Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bear_v	end_n	truth_n	1,796	5	6.9490	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58850	The method and means to a true spiritual life consisting of three parts, agreeable to the auncient [sic] way / by the late Reverend Matthew Scrivener ... ; cleared from modern abuses, and render'd more easie and practicall.	Scrivener, Matthew.	1688 (1688)	Wing S2118; ESTC R32133	179,257	416

understanding to the Wisdome of God. Oh how naturall how sweet and allmost how necessarie it is for man to have his own will And yet in truth how monstrous is this unruly appetite It ariseth from a root worse than ordinarie Idolatrie as much as to make ones selfe a God is a much more heinous sin than to worship any other false God. And what is that whether we mean it or not mean it that impells men so passionately to desire and so violently to contend for their will and as much of it as is possible but that they would be great thereby they would be supreame they would rule and govern not so much themselves for they are the worst at that of all men but others and because they would be admired and worshipped and that more and in an higher degree than they dare openly own When men have given themselves up to this misleading and mischievous temper they would have no bounds prefixed them God himselfe shall not escape their murmures if open accusation and expostulations Every thing is uneasie to them that is not projected by their own witts and managed by their wills And whereas according to St. Paul 1 Corinth 13. Charitie that Divine grace made up of meeknesse humilitie love of God and that which in any manner resembles God beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things the Idolizer of his own will on the contrary can bear nothing believe nothing hope nothing endure nothing contradicting this his humour Reason he will by no means professedly affront or oppose but then he counts it all the reason in the world that matters should be carried as he judges and willeth otherwise the power and effects of his impatience shall be his remedie Whereas there is nothing more unworthy of a wise man and nothing more inconsistent with a good Christian than to desire to have more wills under him than his own for in trueth he never is master of his own will who would tyrannize over others For this may be but one sin in forme and appearance but it is the parent of many if not of all to strive to have our wills 4. For what is Pride but an appetite of our unmortified wills pushing us forward to be great Ruling admired followed not to be led by any What is Anger but a desire of satiating our lust of revenge What is Avarice but to have all and part with nothing but what Justice and Necessity extorts And what is Lust properly so called but a furious will of carnall pleasure He therefore that will ever obtain any command of himselfe in any of these things or the like must lay the Ax of Reformation to the root of all these trees the generall lusting after a mans own will and the satisfaction thereof naturally inclined For though there may seem such a distance outwardly between one sin and another as that there should be no consanguinitie between them yet in the practice they like persons at domestick difference or civill dissensions will joyn against a common and forrein Enemie and help one another according to the observation of that mortified Father mentioned in Ecclesiasticall History who deliver'd it for a trueth That a man can never observe the rule of Chastitie unlesse he subdues the Lust of Anger For surely if we shall give leave to our corrupt wills to take their swing in one thing they will take leave to excurre into other evills against our more advised judgements and wills Therefore let us a little insist upon the reasonablenesse of such affectation of our carnall wills 5. But first it is to be observed that Religion it selfe is not of that morosity or indeed tyrannie under colour of mortification that it should denie us the libertie wholly of that naturall facultie of desiring and loving for that God himselfe hath placed in us For then we could not love God himselfe nor choose the good or refuse the evill as himselfe commandeth It is not the rooting up of that Vine which Gods own hand hath planted in the heart of man but the pruning and dressing it to bear generous branches and bunches It is to cut off those Suckers to destroy that Nature which is become such and not made so by God. It is according to the ancient Philosophie for our earthie Spheare and inferiour and smaller Orb to be ordered by the first mover of all and to say and to pray as Christ hath taught Thy will he done in earth as it is in heaven to live in this world as Christ came into it and lived and died in it As appeares by the historie of his holy and humble Life which tells us John 18. 37. To this end was I borne and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnesse unto the trueth every one that is of the trueth heareth my voice And this was the holy Gospell he taught and left us And his bearing witness was to make himselfe of no reputation as great and as good as he was to be obedient unto the death even the death of the Crosse and to appear as it were without a will of his own or which is a greater victory and glory to have a will allwayes obsequiously included in the Will of his heavenly Father as it was when in great Agonies and conflicts of Soule he prayed to God Luke 22. 42. Neverthelesse not my will but thy will be done demonstrating what he before affirmed for a trueth John 5. 30. I can of my selfe doe nothing as I hear I judge and my judgement is just because I seek not mine own will but the will of the Father which is in heaven And as the Disciples said most loth to hazard so precious a Vessell of honour and service as St. Paul amongst Jewish Barbarity Acts 21. 14. The Will of the Lord be done And what better or wiser resolution can any good Christian take than what he saw Christ to practice before him and the most Heroicall Christians did to have no will stirring but the Will of God and Christ For this is to be what St. Paul exhorteth to Rom. Chap. 6. 11. Likewise reckon ye allso your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord that is content to be directed by the Wisdome and acted by the pleasure of God alone So that we may say as that good old Father in his Cell having relinquished the world who when one came to him and brought him the tidings that a ●…ere Kinsman of his was at the point of death and therefore he should doe well to repair to him and take possession of what descended legally to him made answere And would you have me inherit his Estate who have been dead a long time before him And this I intended for one distinct argument to denie our own wills either wholly impeding the Will of God to be done in us or the perfecter conformity to that and the Example

