Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A67687
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The holy mourner. Or An earnest invitation to religious mourning in general with a large declaration of the divine comforts, and the blessed effects which attend the performance of it. But more particularly to mourning in private, for our own personal iniquities, and the publick crying sins of the nation. To which are added, forms of devotion fitted to that pious exercise. By Erasmus Warren, rector of Worlington in Suffolk.
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Warren, Erasmus.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing W967; ESTC R218442
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210,205
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385
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displaced let them never be disappointed Absolve me from my sins assure me of Thy Love and fill me with thy Graces which may fit me for Thy Glory Pity my Infirmities pardon my Imperfections Hear my Prayers and grant me my Requests Bless preserve and govern me while I live and when I die take me O GOD and Father to Thy self where Thou knowest I would fain be for ever And all for the sake of my LORD JESUS CHRIST to whom with Thy Self and ever Blessed SPIRIT three most Divine Adorable PERSONS and one infinitely Glorious and most Perfect GOD be all Love and Honour and Obedience World without End Amen Amen Ejaculations to be used on Mourning-Days THE Blessing of the ALMIGHTY rest upon me the Grace and Comfort of the HOLY SPIRIT support and sanctify me and the Mercy of GOD in the Bloud of JESUS save me from the dreadful Wrath to come and Crown me with Glory everlasting Amen LORD pity my Soul and pardon my Sins strengthen my Graces and assure me of Thy Favour let me always please Thee in religious Duties and never offend Thee by any Miscarriages Amen Make me vigilant and circumspect in my Life that so my Death may be safe and blessed and a sweet and happy Passage to Thy Self Amen Gracious GOD I desire to love Thee and nothing but Thee or at least nothing in comparison of Thee My dear GOD in Mercy grant me but this one desire and as for all other deny them as Thou pleasest Amen Cause me O LORD to be tender of thine Honour and zealous for Thy Glory painful in Thy Service and sorrowful for my Sins while I live and when I die translate me I beseech Thee into Thy Kingdom and Presence where I may dwell in Rest and Peace in the Heighth of Joy and the Fulness of divine and heavenly Pleasure for evermore Amen Do good in Thy good pleasure unto Sion build Thou the Walls O blessed LORD of Thy Jerusalem Amen Have Mercy upon all Jews Turks Infidels and Hereticks and so fetch them home unto Thy Self O GOD as that they may be saved at the last Amen Create in the sinful People of this Land such new and contrite Hearts O LORD as that they may forthwith turn from all their Sins and through thy Mercy obtain forgiveness of the same Amen LORD I cannot live without Thee LORD I cannot die without Thee O Thou who art the GOD of my Life be Thou my GOD and Guide unto Death Amen NOTES NOTE I. Pag. 7. FOR there the Agency is direct without the dull Help or Mediation of Organs and wherever the Soul is toucht immediately she must be mov'd more forcibly And this may probably give much strength to Temptations I mean to Satanical ones or such as the Devil assaults us with For He being a Spirit for that Reason tho' his actings upon us be secret and invisible yet they may be exceeding strong and powerful For spiritual Beings are capable of nearer mutual Unions than material ones Because things corporeal touch but superficially and join only in their outsides whereas Penetrability being a Property of Spirits they can easily pervade or run through one another mingling their very Substances together And thus 't is like the Tempter deals with us He may not only make use of our Blood and our Spirits and the Humors of our Bodies to imprint and fasten his Temptations upon us but moreover may insinuate himself to our very Souls and so by most inward presential Applications strongly incline us to that which is evil Thus we sometimes find by uneasy Experience that our Minds are held close to sinful Objects even against our Wills and when we would fain break loose and turn our Fancies another way they are kept intent even by reluctant Animadversion upon Motives to Naughtiness Now what could thus far force our Minds and keep them fixt in such unvoluntary postures or dispositions but the great Enemy of our Souls And how can we conceive he should do it so well as by his own striking through them by