Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	evil_a	good_a	see_v	2,875	5	3.5208	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25694	An apology for lovers, or, A discourse of the antiquity and lawfulnesse of love by Erastophil, no proselyte, but a native of that religion.	Erastophil.	1651 (1651)	Wing A3544; ESTC R8369	23,849	122

other both alike Enemies to this Vertue of Constancy and though thou doest wait long yet consider that thy Patience will at last be Crowned with Victory and Conquest The Angler though he sit long in silence and expectation by the Brook-side yet at last drawes up the Fish The Husbandman though he take so much pains to plow and sow forcing the stubbernness of the barren Earth to make it fertile yet at last receives a plentifull Crop which pays him for all the labour and toyl that he hath taken So thou if thou continuest Constant and Patient though thou mayest meet with some hinderance in thy passage some difficulties and obstructions in the way yet thou wilt assuredly at the last arrive at the Haven of thy Desires and Wishes Come we in the next place to the Object of all this Love Affection his Mistress Rachel And Iacob served seven years for Rachel It was the opinion of Aristotle that the first Monarchs and those to whom others yeelded Subjection were such as were most beautifull by this Submission acknowledging that Nature had indulg'd and bestow'd upon them a Priviledge and Prerogative extraordinary above and beyond others for certainly there is in Beauty an awfulness and Soveraignty that forceth every one to stoop to it for even very Beasts are sensible of the power of it and without all question it is most usually an Index and symptome of a vertuous and wel dispos'd soul and therefore it is said that Mores saepe sequuntur temperamentum corporis the conditions oftentimes follow the temperament and crasis of the body This that judicious and excellent Poet Homer well knew for he makes Thersites who was deformed in mind to be alike deformed and mishapen in body Now whether Beauty consists in a certaine pleasing Harmony and Symmetry of Parts which they call good features or in a perfect mixture of Colours and Complexion or lastly which seems to be a more immediate efflux of the Soule in a certain Aire and taking Garbe of the whole which renders all the actions gracefull and becomming is not easie to define Men disagree so much about it neither can we allow them for competent Judges in this case so much doth naturall prejudice corrupt the judgement of every one for as several humours are predominant in every body which though they be reduc'd to four Heads yet are infinite in degree and mixture so are the Phantasies and Conceits severally framed and effected accordingly hence it is that what one man loves another hates and again what is disliked by him is affected by another for why else do the Chinoses esteem great powting lips and flat noses such as we call saddle noses to be the onely Beauty when amongst us it is held and accounted so great a deformity notwithstanding this incertainty of opinion if I might be admitted to give in my Conjecturall suffrage I should assigne the first place to that which we called the Air or garbe the next to the countenance and the last to the complexion and indeed so great is the force of Beauty to beget Love and that with so much ardency and violence that we read of many that have died for love because they were deny'd the enjoyment of those they so passiouately affected so we read that Iphis died for the love of Anaxarete Dido for Aeneas and a great many more that I will not now instāce in yet alas without Vertue how admirable and excellent soever Beauty be it is nothing so much doth a vitious soul within deform the most beautiful form outward appearance of the fairest body for certainly if according to the cōceit of that famous Opti●… Vitruvius Nature had windowed every breast the deformity of the minde would appeare greater and fouler then that of the body and Vertue as Cicero hath it Mirandos sui excitaret amores would ravish all eyes with the sweetnesse and lustre of its Beauties and therefore we read of Socrates that though he was very deformed and extreamly crooked and bunchbackt yet his eyes were irradiated with a certain sweet and amiable splendour rais'd from his vertuous soule wherwith the beholders were marvellously delighted Seeing then that Jacob had such a Mistresse indued as well with all vertuous qualities as beautifull perfections being as vertuous as she was faire and most faire and beautifull amidst so many vertues it is no wonder if to gain a jewell so inestimable for so Salomon saith in the beginning of that large Encomium which he makes in praise of a good wife where he interrogates and asks the question Who can find a vertuous Woman for her price is far above Rubies he despised his liberty and all the injuries of the Climate and inclemency of the weather which by the way let me tell you was much more rigorous and extream in Syria as Geographers will inform us then it is anywhere with us Now that she was vertuous I need not prove being every where so fully demonstrated and that she was beautifull we have Divine testimony for our Authority which can neither erre nor be deceived Indeed Lovers that see onely through the mists and clouds of their passion doe many times hyperbolize setting out their Mistresses elaborately with borrowed feigned Metaphors and Titles impoverishing every thing to enrich them but of Rachel here though we have no particular Description yet we have her set down Beautifull and well-favoured in general one instāce for al in particular even in that which is held to be the chiefest Prerogative of Beauty the Eye the Sun that inlightens this little world the window of the soul from whence she takes her fairest most immediate prospect so much we may by Cōsequence gather out of the Text it self which we read thus * Now Leah was tender-ey'd but Rachel was beautifull and well-favoured we do not find any other defect of Beauty here wherewith Leah is charged but onely this that she was tender Ey'd and yet this one single Blemish is opposed to being beautifull and well-favoured as if because she wanted good Eys she were neither beautiful nor well-favoured the whole beauty or deformity of the Face as it should seem consisting in the having or wanting this principal part of beauty But leaving this I come in the next place to the Wonder And they seemed to him but a few days And Iacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days There is no one that by nature loveth or desireth that which feems Evil to him but flyeth from it and avoideth it and this out of principles of self-preservation ingrafted into every one for as St. Paul saith * No one ever yet hated his own flesh To take away the Malignity of a thing and to render it privatively good is much but that that which every one abhorreth as evil by a strange Metamorphosis should not onely disappear to be so but likewise become amiable and pleasing is the greatest Wonder

