Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	affliction_n	great_a	sin_n	1,620	5	5.2580	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56683	The parable of the pilgrim written to a friend by Symon Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1665 (1665)	Wing P826; ESTC R11931	349,344	544

to arise that day In this Controversie they suffered themselves to be so far ingaged that at last they fell together by the ears and ceased not their buffetings till they had beaten out each others eyes And so it came to pass that when a little after the Sun did show his face there was neither of these doughty Champions that could discern one jot a thing so clear as the Prince of lights which every child saw beside themselves It would be too great a disparagement to your understanding if I should spend a moment in teaching you to apply it to our present purpose It is sufficient to add That though zeal for Religion be not only commendable but required of us yet we must take great heed lest we strive so hotly and passionately for every Opinion which we have conceived that we quite lose our faculty of discovering either that or any thing else which is truly good I may well say any thing else for these controversies in Religion I have heard some wise men observe do much hinder the advancement of other Sciences and the increase of good knowledge in the World And therefore a great Restorer of Learning among our selves was wont to say that he was like the Miller near one of our famous Universities who used to pray for peace among the Willows For while the wind blew and the Windmills wrought the Watermill was less customed And just so it is with these disputes while they are high and set mens wits in agitation they draw away their thoughts from other profitable studies and hinder their minds from such noble inquiries as would do a great service to mankind Pray therefore for the peace of those that travel to Jerusalem and do you seek it and pursue it by all means possible Or if any be contentious and obey not the truth mark such persons and avoid them And truly there are so many enemies as you have heard to exercise our zeal that we had not need to create more and to seek for enemies among our selves They are so combined and confederate for our mischief and undoing that it stands us in hand to unite our forces also for our mutual defence and not to give them that advantage which they greedily gape for and will certainly have by our sad divisions So great is their subtilty and so intent they are to make the utmost use of it that if we have any wit it had need be joyned to obviate their designs and not imployed to make wide breaches at which without much difficulty they may easily enter and destroy us For besides all the wayes of deceiving us that have been already related I must not forget to remember you of a condition into which you may fall of which they will not fail to serve themselves as much as they are able It is possible I mean that some way or other a fit of sickness may surprize you in your journey or it may so happen that such a great want may be your portion that no man will offer you any help or regard your cryes when you beg for relief At this season your enemies will gather about you and as if they meant at once to swallow you up they will put strange fancies into your head and abuse your mind with such black and melancholy thoughts as may prove no small affliction to you They will insult over you and tell you that your folly and presumption in undertaking this tedious journey hath reduced you to so great extremities or that some hainous sin for which you have not yet been humbled is the cause of this sad condition or that you are one whom Jesus hates which hath made him to abandon you to these straights to chastise your confidence or that he loves you so little as not to care whether any body mind you or at least that you have so ill deserved of mankind that none of them regards you or hath any sollicitude for your welfare And all these tales they will tell over and over again in your ears to feed your melancholy and disquiet of Spirit to make you murmur and fall into discontent to breed in you an ill opinion of your Jesus or to provoke you to anger and displeasure against your Brethren and if it be possible to work you into such uncharitable thoughts of them that you should never love them any more But now it will concern you very much to stop your ears to all these lamentable stories and to make as if you heard them not at all You must say over your old lesson as oft as they repeat these suggestions and whisper to your self these words I am nought I deserve these miseries it is not strange that I am sick or poor but that I am no worse And then if you please you may defie all these enemies and let them know that you do not so much as desire the removal of these burdens nor care for any thing in the World but only for the Love of Jesus and to be with him in peace at Jerusalem Tell them you cannot believe that he hates a man who is possessed with this Desire but howsoever it be that you are resolved to try him by going on and persevering perpetually in it But then if it should happen that any of these assaults which I have named should prove so strong as not only to shake you but also to make you stumble yea to throw you down and to give you such a fall that thereby some hurt is done you Or suppose that you should chance to step aside and to divert a little out of the direct path which leads to Jerusalem you must know that they will make a foul stir about it and accuse you heavily for having done that which they laboured with all their power to make you do I cannot tell you how you will look upon your self in such a case if you should slide into it but if you will follow my advice I would not have you to esteem it so great and horrid a matter as they will make it nor suffer your self to be affrighted and astonished at it All that any wise man would bid you do in such a condition is no more but this That as soon as you observe your fall and are come to your self again you get up presently return into the old path and use such remedies and medecines as every good body prescribes in such cases Consider seriously by what means you were drawn aside humble your self at the feet of God be afflicted mourn and weep so far that the smart you suffer may keep you hereafter from the sin strengthen your resolution fortifie your self in those weak places where you are lyable to surprise be more watchful for the future and more instant in prayer for the aides of Divine grace But when this is done be sure you do not lye along upon the ground crying and bewailing your misfortune nor stand amazed in your errour complaining that you

