comes not within the view of this sense of seeing yet possibly the Eare that hath heard such exquisite variety of all sorts of Musick such sublime and deep learned discourses that hath had derived and conveyed to it so many primitive and ancient traditions may have met with some strain something like it or at least may have heard some tidings of it No it fals not under the latitude of this sence neither Ear hath not heard it yea but yet notwithstanding it falls not within the knowledge of the sences which are corporeal yet surely the Vnderstanding which is inorganical and incorporeal and which needs not the support of these Crutches but is able to subsist act without them may be able to find out and discover what kind of place this is for we see we are able to conceive a great many things which never were nor shall be much more then as one would think this which we are as certain is as we are uncertain what it is by this we are able to move from the Center to the Circumference and back again in a moment we can dig as deep and low as Hell and immediately soar againe above the Stars and although there be in every thing that we have seen or heard something that displeaseth us for even the sweetest Musick is not without some discord and the most excellent Beauty hath its naevos and its blemishes and as the Optists tell us in their Maxime that Omnis visio fit per Pyramidem that every thing that we see enters into the eye by a sharp angle like the Cuspis of a Pyramid the object making the Basis so that it may seem to prick as it enters as Alexander said the beauty of the Persian Ladies did the Macedonians so that it made their Eyes sore again so me thinks every object hath in it really something of that figure something that is sharp and pungent something that pricketh and is distastfull and ingrate and yet nevertheless we are able by our Vnderstanding to sever and abstract whatsoever dislikes us and to retain onely so much as pleaseth Us I say by our Vnderstanding we are able to do this sure then although we never saw nor heard of them yet we may be able to conceive the joyes and pleasures that are there Why no not thus neither it hath not entred into the Heart of man to conceive Why then let us be satisfied and rest assured that they are beyond the perception of our sences and beyond the fancy of our imagination and apprehension of our Vnderstanding Seeing therefore then that we have so excellent a Reward proposed and set before us let us with all humble earnestness contend thither qua non passibus itur sed affectibus whither with our feete wee cannot come they are too slow and too heavie neither is the way at all pervious to them it must be the wings of devout and pious Affections that must bear us thither it must be Love by which we must be carried thither love to God and love to our Neighbour for no man saith St. Iohn loveth God and hateth his Brother and he gives an excellent Reason for it for * how saith he can he love God whom he hath not seen and hate his Brother whom he hath seen O Lord which art the true and perfect Love kindle in our Hearts we beseech thee the love of thy self and thy perfections Let our souls ascend thither upon the wings of Faith and Charity whither otherwise we cannot come let us die unto this World that we may live unto Thee let it seem bitter unto us that we may taste no sweetnesse but in thee O Lord we have had abundant experience of the Vanity and Falsenesse of it we have sought for contentment and satisfaction in it but we have not found it we have wandred up and down in the wayes of Wickednesse but we have found no rest for the soles of our feet and now at last that we are weather-beaten and weary now we are forsaken of every thing we come unto Thee As long as any thing would receive or entertain us we cared not we would not return and therefore thou mightest justly now deny us admission but yet O receive us for his sake who is our Peace-maker and hath parchased it at so dear a rate even with the effusion of his own most precious Bloud Jesus Christ the righteous our blessed Lord and onely Saviour AMEN FINIS * Punctum est in quo vivitis in quo regna desponitis in quo bella geritis Seneca in Praefat. ad Nat. Hist * Barelay in his Icon aâ—â—morum * Cantieâ—â—… 8. v. 7. Prov. cap. 31. 10. * Gen. 29. 17. * Ephes. cap. 5. ver. 26. * 2 Peter c. 3. v. 8. * Iudges 5. chap. ver. 28. Dr. Brown in his Religio Medici * Tul. de nat. Deorum Liâ— 1. * 1 Ioh. 4. v. 8â— * Dr Brown in his Religio medici * 1 Iohn c. 5. v. 19 * Theoerit Eidyll 25. * Matth. chap. 22. ver. 30. * 1 Cor. chap. 2. ver. 9. * 1 Iohn chap. 4. ver. 20.
AN APOLOGY FOR LOVERS OR A Discourse of the Antiquity and Lawfulnesse of LOVE By Erastophil no Proselyte but a native of that Religion Faelices ter amplius Quos irrupta tenet copula nec malia Divulsus querimoniis Suprema citius solvet amor die Horat. ad Lydiam Ode 13. London Printed in the year 1651. TO My Dearest Sister Mrs. M. VV. My Dearest Sister WHat I long since promised I now perform if a thing imperfectly slubber'd over and in hast may merit the name of a performance but for that as I acknowledge the debt so I look upon you as an easie Creditress and not so scrupulous as to refuse payment because it comes in clipt and broken money 'T is true I have sometimes heretofore thought of it but those thoughts perisht almost in the very conception without producing any thing unless it were some few rude lineaments and which I should call the rough draught of this discourse but that I should be injurious to