Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	father_n	nature_n	son_n	13,355	5	6.0279	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50023	Man without passion, or, The wife stoick, according to the sentiments of Seneca written originally in French, by ... Anthony Le Grand ; Englished by G.R.; Sage des Stoiques. English	Le Grand, Antoine, d. 1699.; G. R.	1675 (1675)	Wing L958; ESTC R18013	157,332	304

fill our heads with wind she approves no skills that direct us not to vertue she rejects all that sublime knowledg whereof the learned make their boast She esteems them the inventions of ease and delights which after having a while entertained our fancy leave us in dispair of finding her Those arts which we stile liberal are but the pass time of youth School-boys must learn them and a man is not to converse with them any longer then while he is uncapable of more excellent knowledg For if they be the beginning they are not the end of his studies if they make part of our Apprentiship they are not to be our employment and if they help to make us knowing they contribute nothing to our vertue Also Seneca acknowledgeth but one science that leads us to wisdom that teacheth us modesty with the art of good Expression and that putting us into a state of liberty at once inspireth us with the Prudence of Politicians the Valor of Conquerors and the constancy of Philosophers But she is so excellent that she admits no rival she endures not inferior Allies and she would think it a Treason against her own Grandeur if she should vouchsafe them her company As the designs of Princes are not formed from the wild opinions of their People and as Commanders banish from their Counsels those advices which conduce not to the end proposed vertue rejects all that is not for her purpose she retains but what is necessary and as she esteems it an injustice in a covetous man to wish for superfluous Riches she concludes that it would be a kind of intemperance in a wiseman to desire the knowledg of more then he needeth We must not judg of the wisdom of a man by the multitude of things he hath learned Religion takes offence when we study her Mysteries rather for knowledg than reverence she commands that practice should be the end of our Travels and she permits us not to be of the number of them who spend their whole lives in the search without the love of Truth When God placed man in the terrestrial Paradice he inspired him only with the knowledg of things needful for him although the favors wherewith he honoured him were excessive He limited his Science He would not he should learn what could not profit him and in the opinion of Tostatus he sent him not the Animals made of Corruption to give Names unto but for that the knowledg thereof was not of use to him too much Learning is always insolent and edifieth not as we find no Conquerors that are not proud we see no learned men that are not puffed up Divines can tell us that the proud Angels strayed not from their Duty but by having too much knowledg Aristotle was of opinion that the famous men of old were often guilty of fantastical actions that they made small sallies which were little different from great follies that their Extasies surpast the strength of their Reason and that they could bring forth nothing above ordinary men which was not akin to fury Those great Wits which Antiquity puts amongst the number of Prodigies have not always been the wisest men their Works are not irreproveable no more than their Lives if they have written some things worthy of honor they have left us others as ridiculous and their Disciples confess they had intervals in which they were not more reasonable than mad men Although this Language be opposite to the common opinion of the people and that the benefits of knowledg oblige men to give it reverence where ever they find it yet I think it not hard to draw them to the contrary sentiment and to obtain their assent that the knowing men at this day are but delightful dotards who act the fool by authority and teach impertinencies with approbation For what is it that our Professors of Learning do when they instruct us to define all things by their chiefest attributes to separate their nature from their properties and by the aid of propositions infer that Vertue is a Gender that Justice and Prudence are the Species and that Vertue is separable from Temperance but that Temperance is not to be divided from Vertue What profit do we reap from these formalities Of what use is it to know how to compose a formal Discourse to reduce an Argument to an impossibility to frame Sophisms to ensnare the unlearned and to use Dilemma's and Inductions to surprize the unskilful What advantage can we hope from the knowledg of Natural Philosophy to be informed that the Earth is solid that God by his Power can separate the form from the matter that he unites at his pleasure two substantial forms into one compound and directs the substance to produce a third by the intermediation of accidents to which he communicates his efficacy What serves it us to discover the Influences of the Heavens to know that the Planets are corruptible that the Sun is a mixt not a pure Element that the Stars are void of Life and that the whole Earth is but a Point compared with the Firmament that surrounds it In fine what advantage do we acquire when we are taught by Divines that God is infinit that the Unity of his Nature agrees with the Trinity of his Persons that the Father begets the Son from all eternity and that the holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son hath the communication of their Perfections Were it not better that all the Arts were banished the Schools than that they should entertain us with so many unedifying things that they should teach us to regulate our Wills rather than our Fancies and how to live vertuously rather than to dispute well Were it not to be wisht that Logick by which we flourish our Harangues by which we examine the property of Speech and which boasteth of laying open Truth by the subtilty of Arguments taught us to reform our Manners and to reject all these vain amusements of the mind which benefit a wise man as little as they are troublesome and insignificant to the simple Were it not better that Geometry taught the rich to bound his Desires to divide a proportion of his Revenues amongst the poor than to shew him the Art of taking the contents of his Parks the height of his Palaces and the extent of his Lands Were it not to be desired that the Professors of Divinity would discover to us the way to love rather than define the Creator and instead of informing us of his Essence and labouring to make us conceive the mysterious Trinity of his Persons by the Unity of his Nature to teach us the ●wful adoration of Him whom we are not able to comprehend and to make us forgo all that is dearest to us in the world to be united to him who alone ought to possess all our affections But the delight of all Arts is the pleasure of discourse they are swallowed up of the words that compose them they are

