Selected quad for the lemma: father_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
father_n	ghost_n	person_n	trinity_n	16,077	5	9.9221	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50836	The Christian pattern paraphras'd, or, The book of the Imitation of Christ commonly ascrib'd to Thomas à Kempis ; made English by Luke Milbourn ...	Milbourne, Luke, 1649-1720.; Thomas, à Kempis, 1380-1471.	1696 (1696)	Wing M2030A; ESTC R16611	104,301	344

with the Violence of a hot Brain and too much Light may strike a Man quite blind yet humble as the Original is I have sometimes adventur'd to soar a little but never out of Sight To compensate for the meanness of the Stile I have drest it out in the greater Variety of Numbers and have tuned them to the Judicious Ear so as nothing in them may sound harsh or ungratefully and instead of the Original Chapters I have put a Text of Scripture generally pretty apposite in the head of every Division It may now perhaps supersede the Common English Prose Translation but I 'm not for discarding even Sternhold and Hopkins for a worse Version of David 's Psalms nor that Prose for tedious and ill-sounding Rhimes The 3d Book being all Dialogue I have given all fitting Variety to without resolving it into Stanza's In short by the Smoothness of the Verse the general Correctness of the English and that pious Air which runs thro' the whole some I hope may be drawn to admire Divine Poetry and to court a native Loveliness more than a flaunting adulterated Beauty The Employ was a happy Diversion of those Melancholic Thoughts which else might have affected one too much who had met with no extraordinary good Usage from the World In it I endeavour'd as much as possible to make the Author's Sentiments so far as justifiable my own and the Peruser may read my Heart and the Original Composer's together And indeed whoever would Translate or Paraphrase an Author well must try to work up himself to the same temper he was in when he wrote the Original A narrow Soul can't exhibit the Excellencies of Homer or Virgil in another Language nor will David 's Harp sound well in any Hand but where the same Spirit who influenced that sweet Singer of Israel has in some measure possest the Heart and harmoniz'd the Life and Conversation I expect the Criticks should spend their Verdicts upon the Performance As for the Subject it 's too much out of the road of the Witty Tribe they 'l let it alone for the same reason for which Aretine spoke no evil of God But they 'l carp at an Epithet or nibble at a Phrase and look upon it as very Affrontive that a little Theologue should pretend acquaintance with the Muses that he should presume to censure the Brethren of Parnassus or divert Poetry from the Service of lewd Mistresses from Burlesquing the most Divine Truths from profane Rants and blasphemous Flights from the Slavery of an obscene Stage and gratifying a corrupted Populace To all this He must plead Guilty He owns he loves and reverences that Holy Religion which they scoff at and ridicule and here as a late Author expresses it Is a Field of Satyr open'd to Him But he had rather spend his Time in composing Hymns to the Glory of his Maker than Satyrs upon an Atheistical Crew not that he fears their Returns but he thinks every Minute mispent which is laid out upon them I pretend not yet that I have made a compleat Poem of the Christian Pattern perhaps even the great Corneille fail'd in that tho some say his Paraphrase on our Author was his Masterpiece I dream not of having honour'd my Country exalted my Mother Tongue that I have wrong'd my Author less than others have done that my Faults are neither gross nor frequent and all that Those who are us'd to admire themselves can't forbear it when they have one Foot in the Grave but the old Hound deserves the Cudgel who thinks he can pinch as close when his Teeth are out as he could in his more vigorous Years If a good Christian as well as a good Critick shews me my Error I 'll correct it Criticism should aim only at mending what 's amiss The true Critick distinguishes of the Stiles of Authors gives us an Authentick Text and the true Import of Words in particular Writers shews the difference between spurious and genuine Pieces that Relation there is between Mens Writings and the Laws and Usages of the Countries or Places they write in or about He tries to fix the Aera's of great Revolutions and of particular if considerable Events and endeavours to shew the Cryptick Sense of the most learned or obscure Authors The Critick who employs himself thus deserves not the Character of ill