Selected quad for the lemma: majesty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
majesty_n	effect_n	end_n	great_a	190	4	2.1350	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49606	The mirrour which flatters not concerning the contempt of the world, or the meditation of death, of Philip King of Macedon, Saladine, Adrian, and Alexander the Great / by Le Sieur de la Serre ... ; transcribed English from the French, by T. Cary.; Miroir qui ne flatte point. English	La Serre, M. de (Jean-Puget), ca. 1600-1665.; Cary, T. (Thomas), b. 1605 or 6.	1658 (1658)	Wing L458; ESTC R15761	110,353	296

Ex. 38.8 to the end that those that should present themselves before his Altar might view themselves in thi● posture of Prayer O this excellent Mysterie Mortals it behooves you to view your selves in the Mirrour of your Ashes if you would have your vowes heard God hath taught us an excellent way of Prayer There is nothing assured in Life but its continuall Death Give us this day our daily bread But why O Lord teachest thou us not to ask thee our bread for to morrow as well as for to day O how good a reason is there hereof This is because that life hath no assurance of to morrow besides that it is an excesse of grace that we may be bold to crave of him the bread of our nourishment for all a whole day since every moment may be that of our Death Reader let this verity serve thee yet as a mirrour It is not sufficient to muse of the necessity of dying but to consider also that every hure may be our ast if thou would'st have thy praiers to pierce the heavens This is not all to know thy body is a Colosse of filth which is trail'd along from one place to another as it were by the last struggle of a Life alwaies languishing It behooves thee also to call to mind that every instant may terminate the course of thy troublesome carriere and that this sudden retreat constraines thee to bid Adieu for ever to all the things of the world which thou cherishedst most Thoughts only worthy of a noble spirit I have eaten Ashes as bread Psal 102.9 Cinerem tanquam panem manducabam saies the Royall Prophet but how is it possible I conceive his thought He entertained his soul with the remembrance of the Ashes of his body and this truth alone serv'd as object to his imagination for to satisfie the appetite of his Soul Lord give me both the same relish and desire to repast my selfe still thus A man to abase himselfe below that which he is being so poor a thing of nothing of dust and ashes in remembrancing my self alwaies that I am nothing else O sweet remembrance of my rottennesse since it steads me for eternall nourishment of my Soule O precious memorie of my Nothingnesse since able to satisfie the appetite of my heart Let this be the daily bread O Lord which thou hast taught me to ask thee to the end that all my desires together might be satiated with this dear nourishment I recollect my self in this digression Having diverse times mused of the imbecillity and weaknesse of man Si vitrei essemus minus casus timeremus S. Aug. I am constrain'd to cry out with St. Augustine What is there that can be more fraile in Nature If we were of Glasse pursues he our condition might therein be better for 2 Glasse carefully preserv'd There is nothing more brittle than glasse yet man is more may last long time and yet what pain soever man takes to preserve himself and under what shelter soever he shrowds himself for covert to the storm he breakes and is shattered of himself What reply you to these verities Great Princes Well may you now be atrogant The fragillity of glasse cannot admit of comparison with this of your nature what seat will you give to your greatnesse Man is fully miserable since his life is the source of his miseries and what foundation to your vanity when the wind alone of your sighs may shipwrack you upon the Sea of your own proper teares what surnames will you take upon you for to make you be mistaken That of Immortall would become you ill since every part of your body serves but as a But to the shafts of Death Invincible would also be no way proper A man may doe every thing with vertue without it nothing since upon the least touch of mishap you are more worthy of pity than capable of defence Would you be called Gods your Idolaters would immolate you to their own laughter Tread under foot your Crownes if rightly you will be crowned with them you only thus render your selves worthy of those honours Heaven cannot be acquired but by the misprize of earth which you misprize for Glory consists not in the possessing it but in the meriting and the onely means to obtain it is to pretend nothing at all to it How remarkeable is the custome of the Locrians at the Coronation of their Kings they burnt before them a handfull of Tow to represent unto them the instability of their grandeurs and the greedinesse of Time to destroy them In effect all the greatnesses of the Earth All the grandeur of Kings is but as the blaze of flaming tow are but as a bundlet of Tow and then when Darius would make of them his treasure Mis-hap set fire on them and reduced them into Cinders and when he had yet in his heart a desire to immortalize them a new fire seaz'd his intrals by the heat of thirst which burn'd him to the end to consume at once both the cause and the effect So true it is that the Glory of the world vanisheth away like Smoake Great Kings if you