it as it is now by robbing the thing of its apellation although I am perswaded the conceptions concerning this subject being so exceeding fine and having so little commerce with sense are not to be exprest to the life by the most curious Pencil much lesse by so uneven an hand as mine but are like to those which Apelles is said to have drawn when he contended with Protogenes Lineas visum effugientes however deliniated it is yours by a double relation both because I know you to be and me thinks there should be no one of so little humanity as not to be a friend to lovers and next because it is a task which I had not undertaken but upon your assignment and so in both respects most properly belonging to you For a conclusion I wish you all the joys of Love of Youth and Health and what ever Happinesse else is to be found in this World and in the next eternal and ever lasting Felicity Your most affectionate Brother and Servant Erastophil To my worthy friend the Author on his Apology for Lovers I 'Ve seen thy fair Design and I approve Thy each part like the first great Act of Love When fire pursu'd and water stood at Bay Heat fought with cold and darkness with the day When Nature was all tempest when no Cheek Had smiles nor were there lips to kiss or speak When unfledg'd Cupid had no wings to flie Nor were his shafts plac'd in the killing eye Love calm'd the Chaos and reduc'd the brawl Into a good a great and glorious ALL Thus friend thy pâ—â— transcribes his draughts above And every line runs parallel with Jove Something alike in both my fancy finds He work'd on matter thou doost work on minds Love was his creature but thy ward nay thou Ar't more then Guardian to that passion now He in a larger volumn did express His admir'd flame thou doest it in a less And though thy narrow Trace may not contend With his vast course yet both conspire in th' end To the same point of union thou dost run As Heliosropes do imitate their Sun Me thinks I see the soul like some course fire Ally'd to Coal inslav'd with a defire Of pelf and stock so that her noble flame Feeds on cheap chips and stuff beneath her name Health to thy brave design that would translate Our Spirits from this durty Kitchin-state And fix them in a heaven where eys with eys And beams with beams may twist and eternize Why should we doat on trash and so misplace That on the Fan which is due to the face Stars mix with stars and trouble not the earth Least st should interpose and soi the Birth I would fright the Mother did the Childs aspect But figure that most fathers do affect And well she might mistake her self a Mint Did stamp Philippo's and bring forth in Print We should have children fac'd like Duckatoons And like George riding too out of the Wombs Such indirect affections I can pitty And justly may bequeath them to the City There without Love Gold onely hath the Name They have the Fuell but they want a Flame Eugenius Philalethes To my dear Brother upon the publishing of his Apologie for Lovers I Thank thee for this Credit thou hast done A Stock of super-erogation Now I may run upon the score and say My Younger Brother will the reck'ning pay Thou mak'st up what I want I now may play The Fool and Elder-Brother ev'ry day And yet be born with for though my Scale 's light It well may passe because thine 's over-weight But is 't impossible I should be screw'd T'a higher pitch more near thee Am I mew'd Unto a Ne plus ultra nor can find Some way to Elevate my sluggish mind Am I so sottish or so little kin To Thee that Emulation cannot win Upon my Genius nor resemble it In some proportion to thy lofty wit It will not be Nor can a man invite On any tearms an Aethiop to look white Where didst thou get my dear Evastophil This huge advantage I did climb the Hill Of Nature first but now in all beside Thou hast out stript me the whole Heaven-wide Sure there 's a different stuff in Thee and Me Or is 't the Fate of firstlings that they be Essayes and rough casts which the following draughts Exceed far more then do the second Thoughts I 'me but thy Hench boy and thy Harbinger The Prologue to thy day thy morning star Nay to speak truth thou art so much alone That there 's between us no comparison Nor can my verse commend more then the Gown On Horseback did that Otacousticon That would demonstrate his new ta'ne degree To his admiring friends in the country Yet fear not thou shalt have thy due applause The great Eugenius who knows natures laws And can tie love knots there he who held forth A candle to the world approves thy worth And Deigns to Vsher in thy Virgin muse So did the noble generous Romans use To grace their friends as Scipio for his brother Wore a blew coat for his own son another F. W. AN APOLOGIE FOR LOVERS Gen. 29. vers. 20. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had unto her CErtainly if man could ever have brocked Solitude or beene happy in himselfe without the Society of another it was the in the state of his Innocency when his understanding was clear and unclouded his will indifferent and unbyassed his affections regular and obedient and in a word all the faculties and powers of his soule healthfull and undiseased for having so absolute a command over himself so vast a Seigniory and unlimited Empire over the creatures it was not to be expected that his condition should be more independent than then it was or himself better able to subsist without supply from any other yet even then amidst all these perfections he was imperfect amidst all these riches he was in poverty there
