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

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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

others by a Spirit of Humility without design or desire that men should esteem or Honour us and by a Spirit of Penitence without regarding our own satisfaction whither of Soul or of Body but aspiring after a conformitie to the Crucified JESVS and dying in our own account on the Cross without any consolation This is the true Spirit of the Christian Life and practice and of true Christianity a Spirit wholly opposite to that of corrupted nature by which alas Men suffer themselves to be drawn sweetly and as it were laughing unto Eternal perdition without ever thinking on it The will of GOD is that we should do nothing but in order to please him His pleasure is to be glorified by our Salvation His Glory ought to be our Soveraign absolute Universal end and we ought to look on our Salvation as a mean to advance this end of Blessing Praising and Glorifying for ever his Divine Majestie The Glory of GOD is advanced in this life when we give place in our hearts to the force and vertue of JESVS CHRIST and when we suffer his Power and his Energie to beget by us a great many Holy actions for which we have Just ground to Honour Bless and Praise the Divine cause that is the Power and the Efficacie of GOD whence such excellent things do issue which contains in it self infinitly more of them He who abides in me saith JESUS CHRIST and in whom I abide brings forth much Fruit for without me ye can do nothing And herein is my Father Glorified that ye bring forth much fruit Jo. 15.5 8. And elsewhere Let men see your good works that they may Glorifie your Father which is in Heaven Matt. 5 16. This may and ought to be extended to all sorts of actions and things because whatever we do ought to be done for the Glory of GOD and because nothing can be well done but in the Name that is by the Power by the Blessing and by the Direction of JESUS CHRIST Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the Glorie of GOD. 1. Cor. 10.31 And whatsover ye do in word or in deed do all in the Name of our LORD JESVS CHRIST Col. 3.17 Thus for instance we eat and drink for the Glorie of GOD in the Name of JESUS CHRIST when we do it from a Principle and in a way communicate and taught us by him and which prompts us to say from our very heart Suffer me not O LORD To eat and drink only as do the Beasts by a meer brutal appetite and for a life only natural And much less in following the disorders of our corrupted natures But grant that by the Power and by the direction of the Holy Spirit of Thy Son JESVS CHRIST I may eat and drink according to thine appointment so much as is necessary for the maintaining of a life which I will imploy in loving thee in blessing thee and in obeying thee in following by thy grace the life of our Redeemer Just so we speak to the Glory of GOD and in the Name of JESUS CHRIST when we seek from him and receive from him the force and grace to say nothing but what is regulated by him but what is necessary and what is proper to suggest good thoughts to men and to turn them from evil and vain things In a word we do all in the Name of Jesus Christ and to the Glory of GOD when having sought before all things the Divine Grace and Vertue of Jesus Christ we do by it and according to the Will of GOD from a Divine Motive and to a Divine End whatsoever we have to do following that admirable lesson of St. Peter Let every one of you according as he hath received the Grace Gift of GOD make use of it for the Good of others as being faithful dispensers of the manifold Grace of GOD. If any man speak let him do it as delivering words flowing from the Virtue of GOD if any one doth service to others let him do it as acting by the Power which GOD gives To the end that in every thing we do God may be glorified by Jesus Christ to whom be Praise and Dominion for ever and ever 1 Pet. 4.10.11 § 63. The Will of GOD is marked in his Commandments 63. The Will of GOD which is the Rule of our Obedience is made known to us on his Precepts which must be taught Young Ones first in the literal then in the more Sublime and Spiritual Import of them which we must cause Young Ones learn and which we must explain unto them at first according to the Letters and as their Capacities will allow And afterwards when they are capable of it we must make them understand that the Law being Spiritual God by his Commands enjoyns us 1. That we love nothing but Himself alone and for His sake only 2. That we do not think that GOD is like to the thoughts and the imaginations that our dark reason and judgement make us apprehend of him Nor that the way of serving and pleasing of him is the work of our own will and of our own fancie 3. That we do not make use of his Name of his Covenant of his Knowledge of his Grace of being the Children of GOD in vain and without profiting by them and bringing foth Fruits agreeable to them and that we take head that we do not cloak our self will our passions our designs our carnal ways and even our wickedness and crimes under the sacred prete●ts of the Name of GOD of His Truth of His Justice of His Glory and of his Interest 4. That we must cease labouring acting and living by our own will to the End that GOD may Labour and Work and Live in us and by us 5. That we ought to Honour the Word the Will and the good Inspirations of GOD by which He would beget us Spiritually and make us new Creatures who may live long on the Land which He shall give us that is enjoy Life Eternal 6. That we ought not to Kill in us the Image of GOD take away the spiritual Life from our Souls by our sins nor kill the Soul of our neighbours by the examples of an Heathenish worldly and wicked life 7. That we ought not to serve our selves of any creature for meer pleasure without necessity and without having allowance from the will of GOD This is that which constitutes the Whooredom of of the heart Jam 4.3 4. 8. That we ought not to steal from GOD to whom every thing doth appertain either our affections or our life or our time or goods or labour in imploying them any other way then for him 9. That of our selves and without the Light of GOD we ought not to Judge of any person For otherwayes being as we are in darkness we will Judge falsly and sin grivously against GOD. 10. That being content with what we have we ought not to desire any more for

