Selected quad for the lemma: rest_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
rest_n	day_n	rest_v	sabbath_n	14,657	5	10.2179	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50672	A moral paradox maintaining, that it is much easier to be vertuous then vitious / by Sir George Mackeinzie.	Mackenzie, George, Sir, 1636-1691.	1667 (1667)	Wing M181; ESTC R19878	25,281	86

it flies This hath made Philososophers conclude that all motion tends to some rest Lawiers that all debates respect some decision Statesmen that all War is made in order to Peace Physitians that all fermentation and boiling of the blood or humours betokens some dissatisfaction in the part affected And to show how much happinesse they place in ease they term all sickness diseases which imports nothing more then the absence of ease that happiest of States and root of all Perfections and that Divinity may sing a part in this requiem Scripture tells us that GOD hallowed the seventh day because upon it he rested from his creation and that Heaven is called an eternal Sabbath because there we shall find ease from all our labours there GOD is said when well pleas'd to have savour'd a sweet savour of rest and he recommends his own Gospel as a burthen that is easie That then wherewith I shall task my self in this discourse shall be to prove that Vertue is more easie then Vice For clearing whereof consider that all men who design either honour riches or to live happily in the World do either intend to be vertuous or at least pretend it these who resolve to destroy the liberties of the people will stile themselves keepers of their liberties and such as laugh at all Religion will have themselves beleeved to be reformers and of these two the pretenders have the difficultest part for they must not only be at all that pains which is requisit in being vertuous but they must superadde to these all the troubles that dissimulation requires which certainly is a new and greater task then the other and not only so but these most over act Vertue upon design to take off that jealousie which because they are conscious to themselves to deserve they therefore vex themselves to remove Moses the first and amongst the best of the reformers was the meikest man upon the face of the earth But Iehu who was but a counterfit Zelot drove furiously and called up the By-standers to see what else he knew they had reason not to beleeve and the justest of all Israels Chair-men took not so much pains to execut justice as Absolon who is said to have staid as long in the gates of Ierusalem as the Sun stay'd above them informing himself of all persons and affairs though with as little design to redresse their wrongs as he shewd much inclination to know them and all this that the people might be gained to be the instruments of his unnatural Rebellion and such is the laboriousnesse of these seeming coppiers of Vertue that in our ordinar conversation we are still jealous of such as are too studious to appear vertuous though we have no other reason to doubt their sincerity but what arrises from their too great pains from which we may conclude that these who intend to be vertuous have a much easier task then these pretenders have because they have not their own conscience nor the jealousness of others to wrestle against and which is yet worse these want that habit of Vertue which renders all the pains of such as are really vertuous easie to them and what is more difficult then for these to act against customs which time renders a second nature and which as shall be said hereafter is so prevalent as to facilitat to vertuous persons the hardest part of what Vertue commands Besides this these dissemblers have a difficult part to act seing they act against their own inclinations which is to offer violence to nature and the working not only without the help of that strongest of all seconds but the toiling against it and all the assistance it can give which how great a torment it proves appears from this that such as have as much generosity as may intitle them to the name of Man will rather wearie out the rage of torture then injure their own inclinations I imagine that Haman was much distrest by being put to lead Mordecai's horse in complyance with his Masters commands and one who is obliged by that interest which makes him dissemble to counterfit a kindness for one whom he hates or emit an applause of what he undervalues is certainly by that necessity more cruciat by a thousand stages then such as intend upon a vertuous account to love the person and really to praise that in him which they are forc'd to commend which is so far from being a torment when it is truly vertuous that that real love makes him who has it hungry of an occasion to shew it and to pursue all means for hightning that applause which torments the other consider what difficulty we find in going one way whil'st we look another and with what hazard of stumbling that attempt is attended and ye will find both much difficulty and hazard to wait on dissimulation wherein we are tyed to a double task for we must do what we intend because of our inclinations and what we pretend because of our professions and if we fail in either which is more probable then where simplicity only is profest two tasks being difficulter then one then the world laughs at us for failing in what we propos'd And we fret at our selves for failing in what was privatly design'd and not only does dissimulation tye us to a double but it obliges us to two contrary tasks for we needed not dissemble if what we intend be not contrary to what we pretend and thus men in dissimulation do but like Penelope undoe in the night what they were forc'd to do in the day time Dissimulation makes Vice likewise the more difficult in that dissemblers are never able to recover the losse they sustain by one escape for if they be catcht in their dissimulation or dogg'd out to be impostors which they cannot misse but by a more watchful attendance then any that Vertue requires then they of all persons are most hated not only by these whom they intended to cheat but by all others though inconcerned in the crime and both the one and the other do yet hate it as what striks at the root of all humane society and for this cause murther under trust is accounted so impious and sacrilegious a breach of friendship that Lawiers have hightned its punishment from that of ordinar murther to that of treason and the grossest of Politicians have confest this dissimulation to be so horrid a crime that it was not to be committed for a lesse hire then that of a Kingdom Whereas vertuous persons have their escapes oftner pitied then punished both because these escapes are imputed to no abiding habit and because it is not to be feared that they will offend for the future seing what they last failed in was not the effect of any innate and permanent quality but was a transient and designless frailty Dissimulation is from this likewise more painful then the Vertue which it emulats that the Dissembler is oblidged not only so to dissemble as