Nature he only helps to set things in their true Light where he shews any Man his Mistakes he gives him an opportunity of rectifying 'um that he may look out into the World with the Eulogies of some reasonable Creature beside himself He lets the World see how much they are oft impos'd on by Names and Noise and how justly they may complain Grandia saepe quibus mandavimus Hordea sulcis Infelix Lolium steriles nascuntur avenae Which notwithstanding the New Version of that great Poet I 'd render thus Oft where with fairest Grain we sow'd the Fields Darnel and barren Oats the luckless Harvest yeilds Some Gentlemen perhaps who by the Religion they profess claim kindred with Heathens Jews and Mahometans for it 's good to be of the strongest side may think I have gone out of my way that 's the Word under the last Head to meet with them I must confess I have some Obligations to them which in due time God willing I shall very faithfully discharge I can't wonder that those who have call'd my Mother Whore should fix a malicious Character upon Me. They are a Generation formidable not for their reasoning Faculty but for their Jesuitism and Impudence They deal with the Defenders of Truth as Aethiopian Apes with their Enemy the Lion they fling all the Sand and Dust they can rake together into his Mouth and Eyes and then run away grinning and hope to escape in a Cloud of their own Raising They shelter their Sawciness under the Pretence of a fine new Discovery they have found doubtless after much Fasting and Prayer as Father Laelius of old that there are Nominal and Real Trinitarians and who would regard them who are so divided among themselves as if those who assert the Father Son and Holy Ghost to be real distinct Persons or Subsistences in the same Divine Nature and those who assert That every particular Person has his own peculiar Mode of Subsistence in that Divine Nature did not both believe a real Trinity Or as if They were not to be credited in their most solemn Asseverations when these Night-Birds declareing their Agreement with the Church of England that superannuated Beldam that Empire of King Oberon as they sometimes very respectfully call Her expect to be believed tho to believe them a Man must crack more Flashoods and notorious Contradictions than all those Mysteries amount to which they have pretended to break their Teeth upon Indeed if they 'd own once that the Father in and by Himself is infinite Eternal Incomprehensible c. that the Son is in and by Himself Infinite Eternal Incomprehensible

c. and that the Holy Ghost is in and by Himself Infinite Eternal Incomprehensible c. they will agree in that Point with the Church of England and the Argument deducible from those Concessions to prove that the Father is God the Son God and the Holy Ghost God and yet that there is and can be but one God will amount to a Demonstration They tell us indeed that their Writings look like fair well-furnish'd Houses where every thing is plain and regular but they may remember the famous Manchegan Hero who was as eminent for Chivalry as they are for Divinity took the beggarly Vent for a stately Castle bare Walls and Sluttishness for noble Furniture and a pair of Stroling Drabs for beautiful Damsels and Illustrious Princesses Again they find nothing but dark and obscure in the clearest Vindications of Eternal Truth but it 's because they are always blind at Home and their Eyes are in the ends of the Earth Indeed if Religion wanted Buffoons or Merry Andrews the Gentlemen might be of some use to Her For for a rude or Impertinent Jest a modish Droll a blasphemous Flirt or a long Declamation in praise of their own Elixirs Orvietans or Pouders of Pimperlimpimp they 'd outdo most of our riding Quacks or German Jugglers but for sound Reason Chrysippus his Dog outveyed'um and Balaam 's Ass might much better than They have superseded the necessity of Divine Revelation Answers to them are to the less purpose because they murder us so with their repeated Crambe's their wretched Quelque Chose shall be set again a hundred times upon the same Table only made a little poinant with the Sauce of a new Scoff or the Haut-goût of a Jeer and Nothing not the Eternal Deity himself can escape the ridicule when these Saints of a new Stamp take Pen in hand to assert the Reasonableness of Christianity to examine Scripture accurately to explode Mystery and to blaspheme the Holy and Undivided Trinity It 's hard to think they can have any Reverence for true Religion who write only for the Diversion of those who have none And we know what great Designs their late celebrated