Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A52444
|
A forest of varieties ...
|
North, Dudley North, Baron, 1581-1666.
|
1645
(1645)
|
Wing N1283; ESTC R30747
|
195,588
|
250
|
French with an English as with a French man nor exercise half so much freedome or ingeniosity with a dull common or prevaricating as a lively generous and sincerely expressing spirit I well endure not to sow my seed but on good ground and expectation of a good return nor to converse with such as are so wedded to their own opinions and full of themselves that there is no room or indulgence for any other I am as tender of giving the least distaste or offence to another as to my self Though I love conformity yet no more then needs must to an absurd fashion and not at all to a vitious temporizing Here you may finde no small perplexity Art is long multiform infinite Nature short-sighted bounded we are obnoxious to a world of crosse indications and reluctances Art and Inventions owe us a faire amends for we suffer and are confounded more then a little by them were it in my power I would recompence restore help and piece out Nature by my Writings but I feare the best Authors often more disguise and confound then better and improve her Shee hath I confesse found some advantage from Invention as appeares in the extent and multiplication of Perspective Glasses Catacousticons digesting our Language to bee conserved by writing regulate and sublime observation in Astronomy and the course of the Heavens as the Ephemerides and exact prediction of Eclipses doe witnesse but how well shee might have subsisted and walkt without a Iacobs staffe and these helps let others discourse I acknowledge them much better then the invention of high heeles head dresses and training Gownes c. But may it not be a shame to Art that all this while it hath not taught us to flye and for swimming we are rather dis-taught by our Discourse and that cutting down and destroying great Trees upon otherwise barren soyles it is not able to teach them to bring forth Corne and inferiour Plants Fancy and the Melancholy humour are great Inventors but as the Melancholique humour breeds an Appetite so doth it ordinarily hinder digestion a stomach that surchargeth it self with variety digesteth ill and breeds crudities It is hard to make a just concoction and distribution of our unnaturall superinductions The craftier sort of people strip themselves of such clogs and incumbrances and insist too often in a corrupt and unreformed nature They look upon God if at all no farther then they finde him in Nature and in his Workes they passe over his supernaturall revealed Word and will as wanting the eye of Faith to discern it and either question the recommended interpretation or wrest it to their own sense and interest they admit no Law but their own Nature and worldly and sensuall advantage No man can know God and his will and contemn or slight it But Religion like Nature and the Senses is indemonstrable because nothing proportions unto it Every man frames God unto himselfe such as either his grace or our owne interpretation and sense deliver him unto us If our Divines were either so consonant in their interpretations or lives as were requisite wee should become better Christians then we are His will would not be so indifferent to us nor would we conceive him so indifferent as many do to our wills and actions Excepting Religion all other knowledge is so painefull to attaine and so troubled and muddy when wee come to stirre the bottome that the game is hardly worth the Candle God of his great mercy enlighten us and mend us Amen August the 2. 1638. To my best Clergy friend in relation to the best among us IT proveth according to your conceit for this my farther writing I affirmed to you as I then thought that nothing lay upon mee requiring farther vent In truth for the particular which I now fall upon it hath beene long since in my affections to write something therein but the tendernesse and daintinesse of the matter and censuring ticklishnesse of the time with-held mee possibly I have been too pusillanimously injurious to truth and ingenuitie too much misdoubting my owne strength and over prejudicate upon superiours in such restraint Religion as it now stands betwixt us and the Papists is the subject There have not beene wanting on the one side some who out of a Romish presumptuous and overflattering disposition and on the other some who out of a Scottish jealousie and distrust have over-boldly apprehended if not concluded that both our King and many of our Bishops are against their owne and our good and quiet too much affected that way I have formerly understood from you your opinion to the contrary and that grounded upon sound reason and mine hath runne with yours None should prove so great losers by such a change as our King and Archbishop of Canterbury and they are both of them too wise and sensible of their owne power freedome and splendor ever to consent to reenthrall themselves to those great usurpations and abuses which the Monarch of Rome exerciseth over such Princes and States as acknowledge him It is little that we of inferiour calling should suffer under him in respect of the continuall reluctancy wherein they would find themselves plunged Our King and State enjoy now that happy freedome which hath cost others full deare to have attained and have failed in their endeavours Yet a King of France is mighty even in the Court of Rome so farre as to bandy against the Spanish faction which is commonly great enough to be troublesome to the Pope himselfe The power of all other Princes and States are petty Planets in comparison of these of so little sway and eminency that their influence and operation is very little more then as they side adhere and involve themselves to the others interest Our King is now one of the most free and eminent of Christendome nor can there bee the least just feare that his wisedome and spirit upon whatsoever Antipuritan suggestion can consent to bring over himselfe an unbridled and unlimited jurisdiction and controller The usurped vicegerency of the Pope as God on earth is too imcompatible with the just temporall power of Kings to be willingly admitted The strained grosse and injurious pretences of the Roman Church have been too clearely detected and Christian rights and truths too strongly vindicated to relapse to former delusions whatsoever future remisnesse and indulgency the Pope may pretend nunquam ligat sibi manus there can bee no securitie against him and naturally as well as for their pretended truth and uniformity they will ever tend to recover their losses and pristine authoritie Many carry a reverend respect to that Church more out of a contemplation of what primitively they were and now should bee then what they long have been now are and are likely to continue Unitie in truth and sincere Religion were indeed above all things to bee wished as nothing is more to bee avoyded and abhorred then falsehood prevarication and imposture Whatsoever pretext of policy and devotion
