Selected quad for the lemma: sense_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
sense_n	body_n	life_n	soul_n	11,671	5	5.9298	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61277	A sermon concerning God's deferring to answer mens prayers: preached before the King and Queen at White-Hall, November the 11th, 1694. / by George Stanhope ...	Stanhope, George, 1660-1728.	1695 (1695)	Wing S5228; ESTC R34594	13,228	34

such comprehensive Terms and with so peculiar a Character of the Petitioners Virtue give us great reason to conclude that as the first Refusals were not out of any real Unkindness so the following Compliance was either occasioned or enlarged however by means of that Faith which our Lord so highly extols And then the most effectual Course to answer the Design of this whole Passage both with regard to the particular Case before us and to our own Prayers in general of which this Case is set here as a Pattern will be to treat of the Words under the Three following Heads I. First To assign some Reasons why God delays the giving what we ask for some time though he do not intend absolutely and altogether to with-hold it from us II. Secondly To show what Qualifications are requisite in our Prayers to render them Effectual and Successful notwithstanding and after such Delays And III. Thirdly To consider how God's being wrought upon by Prayers so qualified is confistent with the standing Order of Providence and the Unchangeableness of the Divine Nature and Counsels I. First I am to render some account why God delays the giving what we ask for some time though he do not intend as the Event of this Story plainly proves absolutely and altogether to with-hold it from us And of this we may gather two very substantial Reasons from the Case now under our Consideration 1. The first is That these Delays enhance and add to the Blessing when we do at last receive it The Satisfaction Men take in what they possess is not always proportioned either to the real Value of the Things themselves or the Want the Persons have of them or the Advantages they reap from them but depends chiefly upon the Sense and Disposition of their own Minds The most valuable Enjoyments are sometimes utterly lost and thrown away because they are slighted and over-look'd Our Necessities are not always duly understood and when they are not so the most seasonable Reliefs will be sure to fall very low in our Esteem So that to give a true relish to any Happiness the principal and most necessary Work is to possess the Soul with a right Notion of its Indigent State and the urgent occasion we have for it And according to this Notion our Resentments will be more or less Grateful and the Gift more or less Welcome when we have attained it This seems to be the very Reason why those Blessings which lye in common to all the World are so little set by because scarce any body considers the Benefit of That which is open and easie to every body It comes without our Seeking and therefore it passes by without our Observing too Matt. v. 45. The Sun shines alike on the Evil and on the Good and the Rain descends as liberally on the Unjust as on the Just The kindly returns of Day and Night and Heat and Cold seem to be fix'd by Laws of Nature and are usually tempered in Order and Measure And though the Advantage of these things be Unspeakable yet because it is Universal and Uniform we grow wanton in the Enjoyment and are but very lightly affected with the Convenience of them to us And if this be the Condition of those Blessings that are absolutely necessary to preserve the World and sustain this Life of which we are so immoderately fond how much more may we be expected to disesteem those others that are only Additional Comforts and tend not to the Support so much as the Delight of Mankind Herein then is One great Good of Afflictions such as justifies both the Wisdom and the Kindness of God in appointing them that they help us to discern something particular in our own case and awaken us into a Sense of our Wants and by the Deliverance recommend God's Goodness infinitely more to us than uninterrupted Prosperity could ever have done Health is the same in it self when constant as when restored and Preservation the very same when nothing hath threatned our Safety But yet every Man naturally entertains a Recovery from Sickness and an Escape from Danger with a more Sensible Pleasure than if those Difficulties had never happened to him and feels his Soul more powerfully wrought upon to be Thankful than if he had never found occasion to fear or to complain at all And all This seems to depend upon One Cause which is That in this Body we lead Lives of Sense as well as Reason and cannot therefore consider things always Abstractedly and as they are in their own Nature but must judge of them as they appear to us And those Appearances are generally but Cold and Feeble except some visible Change of our Affairs alter the present Habit of our Minds and leave a strong and lively Impression upon us And then the longer such Impressions last the lower we are reduced and the greater the Alteration is the better still shall we taste and value that Mercy which restores us to our former Ease and Happiness again Now if this be the Condition of those things which make the Subject of our Prayers it must needs be so with our Prayers themselves too For One great End of Praying is to publish our Wants and to seek Relief and Supplies suitable to them to bewail our Miseries and to implore the Divine Favour and Assistance And because this is sometimes done coldly and of course only God holds his Hand till we feel the Smart and are brought to a due sight of our Circumstances by being pinched under them Thus he aggravates and prolongs our Sorrows 't is true but withall he magnifies the Mercy which turns our Heaviness into Joy A Joy that we should either not have felt or have felt but very slightly if the Deliverance had prevented or met our first Wishes and the Burden had never gauled or weighed us down at all So necessary is it according to the present Constitution of Humane Nature that Men should be taught Wisdom at their own Expence and that God should sometimes restrain the Overflowings of his Bounty for our Good That so by hindring his Blessings from becoming Easie he may prevent that greater Mischief the Sin of their becoming Cheap and Contemptible to us This single Consideration of working us up to a right Apprehension and a just Estimate of the Benefits Prayer obtains for us is sufficient to acquit God of any Unkindness and reconcile us to all the Difficulties and Delays we can meet with from him He gives as he pleases and he knows best when as well as what to give He defers not because he grudges the Gift but only waits the most proper Season that he may give when it will be most Acceptable and when we are best prepared to Receive and to Relish and to Improve by the Favour But yet this is not all For when I say that such Delays add to the Blessing my meaning is not only that they heighten it in our Opinion but that they