Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	bless_a	feast_n	great_a	13	3	2.1295	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61943	Fragmenta aurea A collection of all the incomparable peeces, written by Sir John Suckling. And published by a friend to perpetuate his memory. Printed by his owne copies.	Suckling, John, Sir, 1609-1642.	1646 (1646)	Wing S6126A; ESTC R219681	147,585	358

day in which the World should perish by fire Lastly they had their Priests Temples Altars We have seen now the Parallel let us enquire whether those things they seem to have in common with us we have not in a more excellent manner and whether the rest in which we differ from all the world we take not up with reason To begin then with their Jupiter for all before were but little stealthes from Moses workes how much more like a Deity are the actions our stories declare our God to have done then what the Ethnick Authors deliver of theirs How excellently elevated are our descriptions of him Theirs looking as if they knew that power onely by their fears as their Statues erected to him declare for when he was Capitolinus he appeard with thunder when Latiaris besmear'd with blood when Feretrius yet more terrible We may ghesse what their conceptions were by the worship they gave him How full of cruelty were their sacrifices it being received almost through the whole world that gods were pleased with the blood of men and this custom neither the Grecian Wisdom nor Roman Civility abolished as appears by sacrifices to Bacchus Then the ceremonies of Liber Pater and Ceres how obscene and those daies which were set a part for the honour of the gods celebrated with such shews as Cato himself was ashamed to be present at On the contrary our services are such as not only Cato but God himself may be there we worship him that is the purest Spirit in purity of spirit and did we not beleeve what the Scriptures deliver from himfelf yet would our reason perswade us that such an Essence could not be pleased with the blood of beasts or delighted with the steam of fat and in this particular Christians have gone beyond all others except the Mahometans besides whom there has been no Nation that had not sacrifice and was not guilty of this pious cruelty That we have the same vertues with them is very true but who can deny that those vertues have received additions from Christianity conducing to mens better living together revenge of injuries Moses both took himself and allowed by the Law to others Cicero and Aristotle placed it in vertues quarter We extol patient bearing of injuries and what quiet the one what trouble the other would give the world let the indifferent judge Their justice only took care that men should not do wrong ours that they should not think it the very coveting severely forbidden and this holds too in chastity desire of a woman unlawfully being as much a breach of the commandement as their enjoying which shew'd not only the Christians care but wisdom to prevent ill who provided to destroy it where it was weakest in the Cradle and declared He was no lesse then a God which gave them these Laws for had he been but man he never would have provided or taken care for what he could not look into the hearts of Men and what he could not punish their thoughts What Charity can be produced answerable to that of Christians Look upon the Primitive times and you shall find that as if the whole World had been but a private Family they sent from Province to Province and from Places farre distant to Releeve them they never saw nor knew Now for the happinesse which they proposed if they take it as the Heathens understood it it was an Elizium a place of blessed shades at best but a handsom retirement from the troubles of this World if according to the duller Jewes Feastings and Banquettings for it is evident that the Sadduces who were great observer● of the Mosaical Law had but faint thoughts of any thing to come there being in Moses books no promises but of Temporal blessings and if any an obscure mention of eternity The Mahometans are no lesse sensual making the renewing of youth high Feasts a woman with great eyes and drest up with a little more fancie the last and best good Then the hell How gentle with the Heathens but the rowling of a stone filling of a sieve with water sitting before Banquets and not daring to touch them exercising the trade and businesses they had on earth with the Mahometans but a Purgatory acted in the grave some pains inflicted by a bad Angel and those qualified and mitigated too by an assisting good one Now for the Jewes as they had no hopes so they had no fears so that if we consider it rightly neither their punishments were great enough to deter them from doing ill nor their rewards high enough to invite men to strictnes of life for since every man is able to make as good a heaven of his own it were unreasonable to perswade him to quit that certain happines for an uncertainty whereas Christians with as much more noble consideration both in their heaven and hell took care not onely for the body but the soul and for both above mans apprehension The strangest though most Epidemical disease of all Religions has been an imagination men have had that the imposing painful and difficult things upon themselves was the best way to appease the Deity grosly thinking the chief service and delight of the Creator to consist in the tortures and sufferings of the Creature How laden with chargeable and unnecessary Ceremonies the Jews were their feasts circumcisions sacrifices great Sabbaths and little Sabbaths fasts burials indeed almost all their worship sufficiently declare and that the Mahometans are much more infected appeares by the cutting of the Praepuces wearing iron rings in the skin of their Fore parts launcing themselves with knives putting out their eyes upon the sight of their Prophets Tombe and the like Of these last we can shew no patterns amongst us for though there be such a thing as whipping of the body yet it is but in some parts of Christendom and there perchance too more smil'd at then practis'd Our Religion teacheth us to bear afflictions patiently when they fall upon us but not to force them upon our selves for we beleeve the God we serve wise enough to chuse his owne service and therefore presume not to adde to his commands With the Jews it is true we have somthing in common but rather the names then thinges Our Fasts being more the medicines of the body then the punishments of it spiritual as our Sabbaths both good mens delight not their trouble But least this discourse should swell into a greatnesse such as would make it look rather like a defence which I had labour'd to get then an accompt which I alwaies carry about me I will now briefly examine whether we beleeve not with reason those things we have different from the rest of the world First then for the perswasion of the truth of them in general let us consider what they were that conveigh'd them to us men of all the world the most unlikely to plot the cozenage of others being themselves but simple people without ends without designes seeking