was something wanting to compleat his happinesse for so God himselfe his Creator who made him of the dust and formed him of the Clay and must therefore best know his temper and composition and what was most requisite and best for him pronounced and that after a most deliberate Consultation held there by the Vnity as in the Chapter before when he created him by the Trinity not improbably to shadow forth and adumbrate allegorically that Vnity and self-samenesse as I may so tearm it that ought to be in this great and neer Relation God I say himself pronounced of him Non est bonum It is not good that the man should be alone I will make him an help meet for him Some out of Curiosity of Wit may perhaps conceit that the remedy here proposed might have produced some inconveniencies for it is evident will they say That had man continued in his first Innocency his Obedience had been rewarded with an Immortality here which being granted as it cannot be denied then there may arise this Question How this small Globe of Earth which as Astronomers not only say but unanswerably demonstrate to be no bigger then a little * Point compared to the Universall Globe of the World as the most ignorant themselves would confesse were they but capable of conceiving the reason should have been ever able to have held and contain'd so many infinite millions and vast numbers of people as we must necessarily imagine would have been had the propagation of mankinde run still on exempted from the stroke of merciless death and unbrie'd Lawes of Mortality or if wee suppose it might have held them because we see a few Acres will contain a multitude of persons yet how they should ever have been able to have liv'd one by another we do not see Again whether there might not have bin a cure more apt and apposite found out against the want of company then the Ceeation of woman perhaps if there had been such a set and definite number of men only formed as would have serv'd to have peopled the whole earth which would have remedied the inconvenience before-mentioned Furthermore which might likewise not unfitly will they say and without violence be drawne into question Whether friendship betwixt man and man or conjugall Love betwixt man and wife be more agreeable and gratefull to humane Nature or better satisfie the intention for which Woman was created which is here exprest to bee for a remedy against solitude but these are subjects fitter for the anxious enquiries of Philosophers then the humble beliefe and credulity of Christians leaving them therefore and other the like quaeries to Disputants and Polemicks let it suffice us that we have here God Almighties Probatum est annexed to this cure and no other and ought therefore to conclude it of all other the best and most soveraigne But I pass on to the Text it selfe in which we have these parts considerable First here is the Lover or after our modern phrase the servant Iacob Secondly here is the penance served Thirdly here is the aggravation of the penance from the length of time viz. Seven years Fourthly here is the object of his love and affections or according to the mode of Lovers his Mistress Rachel Fifthly here is the wonder and they seem'd to him but a few dayes Sixtly and lastly here is the cause rendred which being once known the wonder vanisheth and ceaseth to be any longer a wonder viz. He loved her And Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had unto her I shall take a view of the parts severally as they lye in order and first therefore of the first Branch of the Text the Lover Iacob brought in here by way of connexion with the story precedent viz. And Jacob served seven years for Rachel c. They that have taken upon them to passe Censures and make Observations upon the various and uncertain dispositions of mankind affirme that such minds as are not either Religious or Philosophical or Amorous are sordid and earthy dispositions altogether unworthy as having nothing of noblenesse or generosity in them but here we have a concatenation of them in this our Amourist they are all three linkt together for his Piety and Religion it is throughout this whole book of Genesis conspicuous and for his learning and deep knowledge in Phylosophy we have amongst others a notable instance in that politick invention which hee used to inrich himself and impoverish Laban upon the contract which he made with him which shewes that he was no superficial and meer notionall Phylosopher but had conjoyned experiment with reason and that of the most abstruse and highest nature for such is the knowledge of the strange power and miraculous effects that are and may be wrought by imagination but omitting him in both these capacities of a Divine and a Scholler I shall onely consider him in the quality of a Lover for with that aspect onely he looks upon me in this text And Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to Him but a few dayes for the Love he had unto her Every Breast is not an Altar fit for Love to sacrifice upon nor every Soul a Shrine worthy of so great a Saint No the Altar must be first consecrate and the Shrine hallowed and purified before this Deity be there Lodged There are to make a Lover peculiar conditions required of which every one is not capable of the performance Love is not an Artifice or a Disguise that can be assumed and left off at pleasure but like Vertue ceaseth to be when it is once dissembled It is Nature that must mould a disposition for a Lover and that you may not mistake him he hath usually as Artists tell us