Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	answer_v	young_a	youth_n	17	3	8.2440	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44515	Delight and judgment: or, a prospect of the great Day of Judgment and its power to damp, and imbitter sensual delights, sports, and recreations. By Anthony Horneck, D.D.	Horneck, Anthony, 1641-1697.	1684 (1684)	Wing H2824A; ESTC R215360	126,341	401

sight will that be when I shall behold with astonishment and joy so many Kings whom their flatterers placed among the Stars sighing in outward darkness with Jupiter and their parasites So many Persecutors of the Christian name melting in insulting flames So many Philosophers with their Disciples who gave out that God was careless of the affairs of this lower World trembling before Christs Tribunal At that time I shall know Tragoedians by their loud cry in misery Stage-players by their being tormented by fire more than other men the Charioteers in the publick Games by their being red upon a flaming wheel and the Mimick by his being tossed in sheets of fire Thus far that excellent man whom St. Cyprian exactly imitates And certainly he that hath the same sense of Religion that he had cannot but be of the same opinion So that it is for want of searching and diving into the Nature of Christianity and what is more for want of feeling the power of Religion that makes men speak in vindication of Plays and interludes What a pittiful shift is it to say that great good may be gained by them when it is plain that the evil which ensues upon them doth signally preponderate and outweigh the pretended benefit What if a moral saying or a witty sentence or an ingenious Apophthegm lie scattered here and there among the rubbish will that grain of goodness counterballance a whole talent of ill that 's seen there or got by seeing it some have been so vain as to give out that they may learn as much by a Play as by a Sermon but not to mention that such persons spiritual appetite is extremely vitiated while they continue in this opinion they 'l never be much edified either by a Play or a Sermon and till they have a nobler opinion of Gods Ordinance it 's just with God to suffer the Devil to lead them Captive at his will And what are the mighty advantages men get by the representations of the Stage May be they learn to court a Mistress well or the vanities they see there serve them to maintain a loose discourse or it enables them to make the company merry but are these things that tend to reformation of life and manners Who ever learned to abandon a sin he is addicted to by seeing its punishment on the Stage Or who ever thought himself obliged to practise that vertue which he sees Acted on the Theater except it be to resent an affront that 's offer'd him and to know how to maintain the punctilio's of honour and bravery And are these Christian vertues Are these the graces that must make us glorious in the sight of God such arguments are signs of a desperate cause and tacit accusations of the illness of the thing since the aprons that cover it are made of Figg-leaves And what if some Plays be more innocent and not so profane as others if I go to one doth not my example encourage men to go and see those which are more loose and wanton If I mean to discourage sin in others by my actions I must not give them occasion to do that which is evil Sensual Men distinguish not betwixt the more harmless and the more hurtful and if I encourage the one by my presence I encourage the other too and if by my example I approve of the Players profession in one thing I approve of it in another too and harden them in their folly not to mention that my seeing the more harmless as I call them will in time intice me to see the more profane for sin is catching and one vanity draws on another and from the lesser we run to greater and when the horrour of sin is once abated in our minds the things which are most contrary to Christianity begin to appear harmless and thus the Soul glides insensibly into darkness and eternal misery That which you use to pretend sometimes that there are Divines of the Church of England who approve of these shews hath nothing of validity in it for suppose there were some who allow of these vanities doth it therefore follow that the Church of England doth encourage them The opinions of some Divines are not the standard of our Church nor are the private sentiments of a few men prescriptions for her to go by The Church of England hath no where declared so much and as long as the Church is silent it 's presumption to interpret the fond opinions of some men as her Rule and Doctrine How can our Church countenance such things that professes strict adherence to the Word of God and looks upon the judgments of men that are contrary to it as Heterodox and Erroneous At this rate you might as well argue that because some Divines have been seen at a Play that therefore they have encouragement from the Doctrine of our Church The Doctrine of a Church is one thing and the practice of some of her pretended members is another The Churches case would be very hard if she were to answer for all the misdemeanours of her seeming Votaries and who knows not how in all Churches the professors generally deviate from the rules that are extant in their Books and Canons But after all it 's worth enquiring whether those Divines you speak of be of the graver or the younger sort that some young men who want experience and perhaps a lively sense of Religion should be taken with these shews I do not wonder but who takes raw youths and such as think any thing great and good that 's witty and serves to tickle the fancy who takes such men for judges in an affair of this importance As to the graver sort I doubt you 'l find none or but very few that are favourers of these spectacles or if they do declare at any time that if Plays were reduced to their true decorum they might be inoffensive from hence it will not follow that they countenance the common Tragedies and Comedies which so manifestly go beyond the limits of decency And what if you do go but now and then Doth your going but seldom justifie the action All that this excuse will amount to is only this that you do not sin so often as other men but doth this free you from the guilt or make you innocent in the sight of God How would you take it if a man should give you a box on the ear but now and then Or how would you resent it to have your good name taken away by a person not always but whenever his humour prompts him And from hence you may easily guess at the weakness of this exception and if you have that mean opinion of God that low esteem of his greatness as to think that to affront him but now then can do no harm you are unworthy to be his Disciple and judge your self unworthy of Eternal life But I am forced to go you say my Superiours command me to wait upon them to a Play and how