build a Throne of Majestie to the proof both against Time and Fortune He which esteems himselfe the least of all is the greatest lay its foundation upon that of your miseries Humility takes her rise in lowlinesse from the lowest footing when she makes her flight into the heavens O how admirable is the Humility of Saint Iohn Baptist They would give him titles of Soveraignty in taking him for the Messias but call to your Memory how with an ejaculation of Love and reverence he precipitates himself both with heart and thought into the Abysse of his own Nothingnesse Vox clamantis in deserto John 1.23 there to admire in all humility both Greatnesse Majesty in his Throne I am but a Voyce saies he which beat at the cares to enter into your hearts A Voyce which rustles in a moment and passes away at the same instant What Humility Is there any thing which is lesse any thing than a Voyce 'T is a puffe of wind which a fresh one carries I know not where since both lose themselves in the air after its never so little agitation Christus verbum Johannes vox with their gentle violence 'T is nothing in effect yet notwithstanding the proper name of this great Prophet They would elevate him John 1.27 and he abaseth himself so low that he would render himself invisible as a Voyce so much he feares to be taken for him whose shoe-latchet A Man is to be estimated in proportion to the under value he makes of himself he judgeth himself unworthy to unloose Lord what are we also but a little Wind enclosed in a handfull of Earth to what can one compare us without attributing us too much vanity True it is that we are the works of thy hands but all

THE DESIGN OF THE FRONTISPICE LOe DEATH invested in a Roab of Ermine Triumphant sits embellished with Vermine Upon a Pile of dead men's Skulls her Throne Pell mell sut duing all and sparing none A scrutinuous judgement will the Type ressent You may imagine 'T is DEATH'S Parliament Upon the World it 's pow'rful Foot doth tread For all the world or is or shall be dead One hand the Scepter t'other holds our Mirrour In courtesie to shew poor flesh its errour If men forget themselves It tells'em home They 're Dust and Ashes All to this must come To view their fate herein some will forbear Who wave all thought of Death as too severe But know Death though 't be unknown how nie A Point on which depends ETERNITIE Either to live Crown'd with peptetual Blisse Or howl tormented in Hell's dark Abysse With winged haste our brittle lives do pass As runs the gliding Sand l'th' Hour-Glass If more you would continue on your Look No more upon the Title but the Book THE MIRROVR which Flatters not O that they were Wise that they vnderstood This that they would Consider their latter End Deut 32.25 MORS sola fatetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula Iuvenal THE MIRROUR WHICH FLATTERS NOT Concerning the contempt of the World or the Meditation of Death of Philip King of Macedon Saladine Adrian and Alexander the Great By Le Sieur de la SERRE Historiographer of FRANCE Transcribed ENGLISH from the FRENCH by T. Cary Esq Horat. Om nem crede Diem libi diluxisse Supremum LONDON Printed by E. T. for R. Thrale and are to be sold at his shop at the Sign of the Cross-Keyes at Pauls Gate 1658. TO THE KING of Great RITAIN SIR IF the Greatness of Kings derive its value and lustre from the number of Vertues which they possess I render you now the homage of my observance and submissions as to one of the greatest Monarchs of the World since you are the Majesty of all Vertues together What an agreeable compulsion is this to see a man's self powerfully forced to become the subject of a forain Prince by the soveraign authority of his merit To this point am I reduced Sir your all-royal perfections im pse upon me so absolutely such sweet lawes of servitude that I have no more liberty but to accept its yoak And in this my inclination and duty make a fresh injunction over me which dispute prebeminence with all the rest for who can keep himself from rendring homage to your Majesty the onely fame of whose Renown captivates through all the Universe instructing us that you are as absolute over your Passions as over your Subjects and that you reign as Soveraign in the esteem of men as in your Royal Estates And the Truth of this set your glory at so high a worth that the felicity on 't may perhaps be envied you but the like Merit not to be reacht by others because Nature is very sparing of the like gifts and Heaven does not every day such miracles For me I am but one of the Admirers not of the greatnesse of your Dominion although only the vast extent of the Ocean marks out its limites but of all the divine qualities which you only possess in proper as a Good Time Fate nor Death can take from you Nor is this the all in all to be Wise Valiant and Generous in the height of Native deduction All these Titles of Honour have degrees of eminence which mark out to us the gradations of their several perfections and whereof your Majesty shewes us now the onely pattern having in possession all admirable Vertues with so much purity and luster as dazles its very envyers and forces them to adore that in your Majesty which elsewhere they admire not And it is my belief that you stand thus unparalled even amongst your semblables since besides the Crowns of your Cradle you carry above them others and such as shall exempt you from the Grave