carelesnesse presumption impatience and a treacherous indulgence to his own humours our common reigning maladies have been the cause Wee are of late so out of our wits that our very mother wit of keeping our selves warme failes both in our mothers and us By naturall heate wee live want of clothes want of cherishing it makes us all suffer Though you know my mind concerning Physitians yet such is their Ius acquisitum that my sonne is under their jurisdiction God send it to his good cold taken upon Physick hath cast him downe I have been present at their Anatomicall discourse of his distemper danger and cure excellent termes to amuse and amase the credulous ignorant enough to worke a cure by the enchantment and charme of their words and language Yet I cannot but compare it to a Rope-dancer whom I have seene doe his tricks and show his Art in a Sack if his footing were right good if other hazard for a neck or limbe But here if their learned blindnesse mistake the poore paying Patient must suffer It is just that they who cannot governe themselves should be ruled by others often worse These and more evills must we suffer as it is in the 14. Chap. of the booke of Wisedome Verse the 22. from the warres of theirs and our ignorance A word or two lesse would have ended with the bottome of the page but howsoever I end well if you continue and accept me Your faithfull Friend and Servant November 12. 1638. The Shepherd Sheep and Wolfe MY true fair-minded Friend I beleeve you now in labour to Preach and mend the vitious world I also wish but little hope to doe it by writing you sow and I write in the Sand wee both dwell at the sign of the Labour in vaine the More will not change his hew nor the Leopards their spots they cannot nay they would not you shall not perswade them they are blemishes no more then the Lady her affected patches on her face they are in fashion and appeare faire in their own eyes as every mans way and pleasure to himselfe we may lament one anothers endevours others will deride us or possibly some will be so good as say Well said well writ and as they use their feasts eate and forget the sober diet breeds the better nourishment example is the better Teacher but it must bee numerous to prevaile Vertue is grown but a name and that neither well understood nor agreed on Some honest men there are Rari nantes in gurgite vasto they may make much of themselves and wrap themselves in their own vertue a habit God knows out of fashion they are fitter for Cloysters then the worlds traffique and like square playing Gamesters shall be sure to bee made a prey and sit down by the losse their strong constitution may resist the corruption of the times they shall not alter them their innocence shall have as little power howsoever commended as fresh waters upon the Seas saltnesse the worlds antiperistasis may better them not they the world But how comes it that so few are honest is it that perfection must bee as rare and hard in Nature as in Art is it that our artificiall confused meat and drink infect our bodies and they our soules is it the perniciousnesse of example in great and powerfull persons who sway the times and seldome originally attain to riches honours and greatnesse by just and honest wayes Or is it that as some species of creatures are of a perverse and evill nature such as live by rapine and destruction such as Apes Wolves c. so man is naturally of a mischievous kind if so them may a good natured man be esteemed a Monster and rather an error then perfection of Nature Is it these or is it not rather the corruption of our mindes and affections by having changed and perverted Nature from her first purity into Artificiall fancy and affectation of enthralling others and inriching our selves So that as women are in respect of their attire often the least part of themselves the like may bee said of man in the disguise of the minde So it is and such punishment is deserved in our desertion and rebellion against God and Nature We are one anothers scourges wee are scourges to our selves If you and I and others are rather Sheep then Wolves let us thank God whose grace it is let us cloathe our selves in our own wooll short Pasture will content us for food little drink more then the dew of Heaven Thither let us tend towards him whose mark we bear the great Shepherd of our Soules Let Wolves be wolves whilest hee is our Shepherd and his good Angels our guard we are safe and happy now and forever let the wolves of this world the Loup-garrons the mankinde wolves devoure what they can they shall devoure but what they can most commonly one another There are so few of us they would else want meat though their rage be great their time is short our comforts are sweeter more permanent as much as they contemn us they are content to make use of our cloathing they reckon us foolish Martyrs of a foolish Philosophy and wee them beasts of a foule deformity They are ugly to God ugly to goodnesse often ugly to one another and ugly to themselves especially when affliction sicknesse and infirmity le ts loose that Band-dog Conscience upon them which they had formerly in their prosperity tyed up and kept in darknesse and sleep hating and hated flattering themselves with strong delusions to one anothers torture for the present and eternall torment hereafter I leave them committing you and all good men the Sheep of God to his inviolable infallible protection Amen Amen November 14. 1638. NO wonder if a perverse nature use perverse and crooked wayes a Serpent cannot goe right craft is the evill mans instrument to evill ends as cunning is sometimes necessary to good men for good purposes evill men are in the dark they are blinde to true vertue and charity their workes are workes of darknesse and their wayes accordingly it is the glory of discreet power in goodnesse to walk fairly and choose the open safe and faire way where others how ever powerfull needlesly encumber and bemire themselves in bryers and bogges As I have often said it is a sweet thing to see knaves miscarry and play the fooles as commonly they doe they like the Woodcock think themselves more concealed then they are as much unduly overweening themselves as undervaluing others I never knew a foole without some kinde of craft nor a wise man affect it MY second Father Brother and spirit of comfort thus yet I am so happy as to converse with you in absence it is a piece of my misfortune to bee at so great a distance from you in the same Town my late long and hasty walke unto you endangered a distemper and sicknesse upon me but as burning with burning so evill of exercise with exercise is cured Naturall