he will be constrain'd to make faces when he quaffs off a tedious health and will at some times find either his quarrels the betraying his friends secret or his crudities to importune him No lyar hath so much accustomed himself to that trade but he will discover himself sometimes in his blushes and will be oft distress'd to shape out covers for his falseness whereas he who is free from the bondage of that habit will alwayes find it so easie that he will never hear a lie without admiring with what confidence it could have been forg'd Whereas to know the easinesse of Vertue we need only this reflection that every vitious person thinks it easie to conquer the Vice he sees in another He who whoors admires the uneasiness and unpleasantness of drinking and the Drunkard laughs at the fruitless toil of ambition which shews that Vice is an easie conquest seing the meanest persons can subdue it Though truth and newness do of all other motivs court us soonest to complacency and that my present Theme can without vanity pretend to both yet so studious am I of success where I have a tenderness for the Subject for which I contend that for further conviction of it's enemies I must recommend to them to go to the Courts of Monarchs and there learn the uneasiness and unpleasantness of Vice from it's splitting those in Oppositions and Factions which affoord the reasonable on-lookers as disagreeable a prospect as that of a ship-wrackt Vessel And when Faction has once dismembred a Society is it not strange to see what pains and anxiety must be shewed by both opposites to discover and ruine each others projects Other men toil only to make themselves happy but those must labour likewise to keep their opposites from being so they must seek applause for themselves and must stop it from their enemies they must shun all places where these are entertained and all occasions which may bring them to meet though inclination or curiosity do extreamly bend them to go thither they must oppose the friends of their enemies though they be desirous and oblieg'd upon many other scores to do them good Offices they grow pale at their appearances and are disordered at what praise is given those though bestowed upon them for promoving that publick good wherein the contemners share for much of their own safety and it is most ordinar to hear such factious Zealots swear that they would choise rather to be destroyed by a publick Enemy then preserv'd by a Rival From all which it is but too clear that all vitious persons are slaves which as it is the uneasiest of states so to shun a loss of liberty most men refuse to be vertuous If we go to Physitians we will find their shambles hung round with the Trophies of Vice For Temperance Chastity or the other Vertues send few thither but wantonness repayes there it's one moments pleasure with a years cure and makes them afraid to see that disfigured face for whose representation they once doted upon their flattering mirrours There lye such prisoners as the drunken Gout hath fetter'd and there lye louring such as Gluttony hath opprest Let us go to Prisons and Scaffolds and there we will see such furnisht out with the envoyes of injustice malice revenge and murders Let us go to Divines and they will tell us of the horrid exclamations of such as have upon death-bed seen mustered before them those sins which how soon they had their vizards of sensuality and lust pulled off did appear in figures monstruous enough to terrifie a Soul which took leisure to consider them Juvenal Hi sunt qui trepidant ad omnia fulgura pallent And though the consciences of Souldiers have oft-times their ears so deafned with warlike sounds or welcome applauses that they cannot hear and their eyes so cover'd with their enemies gore that they cannot see these terrifying shapes of inward revenge yet if we believe Lucan neither could the wrongs done to Caesar so far legimate his fury nor the present joy or future danger so far divert him from reflecting upon his by-past actions Nor could the want of Christianity which enlivens extreamly these terrors beyond the Creed of a Roman who believ'd that gallantry was devotion so far favour his cruelty but that he and his soldiers were the night of Pharsalia's battle thus disturb'd Lucan Book 7. But furious dreams disturb their restless rest Pharsalia's fight remains in every brest Their horrid guilt still wakes the battel stands In all their thoughts they brandish empty hands Without their swords you would have thought the field Had groan'd and that the guilty earth did yield Exhaled spirits that in the air did move And Stygian fears possest the night above A sad revenge on them their conquest takes Their sleeps present the furies hissing snakes And brands their country-mens sad ghosts appear To each the image of his proper fear One sees an old mans visage one a young Anothers t●rtur'd all the evening long With his slain brothers spirit their fathers sight Daunts some but Caesar's soul all ghosts affright But that I may rest your thoughts from the noise and horrour of these objects let me lead them into a Philosophers Cell or House for Vertue is not like Vice confin'd to places and there ye will see measurs taken by no lesse noble or lesse erring Pattern then Nature His Furniture is not the off-spring of the last fashion and so he must not be at the toil to keep Spies for informing him when the succeeding mode must cause these be pull'd down and needs not be troubled to fill the room yearly of that contemn'd stuffe he but lately admir'd He is not troubl'd that anothers Candlesticks are of a later mould nor vext that he cannot muster so many Cabinets or Knacks as he does He spends no such idle time as is requisite for making great entertainments wherein Nature is opprest to please fancy and must be by the next days Physick tortur'd to cure its errors His Soul lodges cleanly neither clouded with the vapours nor cloy'd with the crudities of his Table he applyes every thing to it's natural use and so uses meat and drink not to expresse kindnesse friendship doing that office much better but to refresh and not to occasion his weaknesse His dreams are neither disturb'd by the horrid representation of his last days crims nor by the too deep impressions of the next days designs but is calm as the Breast it refreshes and pleasant as the rest it brings his eyes suffer no such eclipse in these as the eyes of vitious men do when they are darkened with Drunkennesse or excessive sorrow for all his darknesses succeed as seasonably to his recreations as the day is followed in by the night In his Cloaths he uses not such as requires two or three hours to their laborious dressing or which over-awe the wearer so that he must shun to go abroad to all places or at