Selected quad for the lemma: love_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
love_n	affection_n	heart_n	see_v	3,500	5	3.2632	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74649	An entertainment of solitarinesse or, the melting of the soule, by meditations, and the pouring of it out by prayers. By Sir Richard Tempest, knight and baronet.	Tempest, Richard, Sir, 1619 or 20-1662.	1649 (1649)	Wing T625; Thomason E1410_1; ESTC R209519	28,217	157

and pleasing rinde wherewith they are covered and tastes of them as they be in their owne natures where hee findes anxietie unsatisfied melancholy diseases decay of fortune But to let alone those ingenious invectives and stoicall raylings against Pleasure commending them to a common place one may observe of it that most men love to be wise by their owne experience Mans nature is so poore and indigent a thing of it selfe that it turnes it selfe every where to seeke satisfaction and it s the wisdome of Nature delightfully to draw us to perform its actions she hath annext a Pleasure to the use of our senses that otherwise it would be a troublesome thing to maintain our lives that great Blessing of Goe and multiplie so much depending of it Pleasure may make its soft impressions upon our yeelding sense and it s to put off our species to be insensible of them Some would make man another thing than he is by robbing him of his affections Pleasures say they would convert him into strange and foraine shapes and some of the Philosophers for a remedie would convert him into a stone as if he must endure the transmutations of the Poet and act his Metamorphosis The sharpe and finest edges of Pleasure side with Vertue and Temperance while they perish upon the ruines of their satiated and plenarie fruitions and as long as they make no greater sound in the curious instrument of man than suits with the harmonie of his sublimer motions they helpe the Musick but if their greater noyse drowne the voyce of Reason or the higher faculties of the Soule they become lovers of Pleasures more than lovers of God Let all thy blessings Lord thy Methods and Workes make stayres for my Soule to ascend to thy right hand where are Pleasures for evermore A Contemplation on our Saviours hanging on the Crosse NOw am I freed from the noyse of Passions whilst with one looke they are struck dumbe Now am I delivered from the Tyrannie of insulting affections whilst in him crucified they behold their owne death The glories and pompe of the world have lost their pretences whilst the Sonne of Glory and Power suffered cloathed with the fraile garment of humane nature In this blessed shade no poysonous Vice will live the Serpent of Pride will not endure the looke of the true Brazen Serpent to see him humbled to the death of the Crosse Envie flyes hence to see him suffer for his enemies And now not left to but freed from my selfe my frozen and congealed heart begins to melt and thaw dissolving into teares weeping for its sinnes for which I see my Saviours heart to bleed Here I sit and bathe the wings of my Soule my affections in the flames of Gods holy love and whilst the fire burnes below in my heart my eyes boyle over above with fervent streames here in devout extasies my Soule loses it selfe in those ravishments of divine love I goe out of my selfe in wonderment not able to comprehend it but joyfully throw my selfe into those depths desiring to be comprehended by it The joyes of a Soule divinely in love border upon those inexpressible ones above for they swallow one up in their profound immensities and leave no capacitie for Reason to marshall them up in words and expressions the Wards as it were of that Key being no way fitted to open the Lock of the mysteries of this Love but leaves mens Soules holily inebriated and over-flowed with the deluge of Pleasures and Joyes I becomming rather theirs than they mine being turned all to Joy and Love And now my Soule being melted with the meditation of thy Passion let it be poured out to thee in Confessions let the beames of thy owne transcendent Love be reflected back againe from my heart upon the face of others that thus shining one to another and all receiving our Lights from thee may at last be fixt in thy owne Court for ever sill'd with the beames of the joy of thy presence Let others sit in the Chaire of subtill Controversie while I sit at the feet of my Saviour in meditation of his Passion Let others boast of their false Retreats their Groves and Eliziums while under the shades of thy sharpe and thornie Crowne my Soule rejoyces nay while in those shades which Crosses and Afflictions shall cast upon my life in conformitie to my Saviours suffering my Soule rejoyces A Contemplation upon a retyred life THe Poets sometimes gratifie the largenesse of mans Soule with their loftie flights writing to immortalitie and in the excesse of their fancie converse with Deities tumbling among the Starres with Iove and anon let the motions of their Spirits downe againe to view the contents of moderate and private fortunes Thus wee see sometime the Sceane of the greatest mens lives altered now representing you the prospect of Armies Triumphs of Victories Grandeur of State the glory of Courts Camps and