I a vow that I have studied long time to speak condignely of your Majesty but although my pains and watchings are equally unprofitable my defect yet is still glorious howsomever that it is a shadow from your Light It sufficeth me to have taken Pen in hand to publish onely that I am SIR Your MAJESTIES Most humble and most obeisant Servant P. de la SERRE TO THE QUEEN Of Great BRITAIN MADAME I Could not approach but with a MIRROVR in my hand before your Majesty the splendour of whose magnificence dazles so powerfully all the world that I am not able to behold the immediate presence on it but by the reflection of its Rayes Without fiction MADAME your Glory is arrived to the point of rendring your perfections so unknown as being so above the commune that I believe most men honour you now by observance and example onely as not able otherwise to reach the depth of the just reasons they might have for it Nor is this All to say that you are solely fair and perfectly chaste but it is necessary beyond all this to intimate secretly in the Language of Thought all the divine qualities which you possess of Supereminence in all things since their purity cannot discend to the capacity of our discourse without suffering a kind of prophanation From hence is it that if I should call you The compleatly-perfect I might well say in effect that which you are but never thus should I represent the greatness of your merits since every of them in it self ha's such particular perfections as might challenge Altars from us if your humility could permit it These are such Truths MADAME as hinder me from praising your Majesty not knowing how to express my self condignely Well might I perhaps suggest it to remembrance that your particular inclinations are the publick Vertues which we adore and that of the same temperament of humour Nature composed heretofore the Sages of the World But of all these discourses notwithstanding I cannot frame one onely praise sufficiently adaequate to your worth seing it is elevated beyond all Eulogiums Insomuch that if Admiration it self teach not a new Language to posterity wherein to proclaim aloud the favours and graces wherewith Heaven hath accomplisht you it must content it self to reverence your Name and adore your Memory without presumption of speech of your actions as being ever above all valuation as well as imitation To instance the immortalitie of your AVGVSTICK Race although it be a pure Source of Honour which can never be dryed up yet all these Titles of a Kings Daughter Sister and VVife can never adde to your Renown which derives its value rather from the admirabilities of your Life then the greatness of your Birth Insomuch MADAME that the Scepters and Crowns of your Royalties are the meanest Ornaments wherewith your Majestie can deck it self since the least glymse of the least of your Actions duskes the luster of all the other magnificence● which environ you And I believe had those Wonders

of the World been of such a worth as every day you descry they had powerfully resisted against the assaults of Ages but as they had nothing admirable in them but the Name Memorials have preserved that and let them perish But yours MADAME which are too perfect for a sutable Name shall not cease to survive the revolutions of Times as being enlivned by Vertue which alone can exempt from Death Let it not seem strange then if I hazard the perils of the Sea to render Homage to a Queen whose Greatness perforce humbles the most arrogant spirits being not able so much as in thought to reach to the first degree of her Glory The Graces themselves are hers and the VERTVES have allianced their own and her Name and all the adorable qualities which are found here below are admirable in her alone as in their Source I am constrained to be silent MADAME being over charged with too much subject of speech The number of your Perfections astonishes me the greatness of your Merit ravishes me the splendour of your Vertue dazles me And in this dazle this transport this excess of admiration wherein my senses and spirits are all alike engaged I am compeled to cast my self at the feet of your Majesty and demand pardon of the boldness which I assume onely to enjoy the stile of MADAME Your MAJESTIES Most humble and most obeisant Servant P. de la SERRE TO THE QUEEN OF GREAT BRITAIN Upon the MIRROVR Which flatters not Of le Sieur de la SERRE SONNET PRincess this perverse Ages glorious gemme Whose least of Vertues seems a prodigie Illustrious Sien of the fairest Stemme That Heaven e're shew'd this Vniverse's eye Though Fate with thousand hind'rances averse Barres me the place to which my duty 's bent I cannot cheer my Soul from self-torment But by design to pourtray you in Verse But since that Serres shew's in this true Mirrour The Vertues of your Mind 's eternal splendour As lively as your Body's beautious measure My heed to view you here lets others pass So well I here agnize all your rare treasure That I ne're saw a better Crystal-Glass Par le Sr. C. TO THE AUTHOR upon the same subject STANCES DIvine Spirit knowing Soul Which with lovely sweet controul Rank'st our Souls those good rules under Which thy Pen layes down with wonder Whil'st the sweetness of thy Voice Breathes oracular sacred noise All thy Works so well esteem'd Thorough Europe proofes are deem'd Of thy Gifts which all admire Which such Trophies thee acquire And with