Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	great_a	world_n	write_v	3,052	5	5.1732	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39351	An exclamation to all those that love the Lord Jesus in sincerity against an apology written by an ingenious person, for Mr. Cowley's lascivious and prophane verses / by a dutiful son of the Church of England.	Elys, Edmund, ca. 1634-ca. 1707.	1670 (1670)	Wing E675; ESTC R36225	6,702	20

AN EXCLAMATION TO All those that Love the LORD JESUS in SINCERITY Against an APOLOGY Written by an Ingenious Person For Mr. COWLEY'S Lascivious and Prophane VERSES By a Dutiful Son of the CHURCH of ENGLAND Heic neque more probo videas neque voce serenâ Ingentes trepidare Titos cum Carmina lumbum Intrant tremulo scalpuntur ubi intima Versu Persius Sat. 1. London Printed for Robert Clavel 1670. AN EXCLAMATION TO All those that Love the LORD JESUS in SINCERITY SUch a Cloud of Dust has risen up amongst us by the Tumultuous Courses of Ignorant men Running from the Orders of Our Church concerning things Indifferent which themselves are sometimes pleas'd to call shadows and Circumstances that we can hardly discern the great Danger we are fallen into of becomming Guilty of a base Connivence to some Publick and most Contagious Impieties which are as it were established by a Law I mean are Obtruded upon us with such Confidence as if there were nothing in the Laws of Our Church or State to Oppugn and Suppress them I shall Instance only in the Reprinting of several Verses of Mr. COWLEY'S since his Death some of them so Notoriously Lascivious others so Profane that it cannot be easily imagin'd how the DEVIL could be more Gratify'd in any thing then in the Plausible recommendation of them to the Sprightly Youths and Pregnant Wits of this Nation In Opposition to the Black Attempt of the Publisher of them I shall here first Recite my Thoughts of them which I Publisht in a certain Epistle about eleven years since And then I shall make some Animadversions on what has been Written of late in the Defence of these Artifices of Baseness and Impurity for which I trust Mr. COWLEY was truly Penitent For when He Dy'd He Enjoin'd the Person whom Before GOD and His Holy Angels I now Charge with the Guilt of this Impurity to revise his Works and to blot out whatsoever might seem the least offence to Religion or good Manners The words in the Epistle above mention'd are these And now Reader if thou beest a CHRISTIAN indeed I shall intreat thee by all the Love that thou owest to Him that was CRUCIFIED for thy sake that thou wouldest Oppose with all thy Might that Vain Spirit of Foolish Talking and Writing which is gone abroad into the World to the great Dishonour of HIS Name who has told us that we shall give an Account of Every Idle Word And here I cannot but Exclaim aloud against some of Mr. COWLEY'S Verses particularly that part of his Book which he entitles The Mistress in which there are several Expressions so provoking to Speculative Lust and Uncleanness that I can't conceive how a CHRISTIAN that casts his Eye on them can think otherwise then that the Author did either Forget that There is a GOD or that 't is Sinful to be Lascivious What Prophaneness also is this Author guilty of who uses these Sacred Words HEAVEN DEITY DIVINE PRESENCE FAITH c. to set forth his Dissolute Amorous Conceptions I should rather have said Wanton or Lascivious Amorous being too gentle a term Let any man of Common Reason judge whether the Minds of any Readers Vitiously Inclin'd and such surely are all those that Delight in those POEMS be not as apt to be wholly Debauch't and Corrupted by a Work of this Nature as those mens Bodies are to take Infection when they are amongst Sick Folk who are already dispos'd to the Disease Alas Alas Are not men apt enough of themselves to be Vain in their Imaginations Must the Froth and Vanity of Wanton Minds be wrought up and increased by the Wit and Studies of such Learned Persons and those owning the Name of CHRISTIANS O Tempora O Mores I desire the Reader would take Notice that This was Publisht in the Phanatick Times after Mr. COWLEY'S Book as I was credibly inform'd had been Publickly Commended without Exception by an Eminent Person then in Oxford And now let us see what the Apologist can say for the things I so much Abhor If there needed any excuse to be made that his Love-Verses should take up so great a share in his Works it may be alledg'd that they were compos'd when he was very young But it is a vain thing to make any kind of Apology for that sort of Writings If Devout or Virtuous Men will superciliously forbid the minds of the young to adorn those subjects about which they are most conversant They would put them out of all capacity of performing graver matters when they come to them For the Exercises of all Mens Wits must be always proper for their Age and never too much above it And by practice and use in lighter Arguments they grow up at last to excel in the most weighty I am not therefore asham'd to commend Mr. Cowley's Mistress I only except one or two Expressions which I wish I could have prevail'd with those that had the right of the other Edition to have left out But of all the rest I dare boldly pronounce that never yet so much was written on a Subject so Delicate that can less offend the severest rules of Morality The whole Passion of Love is intimately describ'd with all its mighty Train of Hopes and Joys and Disquiets Besides this amorous tenderness I know not how in every Copy there is something of more useful Knowledge very naturally and gracefully insinuated and every where there may be something found to inform the minds of wise Men as well as to move the hearts of young Men or Women The Author of this Empty Rhetorick must not be Over-Angry if I tell him that it puts me in mind of a far greater piece of Wit and that Accompanied with Honesty deliver'd by an Heathen Poet Fur es ait Pedio Pedius quid Crimine rasis Librat in antithetis A Fine Colour for a Lascivious Poem this An Intimate Description of the whole Passion of Love But what does the man Intend Is he in good earnest of this Opinion that 't is Requisite that those Ingenious Young men that are much addicted to Venery should Exercise their Phansies in Composing the most Accurate Expressions of the Pleasures they take in the Imagination only or in the Grossest Acts of Carnality And that for this reason that their Phansies so Exercis'd in their Youth will make them the better Poets or Rhetoricians when they come to a Riper Age It may be alledg'd saies He that they were compos'd when he was very young But by Publishing them so many years after He gave the World a sad Instance of that Saying Quo semel est imbuta recens c. If He had Observ'd the Instruction of the Wise Man Remember thy Creator in the daies of thy youth He would certainly even in those Daies have Apply'd his Mind to things Pleasing in His Sight VVho tells us that we shall give Account in the Day of Judgment of every Idle Word It is a vain thing