Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	world_n	young_a	youth_n	71	3	8.0232	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93395	The Christians guide to devotion with rules and directions for the leading an holy life : as also meditations and prayers suitable to all occasions / S. Smith.	Smith, Samuel, 1588-1665.	1685 (1685)	Wing S4164A; ESTC R43930	141,697	240

get rid of that we should gain all but if it continue the Master it 's in vain we strive to become devout And therefore I destin'd this third part to make such considerations therein as may if possible ruine that grand Enemy of Devotion Certain it is Man was born for Pleasure since he was created to be happy and happiness consists in the Possession of Good and the sense of that Possession makes Pleasure The sovereign good of man consists in the Sole possession and absolute fruition of God and in being united immediately and after a most intimate manner unto him And Pleasure ought to spring from this strict and close Union with the Divinity This Union is made by Knowledge and by Love and pleasure arises from thence that God applies himself to the Soul by infolding it in the Arms of his goodness and Beauty and that he fills it with the light and joy of his countenance Sin has so far infeebled this Union of our Soul with God that it hath no more sense of its pleasures Your Sins have put a seperation between you and your God and it is like a thick cloud that eclipses the Sun as to us Whose comfortable beams would raise so much joy within us The Soul has kept this sentiment that it was born for Joy and Pleasure insomuch as being disunited from its God it intirely turns its self to the Body and its Pleasures and the stricter it is united to these the farther off it is from them The ligament of this union o' th' Soul to the body is Corporal Pleasure and proportionably as this pleasure tyes the Soul to the Body so it disunites it from God so that sensual pleasures cause this Disunion and this Disunion is propperly Indevotion which we would destroy for most assuredly Devotion is that motion of the Soul whereby she returns to her Principle and to the fruition of those pleasures that spring from her union with God Let worldly people take the pains to consult their own heart and that will tell them what we are about to say They well perceive that the reason why they cannot dispose themselves to Prayer to the love and Service of God is because they are posses'd by their passions and inchanted by the delusions of Sense That is to say they are absolutely turned toward sensual pleasures and wholly taken up in them The Soul is pinch'd and contracted the mind is bounded when its full of the World and its vanities so that we need not wonder if God who will have the Soul intire find no room therein Indeed a very difficult work this is we undertake to persuade that those who would become Devout ought to renounce worldly pleasures Although the Corruption of them be extreme we do not place all pleasures in the same rank we distinguish them into two orders There are those which are call'd excesses enormities and crimes but these the World abandons and has not the face to defend There are others styled innocent Pleasures Dancing Play good Chear great Meals Feasts Play-houses Shows vain Conversations the commerce of Gallantry and Intrigues that are the guides to criminal Amours The Church distinguishes Pleasures as well as the World Both agree that there are Innocent ones But the Church puts the greatest part of those which the World upholds to be innocent into the number of criminal pleasures Voluptuosness is an Idol to which the World Sacrifices both young and old Men and Women Children and old Men great and small rich and poor all ages both Sexes all conditions have their Pleasures Insomuch much as if we go according to suffrages we should lose the Cause Especially Young men cannot indure one should takeaway the use of Pleasure they persuading themselves that youth is predestinately consecrated to it The Painters and Poets that contribute to marr and vitiate Mens minds represent Voluptuousness to us like a young Woman or Man laid upon a Bed of flowers environed with all the Objects which are bodily pleasures The Passions that are wholly carnal and have a strait Aliance and Correspondence with the Senses are in boiling youth The Flesh all brisk active and vigorous having received no manner of Mortification Hectors and Domineers with insolence Whereupon young men follow the furies of their Temper and Crasis The sentiments of Piety and the habits of Virtue are not to be found naturaly in them So that reason destitute of this Succour is easily vanquish'd by the Passions We may say also that Reason in this age conspires with the Passions and serves only to push on young people into the greatestexcess and extravagences After their own fashion they reason they are persuaded that wisdom and prudence doe not become them they say that these properly belong to old men and thus abuse the saying of the Wise-man To every thing under the Heaven there is a season If any one has more happy inclinations he is not so hardy as to follow them he is stricken with a criminal shame he would not have himself markt out for a singular Fop He cast himself into the crowd and lets himself be carrieds away with the stream And even those who are reputed Wise in the World if they dare not authorize these Irregularities at least they excuse them They are young say they they will come to it at length we must allow somwehat to Age we are not born wise we were such as they are they may be one day what we are But alas we do not stay there we do not renounce Pleasures as we leave our youthful years behind us the love of Voluptuousness is a malady we carry along with us thorough all Ages We go as slow as possibly or to speak better we go on not at all Old Age and Sickness pull men sometimes away by violence from Pleasure but we seldom view those that voluntarily divest themselves of worldly pleasures This is the most uncommon of all Sacrifices How many Women do we see that would hold out even against time and foreslow themselves from being carried off the Stage They forget nothing that may contribute to conserve the air of youthfulness They would deceive Men and I know not whether or no they hope to deceive Death it self They would evermore be the object of the Worlds care and have a part in all its Pleasures When old age is come and has lain its Characters open in their meen they draw a Skreen before it to render it invisible You see these Women Idolatresses of the World to bury their head under an heap of Powder that they may confound the whiteness of their gray hairs with this adulterated and strange whiteness They fill the dints and hollows of their countenances with cousening Ceruse they shadow the wrinkles of their forehead with false hair and paints and in which they are most prudent they imbalm their Bodies and cover them with Perfumes to corrupt the ill odours that arise from the Carkasses In this equipage

