Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	actual_a	original_a	sin_n	4,867	5	6.6897	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A13083	True happines, or, King Dauids choice begunne in sermons, and now digested into a treatise. By Mr. William Struther, preacher at Edinburgh.	Struther, William, 1578-1633.	1633 (1633)	STC 23371; ESTC S113854	111,103	162

heart of every beleever by a spiritual union God and we were more distant than heaven and hell and how should that fountain communicate its goodnes to us but by that chanell of our own nature in Christ we receive it both kindly and largely He is the fountain of grace as God one with his Father he hath deserved it by his obedience and dispenseth it to us as God-man So we receive grace by a kindly convoy This is better than Labans Well for none could drink of that till the stone was rolled off But this fountain is alway open to the house of David And the first shot of these over-running waters roll this stone of hardnes from our heart when his grace softneth our heart to receive more grace And though Jacobs Wel had water yet they who came to it had need of a bucket and coard to draw but this fountain furnisheth both the bucket of an earnest desire and the coard of a strong faith Even he who saith Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it doth open our heart with Lidia's and maketh us to receive his grace largely This is the sweet respect that this fountain of happinesse hath to our miserie to prevent us with exciting grace to draw us with effectuall grace and to communicate this happinesse to us that our miserie may be happie in him Before we loved him he made us when he kythed his love to us he renewed us and being beloved of us he shall perfect us I close this point with Solomon O fountain of the gardens O Well of living waters Arìse O north and come O south and blow on my garden that the spices thereof may flow out Let my welbeloved come to his garden and eat his pleasant fruit SECTION III. How to seek true happinesse I have sought that I will inquire THe first section of this doctrine hath told us that there is a happines one thing The second that God is the fountain of it Now followeth the third how to seek it And this is set down in two words of Praying and Inquiring and offereth to us two kinds of seeking The first is the Inquirie of happinesse among many things The second is the suiting of it from God by prayer after we have found it In this inquirie we shall consider the necessitie difficulty and the form The necessity is great because it is about this greatest necessar one thing We have it not by nature but must get it by grace so we are not born happy but made happy We are miserable in our selves and must be changed by happines and this change is furthered by inquirie Our life is short our death uncertain and when it approacheth if it finde us unprovided our misery shall be threefold What then should we do in a short life but cast off vanity and set us for the search of the truth Besides it is the main end wherefore we are brought into the world and if a new born childe could speak and were asked wherefore he is born He should answer To seek the happines that he lost in Adam We are not born to buy and build and heap riches and honour together but to enquire for salvation as a childe is not formed in the belly to bide there but to come forth and to be a perfect man in the free light It is a great good to seek the chief good The difficulty of this inquiry is first from the nature of happinesse It is hid manna the eye hath not seen it nor the eare heard it c. And this our life is hid with Christ in God Next from the multitude of false happinesses that deceive us For Satan hath filled the way of our inquiry with sundry baits to divert us from the right that on them we may stick as upon the chief good and embrace our own fancies Thirdly from our own disposition we are all born with a desire of happines and every life in it own kinde desires to be better If we ask any man though he were a fool would you be happy He would answer I would For every being is desirous of goodnesse or well being The desire of meat drink raiment are no more rooted in us than that desire of happines and these smallest desires serve the greatest The appetite of the wills sacietie which the schools call happines is common but few know the reason of that saciety so that many labouring to choose a particular happines which their common appetite desired have chosen misery for happines It is as hard to finde out true happines as it is easie to have the common desire of it the one hath need of a supernaturall grace as the other floweth from a naturall power Fourthly the practice of all ages proveth this difficultie for of the many millions that sought out happines none did finde it out except those whom God assisted by a speciall grace The Philosophers travelled painfully but brought out the winde they were confident that they had found it and yet found it not But that confidence was double miserie both in missing true happines and then in resting upon their own deceit They neither agreed with the truth nor among themselves nor any one of them with himself If we look to the universall desire rising from the common notion we shal be forced to say There is a happines if we look on their diversitie and contrarietie we shall wonder at Sathans craft abusing mans wit to erre so fouly about happines And Solomon himself thought this task both worthy of him and hard for him to finde out what was that good or happinesse of the sons of men Wee must think it an hard task whereon so many Philosophers have lost their labour their time and themselves The search it self goeth in two the refusing of ill and choosing of good The ill of sin must simply be refused whether it be originall or actuall inherent or adherent guiltinesse It is the cause of our misery and contrarie to good it cannot enter in happines but stayes it in us Our miserie began at it and our happines beginneth in turning from it Adam was tried by the tree of knowledge of good and ill which told him that so long as hee stood hee had a known good and was free from an unknown ill But when he fell he ●o und experimentall knowledge of a lost good and purchased ill That tree is yet our triall if we will eschew the ill of sin and follow the good of happines There can be no happines in ill neither can any man desire or love ill as ill and sathan whose malice is fed with it doth not love it as ill but as a good as a satisfaction of his malitious will And those men are most like to him who seek their happines in ill They make it their happines when they boast of it as Lamech of his tyrannie and Doeg of his calumnies