these Markes whereby you may know him First he is mild and gentle expressing in his very countenance modesty and simple vertue It may beget wonder in any one that shall seriously and attentively consider how exceedingly much nature is delighted with variety how she playes and sports her self in it hence it is that amidst so many thousand faces of men and women not to mention the disparities which are in other creatures there is so great and strauge diversities outwardly exprest in their countenances and yet the inward discrepancy and disagreement of their minds is farre greater and this is the reason that one and the same thing enters mens minds cloath'd in a different habit and is represented with so much advantage by some and disadvantage by others as may be seen for example amongst others in a Covetous man and a Prodigal before whom do but set a sum of money and presently you shall see one of them with his eyes fixed and immoveable as if he were wonder-struck eagerly gaze upon the beauty of so beloved an object with which his very soule seems to be ravished the prodigall on the other side he looks upon
it with no such eyes it appears to him no other then a Masse of cold pallid ponderous earth and is so far from being in love with it that he thinks the very sight of it wil contaminate him but is so far assured that he dare swear the touch of it would defile him betwixt these two extreams is the Provident and frugal man placed who looks upon it neither so carelesly as the one nor so greedily as the other So we have here one and the same thing yeelding a different relish according to the diversity of the tasters palates Instances of this nature are infinite but to resume our discourse I say with Charron in his Book of Wisdome That for the most part the face is the soul abreviated her very pattern and image in which is placed her Escutcheon with many quarters representing al her titles of honour being set in the gate and fore-front to the end men may know that this is her abode and her Pallace And although this Rule is sometimes fallible yet it holds generally true and therefore it was wel answered by Socrates and like a Phylosopher who when his friends that were well acquainted with his Vertues and greatly had them in admiration were angry with a certaine Physiognomist for saying he was blockish given to Wine and to all manner of vices 'T is very true saith he what he speaks for such a one I was by nature and should have been had not the study of Phylosophy and good letters weeded out and eradicated those vitious inclinations But to fit the garment to the body and the Dyal to the Meridian to apply what hath been spoken in general to our lover in particular we read in the history of his nativity that Jacob was a smooth man and as his complexion was such was his disposition calm and serene smooth and even as there was no tempest in his looks so neither was there in his breast all was quiet there and in tranquility contrary to him in all things was his Brother Esau being of body hairy and rugged and of mind fierce and violent a man of an untamed beat and every way unfit to make a Lover neither do I find that he was ever guilty of so much humanity indeed I read that he was a Polygamist and had more wives then one as namely Iudith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite which were as the text saith a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah and afterwards a third Malahath daughter to Ishmael when he saw the others were nothing pleasing to his father and mother but you wil say if this were his crime yet he had that comfort of miserable persons company and which doth greatly alleviate his brothers too whom herein you shall find as faulty as himself but do you think in good earnest to do a thing voluntarily with election and premeditation and to be inforced to it by affection the strongest motive in the world having been by Laban so notoriously deluded after so many years service and sufferings makes no alteration in the case nay what will you say after all this if I make it appear that he had no other wife besides Rachel for of this opinion are the Casuists who say that the consent which proceedeth so from errour that the errour gives cause to the consent whether it be error personae of the person as in this case or Conditionis aut qualitatis ad essentiam conjugij pertinentis of the condition or quality belonging to the essence of Wedlock such as is mentioned Deut. 22. 20. and which Ioseph suspected of the blessed Virgin such consent say they is void and to be accounted for none and consequently no marriage for in that as in all other contracts the consent of both parties must precede and go before and this consent must be voluntary or else it is not Consensus Humanus the consent of a rationall creature if it be asked why he retain'd Leah afterwards I answer as his concubine and not as his wife which that age then dispenced with for I cannot think but that herein he would imitate the pious example of Abraham and Isaac who were both Monogamists the latter not having so much as a concubine But whether am I digrest while I pursue the â—â—â—â—…ing notions too farre I shal onely add thus much further and return These two brothers so different in their dispositions me thinks are no unfit allegory of reason and passion or policy and strength in which we see the great advantage that reason and policy hath over passion and brutish strength for indeed therein beasts properly excell and therefore it was foretold by God at their