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
B04766	The true principles of the Christian education of children briefly and plainly declared and recommended to parents and all others concerned in the institution of youth. Very profitable for all sorts of persons, as containing the great and fundamental truths and duties of the Christian religion. / Translated from the second edition of the original French.	Poiret, Pierre, 1646-1719.	1695 (1695)	Wing P2743A; ESTC R181913	49,118	130

Capacities or Faculties and powers Over which we must very carefully watch that we may becommingly improve and mannage them For on this depends the Eternal well-fare and misery of Souls I. The first of these Capacities is the Power of Desiring or Willing II. The Second is that of Knowing III. The third is that of Rejoycing IV. And the fourth is that of Executing and puting in practice outwardly that which seems good to it These Faculties or Properties are so inter-woven with our Soul and so unseparable from it that one may justly look on them as constituting its nature And therefore we need not scruple to determine that the Soul is a being that desires to know the true good and to injoy it to the end that it may regulate thereby its life and its practice to the Glory of GOD and its own eternal wellfare When a Soul desires the true good and when it knows it Enjoyes it and puts it in practice it is happy Or at lest it is in the assured way of Salvation and Happyness If ye know these things saith JESUS CHRIST Happy are ye if ye do them John 13.17 But when a Soul is without all desires after the true good without the knowledge of it and without the Enjoyment and practice of it It is Infinitely unhappy and in the way to Eternal perdition Thus we see that all depends on the good or evil conduct of these four Faculties Our great business in this World is to mannage them well Let us think seriously on this for the consequences of it are Eternal Since we are corrupted by sin and since GOD alone is the cause of all good we must seriously endeavour that he come and take Possession of our Soule and there he may Assist and Govern our Desire our Mind our Vnderstanding our J●● and our Practice otherwayes without him we shall never do any thing to purpose 8. 2. The necessity of improving the faculties of Desire in Children betimes § 8. 1. The gate by which GOD comes unto us with his most Holy grace is the desire of the Soul which we otherwise call the Heart or the Will and this is it which we must excite cherish and improve in Children betimes and that without intermission When this part shall go well all the rest will easily follow it of their own accord But as long as a Soul capable to use this facultie is without a good will and a good Heart that is to say as long as it hath not in it sincere and serious desires after GOD it is really without life before him and shall never live with him if it shall come to depart this life in that state Without this Divine desire all sorts of knowledge and practices and even the greatest advantages of nature of birth and of Education shall serve for no other purpose but to make it so much the more like the Devil and as wicked acursed and unhappy before GOD as he is § 9. The use of the desire 9. The use and importance of the desire breifly declared by a familiar comparison and its importance with respect to the Soul may be very pertinently made manifest to a Child by a comparison suited to his capacitie Namely by telling him that the desire is to the Soul what the mouth and stomach are to the body It is by the mouth and by the stomach that the Body receives its food which when good doth nourish it but if unwholsome and poisonous indsposes and kills it Just so it is by the desire that the Soul is either Nourished or indisposed and killed Spiritually according to the nature of the things after which the desire is carried As then we must take good heed that we put not into the mouth or let down into the stomach but wholsome things So we must take very great care that we do not receive into our desire but good things if we would happily live the life of the Soul For this life shall of necessity be of such a constitution and temper as are our desires and the objects which which we admit unto them And so it is the duty of each one to consider seriously how he Nourishes his Soul or leaves it languishing and what nature the things are to which he gives access unto his desires 10. GOD and his Will the true and the only object of the Desire The consequences of this § 10. The power of desiring hath been made for that which is Good that is to say for GOD who is the only good and for his Will which only is the sourse of all good Therefore it is that we ought not to desire any thing but GOD and that which is agreeable to His Holy desire and to his Divine will and we must disingadge and turn away our desire from every other thing for every other thing but GOD and his will is evil And consequently 11. 1. Consequence to deny our own will and desires to do which Young Ones must be airely in § 11. 1. None ought to desire his own will nor cherish his own desires which are all evil corrupted and the sourse of all sin On the other hand the sole desire and sole will of GOD is the sourse of all good This is it to which Young Ones must be habituated as soon as is possible with the greatest care breaking and crossing their desire in every thing before they have contracted the fatal habit of following their own will But men must act here with discretion though they must never fail most vigorously to oppose and check this unhappy impression when once it hath taken root O how easie would the practice of Virtue become if this wicked habit did make no resistance to it And if while the Spirit is most flexible I mean if from their Infancie upwards men were formed to this great point the which is so necessary that no Soul shall ever be saved without having renounced their own desires The passages of the Gospel are express as to this particular And they ought to be rendered familiar to Children and so ought that Prayer of JESUS CHRIST My Father * Luke 22.42 not my will but Thine be done And that other protestation of his I am not come into the World to do mine own will but the will of my Father * John 6.38 When this unhappy byass or inclination of following our own desires and our own will is already become habitual as it is in those that are adult we must not give over resolving to make assaults on it and to eraze it with the Divine assistance which we must not fail to implore with much ardour and perseverance and having obtained it to imploy it with force and courage against the perverse tendencies of our desires this to be sure we must do if we would not perish Eternally It is on this account that JESUS CHRIST layes that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and that the violent take it by