Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	look_v	young_a	youth_n	38	3	7.8222	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59541	Several discourses and characters address'd to the ladies of the age wherein the vanities of the modish women are discovered / written at the request of a lady, by a person of honour.	Shannon, Francis Boyle, Viscount, 1623-1699.	1689 (1689)	Wing S2965A; ESTC R38898	101,219	214

their own shame or their Misses painted faces as many of our young Sparks nay others that are more than middle aged Sinners allow their Misses Coaches to themselves but with Coachmen in their own Livery for fear all might not know whose Misses they are and who keeps them to shew to the World that their vile impudence scorns all sober Mens censure as well as it defies the great Gods punishment This base species of mercenary Miss Love being grown as very common as themselves are who are as impudent in their Carriage as lewd in their Actions and really 't is now grown a disputable question which now abounds most in London Hackny Coaches or Hackny-Women Tradesmen or Trading-women Thus impudence is now become a kind of Staple Commodity in our Kingdom of Love it being now adays esteem'd a shameful meanness of Spirit in a young Gentleman to be out of countenance for keeping a Miss but grown no shame at all to keep one they being now looked upon but as marks of greatness and riches and signs of Youth health fashion and gaity but never in the least thought on to be the sad effects of sin shame folly and wickedness O strange change That sin should be thus supported by a customary impudence and vertue suppressed by a general Custom Thus the tolerated nay I might have said incouraging mode of acting this sin has taken away both the shame and conscience of committing it yet as very debauch'd as our Age is we ought not to cast our faults on it for there can be no time so bad as to render sins necessary for general Custom can never justifie particular faults since we might all live well if we did not spend our time ill for the will in her immediate operations neither depends nor moves by the temper of the body or the fashion of the times but by the motions of the mind in her own Resolutions In a word keeping of Misses is now grown so common not only among great Men but others of as bad Lives tho not of so great Estates that now as to the keeping of Misses there 's nothing in it so strange as that any should think it so THE NINTH DISCOURSE Of the vain folly of such Ladies who think to shew their Wit by Jeering and Censuring their Neighbours INdeed there would not need many Lines or Arguments on this Subject to disswade Ladies from Jeering at others Faults if they would but seriously reflect on their own for then certainly they would neither accuse others nor justifie themselves but avoid keeping Company with or at least practising of this base ill natur'd and uncharitable vice of Jeering and Censuring their Neighbours We read in the Gospel of S. John how the Scribes and Pharisees brought before our Saviour the Woman that was taken in the Act of Adultery to tempt him saying Moses in the Law commanded us that such should be stoned but what sayest thou and after often asking Jesus said unto them he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone at her and they that heard it being convicted in their own Consciences went away one by one and all left her for as Solomon says who is so pure as to have no sin If all Censorious Ladies would but truly and heartily apply this saying to themselves and fancy our Saviour now saying unto them the Lady that is free from fault among you cast the first Jeer at your Neighbour I am confident the Ladies would be so Conscious of their own Guilt as they would presently all leave this filthy sin as the Scribes and Pharisees did the Adulterous Woman For there 's no Woman in this World of so holy and pure a mixture as to be free from any stain and fault for then she must be more than a Woman and therefore all Ladies ought to make it their business rather to mend their own faults than make it their pastime to Jeer at those of others which very likely they are guilty of themselves and to consider since all are infected none ought to censure any but every one to repent in particular for himself and to be sorry in general for all I have known some ordinary home-spun witty Women who have proclaim'd themselves very foolish in great Companies and have shew'd their want of wit in attempting to Jeer at others above their reach having only slight Ideas of which they pretended to have a perfect knowledge and so have exposed their faint glimmering wit and flashy talk of self conceitedness on a Candlestick to be judged and look'd into by every prying and abusive Critick which had been much better kept at home under a Bushel among their Friends and Neighbours many of these pretenders to Rallying wit fancying they have a perfect knowledge of things when they do not understand nor so much as know that they do not know it for there 's a knowledge of Ignorance as well as an Ignorance of knowledge and some sin by a presumption of knowledge as well as others do by an ignorant presumption and therefore such Women pretenders to wit may be assured that they have great reason to wish for a deliverance from their unknown ignorance as well as holy David teacheth all Men to beg pardon of God for their secret and unknown faults 'T is in ordering of wit as in managing of a voyce she that has an indifferent sweet low voyce and sings within its reach may do it agreeable enough but if she striving to sing better than she can over mounts and stretches her voyce by so overstraining it she raises her weak voyce to meer squeaking and so renders it more discord than good vocal Musick So truly an indifferent Wit that moves in the Sphere of her own ability may pass for good witty pleasant Company but if she pretends to talk of what she does not understand and by endeavouring to make witty scoffs on others to cast only some gross foul slanders on them such a one drowns her small Spring of wit in the Ocean of her folly and receives but contempt instead of praise For my part I have a more nice opinion of that they generally call ignorance than usually most have for many esteem ignorance to consist only in the want of School learning others in that of History Philosophy Mathematicks Politicks or the not well understanding the Affairs of the World and the Intrigues of Courts and the Men and factions in it when in real truth one may be a perfect Master of Art in all these and yet be an ignorant Fresh-man in the very dawning and beginning of true Wisdom the fear of God which truth is confirmed by a wiser Solomon than any that dares contradict it 't is only that wisdom that leadeth to salvation Therefore I am of opinion that a Learned Man that knoweth much and lives ill and is uncharitable is much more ignorant than that Lady who knows little and prays much and gives Alms plentifully and this