nativity that the elder should serve the younger for passion is in every man elder then reason for he is first a slave to passion before he comes to be a subject to reason and though Kingdomes and Dominions are usually gain'd by the sword yet they could never subsist without good laws and administration the nerves and ligaments of all Common-wealths which proceed from that supreame and soveraign part of man his intellect and under standing to which onely the Throne is due and to which all the other faculties ought to be subordinate But I proceed to the second Symptome whereby nature discovers a Lover and that is that he is of a great but withall a mercifull spirit herein resembling God Almighty himself who as he hath the greatest power to punish so he hath the greatest mercy to forgive which as it proceeds from God out of his infinite love and goodnesse to his creatures so it doth likewise from a Lover out of that naturall and innate Sympathy which he beareth to his fellow creatures for indeed the lover is the onely person of humanity all others are but Lycanthropoi meer Wolves one to another for the proud man he looks upon others as his footstools and vassals the ambitious man as his ladders the covetous man as his prey and booty the fearfull man starts and looks upon others as bug-bears the envious person he looks upon others too but it is a squint and as upon his tormentors onely the lover looks upon others with an eye os compassion acknowledging even in the basest and poorest persons the communion of minds and mortality The third mark which nature gives of a Lover is that he is impatient of idlenesse and all occasions of sloath But upon the very mention of this me thinks I hear some cry out A Paradox and that I sin against experience and the old verse Otia si tollas they alledge that idlenesse is the oyl which maintains and feeds the flames of affections and that were it once substracted Love would instantly go out perish and die of it self But I pray you what a kind of Love do these men ideate and fancy to themselves will you know why truly nothing else but some loose extravagant wanton heats to attribute to which the
name of this most pure and unspotted flame were an impiety altogether unpardonable no when Love hath once taken possession of the soul when affection hath once inspir'd it it presently sets all the faculties and powers of it on work there is no room then no place for idlenesse every corner is filled every angle is replenished every recesse is taken up How many from meer beasts and savages in a sort to instance in adventitious acquir'd love of which we have examples as well as of naturall hath it restored to reason and humanity How many proud and ambitious men hath it taught humility and obsequiousnesse How many fierce and cruell minds hath it made affable and gentle How many ignorant and blockish persons have become great Schollars Fools Philosophers Cowards valiant being instructed by Love then which there is not a more excellent Schoolmaster in the World Away then ye morose Rigid Satyrists and supercilious Antiamorists with your long Beards and starcht faces you that can personate Vertue with such a counterfeit and seeming Gravity and like the Philosopher in Lucian have taught your browes the knack to bend at the mention of Vice when indeed for all your dissembling and hypocritical Vizards none are more rotten and corrupt at the bottome then your selves Most excellently and truely is Love described and vindicated from those most false and unjust Aspersions ye have cast upon him by * one whose Knowledge is greater thē your Ignorance Vnjustly saith he do severe men accuse Love and paint him in a loose and feeble Figure when there is nothing more sincere amongst mankind provided that he burn in just limits and those raised by Vertue and fire not with an unlawfull Flame where he is forbidden And in another place saith he This Flame is kindled even in children in whom their innocency may be a sufficient Apology for the purity of it Nay saith he elsewhere you shall see many of the honest est kind of men tormented with a care or to call it rightly a love of some Youngmen And this Love is a certain tye of Benevolence more but and violent then to be called Friendship How solicitous are they how fearefull lest they should do any thing amisse or unworthy of those thoughts and cares they bestow upon them that you may know that Love is planted in Worthy Breasts I will conclude therefore that so far forth is Love from making men to become effeminate and slothfull that there is not in the World a greater spur or sharper Incentive to Noble and Heroicall Actions Lastly I might note in our Lover one thing more and that is that he was a Younger Brother and from thence infer if I shall not be thought too much to strain for this Inference that Younger Brothers as it should seem are more fitted and better dispos'd for Lovers then Elder whether it be that Nature takes the better aym from her first Aberrations correcting these Younger Copies by the Errata's of the former or that Custome which is a second Nature gives them this Priviledge and Advantage for being for the most part habituated to sufferance and hardship there mindes become thereby as more gallant and resolute so withall more humble pliant and tender and fitter for Love to make his Noble Impressions in whereas on the contrary side Elder brothers being bred up with hopes and expectations of estates and fortunes though by their favour to speak the truth in behalf of all Younger brothers