Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nature_n	evil_a	good_a	indifferent_a	2,973	5	9.5052	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A03966	Lot's little one. Or Meditations on Gen. 19. vers. 20 Being the substance of severall sermons sometimes delivered by William Ince Mr in Arts, late senior fellow of Trinitie Colledge Dublin. Published since his death, by R.I.	Ince, William, d. 1635.	1640 (1640)	STC 14073; ESTC S119304	53,982	176

that follow him but 't is like the Jewes Ioh. 6.26 for the meats sake onely because prosperity riches and honour are friends with religion and go along with it let these part and Religion take one way and prosperity another these servants will soone acknowledge their master Religion had never worse friends than when it had most and never so many as when the temporall sword joynes with the Spirituall The warme and clearest Sun-shine of the Gospel produces many aequivocall births that pester the Church wherein they are such as are imperfect creatures in respect of true generation These though they are in the Church yet are they not of it they seeme to hearken with others to Gods voyce but it is while it sounds to their eares in a pleasing key while their profit their pleasure or reputation run in paralells with religion they hold the same course with Gods children but th●se part the bias of their respects drawes these crooked these turne too to the left hand after their sinister ends Let God command them to go if it be to that which crosses not their desires they runne with the formost like a stone downe a hill but to any disconvenience discommodity or discredit as Lot here to the mountaine O that 's up hill against the haire to them then O not so my Lord they then cannot lest some of these evils take them and they die a thousand excuses a thousand pretences of feares and evils that may take them shall stand in their way and you shall beare I cannot lest some evill take me and I dye But if God will command them where their affection drawes let them go that way none more forward in their obedience their owne respects and desires being the maine spring from which proceeds their motion 2. I might secondly answer especially of the two first from the nature of them they heing adiapbora things indifferent that in themselves are neither good nor evill cannot ought not to be desired without Gods commission to enjoy them But I leave this and passe to the second generall argument which is a quantitate viae this City is neere to flye unto 'T is neere 1. Ease is a great flatterer of our nature and difficultie at equall distance from our affection with danger Labour is the price of honor and great and heroick spirits only the purchasers The idle wishes of the sluggard nor the faint resolutions of the coward will never arrive at that height where honour dwels A spirit that growes big as the danger does and gathers as it grows shall attaine the true greatnesse 2. Secondly 't is neere and so might befriend his curiosity that though he were forbidden to looke backe Gen. 19.17 yet he might from hence see whether and how Sodom should be destroyed Curiosity is an itch of our nature which we would have clawed though with a poysonous naile 'T is a disease we are all sicke of Our first parents set their childrens teeth on edge with that sowre apple which their first curiosity to be like gods in knowledge Gen 3 6. to know good and evill made them taste that sowre apple I say hath ever since set their childrens teeth on edge Ezek. 18.2 Gen. 3.7 Yet they had their eyes opened and what saw they nothing a privation that they were naked They saw much like the bleare-ey'd woman in the Fable that had covenanted with the Physitian to give him so much money when he had restored her to perfect sight The Physitian at every visit stole away some of her houshold stuffe till at last all was gone by which time being cured and he demanding his reward she tels him she now saw worse then ever for whereas before she saw her housefull of goods she now could see just nothing Their curiositie and desire of divine knowledge brought them just to such a passe Their eyes were opened Gen. 3.7 but what saw they That they were naked Whereas before they were invested with many divine and noble faculties many rich attributes and priviledges of soule and body they now saw themselves disroabed naked and miserably destitute of all those Their eyes were opened and what saw they Even much like the blinde man in the Gospel Mar. 8.24 men like trees mankinde degenerated into an inferiour kinde violently hurred with his passions and become as the brute beast Psal 49.12.20 stupid as the block or tree Curiositie is often punished like jealousie The impatience of the desire is one torture and it often findes a second in the object it seekes It many times fishes for a Serpent or would try the dangerous conclusion to kill a basiliske Such a Curiositie was in the men of Bethshemish 1 Sam. 6.19 and it was a deare one of whom fifty thousand threescore and ten men forfeited not their eyes onely but their lives for prying into the Arke of God Such a Curiositie was in Rodericke the last King of the Goths in Spaine L. Verulam his essay of Superstition and it was a deere one when he would burst open a part of his palace which the religion of many ages kept untouched and what found he Pictures of the Moores with a prophesie that when that part of the palace was opened the people there resembled should conquer Spaine as indeed under Musae and Tarif they presently did Such a Curiositie was in Pompey the great and it was a deare one Vpon the conquering of Jerusalem not long before our Saviours birth though stoutly opposed and threatned by the Priests he would needs enter into the Sanctum Sanctorum And what saw he to feed his Curiosity Nothing but as Tacitus in his historie tells us Tacitus lib. 5. nulla intus Deum effigie vacuam sedem inania arcana there was no picture or image of God it was not like the painted Church of Rome But what followed upon this ex illo Res illi fluere retro sublapsa referri some such thing met him as did Brutus afterwards that dampned and flatted his undaunted courage And it is worth the observing that from that time things ever went downe the winde in all his undertakings the sprightlinesse of his great and fortunate Genius forsook him and grew faint and cowardly It was none of the least commendations that Tacitus gives of Agrippa Tacitus in vita Agricolae pag. 656. retinuitque saith he quod est difficilimum sapientiae modum he set limits to his wisedome it selfe and prescribed a non ultra to his desire of knowledge And it is the Symtome of a well man'd temper to be able to reclaime our unsatiate eagernesse and take of the edge of our desire to know It is in Pernassus as in other hils there is an height to which we may let our selves aspire but some there are that thinke that height must reach heaven it selfe and strive this way to enter into Gods Closet That old itch of our first parents to be

