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	sin_n	world_n	2,522	5	4.6350	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41125	The sacrifice of the faithfull, or, A treatise shewing the nature, property, and efficacy of zealous prayer together with some motives to prayer, and helps against discouragements in prayer : to which is added seven profitable sermons / by William Fenner ...	Fenner, William, 1600-1640.	1648 (1648)	Wing F698; ESTC R478	35,874	88

even in the depth of miserie plunged over head and eares so that now I sinke and perish if thou helpe not Lord hear my praier This desperation a Christian must have this quickens up his Spirits and puts life into him but take heede of the desperation of Infidelity Saint Austen saith it is the murtherer of the soule the spice of it will eate out the heart of a man and kill the strength of all his endeavours I should now come to apply this doctrine but I feare me there be many amongst us that never come so farre towards heaven as to know what these discouragements meane This is lamentable It is true discouragements are hideous cases in praier and a man may perish and goe to hell that hath them but yet they are some-what profitable signes that a man doth at the least looke a little towards God or else he could not know what they are But there are abundance that never have attained so farre in religion as to understand what they meane but goe on in drinking whoring carding and dicing hating and malicing fretting and chafing mocking coveting swearing and blaspheming in security in hardnes of heart and impenitencie they are more carefull for their doggs for their potts and for their tables and for their shops then they are of their soules And which is enough to astonish any that is godly these men scarce finde any discouragements in praier O they have a good courage to pray at all times O say they God forbid that any man should be discouraged in praier I thanke God I have a good hope in God God hath given me a good heart of grace to call upon him and I make no question but that God heares me God would never bid us to pray if he did not meane to heare us Beloved these men that are so bold in the goodnes of their hearts to call upon God they never as yet praied in all their lives all the praiers of the wicked are indeede no praiers Daniel confessing the sinnes of wicked Judah saith though all this evill be come upon us yet made we not our prayer to turne from our wicked wayes Dan. 9. 13. all the time of those seventy yeares Daniel saith they never made praier to God yet they fasted every yeare and praied every day twise every day at the least which would amount in that time to 50000 and 100 prayers how then could Daniel say they never made one praier I answer and pray marke it because they never did quite turne from their evill waies Though thou makest never so many praiers though thou boastest of the goodnesse of thy condition and snatchest at the Promises of God yet if thou turnest not from thine iniquities thou never as yet mad'st any praier by the Judgement of God himselfe Paul made many thousand praiers before his conversion he could not have beene a Pharise else but they were never accounted praiers to him therefore as soon as ever he was converted behold saith God he prayeth Acts 9. A wicked man a carnall Christian though he have the righteousnesse of Saint Paul before his conversion of living blamlesse unreproveable in respect of the outward righteousnesse of the Law yet he can never make an acceptable prayer till he be truely converted his praiers are no better then howling of dogs or lowing of Oxen yea the Lord abhorrs them O what poore incouragements canst thou have seeing the Lord never tallies downe any of thy prayers wicked men are like Ulysses who wept more for the death of his dogge then of his wife so wicked men weepe and mourne for the losse of their corne and their cattle hawkes and houndes cardes and dice but never for the losse of their praiers So long as thou continuest in thy prophanesse and impenitency thou losest all thy praiers there is not one of them that God tallies downe or reckons for a praier Here we might have a great deale of matter if time would suffer me But it will not onely let me tell you I speake onely to those whose hearts God hath awakened out of their sinnes but who are oft discouraged take heede of these discouragements For first they will drive thee to melancholy Beloved there are a great many melancholy men in the world and this is the cause of it men are contented to be converted by halves because they are discouraged in the worke If thou suffer thy selfe to be discouraged it will care up thy spirit and thou wilt be like a silly dove without a heart Prov. 7. 11. A dove is a melancholy creature that hath no heart to any thing so Ephraim hath no heart to call upon God no heart to returne unto God and this is the cause that men and women goe whineing and mourning under the burden of sin and are not able to come out because of discouragements all the policie of hell is lesse then this policy of the divell in driving men to despair or discouragements this doth more hurt then al the rest of hel besides Secondly if you doe not take heede of them they will bring you to speake against God I have prayed but the Lord will not heare me I have called and the Lord will not answer but hath turned away his eares from me Now thou speakest against God Num. 21. 