without true wisdome the Apostle St. Paul so flattly contradicting and confuting mens opinion vainly conceived of themselves thus writing 1 Corin 8. 2. If any man thinke that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know Which is most true when he would needs know as Adam and Eve did without God or what God would have hidden and concealed from him And when a man would needs know all things but can be content not to know himselfe For as Charity of which the Apostle there allso speakes according to the common and generally true saying begins at home so doth or ought to doe knowledge For the Alpha of true knowledge and the Omega too is to know God but a man cannot know God as becometh him when he stands in his own light And in his own light may he be said to stand when he understands not himselfe his measures his capacitie and meanes to true knowledge He that layeth hold of more than he can well span or embraceth more than his Armes can contain commonly letteth all goe and loseth it And so it is in curiosity of knowledge he knoweth nothing that would pretend to all things Like to the Church of Laodicea Revel 3. 17. which because she gloried in her riches was poor and wretched and blinde and naked and knew it not What blindenesse what ignorance so grosse lamentable and dangerous as this And yet loth are men to have their eyes opened to perceive it as if in the mist of their minde they discerned and feared that which he who was cured of a phrenzie bewailed in himselfe that in his distemper he was much more happie than in his cure For in that he imagined and pleased himselfe with nothing lesse than a fair Principalitye under him subjects obsequious Pallaces stately with Crown and Scepter but reduced to his true reason found the contrary to all these to his great losse and trouble And to such excesses doth our presumptuous knowledge betray us For as St. Paul before saith Knowledge puffeth up swells and apostemateth the Soule with corruption which often breakes out into rottennesse scandalous Hence it is that if a man erres wilfully and notoriously to all he is not ashamed as Seneca observeth as when in Grammar he speakes false Latine or English or gives a false pronunciation to a word but if he doth it ignorantly and be told of it then he either blushes or boldly defends his errour against his own tacit perswasion least he should seem not to have known as much as another And Cardane himselfe a Physican tells us he knew one of the same facultie who having through ignorance destroyed his Patient rather than he would be thought ignorant professed he killed him on purpose though there was no such matter to such a monstrousnesse of absurdities and iniquitie doth this unbridled and untamed humour of seeming wise and appearing so transport a man. 2. This evill Appetite wars against nothing so much as Religion and is inconsistent with nothing more and therefore should Religion war against that turning the forces of the Spirit against this Tower of the Flesh built up to this dangerous height by the evill spirit of Pride and affectation of vain-glorie And this I look on as a prime and materiall part of our selfe-deniall when we shall be able and willing to submitte our private busie and clambering Reason to the simplicitie of the Faith and know our infirmities and failings as well as we know others yea and better too having attained to that perfection which the wise Man only owned in himselfe Prov. 30. 2. Surely I am more brutish than any man I have not the understanding of a man with this limitation notwithstanding that if God or good Autoritie under him shall have chosen any such humble Person to preside teach and lead others no modestie nor humility in him ought to with-hold him from discharging his office No more than any knowing himselfe more wise or learned out of his abundance is to withdraw himselfe from the guidance of such an one as he excells under suspicion of calling Gods Providence and Right in question to rule and teach by whome he pleases and especially the difficult lesson of humility and selfe deniall Don't I know Can you teach me is the language of a proud Spirit very often and of one who wilfully how ignorantly soever must and will have his saying A man out of common charitie might blush for such as doe not blush to hear them oftentimes indeed wise and more than vulgarly knowing when they fall into Paradoxes when they stumble in plain ground when their mistake happens by surprise or other incogitancie how loth are they to be taken in the snares of truth it selfe how they by all tricks pretences fetches and innumerable devices and defenses would justifie what once they happen to say though conscious to themselves of errour they would not have said or done such things yet they once passing from them they will maintain them to the last though the more they struggle the more they are ensnared and fall into a far worse absurdity in defending than committing an errour And all this that they might not suffer in their beloved and selfe-admired witt And because they cannot denie them neither for Gods sake nor for trueths sake but hold it the most honourable course to themselves to bend both to their saying than to yield to be measured by such Rules And if their wits fail them in framing evasions and shuffles which may justifie in some degree their slips Passion and loud clamour shall support their cause and drown the noise of weake trueth as the Idolatrous Jewes were wont in sacrificing their Children to Molech in the Valley of Hinnon to use Fife Trumpet and Drum that the voice of the massacred might not be heard or pittie shewn to them nor justice O foolish Galatians saith St. Paul in another case Galat. 3. Who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the trueth Answer may be made selfe love selfe-preservation which are such that a man can better endure a blow on the Pate than on his Opinion But St. James saith Chap. 3. 14. My brethren Lye not against the trueth a reason whereof may be because he that opposes an acknowledged trueth though not very important sinneth in some degree against the Holy Ghost the Spirit of trueth and the testimonie of his own Conscience and to have his will in arguing or doing grieveth the Spirit of trueth trueth in all things being Sacred and Divine which when it possesseth the minde of a man seasonable and true is that advice of the Prophet Habakkuk Chap. 2. 29. The Lord is in his holy Temple let all the earth keep keep silence before him 3. And this Advice reacheth unto the other Branch of a Christians Selfe-deniall which consists principally and more immediately in the subjecting the will of man to the Will of God as that did in the subjection of the