neither by the Lawes of God nor Man have they any so absolute a Birthright but that the Inheritance may at any time with the consent of Parents bee as lawfully and as justly dispos'd to any Younger son as to them or any of them And that this is no idle or vain Assertion be pleas'd but to read over a Book intituled The Younger Brothers Apology a most excellent Discourse and very wel worthy the perusal of al Owners of estates of Inheritace to rectify their judgments by wherein what I say is fully and evidently demonstrated and clear satisfaction given in the point whereto I might likewise adde that throughout the whole Book of GOD you shall not finde any to whom he exprest a more peculiar favour to then to yonger Brothers as were easie to instance in Abel in Iacob here in Judah in Joseph in Ephraim in Moses in David in Solomon and in many others which I cannot now call to mind all Younger Brothers I say Elder Brothers being for the most part delicately and wantonly educated and not with that rigour and severity which the Younger are by that meanes their mindes become more haughty and imperious and that suits not with a Lover for he must be of a disposition though not servile yet obsequious and willing to suffer and endure any thing whatsoever for his Mistresse sake which brings me to the next branch of the Text The Penance served And Jacob served All men by nature were born free Servitude and Bondage was first brought into the world by Sinne and is by the Civilians defined to be a Constitution of the Law of Nations by which contrary to nature one is subjected to anothers power for Sin first inslaving his minde his body soon after came to be captivated for by sin entred death and all other miseries both precedent concomitant and subsequent and indeed it was but just with Almighty God that since man would not be obedient to but deviated and deflected from the rule of his most sacred perfect Will whose service is perfect Freedome that he should be made a slave to the unjust and tyrannicall Will of his Fellow-Creature which heretofore hath been so large and so far extended that they had Vitae potestatis necem absolute power over life and death to save and kill at pleasure and afterwards had a very unlimited Authority and Jurisdiction untill such time as Justinian the Emperour in favour of Liberty abrogated the Law stiled Lex Fusia Caninia which was very rigorous and severe even in the formalities of Manumission though now it be utterly ceast and quite grown out of fashion throughout all Christian Commonwealths and indeed it might be truly called what Sennertus doth in another case of being born deafe and dumb Miserandum malum for herein the condition of man was more miserable then that of Beasts for we do not see that they serve one another only if they contend as it sometimes happens the more impotent and weaker gives place to the stronger and more excellent for herein their excellency consists as properly as in any thing else but the misery of servitude in man received agravation from his having reason to be sensible of it in all the circumstances which might exasperate and heighten it For first the original of it proceeded not from any Victory obtain'd by one man over the reason of another which might justly challenge a superiority since therein the excellency of man consists as being thereby distinguisht
other both alike Enemies to this Vertue of Constancy and though thou doest wait long yet consider that thy Patience will at last be Crowned with Victory and Conquest The Angler though he sit long in silence and expectation by the Brook-side yet at last drawes up the Fish The Husbandman though he take so much pains to plow and sow forcing the stubbernness of the barren Earth to make it fertile yet at last receives a plentifull Crop which pays him for all the labour and toyl that he hath taken So thou if thou continuest Constant and Patient though thou mayest meet with some hinderance in thy passage some difficulties and obstructions in the way yet thou wilt assuredly at the last arrive at the Haven of thy Desires and Wishes Come we in the next place to the Object of all this Love Affection his Mistress Rachel And Iacob served seven years for Rachel It was the opinion of Aristotle that the first Monarchs and those to whom others yeelded Subjection were such as were most beautifull by this Submission acknowledging that Nature had indulg'd and bestow'd upon them a Priviledge and Prerogative extraordinary above and beyond others for certainly there is in Beauty an awfulness and Soveraignty that forceth every one to stoop to it for even very Beasts are sensible of the power of it and without all question it is most usually an Index and symptome of a vertuous and wel dispos'd soul and therefore it is said that Mores saepe sequuntur temperamentum corporis the conditions oftentimes follow the temperament and crasis of the body This that judicious and excellent Poet Homer well knew for he makes Thersites who was deformed in mind to be alike deformed and mishapen in body Now whether Beauty consists in a certaine pleasing Harmony and Symmetry of Parts which they call good features or in a perfect mixture of Colours and Complexion or lastly which seems to be a more immediate efflux of the Soule in a certain Aire and taking Garbe of the whole which renders all the actions gracefull and becomming is not easie to define Men disagree so much about it neither can we allow them for competent Judges in this case so much doth naturall prejudice corrupt the