Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	gospel_n	young_a	youth_n	14	3	8.6183	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52296	An essay on the contempt of the world by William Nicholls ...	Nicholls, William, 1664-1712.	1694 (1694)	Wing N1097; ESTC R11634	100,218	240

Contempt of the World because they find themselves so keen and sharp against the common Occurrences in it but this is more of the Devilish than of the Christian Spirit for that wicked One has his Office and his Name from Accusing and Calumniating Such Men are rather Haters than Contemners of the World a Company of Currish Timons that love Barking for Barking Sake that rather like the World the better for being bad because it finds them Entertainment enough for their Spleen Now the good Christian that does really out of an honest Heart despise the World is heartily sorry for the Infirmities and Miscarriages of Human Kind and does wish that they were fully amended but these like Toads and Adders grow fat upon the Poyson of the World 't is their Meat and Drink to find faults to be railing at The good Christian that condemns the World and the prophane Practices of it has an exemplary Life to witness for him that he does it out of a pure Conscience but the ill natur'd Railer is one who has no other Pretence to Vertue but by talking against Vice they are generally Men of the worst Morals that take up with this sort of Sat r only as a blind or a Jugling-Box to deceive the Peoples Eyes by diverting them from their own Vices thereby to gain the Advantage of calling Whore first Their Business is to Gall and Fret the World more than to despise it and if they can but give others Disquiet their Work is done But 't is demonstration that such rather desire the Torment and Disquiet of Men than their Reformation because when by their Railing they have effected what they designed rather than want something to rail at they wi l be pulling down their own Work with their own Tongues From Old Age. II. Some do mistake the Effects of Old Age for a true Contempt of the World It is certain that according to the diverse Stages of our Life we are pleased and entertained with diversity of Objects When we are Children we like nothing so well a Rattles and Hobby-Horses when we grow Men Wit and Knowledge and Pleasure and Fame are more apt to Delight us and some of these too wear off again from us as we grow old 'T is a Mistake therefore to fancy that we are arrived to a Contempt of the World when we are only come to such a Period of Age we do not then despise those worldly Pleasures but only we know not how to relish them I have known a Lady that had spent her Youth in the most frothy Vanity you can imigine and as Age came on she has plum'd her self and cry'd how she despised the World when most People guessed the true Reason was because the World began to despise her 'T is no great Wonder why a Gentlewoman of Seventy should take no Pleasure in Dancing a Jigg or that a Man who had destroyed Nature before Forty should at Sixty applaud himself for the Aversion he had arriv'd to both to Wine and Women This can be no more said to be a Contempt of the World than a Man can be said to walk down Stairs who is tumbled down Headlong This is a Defect of Nature and not an overcoming of it This is far better no doubt than what those lewd old People do who pride themselves in the Sins of their Youth and when Nature is grown decrepit enjoy their Vices over again in Imagination But however this is far enough from the Vertue which we treat of for this consists in conflicting with the Pleasures we are able to enjoy and not in slighting those we cannot The best way for ancient Persons to try whither they are arrived to a Contempt of the World or no is to see how they can comport themselves when those Inclinations are crost which are most incident to old Age. Let them try if they can bear the Loss of a Bag of Gold with as little Impatience as the Disappointment of a Ball or a merry Meeting And then I will say indeed they are arrived to a compleat Contempt of the World But generally this Carping at the Actions of young People is rather the Infirmity of Old Age than any Virtue such as that Age of Man's Life has always been remarkable for as Horace has observed seventeen hundred years ago Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda vel quod Quaerit inventis miser abstinet ac timet uti Vel quod res omnes timide gelidéque ministrat Dilator spe longus iners avidusque futuri Difficilis querulus laudator temporis acti Se puero censor castigatorque minorum Hor. Art Poet. Many Infirmities surround the Old They seek and yet they dare not use their Gold They are in all their Resolutions slow And timorous in every thing they do The Sadness of the Times is still their Song And none like that they liv'd when they were young They censure all that younger People do And would have Threescore seen in twenty two Nay Homer many hundred years before him never brings in old Nestor but he is undervaluing all that is done by the younger Folks and praising what he remembers when he was young 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Wise you are good Sirs yet all agree You must give place for that to Older Me. I long convers'd with Wiser men than you Who still did me the chiefest place allow Dryas Pirothous those Glorious men We ne'r must think to see the like agen On equal Grounds I with brave Ceneus stood And Polyphemus greater than a God The Godlike Theseus d d give p ace to me Tho' worthy He of Immortality These were the mighty Champions that freed The pester'd Earth from all her monstrous breed Where e'r they went they did for Nestor stay And Nestor always fought as well as th y These matchless Heroes did my Counsel hear And by my Wisdom all their Actions square Therefore do you you had best take my Ad ice c. Hom. Iliad lib. 1. Now when we see that this has always been the Temper of Old Age to find fault with the Actions of young People and the present sent Customs it can never reasonably be thought to be a Chtistian Vertue to do so or that this is that Contempt of the World which is enjoyned in the Gospel T●● wiser part of ancient Persons have always conquered the natural Peevishness and Querulousness of their Temper or at least have disguised it For Reason it self shews that there can be no Ground for it For why should we suppose that Youth should be delighted with those things that Old Age is any more than we should suppose the same Person to be both Young and Old 'T is the Design of Nature to gratifie these diverse Appetites one after another and we may as well expect to have their Constitutions altered before their time as their Inclinations That volatile Briskness of Youth will exert it self in Juvenile Gaieties and Capricious Freedoms which Age has