Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	justification_n	work_n	9,756	5	6.9844	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B08964	A serious exhortation to the necessary duties of [brace] family and personal instruction made (formerly) to the inhabitants of the parish of Tredington in the county of Wercester, and now upon request published for their use / by William Durham.	Durham, William, d. 1686.	1659 (1659)	Wing D2832A; ESTC R229159	38,436	108

What if thy child come not to be great nor rich in this world yet he may be an honest gracious man and rich toward God but if thou sufferest him to live in ignorance of Religion whatever thou providest for him else in the end he will be most miserable Poor Lazarus would not change skins though it were full of sores with rich Dives Verily our extraordinary diligence in making temporal provision for our children will rise in judgement against us for our utter neglect of their eternal welfare Sect. 7. This is the fittest season to instil knowledge into them before their hearts be corrupted with the pleasures or insnared with the profits of this world If you suffer those things to preingage them it will be a harder matter to make them unlearn evil then it would have been to have made them learn that which was good before While they are young their memories are best their appetites are strongest their affections keen and eager they are now apter to learn and to take any impression you shall set upon them now they must be followed close Pers Sat. 3. v. Casaub Plato 2. de legibus Vdum molle lutum es Nunc nunc properand c. As age grows on they will be more hard to learn They are now of an active disposition they find themselves employed in something If you employ them not in what is good they will employ themselves in what is bad Good things are as easily learnt as bad were they but as diligently taught a Catechise as easily learned as a Ballad or a tale of Robin Hood Whatsoever you would have your children excellent in teach it them betimes Heyl. Geog. in Russia In Russia they train up their children to shooting in their minority and give them nothing to eat till they can hit a white that is set before them The Baleant give them no meat Flor. hist l. 3. c. 8. but what they can kill with their sling Cibum puer à Matre non accipit nisi quem ipsâ monstrante percussit time and use makes them Masters of their Art Much may be done with children ere we think fit to trouble them with such things They can learn to swear and to prophane the Sabbath why might they not as well be taught to read to be catechised to learn some choice Scriptures by heart I have heard of that Noble Lady the now Lady Packington daughter of the Lord Keeper Coventry that in her minority she was tyed by the strictness of her education to learn daily such a proportion of Scripture by heart before she should eat a bit of bread by which custome and assiduity she became in a short time so perfect in the Scripture that she had a great part of the Old Testament and all the New so perfectly by heart that she could repeat any chapter backward or forward tell you any particular verse or words where they were what went before and what followed after Indeed she was a living Concordance the very Prodigy of Memory whose excellencies in these attainments are almost beyond the belief of any but of those who have seen or heard her examined Husbandmen know that they must not expect a good crop unless they sow in a right season Youth is the time to have the seeds of grace and godliness sown else there 's little hope of a good and a holy life Sect. 8. Children are the seed-plot of the Church and Common-wealth those who are now children will soon grow up to be men of action both in things concerning God and their countrey Such as they are when they cease to be children such they will be when they begin to be men Those who spend their youth in ignorance idleness naughtiness what can you expect from them when they become men but to grow from bad to worse As youth leaves them manhood finds them good if good if bad stark naught What impressions are put upon wax when it is melted you shall find upon it when it is hardned What you write upon white paper sticks there What savor your vessels have when they are new they retain when they are old What good you infuse into youth it will relish on when it is ripened into age The wise man gives counsel like himself Train up or catechize a child in the way that he should go Prov. 22.6 and in his age he will no● depart from it It should be something to us to consider what posterity we are like to leave behind us and that we may labour to make the generation to come happier then this by giving our children better instruction then perhaps we have had Pythagoras was wont to say Lilius Gyrald ●ymb Pythanum propter opes that the main end of our begetting and bringing forth children should be● that we might leave those behind us who may serve God in their generation When we consider the trouble and miseries which our eyes have seen we are ready to wish and hope that our children may see better times Good men will make good times Time is in it self nor good nor evil but as the persons are who live in them Do your duty and you may much promote your own desires Labour to make them more knowing men and more obedient to God and that will make better men and better men will make better times Sect. 9. This will enable them to profit by the Sermons which they hear And the want of this is one main ground of that strange non-proficiency amongst men that live even under powerful Ministers God hath been exceedingly gracious in giving his word a free passage which is by many men set on with a great deal of power and life yet many even of such complain in the bitterness of their souls and say Lord who hath believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed In many such places there 's but little good done and this I conceive amongst others is not the smallest cause that they who come to hear the Word Preached are in no measure prepared thereunto by understanding the Principles of Religion If they understood beforehand what Justification Sanctification Adoption c. were what the covenant of works and the covenant of grace were then they would be able to go along with us in what we say But being so arrantly ignorant of Fundamental necessary truths we only speak into the air they give us the hearing and they depart no wiser then they came A man would wonder else what shift many men could make to remain so ignorant who are like the Ectones Heyl. Geo. in Lyvon the original inhabitants of Poland who are diligent frequenters of the Churches but so extreamly ignorant that hardly one in a Village can say his Pater Noster Should any of you hear a man make a learned Discourse concerning any point in Geometry Arithmetick c. you might admire what you did not understand but if you were