go out in a snuff and himself the object of Gods wrath and indignation and that makes him impart this sad memento to the Man who hath Blood and Youth and Strength enough to be vain and foolish Rejoyce O young Man in thy Youth and let thy Heart cheer thee in the days of thy Youth c. By way of Explication I must take notice of these few things 1. That the words young Man and Youth in Scripture especially in this Book are not only meant of that time we commonly allow to Youth which is from Ten or Fourteen to Twenty or Five and Twenty but include all that Age which is fit for action and the Hebrew words import so much being derived from a Root implying choice and election so that the time here aimed at is the chiefest time of our life or that time which any Man of sense would chuse for action 2. That those sentences which sound like exhortations are perfectly Ironical or spoke by way of derision as if we should say to a Man Go play the Fool burn thy Finger in the Candle and see what thou wilt get by it whereby we do not mean that he should do so but do rather express the silliness and simplicity of the thing to make him avoid it and such Ironical expressions or mocking exhortations are very frequent in Scripture as 1 Reg. 18.27 Cry aloud for he is asleep which is a kind of mocking the stupid Priests of Baal that called on a Stock or Stone so Jer. 49.11 Leave thy Fatherless Children and let thy Widows trust in me i. e. Ay go comfort thy self with this that I will take care of thy Fatherless Children and provide for thy Widows but thou shalt find thy self egregiously mistaken so here Rejoyce O young Man c. i. e. go play the Mad-man let thy sensual Appetite rove gratifie thy Flesh please thy besotted Heart fix thine Eyes on what Beauty thou thinkest fit sing care and reason and thy wits away and see what the Issue of all will be and so much is evident from the following words which are a bridle to all these extravagancies and the gall that embitters all these sweets and therefore the Chaldew Paraphrase justly turns these mock-exhortations into a serious Admonition walk in humility let not thine Eyes gaze upon that which is evil but be exceeding cautious and so the Septuagint walk spotless in the ways of thy Heart and not in the lust of thine Eyes 3. God brings a Man into Judgment two ways either by causing his Conscience to awake with horrour in this life and laying some other heavy affliction upon him and there is mercy in this process for this may yet lead the forlorn Soul to serious thoughts of repentance bring the pangs and throws of the New Birth upon her and deliver her into a New Creature Or where God intends a higher degree of wrath and indignation he lets the jovial sinner alone on this side Hell and the burthen shall not fall on him till he comes to look the angry Judg in the Face at which time as the Surprize will be greater so the horrour and anguish of mind which will seize on the sinner will like Nebuchadnezzars Furnace prove seven times hotter than ordinary upon which follows eternal despair and endless howling and gnashing of Teeth The result of all is this Proposition That the prospect of a future Judgment is enough to embitter all the sensual and carnal delights of Men particularly of young Men and to bring a damp upon the most Youthful and most jovial temper imaginable Not only the sense of the Text I have already laid down imports so much but there is this farther in it that the wise Man seems to couch his argument plainly thus do but take a view of that dreadful Judgment God is resolved to bring thy guilty Soul to and thou wilt not dare to indulge thy self in the mad rejoycings of thy Youth nor walk in the ways and after the fancies of thy corrupted Heart nor suffer thy wanton Eyes to fix on those objects from which God hath bid thee turn thy Face away You know the story of the Young Gallant who riding by a lonely Hermits Cell and finding the solitary Man very devout and fervent in Prayer and looking with a severe and mortified countenance called to him Father Father what a fool are you to debar your self of the charming refreshments and pleasures of this life and live here immured within Walls of Mud and Clay What if there should be no other World to what purpose is all this rigour and mortification The Hermit heard him and replyed Ay but Friend What if there should be one Where are you then What a Fool will you be then How will you wish that you had been in my condition The youngster startled at these words went home left his Women and his Swine his Lusts and dry Husks of bruitish delights and like the Prodigal became another Man The truth is we have seen this prospect of a future judgment have very strange effects upon a Man who was not apt to be frighted with sad Prognostications and that was Felix a Person who had drunk as deep of the stolen Waters of sensuality as any Man then living for he lay in the embraces of Drusilla who was another Mans Wife and enjoy'd that Beauty which his lustful appetite desired without lett or controul yet behold when St. Paul reasoned of temperance righteousness and judgment to come the Text saith Felix trembled The Sermon awakened the notions of Divine justice that were engraven on the Tables of his Heart made him uneasie put him into consternation and for the present forced him to loath the Bed where his abomination was wrought We are told of a custom in some Kingdom that the night before a Condemned Malefactor is to die a very shrill Trumpet sounds before the Prison Door which is a certain sign that he is to die next day and before whose Door soever the fatal Trumpet sounds over night no Prayers no Tears whatever condition he is of or whatever Figure he makes in the World can save him from being Executed It happen'd in process of time that the King who had made this Law after he had streamed out a considerable part of his life in extravagant actions on a sudden became serious was often seen to retire into his Closet gave strict order for extermination of all vices and though before he had doated on Mirth and Jests and sensual Satisfactions yet these were now all abandon'd and turn'd into a scene of gravity and sobriety such an alteration we must think must be a very strange surprize to Courtiers who impatient of this change and supposing it to be a fit of Melancholy took the freedom to ask him what the reason of this Reformation was The Kings Brother especially none of the most Religious sought often to divert him tempting him to see Shows and Plays and Women