Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A44763
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The vision, or, A dialog between the soul and the bodie fancied in a morning-dream.
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Howell, James, 1594?-1666.
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1651
(1651)
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Wing H3127; ESTC R11503
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50,341
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190
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nostile way and slain together with his two Sons in open field by â— common vassall of his who had â—aised military forces against him â—nd so made himself chief of that â—ncient and vast Empire of Ethioâ—ia The wild Tartar rush'd through that four hundred miâ—es huge wall which fever's China from Tartary and so piercing the very bowels of that luxurious and most delicate continent as far as Quinzâ—y the celestiall City as they call her and besieging the very palace of that most Eastern Monarch he caus'd him to set it all on fire and to do away himselâ— violently with his thirty Wiveâ— and Children rather then he would become an inglorious Captisâ— The great Ottoman Emperour anâ— head of the Musulmans was strangled by his own slaves in the Seraglio The Knez orgâ—an Dukâ— of Moscovia had some of his primâ— Nobles and principall Officer hack'd to pieces before his facâ— and their heads being thrown intâ— vessels of strong water they werâ— fixed upon poles and made tâ— burn before his Court gate Iâ—Naples a bare-footed Fishermaâ— made himself the head of an Army in lesse then four daies of 50000 men and rendred himself as absolute as any Monark Two Provinciall Kingdoms revolted quite from Spain viz. Catalonia on the one side and Portugall on the other renouncing all obedience unto him The Republic of Venice soly with her own strength of tresure hath wrastled seven yeers together with the great Turk A King of Great Britain the Defendor of the Faith and Head of the Church had his head chop'd off in a Juridicall way I live in a time that Englands chiefest Temples are turn'd to stables and sterâ—oraries that dogs have bin christened at the Font and horses â—ed on the Communion Table with sundry other spectacles then which if I should live a thousand yeers longer I think I shold not see more strange and stupendous Soul All this that you say is too true but ther is nothing to be wondred at now adaies It is a good while since that I have given over wondring at anything And the greatest wonder is that peeple have bin so habituated to see such strange things of late yeers that they have quite lost their wondring But it is the pleasure and permission of the great Architect of the world in whose sight the vastest Monarchies are but as so many mole-hils hee who transvolves Empires and tumbles down Diadems as he lifteth that things should be so nor is all this and what daily happeneth but the effects of that branch of our daily prayer Thy will be done Moreover when I seriously contemplat the frame of this frail inferior world and find man to be the principall'st part of it when as I have touch'd else where I consider that fluxible stuffe which goes to make him up and that the humors within him according to the elements are in perpetuall agitation man will be man still hee will be subject to changes and innovation As long as the Moon shines above his head and hath that dominion over him that he cannot cut a corn or hair or lop his tree without seeking into her age I say as long as that instable Planet makes impressions upon his brain and those sluces of blood that run up and down his body he will bee ever covetous of novelty and gaping after mutation specially the common fort of peeple who will find som time or other to shew what they are now touching the Moon they that pry into the influxes and operations of heavenly bodies do observe that she hath a greater power over this Island then upon others which causeth the Brittish seas to swell up above fourscore cubits high in some places Besides daily experience shews that Empires Common-wealths and Kingdomes with all kind of civill bodies as well as naturall are subject to distempers to hot feavers to fits of convulsions and vertigoes They have also their degrees of growth they have their consistences declinings and Catastrophes And indeed the world it self which som held to be a great Animal as well as its parts hath the like which is now come to its decrepit Age the Infancy whereof may be said to have bin from Adam to Noah the Childhood from Noah to Abraham the Youth from Abraham to David the Manhood from David to Christ the old Age from Christ to the Consummation Insomuch that the older the world growes the more subject the parts therof are to distempers so that it is not to be wondred at that men grow worse that charity growes colder that morosity and peevish inconstant humors reign more then ever wherunto all revolutions quarrels and preliâ—tions may be attributed wherby peeple becom active and eager oftentimes in the pursuits of their own ruine and in liâ—u of those Feathers which they cryed out before were such grievous burdens unto them they draw sows of lead upon their backs Body To this the Pagan Poet hath long since alluded when he sung Hoc placet O superi vobis cum vertere cuncta Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen Thus O yee Gods when yee intend to frame New Governments our errors bear the blame This make some cry out that the times are such that they are able to turne one to an Epicurean who was not such an Atheist as to think there was no God but that the sublunary things of this lower world were too mean for him to take care of Whereat another Poet glanced when he said Non vacat exiguis rebus adesse lovi Soul 'T is true ther are some sort of crying black sins that raign now adaies which are able to eclipse the Sun it self and obscure the whole face of Heaven therefore I cannot be much blam'd of being weary of your consortship and that I desire to be enfranchiz'd from that flesh and made free Denison in a better world Body I confesse my dear soul that you have little comfort to sojourn in me and I as littâ—e to sojourn in the world as I said before yet though I am not so happy here as I desire I am not so wretched as I deserve Ther are many odd extravagant humors that raigne now adaies which make men to wander in the wildernes of their own exorbitant fancies and leave the beaten road now the vialls of the Almighty's vengeance are various but the sowrest and sorest are those which fall upon the brain when the ill spirit is permitted to intoxicat the understanding wherby som in searching after the the Truth do over-reach it as far as others com far short of it The world was never so full of fancy not only in dâ—vine notions but philosophicall also as now it is Some presumptuous over-weening Sciolists to raise the tarrasse of Reson wold ruine the battlements of Faith they wold make the miracles of Holy Scripture to proceed from naturall causes they wold make som asptaltique bituminous matter to be the cause of the burning of Sodom and Gomorra They wold impute the drowning of