these thy Muse invested Orpheus is by thee out-crested Also since blind Ignorance Makes no more abode in France Seldome can we meet with such As the works of thy sweet ●'uch Such immortal straines of spirit As do thousand Laurels merit But although thy active Muse Wonders did before produce As we seldome see the like This doth with amazement strike 'T is a Mirrour that doth shine More with Fire then Crystaline 'T is a Mirrour never flatters On my eyes such rayes it scatters That therewith I daz'led am Searching for thee in the same By some charm or stranger case I see thy spirit not thy face This strange fashion doth amaze me When I ne're so little gaze me I am streight all on a fire The more I look more I admire 'T is a mirrour sure of flame Sparkling more we mark the same Yet not every prying eye Shall it-self herein espie 'T is not for so commune use Free from flattering abuse None so clearly here are seen As King Charles and his fair Queen Therefore thus the Author meant To the World it to present Since it is a thing so rare And unparallelled fair That it should a Tablet bee For the fairest he could see Serres this thy work-man-ship Doth my spirit over-strip With such judgement and such grace Thou do'st shew in little space Three strange Wonders without errour Two bright Suns in one clear Mirrour And by this thy rare composure Shall thy Name beyond enclosure Of this present Age obtain Eternal honour for thy pain Writing to these Princes Graces Thou art prais'd in thousand places Par le mesme Upon the Book SONNET HEre undisguis'd is seen in this true Mirrour The glory or the shame of mortal story As Reason or the miss-led senses errour Do win the day or yield the Victory Serres doth here lively delineate Our every-dayes vain wretched passages And what is destin'd after Funeral state To innocent pureness or black wickedness Such diverse subjects in this one enclosed Such various objects to the view exposed Thou little Monarch Man small Vniverse Thy Soul it lessons thus and thee informes As thou art Soul with henvenly fires converse As thou art Flesh thou art a Bait for wormes To the Reader IT may perhaps seem strange that I treat so often in my Works of the same matter as of the contempt of the VVorld and Meditations of Death But if the importance of the subject be considered and the profit to be derived thence a Man will never be weary of seeing such fair truths under different presentations Besides the conceptions of spirit upon the same matter are like the productions of Nature in the Species's of Tulips Every year she gives a Change both to their Colour and Array And though they be still Tulips she renders them so different from their first resemblance that they can hardly otherwise be known but by the name The Mind doe's the same upon the same subject its Fancies which are its ornature and emblishment render it by their diversity so different from it self that it is hardly known but by the Titles which it bears to particularize each conceit So that if once again I represent unto thee the pour-trait of Vanity and the Image of Death my spirit which hath steaded me for Pencil and colouring in this VVork hath rendred it so rare in its Novelty and so excellent in difference from those which have preceded that thou shalt find nothing in it commune with them but my name Thou mayest consider moreover that I dedicate Books to Kings and Queens not every day and that these objects of such eminent magnificence do so nobly rouze the faculties of my Soul that I could not have petty thoughts for such high Personages It is that which without ostentation makes me believe that if thou buy once again this Book and tak'st the pains to read it thou wilt regreet neither the Time nor Money which thou shalt employ therein ADIEU If thou beest of so good an humour to pardon the Faults excuse those of the Impression The Scope addrest to the SERIOUS LEt merrier Spleens read Lazarill ' or laugh At Sancho Pancho or the Grapes-blood quaffe And tickle up their Lungs with interlace Of Tales and Toyes that furrow up the face With wrinckling Smiles But if they abusive be To slight these hints of their Mortalitie Urg'd by our Authour 't is a foolish way And weakly does become corruptive

of thy opinion Plotinus and henceforth will maintain every where with thee that Man is an abridgement of the wonders of the world The eight wonders of the world Since that all the Univers together was created but for his service and pleasure Say we yet moreover that those wonders of the world so renowned are but the works of his hands so that also the actions of his spirit in divine Contemplation can take their Rise above the Sun and beyond the heavens and this too now in the chains of its servitude Great Kings be it supposed that you are living pourtraits of Inconstancy Man flies away by little and little from one part of himself that he may entirely enter at once into himself The perfection of your Nature lies in this defect of you powers for this Vicissitude which God hath rendred inseparable to your condition is a pure grace o● his bounty since you wax old onely that you may be exempted from the tyranny of Ages since I say you die every moment onely to make acquisition of that immortality to which his love has destin'd you This defest of inconstancy is the perfection of man since he is changable to day to be no more so to morrow O happy