Cities anon in their roomes succeeding Groves and pleasant Rivers private Walks Discourses of the Worlds Vanities Experiments of Nature and such Companions of solitarinesse When all the swellings of Pride and vain Opinions are falne and Nature freed from those affectations it hath got abroad it acknowledgeth it selfe it s owne Bents and inclinations A life led according to Nature is the reall enjoying of things themselves but if according to Art and Opinion its like as in Pictures they view things drawne well to the Life representations of Love Honour and Vertue yet nothing but Colours that lose their glories by mens neerer approaches The joyes of an active life are more agreeable to Nature moving in the Sphere of Vertue than any recessions from societie can afford whose privilege can onely be to thinke Vertue The masculine power of the minde is not beholding to places for their satisfactions but what is the true and reall dignitie of one place before another by an intellectuall Chymistrie he can extract and translate to his owne minde their preheminencies There can in no place be wanting Groves Rivers singing of Birds our bodies are a shadie Grove where our Soules sit contemplating the Musick of the Birds without are all Gods creatures which as it were in so many diversified Notes doe sweetly sing their Makers prayse the Rivers are that flux wherein all humane things are Times Persons Things which by a succession of their corruptible and alterable parts doe still keepe up that current These thoughts are as it were the better Genius which attends the Lakes without which their retirements are but the refuges of mens sickly humours where they begin to live of their maladie rather than to cure it and doe onely sacrifice the fumes of melancholy for that incense of service which they owe as a tribute for their being Those that would make loanenesse acceptable by advising men as through a Prospective to behold the greatnesse of Structures and braverie of Courts through the humilitie of a Cottage doe make ones deluded fancie the ground of their

Qui violat Rosam spinis Coronabitur Qui Violat Rosam Spinis Coronabitur Sanguine sub nimiâ languet Rosa tincta colore sic luget proprio purpurat ora rubor En Phoebi reditum madesacta liquore precatur sub Caroli radiis ut micet illa sui AN Entertainment OF Solitarinesse OR The Melting of the SOULE by Meditations and the pouring of it out by Prayers By Sir RICHARD TEMPEST Knight and Baronet Sine me liber ibis in Vrbem Printed in the yeare 1649. TO His deare Brothers Nicholas Tempest and Thomas Tempest Esquires Deare Brothers IN you I have enjoyed the happy freedoms and privileges of friendship which consociate the remotest regions of mens hearts with the participation of their mutuall thoughts I communicate to you now these Conceptions the Companions of my solitarinesse that notwithstanding the Presse is debaucht yet by the quick passage of it you might participate of my thoughts at this distance whereby in part I might turne my Lonenesse into Companie and Conversation And though the accidents of the time have violently snatcht you from me whereby you have changed your freedome for restraint yet all the unpleasing passages of Fortune or her most plausible Courtships work nothing upon a mind seated on that firm resolution to be true to GOD the King and his friend the very Heathen could say Commit thy self to an honest just action as to a tutelar God Those minds alone that are not raised above the trifles and vanities of the world feele the tyranny of passion and adversitie others who lie not levell with its injuries carry a happinesse in their owne brests which tents as it were they can set down in any condition or place be happy in Saint Paul named no one state wherein he could be content but had learned in what state soever to be content certainly such a state of mind onely as is agreeable to the traverses of the world considering every thing as it is in its own alterable nature and withall making use of the prerogative of the Soule which is above any created thing can fix or settle in mans life a felicitie which all men so earnestly court and so few obtaine many presenting their service to that Mistris of all mens Soules out of vainglory or covetousnesse or worldly interest she being the most quick-sighted Lady which will not confer her favors on any but who are truly inamored with it self God himself being that essential Aeternitie who is alone to be loved for himselfe Questò e il vero geiore che nasce dà virtu dopò il soffrire From Amsterdam Decemb. 20. 