unperceiv'd Penetration For so he may impregnate his pernicious Motions with the fiercest vigour and raise them to the highest degrees of Strength by conveying himself into us together with them Yea some Temptations are so extravagant and unreasonable so base and malicious and so much against Religion and the Christian Temper as those to atheistical and blasphemous Thoughts and the like that methinks they could never break in upon us if Satan himself were not there already to help them to enter nor could they ever continue so long with us nor press so mightily as they do upon our Souls if he were not intimately joined to us to maintain and uphold them in so high a force But then since he can tempt us so powerfully by virtue of his Spirituality which qualifies him for nearest accesses to us and conjunctions with us we should be so wise as to keep our selves always by holy living in GOD's favour and custody that so the utmost of our Adversary's fury and violence may never be able to prevail against us And as evil Spirits may tempt Men as abovesaid by insinuating into them so according to the Number and Malice of those Spirits in any loose Persons will their Temptations and their Sins be And therefore the HOLY GHOST speaking of one whose Mat. 12.45 last State was to be worse than his first gives this account of the sad Cause of that dismal Effect that seven Devils worse than that which actuated him before Were gotten into him And for the like reason Mary Magdalen was so scandalously guilty of carnal impurities even because seven Devils or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unclean Spirits as the Gospel terms them were in her as Tempters to that sort of Lewdness For so many were cast out of her by the SON of GOD S. Mark 16.9 Yet still we must allow that there is some difference betwixt the Persons thus tempted by Devils and those that are down-right possessed of them For in the first Case evil Spirits apply themselves only to our Souls and that with intention and endeavour to stimulate and urge them on to Sin But in the latter Case they seem to settle in the Body and to take up their Residence in that designing some way or other to be injurious to it And the Injuries they do it of this Nature are commonly very visible or apparent and are mostly done one of these ways Either by vitiating its Organs and so hindring its Functions or hurting its Faculties or its Senses Thus we read of one that was dumb by the Devil 's possessing him Mat. 9.32 And of another that was deaf and dumb upon the same account Mar. 9.25 Or by offering ruder Violences to it As casting it into Mar. 9.22 the Fire or casting it into the Water Or tearing it inwardly or Luk. 9.39 bruising it outwardly or Luk. 13.11 putting it into some distorted or disfiguring Posture and keeping it in the
will be in vain To this agrees the Doctrine of that Great Man the Son of Sirach He that washeth himself after the touching of a dead body if he touch it again what availeth his washing So it is with a Man that fasteth for his Sins and goeth again and doth the same Who will hear his Prayer or what doth his humbling profit him Ecclus. 34.25 26. One Request now concludes the Preface That they who use this Book and find Benefit by it would not only give Glory to GOD for it to whom alone it wholly belongs But also that they would Remember its unworthy Composer in their daily Prayers especially on the days of their Devout and Solemn Addresses to Heaven ☞ That the plain Reader might meet with no Difficulties to stop or hinder Him in the perusing this Treatise some few things not altogether so obvious and easy as the Rest are taken out of his way by being thrown back in the Quality of Notes to the End of the Book THE Holy Mourner c. CHAPTER I. The Usefulness of our Faculties and Passions What Religious Mourning is Two Sorts of it Publick and Private The two Kinds of Private Mourning with the respective Branches of them AS GOD hath given us a lofty Nature and endued that Nature with excellent Faculties So He designs those Faculties for worthy Ends. He intends them not only for Ornament but Use and by them means to make us better as well as higher than other Creatures Thus He gave us an Understanding that we might know Himself as well as other things A Will that we might chuse our Duty as well as other Advantages A Memory that we may treasure up Divine as well as other Truths that so within our selves we might not only have Matter to entertain our Thoughts profitably but also be competently furnish'd with some good Principles from whence to take the measures of our Practice And if we look more downward into the Frame of our Being we