and would yield a fine sight unto his friends They laught a little at the jest at first but they soon felt there was no cause when rhey found them about their ears and flying in their faces and their eyes in such a manner that it was no small affliction and pain unto them Just such me-thinks is the condition of those who live in sin They are promised fine things and secret delights by the temptations which send to them and invite them into their society Great hopes are given them of new pleasures and such rare satisfactions as hitherto they have not met withall And they are such fools as to believe their imagination or an idle companion who intices them by fair speeches though they know very well how often they and others have been deluded by such flatteries The sin indeed seems pretty at the first it makes them some sport for a while and you think that they are much pleased But alas they come a great way for that short mirth and it is so trivial that it is not worth a flye and at last they are stung worse than by a whole nest of angry Wasps Their conscience is alwayes buzzing some evil in their ears they are persecuted by it continually and it follows them with its secret murmures they are tormented as with a swarm of Hornets which will never cease to trouble them as long as they stay there and will not open the door and run away from their sins And truly by this time it is like you will wonder that they should be content to stay in their company You may very well ask what do these men mean thus to trouble themselves when there is such a visible way to their peace and quiet Why do not they break loose from their sins and seek their satisfaction in some other course Had they not better become good than be at so much pains to make themselves miserably bad They cannot but discern sure that happiness lyes not in their Rode and that to enjoy repose they must become the followers of Vertue And to tell you my mind plainly I verily think there is a number of them would gladly be her servants if to be made so might be wholly the Act of another and not at all their own They would think it a blessed change to do well as naturally as they do ill if this New Nature would but come into them of it self and not require their pains to quit the Old They commend the wayes of Vertue and think them happy who live temperately and chastly but how to get into them there is the difficulty They would gladly find themselves there the very next moment but to travel thither is a business of too much labour Their own life is a very great trouble to them but there is some trouble also in the beginning of a new Though the way that I shew you be so pleasant that they who are not in it cannot but have a mind to be translated thither yet the entrance of it is not without some difficulties The stings which I told you are in their conscience cannot be pulled out without more pain than they are willing to endure It is a business of much anguish to have the wounds which are made in their natures searched and dressed and such applications made as will draw out all the corruption and filth They had rather palliate their sores than have them raked into in order to their being healed It is a new thing to which we would ingage them and they apprehend it so laborious also that they think it better to continue as they are than with a great deal of pains to take upon them another burden They that are free from their prepossessions find excellent things to be very irksome when they first begin to set about them With what unwillingness do children learn their first letters though afterward it prove delightful to be able to read And how hard do most men find the first step to any Science which when they are a little Masters of is infinitely pleasant And therefore every one must expect to find the gate to be strait which opens to that way wherein you are to travel There all their old customs are to be put off There I know not how many desires of the flesh are to be denyed and left behind There a man must be stript stark naked He must become like a little child and reduced just to nothing in his own eyes that so he may be able to enter And then also there are many strange paths present themselves with which he hath had no acquaintance which is the cause that many are affrighted and start back again rather than they will undergo the troule of pressing in at so strait a passage Though if it be well considered this is just such a folly as if a man in a long Journey perceiving himself out of his way should chuse still to go on in his errour rather than go back again because of the many wearisome steps which he must be forced to take before he recover the right Rode The further he goes on the further is he out of his way and consequently must never come to his Journeys end unless it be with greater pains hereafter than those which he now avoids But not to deceive you nor forget a short Answer to your other doubt I must also let you know that the way it self for a few of the first miles is very narrow as well as the gate though afterwards it be as wide and broad as heart can wish That which a man hath put off in resolution at his entrance into the way he may find still to hang upon him when he comes to move and very loath to be quite shaken off His desires which he had contracted may begin to stir and to inlarge themselves and complain that they are confined too much and reduced into too narrow a room And so it will still seem till by often denyals they grow content and make room for nobler desires to spring up in him Then will he think himself pressed and straitned no more when he finds his soul inlarged another way and his appetites carried unsatiably toward diviner objects Then he will not say he is pent up when he feel that the retrenching of his worldly desires hath set his heart at liberty to go whither it naturally would without any restraints upon it He will find that he is at ease by being straitned that he hath got his freedom by being bound up and that he enjoyes as much as he desires by denying and pareing of his desires It may seem indeed a strange way of enlarging our souls by bringing their desires into a narrow compass but if you consider it there is nothing truer than that it is much better and more to our content not to desire some things at all than to desire them and withall to have them as much as we desire As for example we