1648. Your faithfull Brother Rich Tempest To the Reader HE who sacrificeth his Vertue to the genius of the Times shall find its favours not so durable as the reward of his Vice is certaine one may goe smiling or fearelesse to destruction the affections of deceived minds change nothing the nature of the evils incurred there is a fixt unalterable nature of good which accidents of fortune and events communicable to good or bad actions cannot change nor subvert successe dazles the vulgar eye and minds that undertooke the service of Vertue for the love they bare its rewards no longer adore the beautie of the other than their lower minds are bribed with the pettie satisfactions to their inferior interests It s the most contemptible slaverie of the mind to pin its value and esteeme of justice upon the sleeve of fortune there being nothing truly fixt and permanent but sacred Vertue which men so readily forsake for every thing that of its selfe naturally makes progresse to change a necessary mutabilitie and alteration adhering to the nature of all other things By the communication of these thoughts the times are not courted chusing rather to dote upon the foame falling from the jawes of Cerberus they being such as Tacitus notes sometime to happen out wherein is a certain ruine for those who hold with dutie and wherein one might justly resume the demand of that Orator who being applauded by the vulgar asked his friend what ill he had spoke These papers chuse rather to be as miserable as ever the merry Poets could make any by their threatned judgements and wittie condemnations aut piper aut thus It will be a loathsome thing to stay behind all that to which destruction is threatned when as with all their protestations pecuniarie and sanguinarie prodigalitie in stead of bringing home the Golden Fleece which is that addition of Wealth Honour and Power to the King and his people they have onely used them all as means to make them most miserable by the destroying of what is glorious and worthy The Kingdome is touched as I may say with Monarchy and though the Needle is by a violent hand set to contrarie Pointe of the Compas and by the contrarie winds of Factions they attempt to sail to Utopian fancied Governments yet usque recurret the Needle will not stand but to it s beloved Pole All miserable practises upon the healthfull constitution of our dear Mother But alas who would grieve truly for thee must let his veines bleed purple teares to deliver thy tender brests dearest Mother from the desperate hands of thy cruell and bloudie executioners Vale. The melting of the SOULE c. On Sundayes Holy dayes and Fasting dayes HEE whose mind remaines in the power of Reason and Religion orders his outward observances so that they may be the transitorie Hieroglyphicks of his inward pietie They are unmannerly Devotions which neglect the Injunctions of the Church concerning the time place and manner of them since every action is invested with such circumstances and hath such formalities annext to them the gravitie and solemnitie of enjoyned Ceremonie will suite better with regular zeales than the garbes and formes privat fancies would put on them Thy holy Word O Lord is the Sunne which by casting its beames on the figures and distinctions of the Churches Dyall points out and orders to us the times of our lives Some Religions weare onely the finer Liverie of Sundayes others love to appeare attended with the sadder traine of Fasting dayes When I consult with the Church I finde both enjoyned and when I advise with my owne nature I find them suited to the two principall affections in man Joy and Griefe Let not my service of thee O Lord be mis-shapen in its parts but what I doe to please thee let it be guided by thee There is such a confederacie betweene the soule and the body they doe so mutually operate one upon another that even those restraints put upon our appetites quicken and make active the motions of the soule for when the body its organ is distempered it retorts and shoots backward its indispositions to the minde our thoughts sometimes condensed into the corporeall delights of the sense sometimes rarified into the pure abstracted pleasures of the spirit And since bodily abstinence aides and contributes aptitude to the mind for diviner

errors of my life I give thee Lord that one syllable thou desirest my heart begging the exchange of another for it Love But because I am a very bubble which howsoever it be blowne into some curious-coloured Hemisphere by some good inspirations yet the least ruffling winde from abroad makes evaporate And though I be wound up to some holy resolutions by the finger of thy Spirit yet without thy constant assistance I should relapse and fall into loosenesse and dejectednesse therefore I begge of thee my Heart againe that thou wouldest before the conveyance of it passe give it me under the custodie of thy Grace sealed up by thy blessed Spirit that no sinfull Passion within nor outward Glory nor Beautie the solliciters of Vanitie doe ever breake it up Deceit doth debase our Nature and false Policie destroy Governments MAn that Noble Coyne which bears the Image of the King of Heaven is so debased with the alloy of his owne imaginations that it will not passe Lord thou art one undivided simple essence and requirest Truth in the inward parts and spirits wherein there is no guile Wherefore thou hast taught us that under the forme of Children wee obtaine the Kingdome of Heaven by the revocation of which innocent and contemptible part of our lives the value is brought downe of all those false Wares men have fraughted their mindes with in the voyage of this life those false Opinions deluded Affections which doe create to men their joyes and feares Wee shall finde Deceit hath underminded all the little structures of Delight men have builded out of Fancie while Opinions are entertained in the