Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	body_n	great_a	part_n	3,256	5	4.2928	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42228	The mourner comforted an epistle consolatory / written by Hugo Grotius to Monsieur Du Maurier the French embassadour at the Hague ; translated on a sad occasion by C.B.; Epistola consolatoria ad Benjaminum Auberium Maurerium, Regis Christianissimi apud Foederatas Belgii Provincias legatum illustrissimum. English	Grotius, Hugo, 1583-1645.; Barksdale, Clement, 1609-1687.	1652 (1652)	Wing G2114; ESTC R1086	13,310	35

THE MOURNER COMFORTED AN Epistle Consolatory WRITTEN BY HVGO GROTIVS TO Monsieur DU MAURIER the French Embassadour at the HAGUE Translated on a sad occasion by C.B. Melius se fert sparsus Dolor LONDON Printed by A.M. for Edward Lee at the Turks Head in Fleetstreet 1652. TO THE READER Reader THis had not seen the light but that it may be usefull to some of the Relatives of that excellent Lady that could not go to her grave unobserved nor without great attendance Her departure may be compared to the disappearing of some star of the first magnitude Or rather a new star is thereby added to the heavens And there let her shine for ever The use of this Epistolical Discourse may also extend farther then my first design They that faint under any such losse may take it for a cordial and they that fear any may receive it for a preparative This upon some experience in himself is the hope of the Translator in the publication of it and it is Dedicated to those Honourable persons whom he will not presume to name untill by some more ample testimony he may publickly shew himself their faithful and humble servant C.B. HUGO GROTIUS His Consolatory Epistle to the French Embassador DV MAVRIER upon the Death of his Lady Most Illustrious Lord I Am thus far indebted to my prison that the evils of other men come later to my knowledge even your wound which otherwise I should have known among the first by reason of that friendship wherewith you have honoured me I now understand last of all like unto those things that come to pass in the remotest parts of Europe This will excuse the slownesse of my duty which yet beside necessity hath reason enough to defend it For those consolations are wont to be more acceptable which are then applied when the first storm of sorrow is past and that pleasure if I may so speak of grieving is abated when the minde now wearied with its disease begins to be willing to admit of remedies and to suffer the touch of some helping hand I know how you were affected with my calamity and thence you may understand I am not unsensible of your sorrow Let us if it please you mingle together the causes of our grief that we may together seek for comforts and when we have found them make use of them together Neither am I ignorant how little I that am so destitute of all aids both to my minde and body am able to bring unto this purpose which is not already better and more effectually alledged and expressed by the professors of wisdom or eloquence or piety who have heretofore set up their standard against immoderate mourning But I am taught by my own experience That can never be too much repeated which is never enough remembred We must scour and call back into use the Arms which by length of time are grown rusty Besides the advices which are given in general words as spoken unto all are wont to pass by with less observation but when they are applied to our particular case having no other mark to hit they pierce and have a more strong effect At our first entrance upon this work we must seriously consider whether the grief of the heart be in the number of those things over which our labour and industry hath any power For if necessarily and naturally we do all grieve so much as the greatness of the occasion and the immutable frame of every ones minde requireth it is easily understood all pains to the contrary is taken in vain Nor doubt I but rude mindes surprized with some such perswasion do sometimes give up themselves to the possession of grief as of a disease incurable They feel sad thoughts come into the minde unsent for whence follows that pressure of the heart contracting it self which we call maeror and so without more ado they throw down their arms in despair of victory But we who besides our inward experience which alone rightly observed might suffice have the helps of excellent arts and the use of all learned and wise mens labours before us cannot be ignorant of the truth in this point if we please but to rouse our selves up and draw forth what we have hid within us The truth is this Those first appearances and the suddain motions arising thence which the wise compare to the twinklings of the eyes are without our power but to admit of those appearances and let them without judgement and discretion into the closet of the heart or else to pass a strict examination upon them and weigh them in the scale of reason also to loose the reigns to the affections or to restrain them this for the most part is within our power That sorrow may be overcome nature it self teacheth us for if by no other means it is at last consumed by time Art imitates Nature The Physician observing any disease mitigated by naturall sweat endeavours to ease his patient sick of the like disease by medicines that procure sweating The new Philosophers the Chymists worthy of more praise and favour if they did not corrupt the glory of their excellent inventions by vainglorious promises teach that the nature of metalls is ambulatory and by long continuance of time one is changed into another and herein consists their industry to promote the endeavors of nature and hasten that effect which will at length be produced Such is the office of right reason in overcoming sorrow Sorrow hath this good in it above other evils it bears not age Other diseases of the minde are nourished this is wasted by time You may suppose it is a weak enemy that cannot maintain it self and without any force opposed fals of it self What nature promiseth at a longer day reason represents and pays down in hand Let us therefore as it is the property of Art follow the steps of nature When by little and little the grief of minde departeth there is for the most part no change in the thing it self yea the incommodity that was often becomes greater as when he that hath lost a friend or wife declines to old age wherein he hath most need of helps Whence then arises that calm in a minde so much troubled before Truly hence the appearance of the thing that causeth sorrow is more seldom in the eye of the minde it slides by not sticks it touches doth not press or pierce the minde and at last it doth not so much as touch it Consider now whether every one be not able speedily to cure himself and hasten his own enjoyment of so great a good Most of us not only suffer but create our sorrow whilst we yield our selves to sudden cogitations in mourning especially where the vexation flatters us under a shew of piety Those sad thoughts we cherish carefully and to our own hurt patronize doing like them that seek for looking-glasses which represent bodies greater then they are Surely the will of man that hath such force to hurt himself might do somewhat if it pleased for his own ease That sorrow is an enemy to us we cannot deny The leannesse of an exhausted body paleness of countenance dejection of minde causes of

