Selected quad for the lemma: power_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A41631
|
An essay of the true happines of man in two books / by Samuel Gott ...
|
Gott, Samuel, 1613-1671.
|
1650
(1650)
|
Wing G1354; ESTC R6768
|
89,685
|
312
|
wanton Spirit that it is not alwaies constant to it self for it is not only variously apprehended by severall men as it is said the Aethiopians paint the Devill white but the same persons at severall times variously judge of it The Persians highly esteemed an Hawk-Nose because their Cyrus was so shaped Alexanders Courtiers wried their Necks like him and the Roman Ladies affected the color of Poppaea's Hair The Irish do the like and we alter the cut of our Heads and Beards almost every year and I am perswaded if it were as much in our power we should have as many new fashions and changes of our Bodies as we have of our Garments and Attires But whatsoever the true value of Beauty may be surely the owner enjoyeth it only at the second hand either from the Glass as the Flower thereof or from the favor of others which is the best Fruit it yieldeth IX Of the Goods of Fortune THE Gifts of Fortune are the Good things of the great Body of the World and are of three sorts Riches Objects of Pleasure and Titles of Honor which one rightly terms the Worlds Trinity Ambitiosus Honos Opes Foeda Voluptas Haec tria pro trino Numine Mundus habet These three make up the whole Inventory of Fortune and are all summed up in a Crown or the Roiall State which the Heathen called the fairest Gift that the Gods bestowed on mortall men Besides it hath a peculiar Prerogative which is that Grandeur or Supremacy which we commonly call Majesty whereof no inferior condition is capable Princes are in this sense more then men Political Giants like Briareus having an hundred hands yea thousands and millions of hands with all which they act good or ill Regum ingenia sunt fata temporum We cannot well discourse of the goods of Fortune without this which is the greatest of all and because it is the summary of them eminently including all in it self we will particularly insist on it not as a Civill Institution though of the best kind but as a Personal Felicity which is so great and so much admired by other men that the labour lies most on the other hand to demonstrate the Vanity thereof The World hath always declaimed against usurping Tyrants and Philosophers have as much cried down their happiness They are Kings of a Bastard kind which yet commonly afterward obtain a Legitimation Certainly Tyranny even in lawfull Princes is as great a misery to themselvs as to the people It is the happiness of Christ's Kingdom That his people shall be willing in the day of his power The love of the Subjects makes Soveraignty pleasant without which it is like the Kingdom of Satan a very Hell of Disorder and Discontent All men admire a Crown because they see the lustre but feel not the weight of it this seems lighter because they never wore it and that greater then it is because they cannot wear it we naturally admire that which we cannot attain as well as that which we cannot understand looking upon it as Peculiar and Sacred Therefore it is a very hard thing to give a clear demonstration of the Vanity of this opinion which cannot be confuted by experience The Spanish Page who in a high distemper of Fansy imagined himself a great Emperor and was maintained in that Humor by his Lord had some kind of tast thereof The Scripture expresseth the greatest Glory and Pomp of Princes in no better a Phrase then Much Fansy There are some more reall tasts of Royalty which any private man may have Every Master of a Family is a King within doors The best pedigree of lawfull Monarchy is from it and Princes still affect to be called Fathers of the Country Though Families are subordinate to Kingdoms yet it is true of Kingdoms as well as of them Omne sub regno graviore regnum est the greatest Potentates are not Omnipotent but as much crossed in their wills as others who as they have lesser Abilities so they have lower Designs Thus may private men Degustare Imperium even that Empire which is without them and over others but certainly every man may be Rex Stoicus a King in his own Microcosm which he who knows how to rule well may despise a Crown But the most satisfactory Evidence is that which may be collected from Princes themselvs especially such who have had the experience of a Private life and so can best judge of both Such commonly prove the ablest and the wisest enjoying and improving Roialty to the utmost Sylla the Happy laid aside his Dictatorship because he esteemed a Private life more Happy Augustus was partly of the same mind and deliberated about it but not so confident As Periander said of Tyranny It was a hard thing to keep and dangerous not to keep Our common saying is very true That the best Condition of life is between a Constable and a Justice of Peace if the Constable and the Justice would support such in that middle estate but commonly men in Office take a pride and a delight in oppressing Private men they think Justice but an ordinary and dull thing Injustice is more eminent and extraordinary so that many wise men who would fain live quietly are necessitated to accept of Authority and part with some of their Happiness to secure the rest Yet Dioclesian though he judged it absolutely necessary to continue the Empire voluntarily left it and would never after reassume it though he were highly threatned to it In Iulius Caesar himself who professed it his Chief Good to be Chief Insultare omnium capitibus and had rather be the best man in a Parish as we say then second in the City of Rome yea was not contented with the Thing unless he might also have the Name of a King which partly intimates the Vaniâ—y thereof we shall find Venus and the Muses among his chiefest delights and there is no Prince who hath been eminently addicted to either of them but hath placed them among his greatest pleasures Now the one being the naturall pleasure of the Body and the other of the Mind a common Plebeian may enjoy both as fully as any of them What shall we then say of Fidling and Fooling and the vain Humors of weaker Princes Surely a wise man would judge a King of Beggers as happy as some of those yong Roman Emperors X. Of Riches MOney is the eldest Son and Heir of Fortune Lord Paramount and universall King in every particular Kingdom The Image and Superscription of Caesar on his Coin is more powerfull then Caesar himself Witty men have many conceited disparagements of it calling it The Excrement of Earth Metall turned up Trump and the like but they speak of it in its Naturall capacity whereas they ought to consider it in its Politike as Money and not at Metall so it is rightly defined the Measure of all commutable things In this sense Petronius calls it Iovem in arca and they who