shew you in this one three severall motives to Lots desire Plentie Societie and Safetie Then in answering these againe I might without being Heterogeneall dilate upon the commendation of their opposites Povertie and Solitarinesse each of which besides the true determining and moderating of our desire of these might suffice to hold discourse beyond the limits of your patience But I shall content my selfe to glance at some of these rather then to tye your patience in a long discourse First then of Lots first argument This Citie T is a Citie the other a rude and barren mountaine This Citie was before time called Bela as appeareth out of Gen. 14.8 untill this occasion of Lots request and the reason of it altered the name to Zoar which signifies little because he said it is a little one and is it not a little one It was one of the five Cities of the Plaines called the Plaines of Jordan Gen. 13.10 a Valley wherein nature prevented the labour of the industrious husbandman in a voluntarie and unbought fruitfulnesse so that it needed not to be watered with the sweat of industry to make it fruitfull but of it selfe yeclded to the inhabitants occasion of idlenesse to the neighbours of envy and to all of wonder Such a place it was that it grew to a word exemplary to set forth the pride and height of fruitfulnesse It was watered like the Garden of God Gen 13.10 and like the plaines of Jordan before the Lord destroyed Sodom Here were then three strong attractives to Lots desire Plentie Societie and Safetie and in this Citie all these three concurre to make life securely happy Abundance of wealth and delicacies to refresh the body abundance of company to delight and cheer the minde and then safety which onely makes the other consummate in the securitie to enjoy them For plentie and riches it is true that Quintillan sayes Quint. dialog de Oratoribus pag. 689. Divitias facilius est ut invenias qui vituperet quam qui contempserit It s easier to finde a man that will dispaire them then that will despise them one that can in the Schooles wittily declaime against them rather then one that will disclaime them Quis nisi mentis inops he shall presently be begd for a foole To stand in tire upon his owne bottome and not need to be beholding to any nay to have all that which shall hold all others either in his friendship or slavery O it is supremum mortalitatis votum locus diis proximus it is the highest condition mortality can be capeable of and riches give it Most of the studies inventions toiles travels and undertakings of men aime at this one end to be rich Heaven it self is but too often made the price of this purchase Men goe there to fetch gold where they loose heaven and day itum est viscera terrae into the bowels of the earth deeper into hell This Image of Caesar causeth an universall idolatry and to that superscription all subscribe That Lot then should desire to go to this Citie rather then to a barren and naked mountaine we need not wonder unlesse we wonder that men preferre plenty before poverty I shall be industriously idle to make more words of so confess'd a theme In that it is a City there is a second attractive Society and that is to man as his owne element Society is the life of our life and solitarinesse is a very living buriall I might here move a Problem why men naturally in remote and silent retirements and solitudes finde a kinde of horror and affrightfulnesse Is it that as Solomon sayes of friends Prov 27.17 they strengthen the faces one of another so our Genius doth receive a mutuall comfort and livelyhood from one anothers presence and so in this solitude being out of the rayes and circle of their vertue acknowledges that want in this weaknesse Or doth the soule apprehend the presence of some good or evill spirit which are both ready the one to offend the other to defend us Or is it the reflexe of our owne conscience upon it selfe which being guilty of sinne must needs be of feare Or is it antipathy of nature which in this sees a praeludium of that universall silence to which all go downe Siquis asperitate ea est ut congress us societatem hominum fugiat oderit qualem fuisse Athenis Timonem nescio quem accepim●●s tamen is pati non possit ut non acquirat aliquem apud quem c Cicero de Amic fol. 220 vide si plac●t plura ibid. What the reason of it is I know not thus much I am sure of that this horror is an evident argument that man is politicum animal that in his nature is implanted a love of Society and that he was as well made for Cities as Cities for him so that Auchorites and Hermits are gone as farre from mans nature as they are from his company Timon himselfe that greatest Owle of Athens and prodigie of nature that profess'd an antipathy to all man nay to all humanity yet he for all his doggednesse as Cicero wittily sayes of him could not carere hominum consortio apud quos virus acerbitatis suae evomeret he could not want the company of men though it were but to spit the poyson of his gall upon them 3. Now for Lots third attractive to the City which is safety that man should desire it needs no more proofe than that a man loves himselfe and it were vaine in me to go about to prove it Here then were seeming reasons to justifie the lawfulnesse of his request and excuse his unwillingnesse to obey God's command But From the specious shew and waight of those arguments I come to the fallacie in them and for answer in generall to all first by concession say 't is true suppose it that this being a City is more convenient to fly unto more comfortable to rest in there are those invitations here which in the mountaines are not But what then must God be obeyed only with our conveniency and the condition of our service be our owne content What is this but to make Gods of our selves and to observe him only whilst he will pleasure us Egregiam vero laudem Virgil. How much better did afflicted Job Iob. 2.10 Shall we receive good at Gods hands and shall we not receive evill What if God commanded thee not to danger but to certaine losse of thy content thy estate nay thy life wilt thou not obey Is not he the supreame arbiter of life and death He that gave thee all may be not therefore command all thou art owner of Must our reason or will or content be check-master with his supreame authority and our obedience be limited to our profit our pleasure or such respects Yet 't is thus alas many times with many amongst us God hath many that seeme his servants who are indeed but their owne men