Pharoh and his army to a high spring tide The passing over of the Israelites to a low ebb and eddy water They admire not the raining of Manna in the wildernes because there is good store found in Calabria and other places They cannot believe that Lazarus was rais'd from the dead but they must be satisfied where his soul was all the while They censure the miracle of making the blind to see because he saw men walk like trees whereas he had never seen trees before having bin blind from his nativity They think it strange theâ— shold be a Tree in Paradise so soon in regard the text saies positively that the plants of the fields were not yet grown because it had not rain'd They question whether the handle of Goliath's spear was as big as a weavers beam and whether David had so many hundred thousand talents of treasure Moreover they cast blemishes upon Christian truth because general and great oecumenicall Councels did so clash one with another And that the Fathers of the Primitive Church in divers opinions were not only differing one from the other but dissonant to themselfs as among other positions in the computations which they make of the Yeers from the Creation of the world to the Incarnation wherin they are so discrepant Nay they wold derogat from the Dictats of the Holy Ghost himself touching som texts of Scripture because in the second of Kings we read Michal for Merah as may be perceived by comparing it with the first Book of the same History As also because St Matthew hath written Zachary for Ieremy chap. 27. Likewise that St Mark in the first chapter cites a passage out of Isaiah which is recorded in Malachy Moreover when he saith that our Saviour was crucified on the third hour whereas St Iohn saith Chap. 19. that he was but only condemned by Pilat the sixth hour So likewise where St Luke saith that Cainan was the son of Arphaxad and Salec the son of Cainan the place is contradicted in Genesis 23. where it is said that Salec was not Arphaxed's grandchild but his son no other generation intervening betwixt the two And when â—â— is said Genesis the 11. that the Cave which Abraham bought was in Sichem being indeed in Hebron and that he bought it of the sonnes of Emor the son of Sechem yet Moses saith it was of Ephron the Hittite Moreover wheras he saith that Emor was Sichem's son it is said in Genesis 3â— quite contrary that Emor was Sichem's Father and not his son Other supercritical spirits wold cast aspersions upon Christianity because Constantin the first Emperor of that Religion was a very lewd man Gildas accusing him to have bin a murtherer a perjurer the tyrannicall whelp of the unclean lionness of Dannonier's That likewise Clovis the first Christian king of France was as bad And that Henry the eight the first reformed king worse then either of Them Ther are others that have another kind of spiritual pride it being not only sufficient to Arrogat from the Holy Scriptures to pick hoâ—es in Christianity criticize so upon her but while they go about to magnify man they detract from the chiefest instruments of Gods glory and his principall attendants the blessed Angels by paraleling mans Creation to theirs and that they were made as all things els for man whom they cry up to be the Epitome of the world and that the principal ministerial function of the Angels is to gard him Such as these may be said to be possessed with a giddy kind of spiritual drunkeness or madness rather and touching those of this last conceit they are like the Cobler who drunk himself into a kingdom and thought himself a king while he continued in that humor Nor is Religion only troubled with such Critiques and Detractors but these times afford such in all sciences to magnifie their own fancies they slight all Antiquity they will not stick to call Plato a dotard and Hippocrates a quack-salver thinking that they have more sublime notions then any It is true that in some sense restraining it to saving knowledg a child that understands his primer may be said to be more learned then all the Philosophers that ever were as the least fly in regard she hath a sensitive soul within her may be said in som respects to be more noble then the sun because he is inanimat Soul It is too tru that the present times do swarm with such arrogant and over-curious spirits though they be full of doubts and still at a loss going after nothing els but more teaching still yet they seem to have such a peremptory certitude of their salvation as if they had seen their names registred in the book of life expunging thence all other but their own They cannot modestly beleeve the Creed but they must know the very track that our Saviour went to Hell they wold string the rainbow and be satisfied what kind of wood it is that the man of the moon carrieth on his back c. With a spirit much like this was Scaliger possessed who while he went about to amend the times and correct errors committed as gross ones himself as any one Author he condemns he makes Dagon a woman the Emperour of Habassia Prester Iohn what shallow conceits hath he of the depth of the sea and how poorly was he vers'd in Cyclometria how scurrilously he railes against whole nations and would understand nothing but what he liked Body Truly I have bin ever averse to raise frivolous quaeres in any thing specially in the essentialls of faith or enter into disputes and altercations or heat touching matters indifferent I was never of their mind that against a Cap and a Surplis would put on a Helmet and Armor I have bin contented to follow the first road I was put in towards heaven moving after the motion of the superior orbs that were plac'd in the firmament of the Church though not altogether in an implicit way I have always made Reson and other sciences to truckle under Divinity their mistress I have taken as much spirituall delight let all this be spoken without vanity or any scandall to other souls in other offices and holy duties of the Church as in Sermons which makes me reflect upon a saying of S. Lewis the French king to Henry the third of England who asking him in those times of implicit Faith whether he would go sooner unto the Eucharist or to a Sermon he answered I had rather see my friend then hear him only spoken of I have always inclined to love Order and degrees of respect to abhor confusion to love decencies rather then slutâ—isness nor I hope shall I be ever of their gang who to avoid superstition do fall into palpable prophaness Soul I like you humor well touching all these particulars nor will they offend I beleeve any one that is of a sâ—ne sober judgment concerning the last thing you spoke of it makes the