infuseth an Infinite Virtue into all his merits and is able to regenerate aswell as redeem doth most perfectly sute with our necessities and fully supply them His own Doctrine Life and Death are the best Arguments of his Divinity yet doth he not want other testimonies The Sacrifices of the Patriarchs and the Jewish Types did prefigure him The Prophets were his Harbingers to bespeak places and seasons for him The Martyrs his Heralds to proclaim him to the World dying in that Belief which the nature of Man so much opposeth and the whole World either hath or shall both persecute and embrace it The third great Mystery is our Union with God and Christ who hath praied that we might be one as he and his Father are one not Essentially nor Personally but Spiritually so as no other Creature is united to God For Man being made last of all the Creatures as the summ and Epitome of the rest Christ by taking upon him the Humane Nature invested himself with the whole World and though he hath purchased all the inferior Creatures for the use of Man and the Elect Angels as ministring Spirits may partake of a Confirmation in their good estate yet the Conjugall Union is contracted between God and Mankind in a more speciall and immediate manner Nor is this a Naturall Union such as was that between Adam and all his Posterity whereby sin is derived to them but Spirituall by a more particular personall application Christ apprehending us by his Spirit and we him by Faith Now as the Union of God and the Soul is that wherein our Happiness consists so this being the highest neerest Union advances Man to a further degree therof then any other Creature whatsoever And this is the highest Evidence of the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ. For God being Infinite and the whole World Finite and so Infinitely below him though after he had perfected the first Creation he rested from his Works yet he rested not in them as in his Son whom he begat from all Eternity in whom he only rests satisfied and declared from Heaven that he is well pleased And though he pronounced them very good that is in their kind yet in respect of himself who only is truly and Infinitely Good they are all as Vain and Null But Jesus Christ thus Espousing the Creation and Endowing it with his Infinity gathers up all in himself so presents both together as an Object Infinite and adaequate to his Father Let us therefore entertain this blessed Savior with the full embraces of our Soul and think no other thing worthy our affections who have such a glorious Object presented unto us When we read the Histories of mighty Kings and the great Captains of the World our Minds are filled with honorable thoughts of them and we applaud them with great delight The very Romances of Heroike Love work strangely upon our Fansies and we are ready with the Tyrant to wish over selvs a part in them whereas here we have the only Son of God the King of Glory the mighty Conqueror of Principalities and Powers yea of Death and Hell and Sin triumphing over all the strength of Evill the chiefest among ten thousand yea fairer then the Children of men The brightness of his Fathers Glory and express Image of his Person who having set his hart on the most wretched and deformed Soul of Man left his Fathers Court laid aside his Roiall Robes taking upon him not the Disguise but the Form of a servant living in the meanest and laying down his life in the basest and most cruell manner for her sake whose Love was less then her Desert and Enmity against him greater then her Misery Espousing her to himself and at once infusing both Love and Beauty putting his own Crown upon her Head and so bringing her home to his Fathers House to live with himself in eternall Bliss This is the high Perogative of Divine Love to love the Unlovely and make them Lovely to purchase the Poor and make them Rich to affect the Unwilling and make them Willing to pity the Miserable and make them Happy O my Lord and my God! thou Beauty of all Beauties and Perfection of all Perfections The God of Love yea Love it self Teach me the Law of Divine Love and enflame me with this Celestiall flame inspire me with thine own Spirit and let me live in thy Life rejoycing in the pure fountain of thy Ioy and resting in the Bosom of thy eternall Rest. VI. Of the Spirit WE enjoy God only in Christ and Christ only by the Spirit As the Spirit of God in the first Creation moved upon the face of the waters and brought forth the perfect Beauâ—â— thereof out of a Chaos of confusion and the same Spirit formed Christ himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin so he bringeth forth Grace out of the Chaos of sin and formeth Christ in us regenerating us unto eternall Life Though the Spirit be a sure witness of its own work where it is yet it is a most easy thing to mistake the spirit of Satan or our own spirit for it where it is not Socinians and men of Reason esteem Faith only to be Fansy and Enthusiasts set up Fansy in stead of Faith as the Poet well expresseth it Aut Deus aut sua cuique Deus sit dira cupido There is a Spirituall Drunkenness and Madness which in some is so strong and prevalent that it ends in a naturall Madness and distemper of the brain which is hurt and tainted with the vehement impression of these Imaginations as much as with the Fansies of Carnall Love or Pride or any other violent affections which commonly distract men Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit saith the Apostle shewing that in Wine and in all the spirits of Creatures there may be excess and inebriatiation only the Spirit of God doth fill and satisfy the Soul with Spirituall Grace which yet some who would seem more Spirituall then others least regard and rather affect extraordinary and miraculous Gifts which have ceased long since having been chiefly exercised in three extraordinary seasons and upon extraordina-occasions by Moses who delivered the Law to the Iews by Elias and Elisha who restored the Law which they had made void and lastly by Christ and his Apostles who preached the Gospel with the last of whom they seem to have expired for soon after when the ceasing of the Heathenish Oracles was objected by the Christians against Iulian the Apostate he retotred upon them the ceasing of their Prophecies Some suppose that these extraordinary Gifts shall be restored unto the Church when she shall be fully recovered out of the Antichristian Eclips but why might we not rather expect to have found them in our first Reformers Luther was a man of an extraordinary Faith and yet wrought no Miracles The Anabaptists at the same time affected them and pretended to them but were found