practice of the Parents that so by means of their Holy examples and diligent instructions and by the Blessing of GOD upon their Pious Endeavours these great Truths may be savingly imparted to and inculcated on their Children The Pious Author having been importuned by a Great and Worthy Friend of his to give directions how to mannage aright the Education of Children though for some time he declined to comply to this request Yet in end he was prevailed with to impart his Thoughts but still without any design of making them publick till at last it was concluded that it would greatly serve the interests of all Conscientious Instructers of Youth to have such an excellent Help put in their hands The Author addressed these Directions to his Friend in the Form and confined himself to the Bounds of a Letter whereby he was obliged not to draw out his Thoughts to any great length and so gives but the Elements or first principles of a Christian Education However the principles which he hath laid down as they are True and Genuine so they are Fertile and Comprehensive and capable to suggest to all attentive and penetrating Minds whatever is necessary to be known on this head But since few will be at the pains to make such Improvements of them and because some do stand in need of more dilated and ample Accounts Therefore the Reader may e're long by the Divine Blessing and Assistance expect a full and Copious System of Directions on the Subject of a Christian Education Which however are but Deductions from and Enlargements on the Principles here laid down In this larger Account the faults and miscarriages committed in the Education of Youth are declared particular Directions are given how to mannage this great Concern in all the instances of it to the best Advantage Powerful Motives are adduced to perswade Parents and all others concerned in the Religious Education of Youth to put what is recommended to them on this head in practice And in fine a great many excellent necessary and yet little observed Truths are through the whole insisted on Mean while Christian Reader Converse with these Principles read and digest them They deserve some of thy most recollected Thoughts and thou shalt never I hope have cause to repent of imploying a few of thy moments in turning over the following pages and that thy Reading may profit and edifie thee I shall begg pardon before I close to entreat a few things of thee One is That thou Read with closs Attention and not content thy self with a superficial glance Next that thou do not reject what thou dost not at first understand but vouchsafe it a review And in fine and especially that thy Perusal be attended with a serious Disposition for otherwise all will be to little purpose nay I must plainly tell thee that if thou art not resolved to deny thy self to take up the Cross and follow Christ some things here will choak thee For corrupt Nature will fly in the Face of what grates hard upon it and pinches it And the old Man cannot endure to be roughly treated But on the other hand if thou designes to be a votary of the Spirit Cross of the Holy Jesus if thou art one that worships God in Spirit and places Religion not in outward Formes and Circumstances but in Righteousness Peace and Purity in Life and Power Then what is here offered to thee will prove savory and relishing and the more the Truths here presented to thee will choak and contradict thy corrupt self Still the more agreeable they will be And thou wilt find such solid pleasure and Tranquillity in the practice of them thy self that thou will be prompted to propagate and recommend them to all others on whom thou canst hope to have any influence And O may the Good GOD turn the Hearts of the Fathers unto the Children and the Hearts of the Children to their Fathers and the Disobedient to the Wisdom of the Just * Mal 4.6 Luke 1.17 And Second with his effectual Blessing and Grace whatever is sincerly designed to serve the Interest of Souls AMEN THE Authors Advertisement TO THE READER FAthers and Mothers and all you to whom the Education of Children is intrusted if you understood well the Importance of that Charge you would easily discern that all your other Affairs your Imployments your Businesses your Concerns your Goods and your Care to get them and to keep them are but nothings or but meer triffles in comparison of it The least of these Souls whereof you are oblidged to take care is of such a Value that the Son of GOD hath esteemed it more than his own Life Your work is to educate them for Heaven or for hell and accordingly if you educate them well you shall together with them as a Recompence of your Labours enjoy a happy Eternity or endless miseries if you neglect them even though otherwise you may have lived unblameably as to your own Persons without mentioning any thing of the curses of this Life which fall on such as do not fairly acquite themselves of this duty The holy Scripture lets us see that the high Priest Eli though otherwayes a Good Man yet not having effectually enough resisted and curbed the wicked inclinations of his Sons was punished for it with Death both he and his Children the whole people routed the Ark taken and all his priestly Family exterminated It is to be feared that the Callamities which overwhelm Christendome owe their Original also to this For Men do not take care to educate their Children by any other principle but that by which they have begotten them I mean by the impulse of a purely carnal Concupiscence whereas they ought to be acted in the whole from a Principle of Divine Love which prompts and influences us to desire that there may be yet other Creatures with us which might joyn and unite with us in Eternally Loving and Honouring the Majesty of GOD. But alace this is it of which Men take but very little thought and there are but few who seriously design to form Creatures who professing and living agreeably unto the great Name of Christian in this World should be worthy of GOD and his Eternity here after Since the following Letter Aims only at this design it was believed that to render it publick would be a beneficial Performance and greatly tend to the Advantage of whosoever will incline to make the designed Use and Improvement of it whether with respect to Children or also with respect to themselves how aged soever they may be Because in effect the Truths that are contained in it are of so comprehensive and extended an Use that at the bottom they do no less agree to the adult and aged for all their Life throughout than to Children for their first years And since according to the Words of JESUS CHRIST We must become little Children in order to inherit the Kingdom of GOD Since the Perfection which the