shall see that our Passions tho' much inferior to the mentioned Faculties were contrived by the all-wise GOD Who made them for our very Souls Improvement For when He put them into us it was that they might be instrumental to our heavenly and eternal as well as to our temporal and secular Interests Love for instance He planted in us to fix our Hearts immoveably on Himself and to carry them out in Desires towards Him with all the Force and Vigour and Vehemence which that Sweet and Powerful Principle has Fear to awe our Minds into Seriousness and so to balast them as to keep them steady that they being tossed with no Lightness or Folly we may be kept from all Loosness and Sin Hope to draw us to true Religion and not only to induce us to it but to encourage us in it while lively Expectation of its future Rewards carries us through all its present Difficulties enabling us with Laudable Patience and Zeal to perform both its active and passive Duties Joy to enliven and elevate our Spirits that so besides zealous Patience and Constancy we may persist in our Duties with Alacrity and Pleasure For where Joy intermingles with the Offices of Religion it abates or takes off the uneasiness of them and turns them into real and high Delight To mention no more even Grief it self as mean a Passion as men think it and as bitter and irksome as it seems to be is of singular use to the Sincere Christian and serves him in his best and noblest concerns with an happy Efficacy Tho' to instance in what Particulars it does it would be to anticipate the Matter of this Treatise in the Sequel of which they will Sufficiently appear At present therefore we note but this much That Grief is eminently serviceable to good Christians as it ministers to holy or religious Mourning and is an essential or constituent Part of the same This will be evident if we do but consider what religious Mourning is And that I think may not improperly be thus described It is a blessed Work of the HOLY GHOST whereby we grieve heartily upon some spiritual account It is a work of the HOLY GHOST Nor can it be otherwise For where a plentiful Effusion of HIM is promised we find holy Mourning in the true Church to be an immediate Fruit of it I will pour upon the house of David and upon the Inhabitants of Jerusalem the SPIRIT says GOD Zech. 12.10 And then it follows in the next Verse in that Day there shall be a great Mourning To Mourn as Men is incident to all and indeed inevitable As Nature hath given us Power to do it So our Circumstances give us Occasion enough here in this State of Mortality and Misery But to Mourn as Christians is quite another thing Religious Sorrow grows at no time upon the Stock of mere Nature tho' never so well cultivated by Virtuous Education That no where flows with any laudable Stream but where the HOLY GHOST first opens the Springs He bloweth with His Wind and the Waters flow Psal 147.18 St. Jerom from a literal turns the Text to an Allegorical Sense and by the Wind understands the Spirit of GOD. But then the Waters which by His means flow are no other than those of pious Tears which cannot flow unless He causes them to do it And therefore by the Way we have no Reason to think that divine Comforts are either the Sole or the Chief Indication of the Good SPIRIT 's kind and propitious presence Godly Sorrow is as clear a Symptom and assure a Proof of the HOLY GHOST's resting upon us or residing in us as the most refreshing Joys can be And therefore as humble Acknowledgments should be made to GOD and as hearty Praises rendred to Him for the one as for the other The Cloudy Pillar was as evident a Token of GOD's Providential Care of the Jews and of His special Residence with them as the Pillar of Fire tho' all know it was not so bright a one And tho' the SPIRIT 's Consolations are a more lightsome Sign of His Descent upon us yet holy Mourning must be as plain a Mark of his gracious Presence as being as much an Effect of His favourable Influence And then It is a blessed Work of His. Blessed in the entire Capacity of it For as it is wrought in us by a blessed Cause the breathing of this Glorious SPIRIT we speak of and as it is of a blessed Nature being a lamenting of our Wandrings from and Actings against the Laws and Interests of Righteousness So it hath a most blessed Tendency For it tends directly to the purging our of Sin to the purifying of the Soul to the making us upright and holy upon Earth and happy in the Kingdom of Heaven for ever We farther describe it to be a Grieving heartily As there can be no Mourning where there is no Grieving so on the other side where the Mourning is holy the Grief will be hearty There are two