and must needs proceed from some strange and excellent Cause Had Iacob spent these seven years of Service with as much pleasure and contentment as ever he did when he was free and at his own disposing why this had been strange seeing it involves in it a Paradox so universally contradicted viz. That Servitude is as much to be desir'd as Liberty for if there be that Content and Satisfaction to be found in it that is in Liberty why should it not be alike desired but that there should be in it a great deal more sweetness then in Liberty cannot but beget a world of admiration for this is analogically in effect as if Gall should not onely leave and forsake its bitterness but become sweeter then Hony or Sugar For do not we see how many Recreations and those many of them sinfull too are daily invented and found out as Antidotes and divertisements against Melancholy meerly to passe away and beguile the time for the truth is time seemes so tedious to us that we know not what to do with it we are a weary of it and it lies upon our hands like a Merchandize or Commodity that we would fain utter but cannot tell how and therefore to be rid of it some way or other we do not onely suffer others to steal it from us but we rob our selves and are those fures temporis which Seneca saith that Friends are when notwithstanding our disestimation as he himself tells Lucilius in his first Epistle The thing is so precious quod ne gratus quidem potest reddere He that studies Gratitude never so much can never be sufficiently Gratefull whereas on the contrary side to a busie Lover the time seems short and the Years fews Seven years time appears to Iacob but a little time and two thousand five hundred fifty and sixe Days seeme but a few Days for so many upon computation you will find them allowing the Intercalation of one day for a Bissextile though I am not ignorant that the Julian accompt was many hundred years after a ot computed the years by the Sun but by the Moon as some say the years of those lōg-liv'd fathers before the Floud were or if by the Sun ●a●●er as it should seem by his Diurnall then his Annual Motion this is wōderful indeed strange something like to that Prerogative of Gods of which Saint Peter speaks * when he saith that a thousand years to him are but as one day for with him all things past present and to come stand and remain in the same station and consistency perpetually without any manner of flux or alteration Come hither then all ye that think the time slow and the wheels of his Chariot heavy that like the mother of Sisera * look out of the window and cry thorow the lattess why is his Chariot so long in comming why tarry the wheels of his Chariot would you have not onely a lawfull and honest but a most sweet and pleasing diversion to beguile the time withall if I may call that a diversion which is the noblest and the greatest business why learn to love retire your selves into your selves learn to know your selves to which nothing in the world conduceth better then love being the best comment that was ever writ upon that text of r {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and that by which it is most illustrated enter into your chamber which is your heart for so St. Augustine calls it Cubiculum tuum est Cor tuum and shut the door after you and make fast the Lattess for as long as ye look out at the windows as long as ye look out of your selvs to see what faults ye can spy in others ye may cry long enough Why so long and Why tarries yee may oscitate and gape yee may stretch out first the one hand then the other but ye are like to find but little ease or satisfaction but rather perpetual lassitude and weariness of spirit But I hasten to the last part of the Text viz. the cause of all this wonder which we have here rendred in these words viz. for the love he had unto her And Iacob served seven yeares for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few dayes for the love he had unto her All wonder and admiration is begot by ignorance and is the child thereof for that which we know we doe not admire but onely that which we are ignorant of Hence likewise proceeded Fortune being as Iuvenall speaks excellently a Goddess of our owne making Te facimus fortuna Deam caeloque locamus For when any thing hapned that was strange and wonderfull and for which they could assign no reason that they forthwith attributed to Fortune then Altars must be built and erected to her and Sacrifices offered and because her distributions were so very unequall she must be figured and painted blind when indeed the blindness was their owne for Fortune is nothing else but that serpentine or crooked line of Providence as one Metaphorically defines or rather describes it the other being drawn straight and evēn and so obvious to every eye or as the Schoolmen more Logically Fortune is an Accidentall cause in Voluntary Agents whereby such events doe follow our Actions as were neither foreseen nor intended by us for in other actions as I said the line of providence is straight and easy to be seen of all but in this more tortuous and winding as we know if we lock straight along a level of a great length we may easily see to the end of it because there is no rising in the midst to interrupt and obstruct the sight and therefore Mathematicians say Linea recta est brevissima but in any thing which is crooked it is otherwise by reason that the eye is intercepted by the tumor and unevenness of it but leaving these digressions let us now lastly come a little seriously to consider and examine the cause which instead of satisfying our wonder as we expected ministers to us fresh cause of a stonishment and admiration For now me thinks my Heart wants thoughts to conceive my tongue words to utter any thing in the least measure suitable to the dignity and excellency of this subject I must therefore with the Painter that was to picture Agamemnon a father beholding the sacrificing of his own daughter Iphigenia who because he was not able to express a sorrow so unconceivable drew him onely with a Vaile over his face thereby better acquitting himself then if he had made a rash venture at that which he knew all his art came so far short of performing so I presume my best Sanctuary and Refuge here would be Silence seeing that whatsoever I shall be able to say or speak will be nothing else for what should this be that hath so strange a power and efficacy as to render the bitterness of Servitude sweet to make the tediousness of time seem short that