Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	speak_v	word_n	3,147	5	4.0147	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A38573	Witt against wisdom, or, A panegyrick upon folly penn'd in Latin by Desiderius Erasmus ; render'd into English.; Moriae encomium. English	Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536.; Kennett, White, 1660-1728.	1683 (1683)	Wing E3215; ESTC R15011	99,706	204

make any farther excuse Beside he who in his strictures points indifferently at all he seems not angry at one man but at all vices Therefore if any singly complain they are particularly reflected upon they do but betray their own Guilt at least their Cowardice St. Hierom dealt in the same argument at a much freer and sharper rate nay and he did not sometime refrain from naming the persons whereas I have not only stifled the mentioning any one person but have so tempered my stile as the ingenious Reader will easily perceive I aimed at Diversions rather than Satyr Neither did I so far imitate Juvenal as to rake into the sink of Vices to procure a Laughter rather than create a hearty Abhorrence If there be any one that after all remains yet unsatisfied let him at least consider that there may be good use made of being reprehended by Folly which since we have feigned as speaking we must keep up that character which is suitable to the person introduced But why do I trouble you Sir with this needless Apology You that are so peculiar a Patron as though the cause it self be none of the best you can at the least give it the best Protection Farewell A PANEGYRICK UPON FOLLY Declamation-wise FOLLY speaks HOW slightly soever I am esteemed in the common vogue of the world for I well know how disingenuously Folly is decryed even by those who are themselves the greatest fools yet it is from my influence alone that the whole Universe receives her ferment of mirth and jollity Of which This may be urged as a convincing argument in that as soon as I appeared to speak before this numerous Assembly all their countenances were guilded o're with a lively sparkling pleasantness You soon welcomed me with so encouraging a look you spurr'd me on with so chearfull a Hum that truly in all appearance you seem now flushed with a good dose of reviving Nectar when as just before you sate drousie and melancholly as if you were lately come out of some Hermits cell But as it is usual that as soon as the Sun peeps from her Eastern bed and draws back the curtains of the darksom night or as when after a hard winter the restorative Spring breaths a more enlivening air Nature forthwith changes her apparrel and all things seem to renew their age so at the first sight of me you all unmasque and appear in more lively colours That therefore which expert Orators can scarce effect by all their little artifice of Eloquence to wit a raising the attentions of their auditors to a composedness of thought This a bare look from me has commanded The reason why I appear in this odd kind of garb you shall soon be informed of if for so short a while you will but have the patience to lend me an ear yet not such an one as you are wont to hearken with to your reverend Preachers but as you listen withall to Mountebanks Buffoons and Merry Andrews in short such as formerly were fastned to Midas as a punishment for his affront to the God Pan. For I am now in a humour to act a while the Sophist yet not of that sort who undertake the drudgery of tyrannizing over School-boys and teach a more than womanish knack of brawling but in imitation of those antient ones who to avoid the scandalous Epithete of Wise preferr'd this title of Sophists the task of these was to celebrate the worth of Gods and Heroes Prepare therefore to be entertained with a Panegyrick yet not upon Hercules Solon or any other Grandee but on my self that is upon Folly And here I value not their censure that pretend it is foppish and affected for any person to praise himself yet let it be as silly as they please if they will but allow it needful And indeed what is more befitting than that Folly should be the trumpet of her own praise and dance after her own pipe For who can set me forth better than my self or who can pretend to be so well acquainted with my condition And yet farther I may safely urge that all this is no more than the same with what is done by several seemingly great and wise men who with a new fashioned modesty employ some paltry Orator or scribling Poet whom they bribe to flatter them with some high-flown character that shall consist of meer lies and shams and yet the persons thus extoll'd shall briste up and Peacock-like bespread their plumes while the impudent Parasite magnifies the poor wretch to the skies and proposes him as a complete pattern of all virtues from each of which he is yet as far distant as Heaven it self from Hell What 's all this in the mean while but the tricking up a Daw in stoln feathers a labouring to change the Blackamores hue and the drawing on a Pigmie's frock over the shoulders of a Giant Lastly I verifie the old observation that allows him a right of praising himself who has no body else to do it for him For really I cannot but admire at that ingratitude shall I term it or blockishness of mankind who when they all-willingly pay to me their utmost devoir and freely acknowledge their respective obligations that notwithstanding this there should have been none so grateful or complaisant as to have bestowed on me a commendatory Oration especially when there have not been wanting such as at a great expence of sweat and loss of sleep have in elaborate speeches given high Encomiums to Tyrants Agues Flies Baldness and such like trumperies I shall entertain you with a hasty and unpremeditated but so much the more natural discours my venting it ex tempore I would not have you think proceeds from any principles of vain-glory by which ordinary Orators square their attempts who as it is easie to observe when they are delivered of a Speech that has been thirty years a conceiving nay perhaps at last none of their own yet they 'l swear they wrot it in a great hurry and upon very short warning whereas the reason of my not being provided before hand is only because it was alway my humour constantly to speak that which lies uppermost Next let no one be so fond as to imagine that I should so far stint my invention to the method of other Pleaders as first to define and then divide my subject i. e. my self For it is equally hazardous to attempt the crowding her within the narrow limits of a Definition whose nature is of so diffusive an extent or to mangle and disjoyn That to the adoration whereof all Nations unitedly concur Beside to what purpose is it to lay down a Definition for a faint resemblance and meer shadow of me while appearing here personaily you may view me at a more certain light And if your eye-sight fail not you may at first blush discern me to be her whom the Greeks term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latins Stultitia But why need I have been so impertinent as