yet willingly is bound by the bonds of his owne making For what is our faith challenging him of his promise but his owne grace in us telling he is minded to yeeld because he worketh in us that strength to wreastle with him like Jacob till wee prevaile His Fatherly love that preveneth us with that disposition meeteth us with the desire to answer It is most profitable even in this that by our prayers we partake of all the prayers of the godly that have beene made from the beginning God hath them all in register and they are a treasure of the Church but above all the prayer of Christ that gives life unto them If therefore we put in our mite in this treasure we have a right to the whole Some have questioned of what thing men made most gaine as twentie fourtie fiftie in the hundreth but prayer exceedeth all for we gaine a million for one Neither let us be discouraged if sometimes we finde our prayers but faint few words no order weake desires and no satisfying of our selves therein For as a mother will sooner heare her sicke babe in the cradle and run to him if he begin to weepe than a stronger boy that cryes strongly so God is more neere and ready to helpe when we can scarcely cry than when wee finde greater freedome Wee please God best when wee please our selves least and we please him worst when wee please our selves best our cutted and broken desires are our voice and these desires are as acceptable to him as our long prayers Oftentimes wee come to prayer with a trembling and withered heart but continuing therein sometimes grace is suddenly infused the heart is filled with joy and we finde the libertie we crave Praise is the other part of this beautie The floods returne to the sea so should we give thankes to God our Maker in creation our Benefactour in providence our Redeemer in Christ our Rewarder in crowning his owne mercies in us That affection is dead that powreth not out it selfe wholly in thanksgiving Therein people with heart and voice render him thanks And with prayer it maketh up the sweet respect betwixt God and man for in the first wee pull downe grace for grace in the second we send up praise for prayers In the first the sense of our miserie filling the heart with griefe openeth it with a desire of reliefe In the second the sense of mercie filling the heart with joy maketh it with an unspeakable delight to thrust it selfe upon God That heavenly thanksgiving that closeth Gods service is some token that people have gotten what they sought and that God sendeth them away in peace with his blessing pronounced upon them as a seale thereof It is the peoples triumph over sathan who is more grieved with the Saints praising than with all the charmes of his confederats Some have thought strange why wee are commanded by the Apostle both to pray and praise continually But that continuall is not as though we should be ever in the action of prayer or praise which is impossible but of our disposition and affection rising therefrom That as we have rooted in us the affections of griefe and joy so when God sendeth grievous things wee should pray and when he sendeth joyfull things we should praise They stand well with our mixed state here for there is no man who wanteth his owne daily miseries and so hath need to pray continually and none wanteth his owne daily blessings and so hath cause to praise continually Even our affliction is a secret cause of praise for as it telleth Gods love and foretelleth the happie fruit so God leaveth ever better behind him than he taketh from us For if he take away our health or fame c. yet if he leave remission of sins peace of conscience c. they are better than the blessings removed Lastly these two are mutuall causes to other for when our heart is soaped with sorrow and teares run downe our face wee have cause to rejoyce in that disposition as a speciall worke of grace so bruising our heart And in our greatest joy wee have cause of sorrow For while God is filling our heart with joy yet at that time we will be grieved because that joy will bide but shortly and that on our default For we can no more keepe it than a riven lanterne can keepe a candle in a storme or a cold hearth a sparkle of fire This is the sett debt which the Church acknowledgeth different from all other Civill debts oppresse men but this relieveth them And the debt of sinne maketh us wearie and laden but this easeth us We owe a heavie debt to Gods justice It is first directing when we obey it not turneth into a vindictive justice to punish us and we lye under a double burthen of sinne and punishment whereof Christ biddeth us pray for pardon Forgive us our debts But this is a debt to Gods mercie because it ingageth us by blessings so with new grace it helpeth us to pay that contracted debt In other debts the more wee pay the lesse is to pay but in this the more wee pay the more we owe because the thing that we pay is a new gift of God Thankfulnesse receiveth continually greater blessings and the opened thankfull heart keepeth Gods hand and treasure open We crave not to be freed of this debt but to be drowned in it so that we be not able to pay till we be in heaven eternally This life is too short a time and our soules and bodies now are ill tuned instruments to praise him Here we have but beginnings and preparations of praise for griefe the basse-string of our harp soundeth now highest but in heaven God shall take away that basse and tune our harps like the harps of the Angels when he hath wiped all teares from our eyes Now Christ giveth us a prayer for the way but then he shall put a new song in our mouth New for matter because Evangelicall not Legall New for the forme because all joy without mixture of griefe And new for Indurance because eternall Of this beautie of the sanctuarie we may gather First that when the Saints are met with God in the sanctuarie they are the most beautifull congregations of mankinde Other meetings as triumphs coronations c. have their owne shew and glorie but nothing to this Their expectation is more than their being and their being evanisheth at the height God is also in other meetings but not so as in the sanctuarie For there he is as Creatour ruling all things for this present life But here he is as Redeemer working true happinesse in his children that we may justly say That his presence elsewhere comparatively is a desertion to his presence in the sanctuarie His worke in the sanctuarie is the kernell and his providence in all things is the husk and the shell He hath more delight to see