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spirit_n body_n sense_n soul_n 8,577 5 5.4817 4 false
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A74649 An entertainment of solitarinesse or, the melting of the soule, by meditations, and the pouring of it out by prayers. By Sir Richard Tempest, knight and baronet. Tempest, Richard, Sir, 1619 or 20-1662. 1649 (1649) Wing T625; Thomason E1410_1; ESTC R209519 28,217 157

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Qui violat Rosam spinis Coronabitur Qui Violat Rosam Spinis Coronabitur Sanguine sub nimiâ languet Rosa tincta colore sic luget proprio purpurat ora rubor En Phoebi reditum madesacta liquore precatur sub Caroli radiis ut micet illa sui AN Entertainment OF Solitarinesse OR The Melting of the SOULE by Meditations and the pouring of it out by Prayers By Sir RICHARD TEMPEST Knight and Baronet Sine me liber ibis in Vrbem Printed in the yeare 1649. TO His deare Brothers Nicholas Tempest and Thomas Tempest Esquires Deare Brothers IN you I have enjoyed the happy freedoms and privileges of friendship which consociate the remotest regions of mens hearts with the participation of their mutuall thoughts I communicate to you now these Conceptions the Companions of my solitarinesse that notwithstanding the Presse is debaucht yet by the quick passage of it you might participate of my thoughts at this distance whereby in part I might turne my Lonenesse into Companie and Conversation And though the accidents of the time have violently snatcht you from me whereby you have changed your freedome for restraint yet all the unpleasing passages of Fortune or her most plausible Courtships work nothing upon a mind seated on that firm resolution to be true to GOD the King and his friend the very Heathen could say Commit thy self to an honest just action as to a tutelar God Those minds alone that are not raised above the trifles and vanities of the world feele the tyranny of passion and adversitie others who lie not levell with its injuries carry a happinesse in their owne brests which tents as it were they can set down in any condition or place be happy in Saint Paul named no one state wherein he could be content but had learned in what state soever to be content certainly such a state of mind onely as is agreeable to the traverses of the world considering every thing as it is in its own alterable nature and withall making use of the prerogative of the Soule which is above any created thing can fix or settle in mans life a felicitie which all men so earnestly court and so few obtaine many presenting their service to that Mistris of all mens Soules out of vainglory or covetousnesse or worldly interest she being the most quick-sighted Lady which will not confer her favors on any but who are truly inamored with it self God himself being that essential Aeternitie who is alone to be loved for himselfe Questò e il vero geiore che nasce dà virtu dopò il soffrire From Amsterdam Decemb. 20. 1648. Your faithfull Brother Rich Tempest To the Reader HE who sacrificeth his Vertue to the genius of the Times shall find its favours not so durable as the reward of his Vice is certaine one may goe smiling or fearelesse to destruction the affections of deceived minds change nothing the nature of the evils incurred there is a fixt unalterable nature of good which accidents of fortune and events communicable to good or bad actions cannot change nor subvert successe dazles the vulgar eye and minds that undertooke the service of Vertue for the love they bare its rewards no longer adore the beautie of the other than their lower minds are bribed with the pettie satisfactions to their inferior interests It s the most contemptible slaverie of the mind to pin its value and esteeme of justice upon the sleeve of fortune there being nothing truly fixt and permanent but sacred Vertue which men so readily forsake for every thing that of its selfe naturally makes progresse to change a necessary mutabilitie and alteration adhering to the nature of all other things By the communication of these thoughts the times are not courted chusing rather to dote upon the foame falling from the jawes of Cerberus they being such as Tacitus notes sometime to happen out wherein is a certain ruine for those who hold with dutie and wherein one might justly resume the demand of that Orator who being applauded by the vulgar asked his friend what ill he had spoke These papers chuse rather to be as miserable as ever the merry Poets could make any by their threatned judgements and wittie condemnations aut piper aut thus It will be a loathsome thing to stay behind all that to which destruction is threatned when as with all their protestations pecuniarie and sanguinarie prodigalitie in stead of bringing home the Golden Fleece which is that addition of Wealth Honour and Power to the King and his people they have onely used them all as means to make them most miserable by the destroying of what is glorious and worthy The Kingdome is touched as I may say with Monarchy and though the Needle is by a violent hand set to contrarie Pointe of the Compas and by the contrarie winds of Factions they attempt to sail to Utopian fancied Governments yet usque recurret the Needle will not stand but to it s beloved Pole All miserable practises upon the healthfull constitution of our dear Mother But alas who would grieve truly for thee must let his veines bleed purple teares to deliver thy tender brests dearest Mother from the desperate hands of thy cruell and bloudie executioners Vale. The melting of the SOULE c. On Sundayes Holy dayes and Fasting dayes HEE whose mind remaines in the power of Reason and Religion orders his outward observances so that they may be the transitorie Hieroglyphicks of his inward pietie They are unmannerly Devotions which neglect the Injunctions of the Church concerning the time place and manner of them since every action is invested with such circumstances and hath such formalities annext to them the gravitie and solemnitie of enjoyned Ceremonie will suite better with regular zeales than the garbes and formes privat fancies would put on them Thy holy Word O Lord is the Sunne which by casting its beames on the figures and distinctions of the Churches Dyall points out and orders to us the times of our lives Some Religions weare onely the finer Liverie of Sundayes others love to appeare attended with the sadder traine of Fasting dayes When I consult with the Church I finde both enjoyned and when I advise with my owne nature I find them suited to the two principall affections in man Joy and Griefe Let not my service of thee O Lord be mis-shapen in its parts but what I doe to please thee let it be guided by thee There is such a confederacie betweene the soule and the body they doe so mutually operate one upon another that even those restraints put upon our appetites quicken and make active the motions of the soule for when the body its organ is distempered it retorts and shoots backward its indispositions to the minde our thoughts sometimes condensed into the corporeall delights of the sense sometimes rarified into the pure abstracted pleasures of the spirit And since bodily abstinence aides and contributes aptitude to the mind for diviner