Champion had Scripture appear'd to him a meer Heap of Contradictions and to be reveng'd on those who would not swallow Christianity without Mysteries he piously resolv'd to set up Mahumetism in opposition to it and doubtless he knew very well that neither Scripture nor the Churches antient Confessions of Faith contain'd half so many Arguments for the Unitarian Divinity as the Alcoran Mysteries in Religion are very offensive to some weak Eyes Men of no Religion may perhaps be thought fittest to write the History of it they must needs be impartial because they have no Interest in the Subject they treat of but for Men of loose Lives to decry what they call Priest-craft for Men of very ordinary Intellectuals to explode Mysteries and for those of no Principles to take upon 'um to refine and vindicate Christianity is a Demonstration that Christianity is the best Religion Mysteries truly useful in it and the Christian Priesthood the noblest tho the most invidious Employment in the World Priest-craft is grown a Cant-word us'd by thoughtless Animals who seldom know their own meaning in 't Something they 'r angry at They cant sleep quietly in their Vices they can't live peaceably like Heathens in a Christian Country they can't devour the Patrimony of the Church without opposition nor set up Atheism without the danger of a Reprimand from some ill-bred Blackcoat In short Religion 's against them and therefore they are resolv'd to be against it This should render it the more valuable to sober Men it should make them study by Practical Holiness as well as weighty Arguments to crush the Heads of Atheism and Heresy to embrace kindly whatever promotes that Holiness and even to hug THE CHRISTIAN PATTERN how meanly soever Paraphras'd while it strives in the softest way to impress the sacred Image of our blessed Master on the Hearts of the greatest Priests or Bishops or of the humblest private Christians ERRATA PAg. 12. l. 14. r. fluttering p. 13. l. 6. r. nightly p. 47. l. 17. for this r. they p. 60. l. 23. r. presumptous p. 69. l. 1. r. disease p. 57. l. 18. r. shalt p. 69. l. 8. r. shalt p. 83. l. 17. r. by thy p. 86. after l. 11. a blank line is wanting p. 89. l. 1. after yet put p. 110. l. 8. r. Secrets p. 120. l. 15. r. strange for p. 155. l. 3. r. Live p. 186. l. 23. for while r. which p. 187. l. 18. after live make p. 206. l. 20. after can I make p. 223. l. 12. after ineffectually put p. 239. l. 17. r. God p. 245. l. 22. r. my Soul p. 260. l. 11. after eat put The Christian Pattern PARAPHRAS'D The First Book I. Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity WHOer'e to follow me his Steps applies Or'e his blest Head no gloomy Clouds shall rise But Life's pure Light shall fill his Heart and sparkle in his Eyes Thus spoke our Holy Jesus and can we Er'e dream of Light and Immortality That Truth 's pure Beams should our dark Fancies clear Unless like his our Lives reform'd appear O let our Thoughts then on his Actions dwell Whose Doctrines Man's divinest Rules excel If his enlightning Spirit guide the Mind 'T will treasur'd there the secret Manna find Truth sweet and tasteful as that Angels Food Not loath'd but always welcom'd by the Good If he withdraw tho with the Gospel blest Our Souls are still with lazy Dreams opprest But when enflam'd by him we try to live By those great Rules his heavenly Actions give All clear and plain his sacred Words appear And to the Heart reveal'd are grateful to the Ear. What tho I could with strange Acuteness pry Into the still Mysterious Trinity Only more Woes would me at last surprize Should my proud Soul from thence that dreadful God despise Not lofty Thoughts nor Words which smoothly roll But Purity to God endears the Soul Let others curious Definitions spin O let me feel true Grief for Guilt within And Floods of unseen Tears purge out my Stains of Sin What tho thy apprehensive Mind compriz'd What er'e those old Philosophers devis'd What tho thy faithful Mem'ry could recite What er'e in Scriptures Holy Penmen write Vain were thy Reach and vain thy Memory Unless God's Grace and Love were lodg'd in thee All 's Vanity and more than vainly vain But God's pure Love and our dear Saviour's Chain We 're wise indeed if we the World despise And grasp at Thrones and Crowns above the Skies It 's vain to covet or to trust in Gold It 's vain to be to Honours height extoll'd Vain are our carnal Lusts and fond Desires Whose Woes but preface Hell's Eternal Fires Vain is the longest Life when vainly spent Life's vain unless on future Glories bent It 's vain to love what like a Tempest flies And leave that