Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	see_v	2,875	5	3.5208	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56746	A practical discourse of repentance rectifying the mistakes about it, especially such as lead either to despair or presumption ... and demonstrating the invalidity of a death-bed repentance / by William Payne ...	Payne, William, 1650-1696.	1693 (1693)	Wing P907; ESTC R35391	226,756	585

he feels an inward strength and vigour in himself and the constant springs of joy and comfort rising up in his own breast and overflowing his Soul But Vice sneaks and is cowardly and fills a Man with fear and confusion and all the mean and little and uneasie and tormenting Passions that belong to Humane Nature Vertue approves it self to our Reason and agrees with the native sense of our own Minds and has a Natural beauty and loveliness that commends it to our first sight and apprehension and makes it amiable and desirable esteemed and honoured and admired by every one even by those who forsake it who cannot but be so just to it as to commend and approve it very often in others But Vice has a Natural ugliness and deformity that makes Men ashamed of it after they have committed it and commit it in darkness and obscurity and after to deny and extenuate it as being presently sensible of the folly and undecency and unreasonableness of it as having done what they cannot justifie and what presently flyes in their faces if they have not a brow of Brass and a forehead of Steel It is contrary and awry to our own Nature and against the first sense and tenderness of our own Minds so that great violence must be used to commit it at first and great pain follows upon it 'T is a force a Rape upon the Virgin-modesty and the Natural sense of Good and Evil that we are born with Vertue has alwayes very good and desirable effects upon us in this Life as well as great Rewards in another 'T is in the Wise Mans Phrase and in a true literal sense Health to our navel and marrow to our bones Prov. 3.8 It keeps our Bodies in good plight neither drains or exhausts them with forced Pleasures or unruly Passions nor choaks or suffocates them with immoderate loads nor drowns and washes them away with floods of drink and cups of intemperance It brings a Blessing of God upon our Estates and often makes us Rich by the help of Industry and Frugality whilst nothing is so expensive and so impoverishing as Vice which spends many times all upon its Lusts and the hungry Wolf comes often to the door where the Swine and the Goat have been used to dwell Though Vertue may not alwayes bring abundance neither is it desirable alwayes to a wise Man though Solomon puts Riches as the common Blessing in the left hand of Wisdom Prov. 3.16 yet it makes a little that the righteous hath better than great riches of the ungodly Ps 37.16 Honour and a good Name do more certainly belong to Vertue than Riches and whilst Vice brings a blot and a reproach upon a Mans Credit Vertue makes him loved and honoured and esteemed by all that know him while he lives and embalms his Name when he is dead and makes his Memory to be precious But above all it makes a Man truly easie and happy within himself it secures him the peace and tranquillity of his own Mind which is the greatest happiness in the World So that all Natural Good and all that is desirable to Humane Nature growes as a proper Fruit out of Vertue which is the true Root that Naturally brings forth all Good as Sin does all Evil and these are so annexed to them by the nature and constitution of things as effects to their proper causes that nothing can cut them off or precide them and these besides all the super-added Motives of revealed Religion are by plain Reason and observation of things very strong Arguments to bring Men off from Vice to Vertue i. e. to true Repentance 4. Therefore Fourthly A wise Man when he comes to reflect and consider finds that that which hindered him from seeing all this before was only his foolish Lusts and his corrupt senfual Inclinations and his strong Passions and violent and unreasonable Appetites which blinded his Reason and clouded his Judgment and darkened his Understanding and besotted intoxicated and bewitched him i. e. by some unaccountable wayes hindered him from discerning and considering these things which are so plain and evident and therefore the reason why he before chose Vice and forsook Vertue was because he did not see and consider this nor was so truly convinced of the Evil of Sin and the Good of Vertue but now he has quite other thoughts and apprehensions about them and therefore he is changed in his Will and his Affections by this change wrought in his Mind and his Understanding and this being a lasting and effectual change upon all the inward principles of action has a necessary influence upon his outward actions that are alwayes moved and turned by those inward springs and wheels within us for though a Man is still at liberty and is under no force and compulsion from without but acts freely from within himself yet his Will will follow the last dictate of his Understanding and he will not choose Evil as Evil when he apprehends it to be so and he must some way have his Reason corrupted and judge falsly and erroneously before he will practice so Omnis peccans ignorat If he has a true and lively sense of the Good of Vertue abiding upon his Mind he will not choose Vice again 'T is this sense I doubt not confirms the blessed Spirits above and will do the Souls of all good Men in Heaven when they see and know this so perfectly that 't will be impossible for them to fall but now we see things darkly and judge weakly and often change and alter our Minds as not having such a clear view of things nor attending so closely to the dictates of impartial Reason but our thoughts are often lured off by the temptations of the Flesh and our Minds hearken but to one side to the false reasonings and suggestions of the Devil and our own Lusts or are surprized with the sudden importunity of a temptation before they can recollect themselves Else no Man could say Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor for we cannot but love and choose Good when we apprehend it and hate and abhor Evil when it is visible and naked to us We must therefore strip Vice of its disguise and its false colours and wash off its paint and meretricious charmes and see it as it is in its deformity and ugliness and in the miserable and sad consequences of it and then we shall hate that which we once loved and throw away the gilded poyson and shake the smooth and shining Viper off of our hands and cast the rotten curtizan from our armes and embraces We shall be ashamed that we were so cheated and imposed upon so deluded by the deceitfulness of sin that we were so weak as to be governed by our mean passions and low inclinations which are the imperfection and the soft side of our Nature and that we should not live up to that Reason which is proper to us and distinguishes us from brutes that we