The onely quarrel I have is that they have made use of the whole Book of Martyrs upon me and without all question the first Christians under the great persecutions suffered not in 500. years so many several waies as I have done in six daies in this lewd Town This Madam may seem strange unto you now who know the Company I was in and certainly if at that time I had departed this transitory World it had been a way they had never thought on and this Epitaph of the Spaniards changing the names would better have become my Grave-stone then any other my friends the Poets would have found out for me Epitaph Here lies Don Alonzo Slain by a wound received under His left Pappe The Orifice of which was so Small no Chirurgion could Discover it Reader If thou wouldst avoid so strange A Death Look not upon Lucinda'es eyes Now all this discourse of dying Madam is but to let you know how dangerous a thing it is to be long from London especially in a place which is concluded out of the World If you are not to be frighted hither I hope you are to be perswaded and if good Sermons or good Playes new Braveries or fresh Wit Revells Madam Masks that are to be have any Rhetorique about them here they are I assure you in perfection without asking leave of the Provinces beyond Seas or the assent of I write not this that you should think I value these pleasures above those of Milcot for I must here protest I preferre the single Tabor and Pipe in the great Hall far above them and were there no more belonging to a journey then riding so many miles would my affairs conspire with my desires your Ladyship should find there not at the bottom of a Letter Madam Your humble Servant Madam I Thank Heaven we live in an Age in which the Widdows wear Coulers and in a Country where the Women that lose their Husbands may be trusted with poison knives and all the burning coals in Europe notwithstanding the president of Sophonisba and Portia Considering the estate you are in now I should reasonably imagine meaner Physitians then Seneca or Cicero might administer comfort It is so far from me to imagine this accident should surprize you that in my opinion it should not make you wonder it being not strange at all that a man who hath lived ill all his time in a house should break a Window or steal away in the night through an unusual Postern you are now free and what matter is it to a Prisoner whether the fetters be taken off the ordinary way or not If insteed of putting off handsomly the chain of Matrimony he hath rudely broke it 't is at his owne charge nor should it cost you a tear Nothing Madam has worse Mine than counterfet sorrow and you must have the height of Womans Art to make yours appear other especially when the spectators shall consider all the story The sword that is placed betwixt a contracted Princesse and an Ambassador was as much a Husband and the onely difference was that that sword laid in the bed allowed one to supply its place this Husband denied all like a false Crow set up in a Garden which keeps others from the fruit it cannot taste it self I would not have you so much as enquire whether it were with his garters or his Cloak-bag strings nor ingage your self to fresh sighs by hearing new relations The Spanish Princesse Leonina whom Balzac delivers the Ornament of the last Age was wise who hearing a Post was sent to tell her her Husband was dead and knowing the Secretary was in the way for that purpose sent to stay the Post till the arrival of the Secretary that she might not be obliged to shed tears twice Of ill things the lesse we know the better Curiosity would here be as vain as if a Cuckold should enquire whether it were upon the Couch or a Bed and whether the Cavalier pulld off his Spurrs first or not I must confesse it is a just subject for our sorrow to hear of any that does quit his station without his leave that placed him there and yet as ill a Mine as this Act has 't was a-la-Romansci as you may see by a line of Mr. Shakespears who bringing in Titinius after a lost battel speaking to his sword and bidding it find out his heart adds By your leave Gods this a Romanes part 'T is true I think Cloak-bag strings were not then so much in fashion but to those that are not Sword-men the way is not so despicable and for my owne part I assure you Christianity highly governs me in the minute in which I do not wish with all my heart that all the discontents in his Majesties three Kingdoms would find out this very way of satisfying themselves and the world I. S. Sir SInce the setling of your Family would certainly much conduce to the setling of your mind the care of the one being the trouble of the other I cannot but reckon it in the number of my misfortunes that my affairs deny me the content I should take to serve you in it It would be too late now for me I suppose to advance or confirm you in those good resolutions I left you in being confident your own reason hath been so just to you as long before this to have represented a necessity of redeeming time and fame and of taking an handsome revenge upon your self for the injuries you would have done your self Change I confesse to them that think all at once must needs be strange and to you hateful whom first your owne nature and then custome another nature have brought to delight in those narrow and uncouth waies we found you in You must therefore consider that you have entred into one of those neer conjunctions of which death is the onely honourable divorce and that you have now to please another as well as your self who though she be a Woman and by the patent she hath from nature hath liberty to do simply yet can she never be so strongly bribed against her self as to betray at once all her hopes and ends and for your sake resolve to live miserably Examples of such loving folly our times afford but few and in those there are you shall find the stock of Love to have been greater and their strengths richer to maintain it than is to be feared yours can be Woman besides the trouble has ever been thought a Rent-charge and though through the vain curiosity of man it has often been inclosed yet has it seldom been brought to improve or become profitable It faring with marryed men for the most part as with those that at great charges wall in grounds and plant who cheaper might have eaten Mellons elsewhere then in their owne Gardens Cucumbers The ruines that either time sicknesse or the melancholy you shall give her shall bring must all be made up at your cost for that thing a