Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	know_v	soul_n	2,162	5	5.1925	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26359	The Christians daily sacrifice duly offer'd, or, A practical discourse teaching the right performance of prayer by Lancelot Addison.	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1698 (1698)	Wing A512; ESTC R25228	55,277	162

THE CHRISTIANS Daily Sacrifice Duly Offer'd OR A Practical Discourse Teaching the Right Performance of Prayer By LANCELOT ADDISON D. D. Dean of Lichfield S. James IV. 3. Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss LONDON Printed for Robert Clavel at the Peacock at the West end of S. Pauls 1698. To the Honourable Sir BENJAMIN BATHURST SIR IN setting so Eminent a Name before so mean a Work shews that I have as little skill in Dedication as they have in Architecture who erect a Stately Entrance to a House of no Competent Reception To which Indecorum I was carried by a Zeal I have ever had to own to the World the Honour and Advantage that for many many Years I have receiv'd from Your steady Friendship Which was begun in a Foreign Nation where You added no small Credit and Reputation to Your Own I therefore Address You SIR as a Friend the Noblest Title upon Earth and come not meerly to crave Your Patronage but to pay You a Debt A Debt of Gratitude which as it will alway be Due so it shall alway be Paid But I know Time and Business is precious to You and therefore I will not farther trespass upon either than to beg Your Pious Acceptance of this Small Treatise and that You would look upon it as a Pledge of my Grateful Sense of Your Favours and of the great Zeal I have for Your Eternal Welfare And now SIR being no Friend to the Common matter of Letters Dedicatory pardon me that instead of enlarging upon Your Merits I apply my self to Prayer the Subject of the ensuing Discourse That You and Your Lady and Children may long long Enjoy Health and Prosperity and that the God of Blessings may Bless You with all Divine Graces on Earth and in Heaven Crown You with Glory Lichfield July 8. 1698. Your most Obliged and Humble Servant L. Addison INTRODUCTION TWO very different Opinions and both sufficiently erroneous concerning the Holy Exercise of Prayer got very early footing among the Judaizing Christians to whom St. James the pious Bishop of Jerusalem wrote his circular Epistle Some there were among them in whose esteem Prayer was sunk so low that they thought it either wholly unnecessary or at most but a thing of Choice and not Duty and of that Indifference that they might use or let it alone as they pleas'd without any Offence to God or hindrance to themselves And of this Opinion were those who coveted and had not who kill'd and desired to have and could not obtain Who Fought and Warr'd yet they had not because they asked not S. James 4.2 All their Coveting Envying Contending and Fighting brought them in no advantage because they neglected Prayer the only means of rendring their honest Endeavours Prosperous and Successful And as these were apt to neglect and set too small an Esteem upon Prayer so there were others who had a notion of Prayer as much bending to the other Extreme For they laid so much stress upon it and thought it so efficacious as to expect that every thing must of course be granted them if they sought for it in Prayer The former made Prayer in a manner useless as to the obtaining of any thing the latter thought it able to obtain all things Being of opinion that the meer Exercise thereof had such a power with God as to prevail with him even for such things as they design'd to consume upon their Lusts and to support their Envy Malice Covetousness and Ambition How far the Present Age guilty of all sorts of vile Opinions and Practices is gone in this distemper I leave every one to make his own observations my purpose being to return at least an Honest if not a Satisfactory answer to the Request made to me namely To give a familiar account of the Holy Duty of Prayer So that without further Preface I shall begin with the true Notion thereof as that which will more easily lead to the knowledge of its Nature and Importance CHAP. I. Of the true Notion of Prayer NOT to spend time about the Grammatical meaning of the Words by which Prayer in all Languages is signified I shall briefly set down what Prayer is and what it does imply Now Prayer according to S. Austin in Psal 85. is A speaking to God When you read the Scripture saith the Father God speaks to you but when you Pray you speak to him From which words Drexelius took occasion to define Prayer The Conversation and Discourse of the soul with God Which is agreeable to the Notion of this Duty in Job 15.4 for as Drusius observes the Hebrew Word there used for Prayer signifies to have a Familiar Converse with the Almighty And the Greek Fathers speak of it in the same sense when they call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a familiar talking with or unto God For in it you unbosom your self and open your heart and mind unto him as a man would do unto his Friend in whom he most confides Some of the Antients speaking Rhetorically of Prayer call it a Chain of gold hanging down from heaven to draw men up thither and to bring them into the more immediate presence of God and to an intimate access to the Fountain of all Goodness And it is suppos'd to make such a Change in us as if it plac'd us on Mount Tabor to enjoy a kind of Transfiguration of the Soul which by the means of Prayer as in a Glass beholds the glory of the Lord and is changed into the same Image from glory to glory The eye of the Soul by the help of Prayer as truly as the eye of the Body feeds it self with the beauty of the fields does refresh and recreate it self with the Excellencies of God and the Perfections of the Holy Jesus From whom it receives whatever it can desire and through whom it avoids whatever it has cause to fear In Prayer saith Albertus Magnus the soul is carried to the source and spring of all help and comfort bounty and goodness It brings a man saith he to know God and knowing to love him and loving to seek him and in seeking to take pains and in taking pains to find him But these and the like sayings of the Antients concerning Prayer serve rather to express the Worth and the Effects of it than to declare its Nature any farther than that from such like expressions we may reasonably infer that Prayer implies a great deal more than telling over a few Beads as is the way of some or the bare reciting so many words or sentences form'd and compos'd into that which we call a Prayer which is to be fear'd is the case of many A man may say a thousand of these and that too with great outward seriousness and composure and yet be far from that which is truly and properly to be called Praying For nothing deservedly bears that name wherein there is not an elevation of the soul and a lifting up of the heart to God