4 5. The soule of the people was much discouraged and the people spake against God and against Moses saying Wherefore have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wildernesse for here is neither bread nor water and our soule loatheth this light bread So beloved if we suffer our soules to be discouraged we shall soone come to murmure against God wherefore hath he brought me up to this strictnes and precisensse when I was a drunkard a worldling when I followed the lust of my flesh and Liberty then I enjoed onnions garlicke and the flesh-pots of Egypt pleaures and delights for my soule then I had a good hope in God and a good perswasion that my soul should goe to heaven and then Preachers told me that if I would give over such and such sinnes and looke after Heaven a little more and doe such and such things O then I should come to a Land flowing with milke and honey then I should not misse of glory and salvation But alas I see nothing but Gyants and Anakims I am in a wildernesse now now I see a man have a great deal of repentance and yet be a cast-away A man may have a great deal of faith yet be but a reprobate A man may give over a great many sins and yet perish in hell now I see a man may live civilly and well and have do a great many good things and yet be damned when he hath done all A man may even goe to Heaven Gates and yet the gates be shut against him and he turned into hell Alas my poore soule is in a wildernesse now I know not which way to goe I am ready

earth no word no commandement no threatning condemnes him But if thy conscience condemne thee and tell thee thou lettest sin lie at the dore rapping at thy conscience day after day and month after month telling thee that yet thou art without Christ that yet thou never hadst any true faith in the Lord Jesus that yet thou hast not truely repented and turned from thy sinnes this will at last drive thy soule into heavie discouragements if not into finall despaire O beloved religion and piety and the power of godlinesse goe downe the winde every where What is the reason of it but because of these discouragements that men live and go in Men pray and pray and their prayers profit them not men run up and downe and come to the Church and heare the Word and receive the Sacraments and use the meanes of grace but to no end they are unprofitable to them they remaine in their sinnes still the ordinances of God bring them not out of their lusts and corruptions hereby they disgrace and discredit the ordinances of God in the eyes and account of the men of the world making them thinke as if there were no more power nor force in the Ordinances of God then these men manifest There is no life in many Christians mens spirits are discouraged these secret discouragements in their hearts take away their spirits in the use of the meanes that though they use the meanes yet it drives them to despaire of reaping good or profit by them Beloved I could here tell you enough to make your hearts ake to heare it First all your complaints they are but winde Job 6. 26. doe you imagine to reprove words and the speeches of one that is desperate which are as winde Jobs friends taking Job to be a man of despaire they accounted all his words but as winde Doest thou nestle any discouragement in thy heart thou maist complaine of sinne as much as thou canst yet all thy complainings are but as winde thou maist cry out against thy corruptions with weeping and teares and pray and fight against them and yet all thy weeping mourning and praying is but as the winde thou maiest beg grace thou maist seeke after God thou maist heare the Word receive the Sacraments and yet all will be to thee as wind all will vanish be unprofitable not regarded Secondly discouragements drive us from the use of the meanes If ever we meane to come out of our sinnes if ever we meane to get grace and faith and assurance and zeale we must constantly use the meanes 1 Sam. 27. 1. David saith there is nothing better for me then that I should speedily escape into the Land of the Philistims and Saul shall despaire of me to seeke me any more David thought in himselfe if I can make him out of hope of finding me certainely he will give over seeking of me So when the soule hath any secret despaire of finding the Lord that soule will quickly be drawne from seeking of the Lord in the use of the meanes What ever you doe then O be not discouraged lest you be driven from the use of the meanes if you be driven from the use of the meanes woe is to you you will never finde God then Be not driven from praier nor driven from holy conference nor driven from the Word nor driven from the Sacrament nor from meditation nor from the diligent and strict examination of thy selfe of thy heart and of all thy waies for these are the waies of finding the Lord If you nourish any thoughts and feares of despaire in you if you be discouraged you will be driven from the use of the meanes which is a lamentable thing therefore be not discouraged Thirdly discouragements will make you stand poaring on your former courses thus I should have done and that I should have done woe is me that I did it not it will make a man stand poaring on his sinnes but never able to get out of them So it was like to be with them in the Ship with Paul Acts 27. 