members that compose it For as man is a friend to Society and that Society cannot subsist without Peace as Peace followes union as union is inseparable from good order and as good order cannot be without dependance nor dependance without Authority Policy hath happily invented Government she got the people to be subject to Magistrates she placed Princes at the head of the Nobles and according to that instinct that is common to all men she made servitude necessary to us and obedience delightful Isaac who is lookt upon in Scripture as the model of Politicks thought he did Esau no wrong when he commanded him to obey his younger Brother this preference according to the words of Philo was not so much a maladiction as a testimony of his love he satisfied the Divine Justice by hearkening to the solicitations of his wife and knowing that a man that lives by his weapon is subject to many Passions he judged he might appoint Jacob to be his Governor without injury to his primogeniture It was with this Reason that the Roman Common wealth justified her usurpations that she perswaded the World that her Conquests were lawful since their Empire became beneficial to the people whom they overcame and that giving them Philosophers to instruct them in vertues they made their subjection of greater advantage to them then their liberty That as the Body obeys the mind and Reason commands our Passions they alleadg that the weaker ought to submit to the stronger Cowards to Valiant Men and the less perfect to the more accomplisht This feeble argument hath made so strong an impression on the Spirits of ambitious men that they thought they might lawfully aspire to greatness that the desire of honors was not so much a mark of Pride as of generosity and that the most excellent thing in this World might be sought after without scruple They affirmed with much Reason that man was born to command that nature had given him extraordinary parts for that purpose and that as she had granted strength to wild Beasts to offend or defend policy to some to avoid the Hunters and swiftness to others to fly from their Enemies she had placed in man a generous Spirit fit to command which delighted in Dignities and which esteemed all things below himself but Government and Empire In fine that the Passion that made him affect greatness was natural to him that Soveraignty was approved of all Nations that the Son of God proposed it to his Disciples when he promised they should sit upon Thrones judging the Tribes of Israel But what colourable Reasons soever are formed by Historians and Orators to excuse the desire of greatness they cannot deny but that it is fatal to the ambitious and that if it be not always sufficiently unjust to render them guilty it is too extravagant not to make them unhappy For besides that they aim at that which is out of their power that they are enclosed with Enemies that oppose their designs that they see themselves often deceived in their hopes that their friends forsake them and that they are forced to confess by the Travels that attend their Projects that it is no less difficult to arrive at dignity then to preserve it Besides that envy is inseparable from their condition that men often conspire against their Persons that their Subjects hate them and that their equals suspect them they endure miseries that give the lye to the opinion of the World the honors they hunted after with so much earnestness procure their disquiet and by an inevitable misfortune they meet with grief amongst those things from which they expected their joy and felicity Fear assaults them at every turn they suspect the countenance of their friends as well as the looks of their Enemies all that approach them create their jealousies and by a suspition that discovers their Calamities they have often an apprehension of the Valour or vertuous comportments of their successors They are afraid that they which are one day to sit on their Throne should contrive their ruin and as they know that the people delight in novelty they fear least their Children should becom their Soveraigns Indeed goodness is not the object of the love of all men if some reverence it in the person of their Prince others grow weary of it or despose it What integrity soever Kings bring to the Throne they become guilty enough by reigning long and it 's sufficient to know that they have successors to render them odious to their Subjects The vulgar are so fantastical in their affections that their greatest constancy lasts but a moment they hate the blessing which they enjoy they desire it when it 's expected and never truly esteem it but when they have lost it What contentment can a man have amidst so many apprehensions What felicity can he tast in the Government of an ungrateful people who are never satisfied with his Conduct who expect his death every time he is indisposed who wish it under the shaddow of enlarging their liberty who find fault with the favors they have obtained from him and magnify them only which they expect from his heirs Without doubt these Reasons made Augustus think so often of a Retreat and which inspired him with the despicable thoughts of an Empire which exposed his actions to censure his safety to hazard and his life to perils For although he gave Laws to the greatest part of the world held the Roman fortune in his hands and saw the wisest Senat upon earth pay reverence to his Commands yet he sighed after retirement he ceased not to request the Senat for leave to surrender his most serious Speeches ended with these pleasant expectations and he stiled that his happy Day that should strip him of his Dignities He had learned by a long experience how toilsom a publick Charge is how many hazards were to be undergone to obtain it and how many cares were required to preserve it having been often obliged to arm himself to tame his Subjects give Battels to supplant his Competitors and bring Armies into the Field to warrant him from the surprizes even of his friends How often was he seen constrained to abandon his Frontiers to march into Sicilia travel into Egypt carry Armies yet covered with Roman Blood into Asia to bring the factious to obedience When he is busied in reconciling the Alpes when he is drawing the Rebels to their Duty when he is making Slaves of his Enemies and is projecting new Conquests beyond the Rhine and Euphrates even then they contrive plots against his Person they prepare Weapons in the City of Danube for his Assassination and he that was coming triumphant from the subduing of all the Rebels of his State finds himself designed for death by a Band of seditious men Hardly had he escaped these Ambuscades but his own Daughter attended by a company of young Gallants whom she had gained by her Prostitutions renewed his fears and by alarms