Selected quad for the lemma: reason_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
reason_n	body_n	soul_n	union_n	2,456	5	9.5499	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A78163	Heroick education, or Choice maximes and instructions, for the most sure and facile training up of youth, in the ways of eminent learning, and vertues. A treatise very necessary for all men; but most especially for such as undertake the charge, to govern the young nobility and gentry. In two books, together with a short appendix. / By I.B. Gent.	I. B., Gent.	1657 (1657)	Wing B83; Thomason E1634_2; ESTC R22321	45,520	155

them CHAP. XII Of the most ordinary defects which breed in young people HE will at first find work enough which nature hath prepared for him for a young soul how noble or high soe're it be is ever full of many defects which he must weed out carefully in the beginning before he cast the good seed in it They are so many dispositions contrary to vertue which must be rid thence before you can bring him to a right posture As before grace can be received we must be throughly purged from fin The most common are stubbornness sloath self-love credulity aversion from all labour levity immodesty depraved appetites and several others of which some are born with us others are communicated by contagion which often succeed one another and are ready to spring up afresh in the rooms of those we had newly rooted out thence He must be very wary and gentle in his proceedings having an eye to the causes qualities and circumstances of the defects If they be absolutely vicious as certain base and unworthy inclinations they must be opposed with more rigour then others need to be and be rendred as odious and hateful as 't is possible he must shew how ill-favoured they appear in others and strive to divert him from such thoughts by other imployments causing him to undergo some shame reproach or disdain if he fall foul on them again drawing him by degrees to actions that are quite contrary in which he may find both delight and honour And if they be of those little imperfections which are incident to that tender age and not to their nature they must be managed more delicately and sometimes even winked at as being the signs and tokens of spirit and wit which may be turned into vertues if they be judiciously wrought upon and directed to good ends CHAP. XIII Three meanes to correct our evil inclinations PHilosophers assign three means to correct our selves the one is to fly from those objects to which we are allured the second is to oppose and combat our passions one with another and the third is to assault them openly by meet strength of reason The first of these is neither generous nor alwayes effectual because we happen oft to meet that which we think to fly from nor is that the way to strike to the root of the evil Chi é ferito nel cuore in van si fugge The second is not vertuous though it be utile The third is more Heroick and noble but likewise 't is more difficult The best meanes is to blend and apply all these three together with discretion according as the exigency requires Sometimes they must be diverted and dispel'd by the lustre and clear light of truth by the charming beauty of vertue and the loathsome deformity of vice other times by shunning its sight and rencontre and now and then excluding them by entertaining some other honest pleasures which may thrust them quite out of doors When we would weaken an enemy we create divisions amongst them So must we likewise do by our passions cast in the apple of discord and let them be destroyed one by another The desires of Glory and Honour hath stifled the motions of sensuality in many breasts The love of Women has often made a narrow covetous heart to become liberal yea prodigal But he must have a mighty care to hinder that passion that is Victor from triumphing over the liberty of the soul lest it should erect an absolute tyranny there Nor must we utterly extinguish the passions but only tame and moderate their excess for they are vicious only in as much as they exceed and being brought to a just and even temper they become instruments of vertue and make the soul act with the more life and vigour The end of the first Part. The Second Part OF Heroicke Education HAving brought him to a temper fit to receive good impressions his care must tend towards two things which con-center in one again that is to make an honest well bred Man The first is touching the Body and the other the Soul for these two parts being reciprocally dependents and concurrents together in actions they have both need of culture If Polititians give Princes maximes wherby to command well they likewise prescribe Laws to Subjects to obey well 'T is vain to give the soul light and illumination whereby to reason unlesse we also dispose the body to follow its counsels Moreover although habits depend upon the soul as their original yet there are some which reside in the body as in their proper subject It is therefore needful that he have dispositions fitted to receive them as well as a soul to produce and bring them forth CHAP. I. Three sorts of corporal habitudes THe corporal habits are of three sorts some consist of interiour actions and the conformity of the body with the superior part by means of which it obeys and submits without repugnance to whatever reason prescribes even against or contrary to its own appetites These are not acquir'd but through long use and practice and are the perfection and consummation of mans wisedom The second have another object and look not so much to the soul as upon its union with the body both which naturally desire their own preservation By these a man uses to restrain and deprive himselfe of all those things that might hasten his end or discompose his health And because young people through want of knowledge of care and of power to govern and curb themselves do easily yield to such things as do them hurt and because the same nature which gives them the instinct to preserve their health does likewise give them an appeti●● to follow that which does destroy it Therefore those that have them in their charge must wisely supply those little defects of their age charity managing so precious a jewel not that I would take away the use of all things that are pleasing or offend nature whilest I intend to protect it nor make that life unhappy which I would prolong no I would only pare away what is superfluous That which is necessary is never hurtful and what is excessive can never be necessary Nature sayes Seneca is content with a little one may easily satisfie it opinion hath never enough because it hath no bounds or limits but still leaps from one desire to another Let us therefore allow nature what she ought to have and take from opinion what we ought not to give it This is a vertue essential to an honest man which I place amongst those of the body not that it proceeds not from the empire of the soul But because it terminates primitively in the body and tends to take away the means of annoying the spirit life I place this not only in the moderation of eating drinking but universally in the abstinence from all excess and disorder which decayes the body over-clouds the spirit and mind enervates the strength and force invades the health shortens