Inconstancy if in changing without cease we approach the point of our soveraign felicity whose foundations are immoveable O dear Vicissitude ●rowling without intervall in the du●● of our originall we approach b● little and little to those Age of glory which beyond all time assigne at our End the beginning of a better Carreere A man is onely happy in the perpetitall inconstancy of his condition O Glorio●● Death since terminated at th●● cruell instant which separates 〈◊〉 from Immortality It is true I confesse it again Great Kings that you are subject to all the sad accidents of your subjects The greatest misery that can arrive to a man is to offend God But what happinesse is it if these misfortunes are as so many severall waies which conduct you into the Port. Be it granted that you are nothing but Corruption in your birth Misery in your Life and a fresh infection in your Death All these truths are as so many attributes of honour to you since you disrobe your selves in the grave of all your noisomnesse for to Deck your selves with the ornaments of Grace of felicity and glory which belongs in proper to your souls as being created for the possession of all these Good Things Who can be able to dimension the greatnesse of Man Heaven Earth Nature the very Divels are admirers of the greatness of man since he who hath neither bounds nor limits would himself be the circumference of it Would you have some knowedge of mans power hear the commandement which Josuah made to the Sun to stop in the middest of his carreere Would you have witnesses of his strength Samson presents you all the Philistins buried together under the ruines of the Temple whose foundations he made to totter Require you some assurances of his courage Job offers you as many as he has sores upon his body In fine desire you some proofes of his happinesse Heaven hath fewer of Stars than of felicities to give him Man may be what somever he will be What name then shall we attribute him now that may be capable to comprehend all his glory There is no other than this of man John 19.5 and Pilate did very worthily no doubt to turn it into mockage before the Jewes Ecce homo Behold the Man he shews them a God under the visage of a Man Let the world also expose the miseries of Man in publicke His Image of Earth is yet animated with a divine spirit The name Man is now much more noble than that of Angels With what new rinds soever a man be covered he beares still in biforehead the marks of his Creator which can never change Nature We●● may they tear his bark the Inma●● of it is of proofe against the stroke● of Fortune as well as the gripes o● Death The Man of Earth may turn into Earth but the Man of heave● takes his flight alwaies into heaven That Man I say fickle and inconstant kneaded and shap't from dirt with the water of his own tears may resolve into the same matter Bu● this stable and constant Man created by an omnipotent hand remaines uncessantly the same as incapable of alteration Rouze then your selves from sleep great Princes He that would alwaies muse of Eternitie would with out doubt acquire its glory not for to remember Death but rather to tepresent unto your selves that you are immortall since Death hath no kind of Dominion over your Soules which make the greatest as being the Noblest part of you Awake then great Monarchs not for to muse of this necessity which drawes you every hour to the tomb but rather to consider that you may exempt your selves from it if your Actions be but as sacred as your Majesties Great PRINCES Awake Man is a hidden treasure whose worth God onely knowes and permit me once more to remembrance You that you are Men I meane the Master-pieces of the workes of God since this divine work-Master hath in conclusion metamorphosed himselfe into his own work My seathered pen can fly no higher Man onely is the ornament of the world Those which have propounded that Man was a new world have found out proportionable relations and great correspondencies of the one to the other for the Earth is found in the matter where of he is formed the Water in his teares the Aire in his sighs the Fire in his Love the Sun in his reason and the Heavens in his imaginations But the Earth subsists and he vaniseth O Sweet vanishment since he is lost in himself that he may be found in his Creator but the Earth remaines firm and his dust flies away O happy flight since eternity is its aime The Water though it fleets away yet returnes the same way and retorts upon it's owne paces Man may be said to be happy in being subject to all mishaps But man contrarily being setled upon the declining stoop of his ruine rouls insensibly without intervall to the grave his prison O dear ruine O sweet captivity since the soul recovers her freedome Death is a grace rather than a paine and this Sepulture serves but as a Furnace to purifie his body The Aire although it corrupt is not for all that destroied the corruption of man destroies its materiall O glorious destruction since it steads him as a fresh disposition to render him immortall The Fire though it fairely devoure all things is yet preserved still it selfe to reduce all the world into Ashes But Man perceives himself to be devoured by Time without ability ever to resist it Oh beneficiall Imporence since he finds his Triumph in his overthrow the Sun causeth alwaies admiration in its ordinary lustre The felicitie of man