Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	great_a	let_v	see_v	3,350	5	3.0636	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58819	A sermon preached before the queen the 22d of May, 1692 upon occasion of the late victory obtained by Their Majesties fleet over the French / by John Scott ...	Scott, John, 1639-1695.	1692 (1692)	Wing S2076; ESTC R34060	18,980	39

year with a perfect Unconcern and Indifferency But if after a long Blindness our Sight should be instantly restored to us or we should of a sudden be snatcht up into the Light after a tedious Confinement to some dismal Dungeon O with what Rapture should we salute the Day what Hymns should we sing to the joyful Light with what chearful Thoughts would it inspire our Breasts and with what unspeakable Joy should we survey that glorious Scene of things which it opens and discloses and yet the benefit of Light is the same to all that enjoy it and if those who continually enjoy it had maintained in their Minds the same just esteem of it as they have who are newly restored to it they would always enjoy it with the same Satisfaction And the case is the same as to all the other Benefits of God of a great part of the Comfort whereof we spoil and deprive our selves for want of that grateful Sense and just Esteem of them which they merit and deserve for a thankful Mind will make the utmost of the Benefits it receives and weigh them nicely by Grains and Scruples and consider them in all their endearing Circumstances and take into its account their most minute Appendages to inhanse its own value and esteem of them And seeing it is our esteem of Benefits that raises or sinks our Enjoyment of them to be sure the higher we esteem the Benefits of God the more we must enjoy them So that while unthankful Souls for want of a just estimate of the Favors of God do scarce enjoy the Tith of them but whilst they feed on them are dissatisfied with them and like the most currish Animals while they are gnawing on their Prey do grumble over it those who are truly thankful feed upon every Blessing with Joy and Content and like the industrious Bees having sucked out all the Sweetness of the Flowers they live upon go singing home with it to their Hives And I make no doubt but he who hath a grateful Sense and a just Esteem of the Goodness of God to him enjoys with far more Comfort even a Cup of fair Water and a Brown Morsel than the fat ungrateful Glutton doth his studied and artificial Luxuries Seeing therefore our Thankfulness to God for his Benefits doth so much heighten and improve our Enjoyment of them if it be eternally Reasonable that we should make the best of his Benefits this lays an eternal Obligation on us to be grateful to him VI. And lastly Thankfulness to God gives a great support to our Hope and Dependence on him for the future for besides that the very Sense and Consciousness of the thankful Returns we have made him will encourage us to hope that that God who hath found us grateful for what we have received will account himself obliged in Generosity though not in Justice to heap his Favors on us more abundantly the thankful Reception of past Favors being the greatest Inducement to generous Benefactors to bestow more and greater for the future besides this I say the very Recollection and Remembrance of the manifold Favors of God which we have already received and which our own grateful Sense of them will be sure to ingrave upon our Minds in the most durable Characters will prove a constant fund of happy Experience for our Hope to live upon for the future so that when ever we are reduced to strait and low Circumstances and are either pinched with the want of any necessary Good or are ready to despond of deliverance from any imminent Evil the grateful Remembrance we retain of past Instances of Gods Kindness to us will be a mighty Incouragement to our Faith and Hope securely to depend upon him for the future The Lord that delivered me saith David out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistian Where you see he grounds his Dependence for one Deliverance upon his grateful Remembrance of another and indeed there is no man in the World can have that ample Experience of the Goodness of God as he who makes constant returns of Praise and Thanksgiving for it such a Man merely to improve his Gratitude will make it his Business curiously to animadvert upon every Instance of the Divine Goodness and to descant upon every Hint Intimation and Circumstance of it and treasure up every passage in everlasting Remembrance And seeing Experience is nothing but the Observation of things treasured up in the Memory he who best remembers the manifold Expressions of Gods Goodness to him and makes the strictest Observations upon them must have attained to the fullest and most intimate Experience of it and when all is done there is nothing will create in us that sure Confidence in God and firm Dependence upon him as our own Experience of his Faithfulness and Goodness If I have a Friend whom in numerous Instances I have always found faithful and constant and kind I reckon I may rely upon him with almost the same Security as I can rely upon my self and when in innumerable Instances I have always found God my Friend my generous kind and faithful Friend and I have all these Instances of it fresh in my Memory and under my Observation this must needs create in me a very secure Affiance in him and carry up my Faith and Hope into an high Plerophory Thus Gratitude to God begets in us an ample Experience of his Goodness and that Experience begets in us a firm Dependence upon him so that if it be eternally reasonable that we should securely rely upon God by whose Power and Goodness we are supported in Being every moment of our Existence it is upon this account also eternally reasonable that we should offer up our Thanksgivings to him To conclude all therefore seeing our Obligations to this Duty are so great and many let us be persuaded to comply with them in our Practice Certainly never were any People more importunately invited hereunto than we are at this time It is not long since we were threatned with a Forein Invasion and had too much cause to apprehend the Landing of a formidable Enemy on our Shoars an Enemy that by a thousand Barbarities hath proclaimed himself an implacable Prosecutor of our Religion and that wheresoever he goes carries Ruin and Destruction along with him But behold all of a sudden the melancholly Scene is changed and our dark Prospect is cleared up into a glorious Vision for by a wonderful Interposure of the Divine Providence we are not only delivered from the hands of our Enemies but our Enemies are delivered into ours their Naval Force in which they so much gloried and upon which their whole Success depended being by the miraculous Blessing of God upon the good Conduct and Bravery of ours scattered and broken in a few Hours and we not only preserved but crowned with one of the most glorious and signal Victories that