Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	death_n	enter_v	sin_n	2,665	5	6.1550	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53163	Moral essays contain'd in several treatises on many important duties. Third volume written in French, by Messieurs du Port Royal ; faithfully rendred into English by a person of quality.; Essais de morale. 3. volume. English	Nicole, Pierre, 1625-1695.; Person of quality.	1680 (1680)	Wing N1137AB; ESTC R41510	145,197	375

this wherein the ignorance of our selves makes us to commit the greatest faults There is no man so disgraced by Nature who cannot find in the order of the world a place proportioned to the strength of his mind and body but the small knowledge which he hath of himself is the cause that most people make a bad choice Let us make reflection on those who take upon them the Charges and Employments of this World and the places that they enjoy and we shall scarcely find any one well placed How many are there who having Arms and no Head do chuse Employments which have need of a head and not of Arms How many are there who being born to obey and not to govern do possess Places where there is need of Commanding and not of obeying How many that ingage themselves in Offices which are above their Sphear their Power and above their Virtue and how few withdraw themselves from them by the knowledge of their Incapacities Every one thinks he is able and only limits his pretentions by the debility wherein he finds himself of being raised to a higher pitch This is the most common Source of worldly disorders and of the Evils that befall both Church and State and likewise of each particular For 't is not possible that a person ill placed and who wants necessary qualities to acquit himself of the Employment wherein he is engaged should not commit a world of faults and these faults which are the sequels of his temerity and presumption do render him ridiculous in this World and everlastingly miserable in the other 42. The sole knowledge of ones self may supply the defect of Talents and the sole defect of this knowledge on the contrary renders all these Talents useless dangerous and pernicious to him who hath them 'T is no great harm to have neither Memory Understanding Conduct Science Industry nor Ability provided that one know it Let him borrow of some other what he hath not and undertake nothing which requires those qualities which God hath not pleased to bestow upon him A man with all these Imperfections in applying himself only to that which is proportioned to his ability is Praise worthy seeing that he may become a Saint and that he is often more acceptable to God then those who have all the qualities which he wants He is only deprived of them for a Moment that is for this present life and he hath as much right as any man to hope he may be partaker of them in the other But let us suppose all these Talents in one man and as much light and understanding as we will if with these he does not know himself in his imperfections and in his weaknesses all these qualities with prove only his fall and ruin and often also in this world If he cannot measure his enterprises by his forces he will enter into rash engagements and presumption which hath no boundaries not being check'd by the Rains of the knowledge of ones self will carry him away to dangerous excesses 43. One may add to these particular reasons this general one which ought to make more Impression upon our minds and add thereto more horrour of this blindness That as the common punishment of the Condemned in the other life will be to see themselves Arguam te statuam contra faciem tuam the general Character of the Condemned in this here is not to see themselves so that it is equally true that we enter not into heaven unless we know our selves and into hell because we do not know our selves The death of sin which is the cause of eternal death is accompanied always with a kind of misfortunate drousiness which deprives us of the knowledge of our condition and therefore the Prophet earnestly beseeched God That he would enlighten his eyes to the end that he might not sleep in Death because he knew very well that this death was inseperable from that drowsiness and that provided he did not sleep he should not dye Illumina occulos meos ne unquam obdormiam in morte The State that sin reduceth man to is so horrible that he would not suffer it if he saw it but and so men whom Pleasure draws thereunto find means to hide it from themselves by a thousand Inventions which they are miserably ingenious to find out 44. One of the most criminal ones and yet the commonest is to stifle in ones self the sight which condemus these disorders in justifying them to their face● by false Rules which authoriseth them 'T is the Origin of so many Errors in Morality and of so many bad Maxims which men have always endeavoured to introduce into the Church and principally in these latter times For men not being willing to render their actions conform to the Law of God have endeavoured to render the Laws of God conform to their actions In stead of redressing their corrupt Inclinations according to the exactness of this Divine rule they have endeavoured to strain this rule even to adjust it to their inclinations They will not only follow their own Interests and Passions but they will also be approved in their Interests and Passions nor will they permit that their Consciences reproach them of being unjust So that things not Answering their expectation in the Maxims which God hath given us for our guide if they did leave them in their Purity they have endeavoured to alter them to find therein this approbation which they seek and to appease by this means the trouble of their Conscience 'T is thus that by the favour of these false lights which they willingly take for true ones they settle themselves in thi● unfortunate Peace and Quiet which is properly the sleepiness which the Prophet beseeched God to be preserved from by the Rays of the true light 45. What if they cannot succeed to hide entirely this light which condemns them they have recourses to other means to weaken the effect of it and to hinder the Impression which it would be able to make upon them Sometimes in letting the Law subsist they are contented not to think of it never comparing their actions therewith nor ever looking on them unless with contrary faces which do not represent to them what they have defective If they cannot stop the sight of this opposition entirely which they have to the Laws of God they weaken and diminish the Idea of it in joyning themselves to an infinite of people which they condemn as well as themselves as if this croud of Criminals was capable to defend them against God Lastly if they do not disguise the Laws of God they disguise themselves to themselves They attribute to themselves motives and intentions which the have not and will not see those they have Thus in having a false judgment of their actions they justifie themselves during their whole life by the means of this voluntary delusion Behold the sleepiness we must desire to be preserved from and what every honest well-meaning