judgement of every one for as several humours are predominant in every body which though they be reduc'd to four Heads yet are infinite in degree and mixture so are the Phantasies and Conceits severally framed and effected accordingly hence it is that what one man loves another hates and again what is disliked by him is affected by another for why else do the Chinoses esteem great powting lips and flat noses such as we call saddle noses to be the onely Beauty when amongst us it is held and accounted so great a deformity notwithstanding this incertainty of opinion if I might be admitted to give in my Conjecturall suffrage I should assigne the first place to that which we called the Air or garbe the next to the countenance and the last to the complexion and indeed so great is the force of Beauty to beget Love and that with so much ardency and violence that we read of many that have died for love because they were deny'd the enjoyment of those they so passiouately affected so we read that Iphis died for the love of Anaxarete Dido for Aeneas and a great many more that I will not now instāce in yet alas without Vertue how admirable and excellent soever Beauty be it is nothing so much doth a vitious soul within deform the most beautiful form outward appearance of the fairest body for certainly if according to the cōceit of that famous Opti◅ Vitruvius Nature had windowed every breast the deformity of the minde would appeare greater and fouler then that of the body and Vertue as Cicero hath it Mirandos sui excitaret amores would ravish all eyes with the sweetnesse and lustre of its Beauties and therefore we read of Socrates that though he was very deformed and extreamly crooked and bunchbackt yet his eyes were irradiated with a certain sweet and amiable splendour rais'd from his vertuous soule wherwith the beholders were marvellously delighted Seeing then that Jacob had such a Mistresse indued as well with all vertuous qualities as beautifull perfections being as vertuous as she was faire and most faire and beautifull amidst so many vertues it is no wonder if to gain a jewell so inestimable for so Salomon saith in the beginning of that large Encomium which he makes in praise of a good wife where he interrogates and asks the question Who can find a vertuous Woman for her price is far above Rubies he despised his liberty and all the injuries of the Climate and inclemency of the weather which by the way let me tell you was much more rigorous and extream in Syria as Geographers will inform us then it is anywhere with us Now that she was vertuous I need not prove being every where so fully demonstrated and that she was beautifull we have Divine testimony for our Authority which can neither erre nor be deceived Indeed Lovers that see onely through the mists and clouds of their passion doe many times hyperbolize setting out their Mistresses elaborately with borrowed feigned Metaphors and Titles impoverishing every thing to enrich them but of Rachel here though we have no particular Description yet we have her set down Beautifull and well-favoured in general one instāce for al in particular even in that which is held to be the chiefest Prerogative of Beauty the Eye the Sun that inlightens this little world the window of the soul from whence she takes her fairest most immediate prospect so much we may by Cōsequence gather out of the Text it self which we read thus * Now Leah was tender-ey'd but Rachel was beautifull and well-favoured we do not find any other defect of Beauty here wherewith Leah is charged but onely this that she was tender Ey'd and yet this one single Blemish is opposed to being beautifull and well-favoured as if because she wanted good Eys she were neither beautiful nor well-favoured the whole beauty or deformity of the Face as it should seem consisting in the having or wanting this principal part of beauty But leaving this I come in the next place to the Wonder And they seemed to him but a few days And Iacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days There is no one that by nature loveth or desireth that which feems Evil to him but flyeth from it and avoideth it and this out of principles of self-preservation ingrafted into every one for as St. Paul saith * No one ever yet hated his own flesh To take away the Malignity of a thing and to render it privatively good is much but that that which every one abhorreth as evil by a strange Metamorphosis should not onely disappear to be so but likewise become amiable and pleasing is the greatest Wonder
is able to trample upon all extremities of heat and cold and set the Wind and Weather at defiance Certainly whatsoever it be it hath occasioned a great deal of wrangling amongst Philosophers and some of them as * Cicero saith of Velleius Epicurus de nullo magis dubitans quam ne de aliqua re dubitare videretur doubting of nothing more then least they should seem to doubt of any thing and fearing least their silence should seem to confess and acknowledge their Ignorance have given us a Definition of it such as it is Love say they is an Appetition of a Good which is present if there be an Appetition when the Good is absent it is then called Desire If there be a possibility of obtaining this absent Good why then it is Hope but how far short this comes of giving us any true knowledge what Love is I leave every one to judge For the truth of it is the Essence of it is not capable of a definition neither is it demonstrable a priori but we must content our selves with such a rude Description of it