Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	child_n	good_a	great_a	1,689	5	2.6988	3	false

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

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