Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	good_a	holy_a	scripture_n	3,042	5	5.5201	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28519	A consolatory treatise of the four complexions, that is, an instruction in the time of temptation for a sad and assaulted heart shewing where-from sadness naturally ariseth, and how the assaulting happeneth : hereto are annexed some consolatory speeches exceeding profitable for the assaulted hearts & souls, written ... March 1621 / by the Teutonicall philosopher, Jacob Behmen.; Trost-Schrift von vier Complexionen. English	Böhme, Jakob, 1575-1624.; Hotham, Charles, 1615-1672?	1654 (1654)	Wing B3402; ESTC R19729	29,679	98

cometh he will lead you into all truth for he will take of mine and will make it known to you Now that thou mayest undoubtedly know that this temptation and terrour comes from the complexion I will lay before thee an example of that which happens especially to the Cholerick or firy and melancholy complexions When thou wakest by night in a dark room thou art seiz'd on with a strange kind of amazement and terror of mind and art subject to imagine that there is somewhat in the dark that affrights thee Whence now proceeds this fear Is the flesh affraid of any danger to it self no sure it would not without the force of blows be made to enter as an Oxe to the slaughter-house into that place of terror But t is the poor soul a prisoner in the flesh that is afraid in this darkness is ever sollicitous and fearfull lest the Devill should lay hold on her for she knowes that his dwelling is in the darkness and therfore fears he will be catching at her whence t is easy to be seen the fear proceeds from the imagination of the soul Thus goes it with a poor soul perpetually mur'd up in the dark chamber of the complexion she is so extremely out of heart that her thoughts cannot clear up but must grope in the dark ever fearing because of the Devill and the wrath of God Therefore should not a soul that is lockt up in the dark chamber of a melancholy complexion dwell long or scarce at all in speculations about the wrath of God nor give it self much to solitude but rather spend its time in godly conferences For so the matter of those friendly and profitable yeelding sufficient entertainment to the working phancy t is by this means handsomely diverted from her torturing cogitations For no deep speculation is in this state profitable for her which seeing she cannot turn it to her souls health and comfort its better she let it alone Such a man must also take heed of reading such books as teach the doctrines of a partial and personal election and Predestination of men to salvation or damnation They all teach with misunderstanding and do not explain the doctrin aright according to the sense and declaration of the mysticall language of the Holy Ghost of which I have given a further and better explanation in my other writings Neither is it good for him to perplex his thoughts with the reading of many books but rather to adhere solely to the Scriptures in which he shall find durable and steddy comfort But if God hath given him naturally a deep-searching understanding in which the soul cannot cease her perpetual diving to the bottom of the deep mystery let him in Gods fear be take himself in continual prayer to God for the opening to him the center of Nature in the finding whereof the soul will be at rest For there she sees the corner-stone on which the grand fabrick of human souls is bottom'd and so all fear and sadness quickly vanishes away of which I am able to say by experience with soul chearing and establisht light is attaind by him that hath found this center But no self-seeking or self-opinionated understanding is able by his deepest searching to find it out Yet does not God willingly shut it up from any man but it must be sought and found out in the fear of God by a constant importunity in prayer for t is the greatest treasure in this world he that finds it hath an easy egress out of Babel The Melancholy Complexion should also with great care avoid drunkenness that the soul be not overladen and press'd down by the power of the earth For when the body thus loads it self with drink the earthy fumes of the strong liquor presently take possession of the complexion chamber then does the soul entring therein with the imagination to her great hurt feed upon the earthly property kindles her fire therewith and for a short time rejoyces in it but the earthy floating fumes of the drink which danc't those merry Anticks in his brain must ere long vanish into air and he like a man warm'd by a wisp of straw returns a prisoner to his old frozen Melancholy which hath contracted it self in a heavy and darker consistency by the antiperistasis a of false light of this momentany refection Then stands the poor soul as most desolate and more than ever forsaken of God for she loses in the overflowing of the earthly property the divine imagination and desire for the Spirit of God will not have his dwelling in the earthly imagination Then ariseth in the Soul a sad dispairing repentance as if she were accursed of God The wrath of God does then set it self against her as if it would root her up from her very center and throw her into the bottomless pit of darkness then falls the man into great heaviness and it may be for an easement of his grief again associates himself with his pot-companions to refresh himself with them in their sottish joviality Thus do these foolish drunkards whose company he is now linkt in add one day of sin to another and plunge his and their own souls almost irrecoverably into the earthly darkness and the wrath of God I speak it as a most certain truth which I have a well-grounded knowledge of in the Center of Nature and deepest principle of life Let the Melancholy soul beware also of inflaming it self with anger For wrath is her greatest poyson and drives her to madness which is cleerly seen in the Center For the complexion-Chamber is rude and unpolisht like the wild and uncultivated earth to which t is best resembled t is also as the earth was in the beginning of the Creation of it self without form and void and hath but a very slender hold on the great wheel of nature Whence it falls out that upon a too vehement excitation of the fire of anger the wheel of nature whirles about with such a tumultuous noise that it makes the body of the angry man even visibly to tremble Now then the complexion-chamber being so empty and void of substance the broken wheel cannot so easily cement again nor the thoughts be reduc'd to an orderly consistency or composedness but all runs about in a hurly burly fierce firy driving of wrath and fury so that the mind cannot fix the thoughts in any steddy posture of cogitation as in mad men is most apparently seen Nor is he knowing of what he does but as the disorder'd wheel of the inward Nature moves so are the tumultuous motions of the outward members of the body the Devill also slily delights to fish in these troubled waters insinuates his imagination therewith aggravates the madness yet more and makes it his instrument to work much mischief This wheel well becometh the outward Spirit but then the poor soul also layes hold on it and causeth it to make impressions of great horrour upon her Spirit Yet let no man pronounce any soul