as we are able to gather from the Effects taking an imperfect and short View from thence And here me thinks Xenophon gives us some little light who as my Lord of St. Albans saith in his Advancement of Learning observeth truly That all other affections though they raise the Mind yet they do it by distorting and uncomlinesse of extasies and Excêsses onely Love doth exalt the mind and neverthelesse at the same instant doth settle and compose it strange that so different and repugnant Effects should proceed and flow from one and the same Cause and therefore it is elegantly said by Menander saith the same Lord of St. Albans elsewhere Amor melior Sophista lavo ad humanum vitam That Love teacheth a man to carry himself better then the Sophist or Preceptor which he calleth left-handed because with all his Rules and Preceptions he cannot form a man so Dexterously nor with that facility to carry and govern himself as Love can do Let us give a guesse then at the Cause by the Effects for that is all we are able to do and from these gracefull and amiable Operations imagine and conjecture how much more excellent and beautifull that must necessarily be from whence all these beauties and excellencies proceed and are derived For we know the Old Maxime Quod efficit tale illud est magis tale That which makes a thing to be so be it good or bad must needs be more and in a far greater measure so it selfe Now some have undertaken to discover and find out the intricacie of this involv'd and hidden Mystery by several Symptomes some by one and some by another as by the Eye the Pulse c. Concerning the Eye there have been great questions mov'd which are the amourous or the loving Eys Whether the dying or the smiling or the wild such as Aristotle calls in sani the mad eys for all of these have found their assertors who have tooke up the Gauntlet in maintainance and defence of them or again whether it be true what some of the Platonists held That the Spirits of the Lover do pass by the Eye into the Spirits of the Person loved which causeth the desire of return into the body whence they were emitted whereupon say they followeth that Appetite of Vnion which is in Lovers So likewise about the Pulse Whether there be not a love-Pulse or a Pulse proper and peculiar to discover Love by as wee read in Plutarch of Erasistratus the Physitian that found out that young Antiochus the son of Seleucus was in love with the fair Stratonica his fathers Wife by the unusual beating of his Pulse and then again what kind of motion it causeth whether great or little quick or slow or rather quite irregular and altogether confused like to that which is observ'd to be at the point of death at which time the Heart doth so palpitate and tremble that the Systole and Diastole are in a manner confounded This I onely mention to shew how hard a matter it is amidst so many difficulties and diversities of Opinion to state any thing aright concerning this subject Give me leave therefore to draw over the Curtain again and to leave it here seeing we may be rather said to admire then know it as long as we are here upon Earth where we see but onely in Aenigmate tanquam per speculum darkly and in much obscurity To conclude then I say that even God Almighty himself is most happy in that he is most loving infinitly loving or rather * Love it self as St. Iohn speaks the Devil is most unhappy in that he is not capable of this excelleÌ„cy and Divine perfection Having therefore the example pattern of so great a Patriarch before us let no Lover hereafter be asham'd to imitate it or write after so excellent a Copy when he reads that Iacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few dayes for the love he had unto her I have now done with the literall and Historicall parts of the Text I shall a little touch upon the allegoricall and so make an end This indeed is the kernel and the marrow the other is but the bone and the shell this is the spirit that quickneth and giveth life the other is but a dead letter for so Saint Paul saith Litera occidit spiritus autem vivificat By Iacob therefore is here meant every Christian Militant upon earth by the service which he indures the afflictions and crosses which he must abide and undergoe in this world by Rachel the Kingdome of Heaven By Seven Years the whole time of his life which will then seeme short and pleasing to him when his Heart is kindled and inflamed with Love towards God and Charity towards his Neighbour Let us but a little consider the vast infinite disparity and disproportion betwixt these things and surely we shall be ashamed to have made the Comparison For what shall Iacob undergo so much sufferance and hardship and that with so great delight and pleasure for a temporal Remand and should not every Christianâ—â—dure much more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nall and far more 〈◊〉 weight of Glory For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is this life but a Stage 〈◊〉 of Misery and Discontent whereon every one acts a sad and sorrowfull part some more some less but every one hath a share Man is born to Misery saith Job as the Sparks fly upwards and how natural it is for light bodies to ascend such as sparks are every one knows What is this life but a Repetition of the same things over and over or as * one elegantly saith a Dull retaining to the Sun and Moon we eat we drink we sleep that we may eat and drink and sleep again and thus the Year runs round And as the same seasons return which were before so do we reiterate the same