20. In the tempest at Sea they were utterly discouraged from any hope of safety now indeed Paul told them what they should have done if they had been wise Sirs you should have hearkned to me and not have loosed ver. 21. as if he had said you should have done thus and thus but now doe not stand poaring too much on that you should have hearkned to me and not have launched forth c. but that cannot be holpen now therefore I exhort you to be of good cheare c. So beloved when the soule is discouraged upon these thoughts I should have prayed better I should have heard the Word of God better and with more profit I should have repented better I should have performed this and that religious and good dutie better but ah wretch that I am I have sinned thus and thus it is alwaies looking on this sinne and that sinne this imperfection and that failing when now I say the soule is discouraged it will be alwaies poaring upon sinne but it will never come out of its sinne alwaies poaring upon its deadnesse and unprofitablenesse but never able to come out of it O beloved be of good cheare and be not discouraged it is true you should have prayed better you should have heard the Word of God better heretofore you should have been more carefull and circumspect of your wayes then you were but now you cannot helpe it these things and times are gone and cannot be recalled such a one hath been a drunkard a swearer a worldling c. but he cannot helpe it now True he might have helped it and because he did not his heart shall bleed for it if he belong to God but doe not stand poaring too much upon it but consider now what you have to doe now you are to humble your selfe now you are to strive with God in all manner of prayer for more grace and more power of obedience and assurance and be not discouraged Fourthly if the soule be discouraged it will breed nothing but sorrow What is the reason that many Christians are alwaies weeping and mourning and sighing and sobbing from day to day all their life time and will not be comforted because of these discouragements 1 Thes. 4. 13. Sorrow not saith the Apostle as those that have no hope as if he had said sorrow if you will but do not sorrow as they that have no hope How is that it is a sorrow with nothing but sorrow from which they have no hope of inlargement or freedome O then my brethren suppose you have dead hearts suppose you want zeale you want assurance suppose it be so yet labour to attaine these graces sorrow and spare not weepe and mourne and powre out whole buckets of teares for your sinnes if you can but sorrow not with nothing but sorrow be not discouraged suppose that thou hast a dead heart that thou art an hypocrite that thou hast a rotten heart it is a heavie thing and a fearefull case indeed for which thou hast great cause of humiliation and sorrow but yet sorrow not desperately as men without hope be not wholly discouraged but as you sorrow for your sins so also labour with incouragement to get out and be rid of your sins Fifthly discouragements breed and procure a totall perplexity They leave the soule in a maze that it knowes not whether to turne it selfe When men come to be discouraged Oh what shall I doe saith one I am utterly undone saith another I know not what will become of me saith a third Oh I am utterly lost I shall perish one day one day God will discover me and be avenged on me for this and that sin I were as good go to hell at the first as at the last for that will be the end of me I have gon to prayer but that doth not helpe me I have gone to Sacraments but I finde no helpe still my soule lies under the power of sinne still my sinnes are as strong in me as ever Thus the soule is discouraged and cryes out Oh what shall I doe I know not what to doe What shall I doe sayest thou Alas thou hast things enough to doe if thou wert not discouraged Utterly undone No man thou mightest see that thou art not utterly undone but that thou art discouraged Dost thou not know what will become of thee yea poore soule there is mercy grace and peace for thee if thou wilt not be discouraged Sixthly discouragements whisper within a man a sentence of death and an impossibility of escaping As far as the discouragement of life goeth so farre goeth the sentence of death We despaired of life and had the sentence of death in our selves saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 1. 8. 9. he despaired of life in himself and therefore had the sentence of death in himselfe this was good but he did not despaire of life in God for then he should have had likewise the sentence of death from God in his conscience If you despaire in the Lord you have the sentence of death and damnation from God in your conscience take heed of this my beloved be not discouraged in God do not despaire in the Lord that will worke a miserable effect in your soules it will secretly whisper a sentence of damnation in your soules It is strange to consider how many poore soules rub on with these whispering sentences in their bosomes suffering their consciences day by day to tell them that they are rotten to tell them that they were never yet converted to tell them that they are yet in the state of damnation and yet they will not root out these discouragements O goe to the Throne of grace beg for grace and for mercy and for power against sinne and be not discouraged What wilt thou carry thy owne sentence of death in thy brest if thou wilt not rouze up thy soule and pray with more affection and confidence and shake off discouragements take heed lest thou carry the sentence of thy own death and damnation in thy bowels O therefore once more let me beseech you to take heed of these discouragements and now hearken to the voice of God which calleth upon you feare not Thou drewest nigh in the day that I called upon thee thou saidst feare not FINIS Object Answ Use Object Answ Object Answ Object Answ Doct. Quest Answ