Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	old_a	young_a	youth_n	300	4	8.2577	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43357	Heraclitus Christianus, or, The man of sorrow being a reflection on all states and conditions of human life : in three books.		1677 (1677)	Wing H1487; ESTC R12496	69,902	193

Philosopher which can be invented for to punish him is To let let him live For you shall see saith he That by little and little the vehement Fire of Love will gain so much on him as it hath already begun that the pain which he will endure will be so great that it cannot be conceiv'd and imagin'd for he shall find such Emotions within his Soul that he shall burn and consume in this Flame as doth the Fly in a Candle so that his life shall be no more life but a real Death and that more cruel than if passed through the hands of all the Tyrants and Hangmen in the World I have been somewhat tedious in treating on this Subject but indeed the thing requires it being the entire Corruption and ruin of the most part of the Youth of our Age for when they have never so little wetted their feet in the delights of this World it is the hardest thing in nature for them to retrieve themselves Youth Liberty and Riches being the greatest Pimps and Bawds in the World CHAP. XII Of the Misery of Old Age. AND then when we should sing a Requiem from all our Troubles cometh upon us Old Age with its infirmities and then our sorrows are renewed and grown young again and we must then pay a rigorous Interest for all the faults and excesses of our Youth the Heart that is miserable sad and heavy by the gloomy reflections of a mis-spent Life the Spirit that is languishing the Breath that is stinking and loathsom the Face so furrowed and wrinkled and generally the Body so curbed that it seemeth to be some lump of Lead or Iron rather than a Man the Nose hath lost its faculty of smelling the Eyes of seeing the Hair falls off the Teeth falls out of the Head by stink and rottenness in short he resembleth some dry Anatomy or the picture of death rather than the Man he was and this is only of the Body but alas the mind of aged people is as much out of order or rather more for they are then continually disposed to anger hard to be appeased light of belief and long a forgetting injuries praise the Ancients and former Ages and despise and contemn the Modern are sad languishing malancholy covetous hard and suspicious In brief 't is the retreat and rendezvouz of all the Vices and incommodiousness of our nature which being considered by the Emperour Augustus he was wont to say That when men had lived fifty years they ought to dye and desire to be killed for asmuch as to that time they felt none of the grievances of old Age which is unavoidably past over in sorrow and misery and in insupportable pains and sickness death of Children loss of Goods Law Suits paying Debts and an infinite of other troubles which it were better with eyes shut wait for at the Sepulchre than to experiment them with open eyes in this frail and sorrowful life Which the Prophet apprehending cried out unto the Lord saying Withdraw not thy self from me when I am in years nor for sake me when assailed with old age CHAP. XIII Of DEATH AFTER Man hath groaned and sighed under the insupportable burden and heavy weight of his miserable Life he is forced to live always in the fearful expectation of the division of the Soul and Body which is for the most part accompanied with inconceivable and inexpresible torments Which St. Austin considering and bewailing breaks out into this querulous Lamentation O Lord God saith he how miserable a creature is man who after having sustained so many vexatious evils yet must endure the terrible assaults of Death which oftentimes cometh so violently that it burns and tares all in pieces and hath more ways to destroy us than can be related or thought of Sometimes oppressing by Feavers sometimes by Hunger sometimes by Thirst sometimes by Fire another by Water one with the Sword another with Poyson some are torn in pieces with the teeth of Wild-Beasts some are made meat for Fishes some of Worms and yet nevertheless man knoweth not the end and when he thinketh himself permanent and lasting he falleth and perisheth What an affrightful Spectacle is it to behold a man on his bed of Sickness pressed with the agonies of Death what trembling what horror what alteration and change in all the bands of Nature the Feet become cold and benum'd the Face waxeth pale the Eyes hollow the Lips and Mouth draw themselves inward the Pulse diminisheth the Tongue grows black the Teeth shut and press one against another the Breath fails and a cold sweat appeareth over the whole Body which is a certain sign and demonstration that Nature is overcome and vanished And when it comes to the sorrowful departure of the Soul from its ancient Habitation all the vessels and ligaments of Nature are broken then the Hellish Host as so many Vultures surround the Sick-mans Bed for there is no invention or subtilty which they practise not to induce us to settle our thoughts and hopes on our good Living on false Opinions and destructive Presumptions or else setting before us such an infinite number of our sins and offences with such horrid aggravations that the consideration of them might drive us into rage and despair and blasphemous defiances of Heavenly Justice then 's the hour then 's the moment then 's the point in the which the Devil with all the powers of darkness attacks us and that so much the more fiercely because he well knows then we shall escape out of his claws or for ever remain in them And so now when our bodies lye inanimate and sensless and an eternal night of darkness sits brooding on our Forheads Where are all our officious friends and attendants who in our life-time did so honour and reverence us and were so passionately disirous of our company Do they not all forsake us and abhor and detest the sight of us do they not all leave us to the cold earth to be made a prey to Worms and Serpents and thus it is with all men thus fares it with his Holiness his Majesty his Grace his Excellency his Honour and his Worship too they all receive the same usage with the poorest mortal that grovels on the earth And what will it then signifie to them that they have been esteemed for their Birth for their Riches for their Beauty or for their Wit or for any thing else save Virtue and true Goodness For as for all other things they are passed away as a Shadow and as an Arrow drawn from a Bow and as the smoak scattered with the wind or as a Ship that passeth ever the waves of the water which when it is gone the trace thereof cannot be found or as a Bird which flyeth through the air there being no sign left of her way which she hath made but the light air being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them she flyeth through and