Exercises The last Source of Indevotion THE foregoing Obstacles I confess are very strong and the love of the World its Pleasures its Troubles its Employments and the Ramblings of the Mind are such evils as are hard to be remedied But nevertheless I believe that we may come to an end in labouring about them with much care and affiduity For the most evident Cause of our Indevotion is the seldomness and Interruption of holy Exercises Certain it is that spiritual Pleasures are diametrically opposite to carnal ones The rareness only and the difficulty render these brisk and eager The tast of Pleasure we lose amidst Delights And assoon as the Pleasures of the World have lost the Grace of Novelty they have lost their Value Yesterday a Begger counted himself happy with a small sum To day he finds a greater And to morrow he will be no more sensible of his felicity If great Repasts be made at a pretty distance of time from one another the pleasure of the Debauch will be somthing to you return to 'em every day seeing that this will be called an Ordinary the pleasure of feasting will quite cease but on the other side return often to God reiterate your commerces with him and sure I am what appeared at the beginning unsavoury will become a pleasurable exercise But if you do this rarely you will immediately lose the taste The reason of this mystery is not difficult to be discovered It is because Piety and its exercises are by us esteemed Labours by reason of the criminal dispositions which Sin brings us Now labour evermore is diminishing according to the measure wherein we continue it The Traveler is weary at the end of his first days Journey on the morrow he will be much less before two days are over his Journey will be a mighty trouble to him but such an one as will have proportion to his strength and in few Weeks it will become to him a divertisement By violence at first we bring our Soul to God it follows with uneasiness It thinks the way uneven sharp and craggy but by little and little this Travel ceases to be a pain and blessedly changes it self into pleasure Is it not true that the less we do a thing we do it not so well The Vertues are habits and tho Heaven bestow 'em upon us by powring them within our Souls it notwithstanding gives us them much in the same manner as we acquire them by divers reiterateed actions Wherefore as no one is a Good Souldier for his having been in one Campaign nor a Painter for his having had two or three Lessons So the Devout do not become so by one or two actions of Piety but by long and frequent exercises This is a Warr wherein we have to fight against our thoughts against the hardness of our own thick Icy heart At the first and second rencounter we are beaten oftentimes so that at all bouts we must return to the charge Indevotion is a monster which we are oblig'd to mortifie by little and little for that we cannot kill it all at once To day we ought to get one foot of it and to morrow another but if we let it get breath never so little it will soon regain what it had lost When we shall have come to destroy it almost intirely let us not imagin that Assiduity will be the less necessary For if the rareness of devout exercises hinders their progress let Devotion be never so much advanc'd the interruption and relaxation will destroy it We may understand an art perfectly well but if we don't exercise it it is forgot Above all when we fight against our own inclinations for a little abandoning them to their Bent we shall find 'em again in the place from whence we removed them Our heart hath such a slopeness towards Sin as one can't imagin and especially towards Indevotion Let it be fortified with the best habits in the World and let it be thoroughly confirmed in them yet one inflaming thought coming across presently will set it all on fire and choak the flames of Devotion by those of concupiscence If the heart be so easy to be burnt by the fire of Sin it is on the contrary very heavy and cold as to Devotion insomuch as after having been lifted up to Heaven by Machines and great struglings the interruption of a few days will spoil all and bring it down again to its old Earth To prove this truth I desire nothing but the testimony of fincere Souls If some wordly Affairs and some hinderances to which you have given the name of unavoidable have estranged you for sometime from the place of religious worship and have made you lose your Closet-hours at first this you doe with some sort of pain but insensibly you accustom your selves to it and when you would return to the practise of Devotion and the exercise of Prayer you do not know your selves any longer and you feel an inconceivable heaviness in your selves The Conscience resembles the Stomach cease to give it meat and after much abstinence it will cease to ask it Do but stay a little longer and if you give it food it will not know what to do with it it cannot now digest it it has lost all its natural heat its forces are quite spent and doing no more of its wonted Offices it will leave the body for Food to Worms So the Conscience loses an habit of Devotion by ceasing from its works and the Soul dies in its crimes and Sins In short Devotion is a Virtue that puts all the faculties of our Souls into motion as one Spring makes all the rest in a Clock to move Wind up this Clock without discontinuance 't will all go easily but if you cease the Wheels will rust all will become heavy and mightily unfit for movement Let the exercises of Piety be constantly going on and the Soul will conserve a Disposition to devout motions if they be interrupted it will bring a nastiness into all the parts of the Soul which will deprive it of an easiness to move towards Heaven These are the Sources of our Indevotion and the Indispositions of Soul which we ought to heal to open unto us a way to this excellent Virtue Others too we may find of them but they will cast us into two general considerations As for example Who can doubt that the languishings of our Soul do not proceed from the weakness of our Faith Hope or Charity If we were strongly persuaded that there is a God in Heaven that knows our though's and considers all our ways that is called King of Men and Angels opening Hell and Paradice should we not present our selves before him with a Spirit of due dread and submission But alass we believe after such a manner as God hath need to help our unbelief To be devout we need only become Faithful and therefore the Fathers found no counsel more useful to guard us from Distractions than this