief in it But 2. The righteous are mercifully taken out of it that they may suffer no more They are taken away from the evil to come not only from the evil of Sin which is a blessed Deliverance indeed but from the evil of Sorrow from the Diseases of Nature and all the extrinsecal misfortunes of Life Upon which consideration that saying of Pliny the elder one of the wisest Naturalists seems to be grounded Brevitate vitae natura nihil praestitit melius It is one of the greatest blessings God bestows to take us betimes out of this miserable World They that think otherwise and imagine there is no happiness beyond or besides this Life cannot by taking thought protract their stay here as they cannot add a Cubit to their Stature so neither can they add a