grief for the most part more just then that for which we grieve shew it to be an enemy In the dealing with an enemy what are we wont to do If he be strong and at the first onset violent whilst your forces are not yet come together the first caution is to decline the battell afterward when you are assured and confident in your strength you shall march into the field and display your colours Even so the appearance of your loss being fresh and your minde tender it is best to bend your thoughts another way None may do it more easily excellent Sir then you who need not seek for employment you have in your charge affairs of so great weight and labour that they may very take up all your thoughts The King whom you serve the greatest and most Christian the difficult times the many and various businesses of your Office what else do they all say unto you but Attend your work you are not at leasure to be a Mourner Most true is that old saying The minde is prevalent where you put it forth and use it Certainly it is there to be used where our labour may be to good purpose that is not in mourning but in the service of your King and Country It is no more then ordinary common sense which the Greek Poet hath adorned with elegant expressions to this effect If ills were cured by our weeping eyes And tears could wash away our miseries Thy tears were worth gold which I now must blame For weep or weep not evils are the same I know that said Solon and I weep the more because I can do no good by weeping This very foolish saying of so wise a man may be an example to us how much sorrow darkneth the judgement that made Solon himself to speak unwisely For in those things wherein care and industry is of any force among which things sorrow is one as we have said we must observe not whence the passion comes but whither it goes 'T is the office of reason to look forward not backward Wherefore he that doth any thing ought often to put the question to himself Why do I do this What do I hope What do I desire This if one ask himself who cherisheth his grief and endeavoureth not to correct it he shall see how nothing can be answered But you may object It is hard and inhumane to expell out of your heart the thought of her you lov'd so dearly and so deservedly not less for her vertues then because she was your wife Remember 't is requir'd but for a time and as in a labyrinth this way leads you to a place contrary unto it So doth a short abstinence conduce to the better concoction and digestion of the food you shall eat I would have her live in your thoughts perpetually but so that the memory of her may delight not torment you 'T is an injury to her when she is called into your minde to create her husband sorrow Let her come then when she may come in the quality she was wont to come fair kinde and cheerfull This image of her which now occurrs to your minde sorrowfull and leaving a troublesome remembrance of her is false and resembles her not I do now foresee the time when that sweetness of manners that love and reverence of you that unwearied care in the good education of her children that sincere piety toward God and whatsoever in many of that sex is wanting in some few is most praise-worthy will offer it self to your minde not only without danger but with much sense of joy when it will delight you to remember her and to set before your childrens eyes all her actions as the best Samplar for their life Only for a little while put by the thought of her which you shall afterward resume with advantage To this end as I was saying will avail these many weighty affairs which being enough to oppresse another sit lightly upon you Now is the time if ever to be immersed in publick cares and suffer no room at all in the minde to be unpossest Nor are the conferences of friends unprofitable provided they be men of courage and wisdom not such as commend themselves by the imitation of your sadnesse Conferre with the dead also and turn over Books with greater diligence now then ever and let that which was but your recreation before now become a part of your labour Books will not only give you a safe retreat from the enemies fury but arms also against the enemy For whether you contemplate with your most capacious soul the nature of things you will see how nothing is without the empire of death no not the elements themselves It is the most universal law which condemns every thing that is born to dye and it were great ignorance to think one person can be exempted from the common ruine Or whether you turn to the Morals among that fair company of vertues you shall behold Fortitude of a firm body a head lifted up a chearfull countenance but among the vices Sorrow macilent pale of a cloudy brow and down-cast looks Or whether you search the Animals you shall finde examples of men who have born the deaths of Parents Children Wives with a minde lesse mov'd then ours is at the reading of the story Now having by these Arts escaped the dangers of the first time and withall gotten strength let the soul at length come forth into the field as it were and prepare to fight But here also I think it fit to imitate wise Commanders who as much as they can sever the enemies forces that fighting with the severall parties they may more easily conquer all Mourning is a confused thing it objects unto the minde many things at once and in a heap which being joyned terrific but vanish being divided All the assaults it makes against you are either in respect of Her whom you lament or of your self the Mourner or of your children with whom and for whom you mourn Weigh these particulars severally you will finde partly that there is no cause of grief partly that the incommodity is much overbalanced by greater good I will begin with Her It is in all mens mouths which we read every where in Christian Writers but in Antiphanes too which you may more admire a heathen Poet speaking in words of this sense Lament your friends with sorrow moderate They are not lost but gone before where Fate Disposeth all And we in order must One after one be turn'd to the same dust And meet at the same Inn by several waies And in another world shall see new daies We must dwell the longer upon this place because it alone without the rest if it be rightly considered is sufficient for consolation I