Soule which beare not the lawfull impression of Truth but the counterfeit stampe of their owne affection Truth is the onely firme Basis of mans content and happinesse the images of the things themselves as they be in their owne natures received as it were into the Glasse of the mind settle there that which we call Truth when there is a conformitie betwixt the things and our minds but when man vitiates and distorts his mind with wrong and erronious apprehensions of those things then are our mindes a Magick Glasse which shewes us the images of things that are not Thus are mens griefes Panique and their joyes personate Those teares of Alexander were as ridiculous which the report of another part of the World yet unconquered drew from him as of that poore woman whom the Philosopher saw weeping for her Pitcher she had broke Man mingling his deceived conceptions with the things themselves frights himselfe with that Vizard hee himselfe bestowes on things which in themselves are naturall orderly and necessarie Waters that at the Fountaine head are pure and sweetly tasted in their subterraneous passage beget new and foraine tasts What a Maze doth humane nature tread in How many are the Cozenages of his affections Man as it were in the Tyring-roome of his fancie bestowes his severall Dresses and Attires on things which he on the Stage of the world really counts for such as he hath cloathed them for Thus are all things made to beare the Liverie of his imaginations and are accepted back againe into the affections according to the richnesse of the habits hee made them fine with Folly saith Erasmus heares it selfe ill spoke of even amongst the most foolish and many would entertaine with laughter the storie of that foole who leapt and danced because he thought all the ships that came into the harbour were his owne when perhaps no lesse Comicall would their owne Mirths prove which are drawne perhaps from the esteeme of some things which serve to make a great part of their lives seeme pleasant to them which having their worth viewed in the light of Reason would be found not sufficient to yeeld such a warmth and influence to warme or recreate their deluded affections at Some are overflowed with a deluge of teares for that which to another hath no such ugly Character stampt on it Opinion is sufficient to move passion and Opinion many times rises from the bare shewes of things and yet the impressions are no lesse violent and strong which Opinion retorts on us then what comes from things in themselves ill Beautie is a glorious Ray which might rayse our thoughts to the Creator of Lights who is Beautie it selfe and wherein the Minde might take as much content with due reflections on the Giver as in any other sparks of that omnipotent brightnesse communicated to the Creature Honour is that badge wherby they will honour Vertue Wealth is a banke against the flowings in of the necessities of this life Yet all these befoole our loves and cheat our affections they not being brought in by the trials and examinations of Reason but by the secret motions and recommendations of Passion for Beautie by the Hyperbole and excesse of my thoughts is made another thing to me than it is being onely those clouds whither the Sunne of mens wit send their beames to gild Thus when wee would immortalize the objects of our Earth-borne wishes or make Earthly Beauties Divine then by this disproportion are our unsatisfied affections betrayed to Repentance being it must be recalled from the height and rate it had carryed the thing too or if one in stead of true Vertue and Merit fall in love with vulgar Breath and Court that Eccho being as much taken with those ayrie reverberations as Narcissus was with the watrie reflection seeking for that rich Ore of happinesse in other mens soules which he would have coyned into respect and observances of him what doth he but as Solomon sayth possesse the winde Or if one admire too much that Idoll of vulgar mindes Wealth thinking the felicitie of it consists in the abundance when as that Divine Aphorisme delivers More than what is necessarie the owner hath but to behold it with his eyes Men augment their joyes from the greatnesse of their wealth as they doe their feares from the greatnesse of the appearance of his danger All the Ocean strikes a terror in the minde of him like to be drowned when lesse than a Tun would serve the turne Or if the whole Ayre that incompasseth the Globe were infected one should adde the consideration of the vastnesse of that to encrease his sorrow whereas he could suck in no more than what conferr'd to his owne mortalitie Oh that my wayes were directed with a Line the Line of thy Word there being no other Guide out of this intricacie and perplexednesse of our owne natures Man was from the hand of the most glorious Workman set on the solid Basis of integritie and justice and is now crumbled away into trifles minute-deceits which hath weakened the soliditie of this best piece of the Creation Truth is that noble prey mans Soule is in the inquest after and to have it in stead of realities stored onely with maskes and outward formes it dishonours our natures makes them unhappie and miserable The moralitie of the Heathen puts out of