good and favourable Looks and kind reception from them whom they love you shall see them gay jocund and airy in so much that you 'l think they are changed into some other shape Sometimes they love private and solitary places that they may talk alone reason design and dispute with themselves Sometimes you 'l see them pass five or six times in a day through the same street to espy and watch that they may have a favourable look from them whom they Love and the poor Varlets have their Skins broken with running their Arms wearied and aking with serubbing rubbing dressing and adorning their Master and if there happens to them any sparks of Jealousie then they mount up to the highest degree of fury and are then in inexpressible peril and danger there being no sensible part about them which is not ulcerated becoming rash bold and ventursom there being no Art Invention or Machine which they produce not becoming Lycanthropes and running up and down in the Nights like howling Wolves and although the Malady be of it self fantastical enough yet according to the humour which it meets withal it worketh strange and wonderful effects For if the Lover be poor there shall be no office of Humanity which he employeth not even to the sacrificing and cutting himself in pieces if need be If he be Rich His Purse as say the Greeks is tied and fastned by a hair If he be Covetous he becometh immediately prodigal and open-handed which moved Plautus to say That Love must be the first Invention of the Wallet If the Person affected be a man of Letters and has any measure of Spirit and Fancy you shall then see him feigning a Sea of Tears a Lake of Miseries redoubling his Cryes accusing the Heavens anatomizing his Heart freezing the Summer burning the Winter adoring idolizing admiring feigning of Paradises forging of Hells making himself a Sisiphus Tantalus Titius and if it happen that he would extol that which he loves then her Hair is nothing but fine Gold her Eye-lids Arches and Vaults of Ivory her Eyes stars her Looks Lightning her Mouth Coral her Teeth Eastern Pearls her Breath Balm Amber and Musk her Throat Snow her Breasts Alabaster and generally all the rest of her Body is nothing else but the prodigality and Treasure of Heaven and of Nature who had reserved her as a choice Vessel wherein she would pour in those eminent and incomparable perfections for which he loves and adores her and thus this cruel Malady of Love torments those who are therewith affected and yet nevertheless there is so many People Nations and Provinces troubled with these furious assaults that were there an Army to be raised of all the Lovers which are in the World there 's no Emperour Monarch or Potentate whatsoever but would tremble at the sight of so many fools in a Company and this Pestilent evil by custom and habit hath gained and prevailed so far on mankind that there cannot be found any Remedy although that many Greek and Arabian Physicians have employed all their most excellent Medicines to deliver them from their Martyrdom Samocrasius Cigidus and Ovid have written many great Tomes and Volumes of the remedy of Love in which they shew Remedies for others but the mischief on it is that they could not find any for themselves they all three dying pursued and destroyed not for the hurt or ill which they did at Rome but for the Amours which they invented at Capua The Emperour Marc. Aurelius knowing that Faustina his wife was enamoured with a Fencer and that so ardently that she was ready to die and pine away for the love of him assembled together a great number of Learned men in all Faculties and Sciences for to advise with and counsel him how he might put out that Fire wherewith his Wife was enflamed but after many consultations some Empericks counselled him That he should cause him on whom she so much doted to be killed and the blood of him to be secretly given her to drink which was speedily executed This indeed was a great Remedy for her affection was cooled but yet was it not of so great efficacy as writeth Capitolin but that Anton. Com. whom they begot afterwards was bloody and cruel and more resembled the Fencer than his Father and conversed ordinarily with those sort of people and delighted more in their than in any other Company so that the passion of the Mother seemed to be translated into the Child But yet is all this but little in respect of what I have read in many Histories the matter coming to that pass that when this foolish Frenzy seizeth and taketh hold on our spirits it maketh us brutish and sensless as is evidently and manifestly shown in a Youth of one of the richest Families in Athens and well known by all the Inhabitants of that City who having oftentimes contemplated an excellently well-made Statue of Marble which was fixed in a publick place in Athens He was so exceedingly taken with it that he could not part from the sight of it as if it had been endued with Life and motion and was so greatly affected that when he was out of the sight of it he cryed and lamented with so great passion that 't would have moved the most harden'd to pity and in the end this passion gained so much upon him that he was reduced to such extremity that he desired the Senate to sell it him at what prize they pleased that he might carry it about with him and have it at home and all places wherever he went Which they would not agree to because it was belonging to the Publick and that their power extended not so far At which being much troubled He caused a Crown of Gold with other rich and sumptuous Ornaments to be made and went towards the Statue putting the Crown on its Head and adorning it with rich Vestments and then began to contemplate and adore it with such obstinacy and pertinaciousness that the Vulgar being scandalized with his foolish and ridiculous Amours he was at last deterred by the Magistrates from coming near it At vvhich he vvas so grievously cast down and troubled that at the end he killed himself For the operations of this passion is so great that since it hath made entrance into the hearts of Men it vvalketh incurable through all the vital and sensible parts of the Body and being in full possession of us causeth an infinite of trouble and sorrow and that so sharply that it many times puts an end and period to our lives vvhich the great Philosopher A Pollonice Thiance confirmed to the King of Babylon vvho vvith importunate Entreaties desired him that he would tell him vvhich vvas the most cruel and painful of all Torments which could be invented by all the secrets of Philosophy that therewith he might punish and chastise a young Gentleman vvhom he had found in Bed vvith a beautiful Damosel whom he affected The greatest Torment saith the