beauty Riches carries its troubles as well as delights for there 's great labour in procuring Wealth trouble in defending and preserving it and also great Cares in the well spending it whilst one lives and well disposing of it when we die and so if we look over and search into most Worldly pleasures and vanities we shall find them as contrary to the true repose of this life as they are to the felicities of the next Certainly there is some great Charm in this thing called Praise that tickles the ear inflames the heart raises the spirits enlivens the resolution deludes the reason flatters the hopes and deceives the sight by giving a false gloss and making a counterfeit representation of things for the Bait of Praises for which both Men and Women so strive and eagerly pursue is still painted and set out in the brightest and most oriental charming Colours that are imaginable to allure our eyes inflame our hearts and enliven our ambition But the Hook that is hid in this Bait that is the great dangers hardships and thousands of vexatious disappointments that one must necessarily meet and run thorow in the pursuit of this Idol folly is so obscure artificially drawn as 't is not commonly seen but very ordinarily felt by many in some to their loss of Life and to others of their greatest satisfactions in it And now to put my last finishing Touch to this Picture of Praise the Mistris and Darling of the whole World methinks we ought not to wonder that this adored beauty is so Coy in her Carriage and so difficult to be gain'd if we do but reflect tho in a wholesail manner the sad oversights great mistakes and blind pursuits of its followers of whom I shall only say in general that some are so eager in gazing at it others so over earnest in their seeking it as really most oversee the right way to it which is by true Piety constant Charity and a daily practice of Vertue and Godliness in all their actions And no wonder that such as will not take these blessed Guides should miserably miss their way to it and be sadly defeated in their hopes of it And now having done with my Discourse of Praise give me leave to change the Scene and to pass by the uncertainty of your meeting it tho to reflect on the certainty of deaths meeting you and the terrors that then appear at the end of a vain wicked life and to beg the vain young Ladies Company for a little time that I might lead their thoughts into the sad and dismal Regions of Mortality that they may now consider it to prevent it hereafter from surprizing them and that they may carry their thoughts to the Grave before their friends carry their Bodies The Seasons of our Lives resemble exactly those of the Year the Summer of our Life swallows up the Spring of our Youth and the Autumn of our Age makes us to decline as the Sun does daily of its vigorous heat and influence till all the fair days and various productions of natures beauty at last yeild to old Age Winter as their Grave for as the Apostle says 'T is appointed for every Man once to die and one day is still the death of the other and tho many things may keep back the thoughts of deaths coming yet nothing can retard the time of his approach And now I must humbly beg our vain modish Ladies pardon if I here a little mind them of the sad concluding Scene of their Life and in how miserable a condition some of them must necessarily be in when they come to die and have wasted all their Life in Vanity and Sin little considering Reputation and less fearing Scandal little valuing Conscience and less esteeming Eternity It has often come into my mind that the sad end of such vain Womens Lives is like the last Scene of their Loves to their Gallants which is just as an Ague turned upside down the cold fit after the hot for when the fiery passions of youthful Love are changed through their Inconstancy or worn out by Age or wasted by Sickness for you know that Loves-vanity is but of a short date it either vanishes in the act and is nipped in its gay and vigorous blossom like the tender-leav'd Plants by a cold Northern-wind or else grows wrinkled and impotent like crooked and deform'd shrubs for want of sap and moisture and so grows loathsom and deformed as the grim Jaws of Death that will too at last come with a dreadful stroak to level all our fair Cedars to the ground and make your beauty Ladies to consume away like a Moth fretting a Garment every Woman is therefore but vanity and when you are thus brought to your Death-beds of pain and languishing O then Consider what a sad condition you must needs be in when you will find all your fond beauty and vanity going off the Stage when your life is just expiring when the scorching thoughts of your past vain life come to inflame your mind more fiercely than the burning Feaver can your body and that the remembrance of your past extravagant pride and vanity will torment your troubled Conscience more than ever before they pleased your sensual appetite and that the shivering fit of guilt not only seizes your heart but pierceth your very soul with sad and sober thoughts of your past sins and the strict account that you must soon give of them and of the terrible punishments that you must justly suffer for them when perhaps you cannot comfort your afflicted Conscience with the assurance of having so much as performed in your whole life one pious act or charitable deed when you had both time and means to have performed thousands and so as too many of you do lose the blessings of the other World meerly for slighting Gods mercies in this And farther 't will be well worth the consideration of our vain Ladies that when they lie a dying the sins of their life will flie about their troubled minds as naturally as sparks do about fire and will lighten them to a clear sight of their pride and vanity and their greatest trouble when they are leaving this World is what will become of them when they are out of it and truly it will not be without great cause since their Consciences will then assure them that their Bodily pain in this Life will be but the Prologue or first step to their Souls eternal misery in the next Whereas a pious young Lady who with holy David makes a covenant with her Eyes that they should not behold vanity but observe Gods commandments as her chief study and delight by truly living in his fear she will certainly die in his favour and will find at her death that her good Conscience will be her real friend and true comforter and furnish her with a chearful readiness to submit her will to Gods which will never fail to protect her against all those spiritual