teach it to entertaine it as a compagnon and not like a slave 'T is brutishnesse to abandon it to its appetites and 't is also a dangerous enterprize to teare them from it That is the best period to which by long and difficult labours a mature wisdome can attaine which time and various fortunes does better teach then any discourse possibly can There are some Philosophers so austere that they will have an Angell in a man of flesh not considering him but by what distinguishes him from beasts without minding that there are many things which are common to both if he be rationall he is also animall and his kind is no lesse essential then his difference They will reduce this little Republicke into a Monarchy wherof each part contributing to the labour and merits ought likewise to participate in the counsell and the government If the aged appeare somtimes more moderate in their passions then the youthfull they owe this no lesse to their bloud which growes chill then to that experience which illuminates them Young people have a more puissant enemy to combate and weaker weapons to make their assaults Those who conduct them must by their prudence imitate the wisdome of brave Commanders of Armies who not willing to hazard a Battell endeavour to ruine their enemies by cutting off all supplyes and provisions dividing their forces wearying out their souldiers by continuall alarmes and handsomely avoiding all their dangerous attempts He that should stifly oppose their passions which are ordinarily violent in their beginnings would produce no other effect but an augmentation of their desires by ravishing the meanes from them and only make them become more ingenious to sinne with subtilty and secrecy not being permitted to doe it with impunity The menaces and punishments ordained for vices does make them indeed to be feared but not hated 'T is a torrent pent in with banks which breaks forth more impetuously as soone as it can force the least passage and the effect subsisting no longer then the cause the vertue which proceeds from rigour and constraint can never last longer then their feare continues From thence also there arises a greater inconvenience Which is that the Sences finding themselves too ill intreated conspire together to shake off the burthen and make a revolt which soone overwhelmes the spirit if it be weake or cruelly agitates it if it makes resistance There is no man who is not indued with some graces and a genius peculiar to his generation But in stead of knowing and polishing them wee often stifle those naturall gifts to acquire artificiall ones which not being conformable to the subject are like grafted Trees that never are long liv'd Those vertues that are forced into any one both against the inclination and naturall instinct of the man are like unto stranger Princes whose Raignes are seldome peaceable when they alter the Lawes of the Countrey One must seeke to conforme with that good nature which providence makes to shine in all its works and without seeking other where for new plants be content to cultinate diligently and bring up those which nature hath already lodged in us This is that which he must carefully observe whom persons of Honour doe confide in for the education of their children Those precious pawnes in whom they having sowed all their vertues have also founded all their hopes in them I doubt not but he will in so faire a subject find matter ample enough for an easie glory and his care will be recompenced with advantage by the humour which will reflect upon him from those illustrious actions whereby they may one day signalize themselves in the world Neverthelesse the fertility of the soile must not make him neglect the culture rather the goodnesse of his nature should make him use a more diligent observation in his conduct Myrtles and Lawrels are tenderer then Oakes and more sensible of the rugged winter weather and Roses are sooner parched then Thistles Vertuous inclinations doe ordinarily border on vices and alwayes draw defects in traine after them which hinders them not from being blame-worthy although they be marks and tokens of vertue Generous natures doe encline and bias towards luxe and vanity Tender and affectionate to love and softnesse the calme and tranquill to negligence and sloth Active and fiery spirits to levity and violence the subtill to sleights and malice and good natures to simplicity and innocency 'T is no small skill that must separate the Cockle from the pure graine because the vertues created with us are as was the world before God had unravel'd the confusion where the elements though enemies lay mingled together and their qualities which make the harmony of the whole body whose contrarieties makes us behold the vicissitude of productions accorded then together in one masse which hid and conceal'd the diffetence of their beings Even so before that reason has purified the qualities of our soules we find vertues confounded together with vices the spirit swimming in the bloud and the Sences disputing for mastery with the will untill time and the truth comes to seperate this mixture and prescribes each party its devoir function and ranke before which we can only assist it tenderly and beare with it CHAP. II. Maximes to make good use of the naturall inclinations and turne them to good COnsidering him then as man composed of body and spirit he by a prudent moderation must endeavour to accord as much as may be the opposition of these two parts and not rest so much upon the purity of the one but that he yeeld somthing to the infirmity of the other to avoid that interior combat which disturbs the peace and tranquillity of our life Which should oblige him to become extreme carefull to know him throughly to marke all his propensions his motions his aversions and above all his genius the strength and extent of his spirit and mind Forasmuch as the knowledge of the winds of compass maps and shelves serves to a Pilot and the skill of judging of the strengths and weaknesse of a City is necessary to him that does besiege it So much does the art of observing the dispositions of a young spirit profit him in his directions It is very difficult to assigne particular meanes to make this observation which depends rather upon the re-encounters occasions and prudence of him that governes then on any universall principles Neverthelesse I shall say in the grosse that he may remarke them by tempting him diversly with all kinds of objects without discovering at first to him the good or evill included in them and sometimes suffering nature to worke and act of her owne selfe thereby to see what she leads him to and what she makes him either chuse or reject Thus it was that Vlysses discovered Achilles his sexe which he had so long concealed and disguised A thousand occurrences reveale to him that narrowly will observe it what his temper is which is likewise legible in his face and