the Greek Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad Lyram Asinus magisterially and dogmatically descanting upon this Text Are they the Ministers of Christ I speak as a Fool I am more makes a distinct Chapter and which without good store of Logick he could never have done adds a new Section and then gives this Paraphrase which I shall verbatim recite that you may have his words Materially as well as Formally his sense for that 's one of their babling distinctions I speak as a Fool that is If the equalling my self to those false Apostles would have been construed as the vaunt of a Fool I will willingly be accounted a greater-Fool by taking place of them and openly pleading That as to their Ministry I not only come up even with them but out-strip and go beyond them Though this same Commentator a little after as it were forgetting what he had just before delivered tacks about and shifts to another interpretation But why do I insist upon any one particular Example when in general it is the publick charter of all Divines to mould and bend the sacred Oracles till they comply with their own fancy spreading them as Heaven by its Creator like a Curtain closing together or drawing them back as they please Thus indeed St. Paul himself minces and mangles some citations he makes use of and seems to wrest them to a different sense from what they were first intended for as is confess'd by the great Linguist St. Hierom. Thus when that Apostle saw at Athens the Inscription of an Altar he draws from it an argument for the proof of the Christian Religion but leaving out great part of the sentence which perhaps is fully recited might have prejudiced his cause he mentions only the two last words viz. To the unknown God and this too not without alteration for the whole Inscription runs thus To the Gods of Asia Europe and Africa To all foreign and unknown Gods T is in imitation of the same pattern I 'le warrant you that our young Divines by leaving out four or five words in a place and putting a false construction on the rest can make any passage Terviceable to their own purpose though from the coherence of what went before or follows after the genuine meaning appears to be either wide enough or perhaps quite contradictory to what they would thrust and impose upon it In which knack the Divines are grown now so expert that the Lawyers themselves begin to be jealous of an encroachment on what was formally their sole priviledge and practice And indeed what can they despair of proving since the fore-mentioned Commentator I had almost blundred out his name but that I am restrained by fear of the same Greek Proverbial Sarcasm did upon a Text of St. Luke put an interpretation no more agreeable to the meaning of the place than one contrary quality is to another The Passage is This when Iudas's treachery was preparing to be executed and accordingly it seem'd requisite that all the Disciples should be provided to guard and secure their assaulted Master our Saviour that he might piously caution them against reliance for his delivery on any worldly strength asks them whether in all their Embassy they lacked any thing when he had sent them out so unfurnished for the performance of a long journey that they had not so much as Shoos to defend their feet from the injuries of slints and thorns or a Scrip to carry a meals meat in and when they had answered that they lacked nothing He adds But now he that hath a purse let him take it and likewise a scrip and he that hath no sword let him sell his garment and buy one Now when the whole doctrine of our Saviour inculcates nothing more frequently than Meekness Patience and a contempt of this world is it not plain what the meaning of the place is Namely that he might now dismiss his Embassadours in a more naked defensless condition he does not onely advise them to take no thought for shoos or scrip but even commands them to part with the very cloaths from their back that so they might have the less incumbrance and entanglement in the going through their office and function He cautions them it is true to be furnished with a Sword yet not such a carnal one as Rogues and High-way men make use of for murder and bloudshed but with the sword of the Spirit which pierces through the heart and searches out the innermost retirements of the soul lopping off all our lust and corrupt affections and leaving nothing in possession of our breast but piety zeal and devotion This I say in my opinion is the most natural interpretation But see how that Divine mis-understands the place By Sword says he is meant Defence against Persecution by Scrip or Purse a sufficient quantity of Provision as is Christ had by considering better of it changed his mind in reference to that mean equipage which he had before sent his Disciples in and therefore came now to a recantation of what he had formerly instituted Or as if he had forgot what in time past he had told them Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you for my sake Render not evil for evil for blessed are the Meek not the Cruel As if he had forgot that he encouraged them by the examples of Sparrows and Lillies to take no thought for the Morrow he gives them now another Lesson and charges them rather than go without a sword to sell their garment and buy one as if the going cold and naked were more excusable than the marching unarmed And as this Author thinks all means which are requisite for the prevention or retaliation of injuries to be implied under the name of Sword so under that of Scrip he would have every thing to be comprehended which either the necessity or conveniency of Life requires Thus does this provident Commentator furnish out the Disciples with Halberts Spears and Guns for the enterprise of preaching Christ crucified He supplies them at the same time with Pockets Bags and Portmanteaus that they might carry their Cupboards as well as their Bellies always about them He takes no notice how our Saviour afterwards rebukes Peter for drawing that sword which he had just before so strictly charg'd him to buy nor that it is ever recorded that the Primitive Christians did by no ways withstand their Heathen Persecutors otherwise than with tears and prayers which they would have exchanged more effectually for swords and bucklers if they had thought this Text would have bore them out There is Another and he of no mean credit whom for respect to his person I shall forbear to name who commenting upon that verse in the Prophet Habakkuk I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction and the Curtains of the land of Midian did tremble because Tents were sometimes made of Skins he pretended that the word