griefes the constant attendants of my life and yet looke sadly and mournfully upon the Grave my corruption belonging to the maintaining of the order of the Universe where at my next rising much gayer clad then before I shall awake to immortalitie and endlesse joy with the eye of Reason I can looke through the glory of the world and behold Vanitie and Oblivion with the eye of Faith I can look through Oblivion and Corruption it selfe and behold Glory and Eternitie Now I finde how many things doe not that are esteemed in popular judgements to make one happy how little they contribute towards it to me alone till I be mixt with those people and take pleasure in those Opinions We entertaine with true and reall passions the Scenicall compositions of the Stage there being in mans life Playes not acted but lived solemne fictions not feigned but beleeved Men now acknowledge their own Natures whom Precept had taught to regulate themselves all day and familiarly owne the impressions Nature hath charactered on them Now doth the ever-running streames of Gods favours which run over our hard and stonie hearts speak louder to us not drowned with the noyse of worldly thoughts If the Sunne hath gone downe in the clouds of our envie and malice it presages future stormes of passions to our life And now Lord I will seeke him in my Bed whom my Soule loves Let me finde thee in the rest thou givest my Soule from Sinne and Vanity in the sleep thou givest my affections they being all quietly reposed in thee and thus I rest on thee more than on where I lye The Arraignment of the Heart I Thought I had so well surveyed this little piece of Earth that I had knowne every turning and winding in it but since I had a holy purpose betray'd to some easie temptation I suspected that there was something yet undiscovered Whereupon calling my Travell Studie and Observation thither I found a strange Labyrinth which the thred of my Reason was too short to unwinde me out of I found it so incircled with the Serpentine windings of Sinne so incompassed with those flexuous imbraces that I perceived Vanitie entring under the conduct of its adversarie apt to glory in the contempt of Glory and grow proud in the lowest debasing my selfe and upon demand of Reason for any good it would informe me That it owed its originall to some secret passion which would untitle it againe There is nothing but darkenesse and wandrings here so that I perceive O Lord I was more secure than safe since I lodged here such deceitfull guests that answered at the light knock of every idle passion I desired to have discovered my heart to thee but found it first necessarie that thou shouldst discover it to me where was such a wildernesse of Passions such rocks of Pride such Maeanders of Deceits and perplext paths of contradictorie motions that it mockt my past endevours and taught me to know that other things might be in the light to me yet I in darknesse to my selfe And since thy sacred Spirit hath dictated to me that it is desperately wicked and inscrutable I arraigne it before thy Throne as that corrupt Fountaine whence hath flowed those bitter streames of Vanitie which hath overflowed my life and here where my naturall life first begins my spirituall death first arises I begge of thee my God another Creation first of a cleane heart and that then thy sacred Spirit would move upon the face of these waters and forme this Chaos into that beautie and order where thou wouldst have thy own Power and Wisdome manifested breathe forth thy heavenly Light into my Soule and to the considerations of my heart cause a distinction betweene the Night of Sinne to be feared and the Light of Truth to be desired make a separation in me betwixt heavenly and earthly thoughts let the other be superior and predominant over these dispose all here into forme and fruitfulnesse plant the flowers of vertue which being fed with the Manna-drops of thy Grace they may communicate their gratefull properties of colour and odour to others Cause the Lights thou hast set in my little World to shine clearer that every of them may have their severall and proper influences upon the course of my life When the Sunne of thy Word shines out let all other Lights be obscured however let that thy other Light of Reason rule the darker part of my life let the lesser Lights of Opinion whose motions though they be erratique yet doe operate upon our actions keepe such place and distance that they hinder not the generall harmonie of the Fabrick That part which denominates my Species make new in me that part formed after thy owne Image and give it command over the beasts of the field that Reason may subdue the wildnesse of my affections And now Lord let all the motions of this Piece turne upon the poles of thy Commands let it be centred in the obedience to thy will that there it may finde a constant Sabbath and Rest This is the regeneration of this lesser World element it Lord with the fire of thy heavenly love surround it with the holy breathings of thy blessed Spirit Let constancie and solid fixnesse be in my wayes let the current of all my thoughts emptie themselves into the Ocean of the infinitie of thy goodnesse and glory And yet Lord this World could not stand a moment if thou didst not behold it through thy Son It s the desire of my heart to entertaine thee as thou art the author of that desire be thou also the granter of it I know a heart being fill'd with any thing denyes accesse to another I am full of my selfe grant me to denie my selfe to be emptied of my selfe for here it is that the pleasures and trifles of the World hold intelligence and correspondence in themselves not so forcible but as they flatter my understanding or affection with apt pretences When Perseus in his Expedition was to kill the Serpent he had a Looking-Glasse given him wherein he was to behold the Serpent as he should strike at him and not to looke upon it selfe and we shall kill the Serpents of outward temptations if we looke at their figures presented in the Glasse of our thoughts and there destroy them in their images received in our hearts Lord doe thou possesse my heart that it may possesse thee that it may receive thee receive it thou art within all things not included let me finde thy infinite Power in the extension of thy Mercie and not in thy Justice let me put off my selfe my selfe is my wayes my customes affections thy promise is for protecting us in thy wayes When I seeke to have my own image represented back again to me more beautifull from the Glasse of popular Opinions courting Fame or Applause when I for feare or flatterie neglect to doe my dutie to thee my God or man then am I in my owne wayes seeking Death in the