beforehand instructed in the Principles of that Science you would then see the reason of what was spoken your understandings would close with the things delivered and you would reap profit by that Discourse So in this case were men better insighted into the Principles of Religion we should soon see better fruits of all our labors Sect. 10. The want of this is the unhappy ground of that unstableness in the faith which to the reproach of our Religion discovers it self so visibly amongst us at this day Ephes 4.14 That of the Apostle is too apparently manifested amongst us that many of us are like children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive which hinders their growing up into him in all things who is the head even Christ I find in story mention made of one Philetas Coûs Syms Chron. parte 5. pag. 44. an excellent Grammarian and Poet Master ●o Ptolomeus Philadelphus that great lover and promoter of Learning but of so small and thin a body that he was fain to wear soles of lead upon his shooes Non dubitamus cur tot hereses nova dogmata locum passim inveniunt causam vel maximam esse catechizationis neglectum c. Act. Syn. od sess 15. Judic Theol. Palat. or else every blast of wind would overturn and blow him down The reason why so many are so easily tossed aside by every wind of Doctrine is because they are not well bottom'd nor kept steady by the Principles of Religion This is the true ground why every new Doctrine finds so many sollowers because they were never establisht in the truth We have seen many who have made fair shew for a time readily embrace and admire any new Discoveries which have been offered to them under the specious vizor of New-light They have run thorough all those new Modes of Religion which the Father of lyes hath presented them withall 1 Joh. 2.19 always liking that best which was newest not finding where to rest their feet having once forsaken that good old way of Gospel-Truth wherein indeed they were never thoroughly instructed If they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out that it might be made manifest that they were not at all of us This is the cause of those many sad breaches grown in families to their utter ruine while they run into several ways with such eagerness and animosity contending to maintain their several parties when it may be few of them have any competent knowledge of the Fundamentals of Religion and fewer have any true sense of the power of godliness upon their hearts When the ship wants ballast every gust of wind will overset it When the mind is void of serious knowledge no wonder that errors creep into the judgement and looseness into the conversation Col. 2.7 8. Those who are not rooted and grounded in Christ will be easily spoiled through Philosophy and vain deceit Sect. 11. The eternal welfare of your families depends upon it Joh. 17.3 This is life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent O that you would give your thoughts liberty to expatiate in this wide field That you would seriously lay to heart what Heaven and Hell are Vbi nec operosa actio nec requies desidiosa laus erit sine fastidio sine defectu Aug. how full of glory the one how full of horror and amazedness the other Heaven it is the throne of God the purchase of Christ the habitation of Angels the expectation of men the envy of Devils There 's the vision of God communion with all Saints and an uninterrupted enjoyment of eternal rest There 's pure pleasure without pain a continual day without night perfect holiness without sin The good things which God hath provided there for them that know and love him are so many they cannot be numbred so great they cannot be measured so precious they cannot be valued They are as far beyond our apprehension as expression 2 Cor. 12.4 Who can declare that which Gods Spirit tells us is ineffable Who can tell me how much sweetness Bern. in 11. of Cant. Omnes deliciae L●eus erit Aust ib how much happiness is wrapt up in those few words God shall be all in all your faith most make out what your reason cannot compass and what the tongue of men and Angels cannot express 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nilus in sentent Tom 1. Orthodoxog p. 181 And for Hell the very name and notion of it is enough to make a mans heart ake and his sinews tremble Esa 66. ult There 's the worm that never dyeth and the fire that never goes out the worm that never dyeth is the gnawing and twinging the horror and amazedness of the conscience which shall then reproach us for our neglect of knowledge and the means of grace When conscience remembers how many fair advantages we have slipt of making our calling and election sure how many invitations we have slighted and how much means we have neglected then it will lay about it and torment the soul Conscience may be dull and sensless here and go sleeping to Hell but it comes no sooner there but it is awakened to its cost It reproaches and reviles the sinner and makes his condition so much the worse because he was the occasion of his own sufferings There 's the fire that never goes out O dismal dreadful fire Fire without light for there is utter darkness in the midst of it fire mixt with cold for while the tongue burns the teeth chatter fire without comfort mixt with stifling choaking brimstone Fire that will never want fewel to maintain it there is much wood and the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone kindling it Esa 30.33 Who can endure to hold his finger in the fire but for a moment How do we roar and cry when we are but a little singed scorched burned And if our material fire be so irksome and intolerable what will that keener and more subtile fire be which will work upon the soul as well as upon the body What will it be to have fire accompanied with cold and darkness and brimstone What will it be to have our childrens beds made in the midst of this fire What will it be to have them lie for ever in these everlasting burnings * Vbi nec tortores deficiunt nec torti moriuntur quibus sine fine more est non posse in cruciatibus mori Aug. id where they shall be ever burning and yet never consumed always dying and yet never dead To be without ease and without hope and all this in the company and under the power of so many hideous ugly fiends † Ad solatium malevolentissimū damnationis suae c. Id. whose only refreshment under their own torments will be to