new and holy Life and be available to his true Conversion and Repentance and I believe this is Gods usual way by which he begins to effect this upon most Sinners by thus bringing them to some serious thinking and considering It is very great Mercy when God thus checks them in their career and calls to them by the loud voice of his Judgments and thus as he generally does puts the first stop to them and makes them bethink themselves and consider but then this method must not only awaken but keep their eyes open and make them see and consider those other Thoughts and Reasons which are the more proper seminal Principles that will be more likely to produce and beget this true Repentance Such as are 2. In the second place a serious reflection and thorough conviction of the Evil that is in Sin and of the real Good of Vertue as the only thing which can make us truly happy for till Men have brought themselves to be fully perswaded and convinced of this and to believe it as firmly as they do any truth in Mathematicks or any other Science they will never be brought truly to Repent that is to dislike and hate and renounce the one and heartily to love and persue and embrace the other for Men will still love their Sins and hanker after them and be ready to comply and close with them upon every occasion if they only fall out with them sometimes as Lovers do with what they like and admire and tho' there may be some bickerings between them and some penitential passions and resentments now and then yet they may still have their Heart if they do not upon wise observations and thorough convictions believe them to be enemies to their Welfare and Happiness to the comfort of their Lives here and their Eternal Salvation hereafter and that they get nothing by them but poor and empty and sickly pleasures but that they bring substantial misery and bitter remorse and anguish of Mind and a thousand mischiefs and inconveniences along with them at present besides the terrible hazards and dangers of another World so that they are by no means to be loved or chosen if we love our selves or choose our own Happiness For we must bring it to this if we would be steddy and certain to the first Principles of Self-preservation and a desire of our own Happiness which lyes at the root of our Nature and what we shall alwayes act upon if we rightly understand it and do not grosly err and mistake about it and a few wise observations and a little sober thinking and considering will easily satisfie us and fully convince us that Vice is the certain cause of misery to us and that Vertue is the only way to be truly easie and happy The Sinner will be convinced of this by his own experience when he reflects upon his past follies and sees how little he has got by his Sins but shame and sorrow and trouble of Mind perhaps a sickly and diseased Body and a wasted Estate and wretched Beggery and every thing that shall make him miserable in this World before he goes to the greater misery of another For do we not dayly see this how one Man brings himself by his Sins to a morsel of bread how he shipwrecks his Fortunes as well as his Conscience by Luxury and Prodigality another consumes his Body as well as his Estate by Debauchery Lust and Intemperance by these they sin as the Apostle remarks against their own Bodies as well as against their Souls they make them bear the scars and marks of their Sins upon them and become Martyrs in the Devils service and endure often more torture of Body for their Sins than other Martyrs have done for their Religion sacrifice their Lives to them and by living too fast as they call it bring an untimely death upon themselves and are in so much hast sometimes to dye that their Bodies often rot before they come into their graves If these mischiefs do not follow all Sins yet some others do and the greatest of all is inseparable from them which is torment and anguish of Conscience and pain and uneasiness of Mind which every Man feels unless his Conscience be stupified and mortified which is a worse state than the other upon the commission of any great Sin and this is ten times greater than any fancied pleasure in it This is a sting a wound a prick upon the most tender part of a Mans Soul a dart struck through his Liver a Worm gnawing upon his Vitals nothing is so close and so cutting a pain and misery as a Man 's own ill Conscience when it is let loose upon him and like a Fury falls upon him with its utmost rage lashes him with its snaky whips and burns him with its fiery torches 't is then a Devil let loose and a Hell kindled within his own bosom They who have felt but a little of it know it is more exquisite pain than any belongs to the Body and what is it then to endure this for ever and lye under that and the further anger of God to all Eternity Oh madness and folly that wants a name that will do this for any Sin whatever Oh the dreadful Evil of Sin that brings all this and so many other mischiefs upon us But 3. Vertue on the contrary has a thousand Comforts Blessings and Goods belonging to it which should make us love it as we do our selves and choose it as heartily and firmly as we do our own Happiness When we rightly understand and consider it we shall find Reason to do so that neither disturbs our Mind nor diseases our Body nor squanders away our Estate nor brings any reproach and discredit along with it as Vice generally does and it takes away no real Good or true Pleasure or proper Enjoyment from us but it allowes us all that we can desire or that our Nature was made for within the due bounds and limits of our Duty and within those we may enjoy as much Vertuously and Innocently as the greatest Liberty and Debauchery can afford the Sinner Vertue does not destroy our Pleasures but refines and purifies them and so makes them sweeter and better and draws them off from the filthiness and sediment and bitterness that lyes alwayes at the bottom of all sinful Pleasures and Enjoyments No Man ever repented of his Vertues or was sorry that he had done a good Action but he finds great comfort and satisfaction within himself when he reflects upon it and it is a prop and stay to his Mind and he rests securely upon it and is chearful confident and erect under all accidents and all dangers and difficulties whatsoever His Heart standeth right and approveth it self to God and to his own thoughts having no ill designs no base and mean ends and purposes but such only as are good and vertuous and this gives him great peace firmness of Mind and bravery of Spirit and