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
B12220	Essayes or rather, Encomions prayses of sadnesse: and of the emperour Iulian the Apostata. By Sir William Cornewallis, the younger knight.	Cornwallis, William, Sir, d. 1631?	1616 (1616)	STC 5778; ESTC S105079	38,445	91

but are sought of her for such is the lust of Fortunes benefits as whilest the body feeleth her selfe able to purchase her desires and to gorge her senses she abandons herselfe to all sensualities and reioyceth in her owne fulnesse to you then vpon whom none but fayre winds haue euer blowne in this careire of your supposed happinesse can you see for all your high and ouertopping places your end and resting place Or are you not rather the arrowes of the Omnipotent arme that are yet flying not at yours but at his marke and are no more owners of your owne purposed ends then you were guilty of your owne beginnings In the meane time effeminated with your prosperity and as it were still sucking vpon the brest of Fortune if she turnes her backe and retires how miserable doth shee leaue you Still bleating after the teat and like those nice creatures that become tame with taking their bread from others hands vnable to administer to your selues the least helpe or comfort Wee doe see that Nature and all her productions support them and her selfe by incessant changes and reuolutions generation and corruption being to the earth like riuers to the sea in a restlesse current and perpetuall progresse doe wee see the flourishing and falling not only of Kings and Princes but of Kingdomes and Commonwealths Citties Trophies and whatsoeuer the vaine imagination of man hath contriued for the ouercomming of time and can we vpon some small remnant of Fortunes bounty thinke to establish a perpetuity of mirth and pleasure No no he that takes not this time to prouide for a world and in the midst of his pleasures doth not thinke how fraile and transitory they are will pay dearely for his iollity when surprised by death or some disaster they leaue him in an instant so much more miserable then others as he hath depended vpon such vncertainties without which his life is most lothsome vnto him and with which death most fearefull and abhorred But to what end is all this tendred to the adorers and louers of mirth Their heads and hearts are all ready filled with their own delights which must be consumed by affliction before the precious balm of Sadnesse can either enter or worke Fabius said he feared more Minutius victories thē ouerthrows which may be rightly applied to the generall disposition of man his successes infecting him with an ignorant confidence intoxicating his reason with presumption and ostentation which are such dayly effects of worldly prosperities as they that thinke themselues Lords are often the vnworthiest sort of slaues and their opinionatiue happinesse the most wretched misery not vnlike the madde Athenian that imagined himself possessed of al whē indeed he was true honor but of his own distemper lunacy To young men there belongs more pitty aswell because nature hath her hand in this their thirst of pleasure they beeing yet by the heate of bloud and the quicknesse of their spirits and the strength of their senses iolly and gamesome as also that it must be time and the wounds and skars gotten by their wretched carelesnesse that must make them capable of aduice since as Plutarch sayth their heady passions and pleasures set ouer them more cruell and tyrannous Gouernours then those that had the charge of their minorities now who is it that leadeth this distracted dance of youth but mirth for whose sake and pleasures they are inseparable companions what is irregular indiscreet vnlawfull dishonest nay what lawes either of mans natures or Gods are in these apprehensions strong enough to containe them within their bounds Galba in his adoption of Piso amongst his other prayses sayth you whose youth hath needed no excuse a commendation so rare and glorious as there needed no more to illustrate his name and fame to all posterity for who els vnlesse fettered and chained with nature or fortune but in their first wearing the fresh garment of youth haue not soyled and spotted it as their whole life after though painefully and industriously directed hath not bin able to wipe out their faults and refresh the glose of their reputation hence it is that Delicta inuentutis meae ignorantias meas ne memineris Domine is taught by all and vsed by all so ineuitable a disease is youth of which we need no witnesse since euery mans conscience doth iustifie it the generality and antiquity hauing made it veniall and by consent we bind none from these slips and stumbles but old men and and women the rest passe the musters so farre from checking as they produce many of their follies as the markes of spirit and generosity and by their will would make of an old vice a young vertue who can hope now to deliuer this flourishing season of youth from these Caterpillers since mirth and pleasure allures opinion animates and community hides them from the sight of themselues and actions this it is that makes nothing more currannt then to pay one another with our faults and no man trusts so much to his owne vertue as to his neighbours or Companions vices wee repose our selues in the defect of others and no man striues further then to be comparatiuely good we aduance our selues vpon ruins and thinke our selues well because another is worse O lame shift O drunken remedie I will then say but this to those young men that will heare me Since you know not the way to true happinesse and contentment ask not of them that are yet in the race but of them that haue passed it propose vnto your selues some patterne to imitate nisi ad regulam prauam non corrigas and to strengthen your iudgements behold those that haue already acted their parts take one of these admirers of mirth and pleasure and an other that hath euer made his reason the taster of all his actions and compare these together and then chuse which of them you would be there cannot thus farre off bee so corrupted a iudgement as not to know the best the difference is then a little time hoc quod senectus vocatur pauci sunt circuitus amorū Behold then the match for a few yeeres to boote this vicious hatefull person is taken that deuoured his owne honour and reputation and with his pleasure swallowed euen his very soule and that liues now but in his infamy rather then that well ordered spirit that hath left a true and perfect circle of a discreet gouern'd life and death and left the world heire of many rich and worthy examples who in this consideration but must crie out with the Psalmist O what is man that thou art so mindfull of him c or why hauing taken our iudgements thus halting should wee reply vpon it carrying vs through the world that in our entrance hath thus stumbled and fallen he hath then the first signe of recouerie that in this his beginning mistrusts his owne wayes and dares offer his wounds to the Surgeon it is an incurable ignorance that dares not

put it selfe to mending Plato would haue offenders repaire to the Iudge and Magistrate as to the Physicions of the soule and submit themselues to punishment as to the medicine of recouery but this was too high an imagination for practise yet thus farre we may goe and vpon the ground and not in the ayre hauing vpon a due examination found it fit to mistrust our selues it followes euen in common reason not to throw our selues rashly into any action but to assist our weaknesse with gaining consideration time this disarms our passions of their violence for their motion being out of heat and neuer going but running being once stayed and ouertaken by reason they after willingly submit themselues vnto her and are easily managed It is an axiome in Philosophy that our first motions are not in our owne power which is true no longer then we list for he that will not imbarke himselfe without a pause and deliberation dissolues the Acrimony of his affections and makes them of the cruellest Tyrants the most profitable seruants It is true our ignorance and sloth make euery thing terrible vnto vs and we wil not because we dare not and dare not because we will not this makes vs submit our selues to any thing that doth either flatter or threaten vs and like some sottish weaklings that giue the reines of their gouernment into the hands of their wiues or seruants thinking then they buy their peace when they sell it thus do they grow vpon vs and by composition not force become masters of the place being iust so strong as we are weake The scouts of Antigonus relating vnto him the multitude of his enemies and aduising by way of information the danger of a conflict that should be vndertaken with so great an vnequality he replied And at how many do you valew me In this ciuill wars of our selues the first disorder and consequently our ouerthrow proceeds frō a false valuation of our owne strength we are content to imbrace our owne true naturall worth so wee may haue leaue to yeeld our selues to some furious passion or soothing affection but would we now take a true knowledge of our owne valew we might easily redeeme our selues God and nature haue not dealt so tyrannically with man as to giue him charge of that he cannot hold if we lose the game it must be by play wherefore since we are likely to bee besieged by the world and her allurements lest famine or treason surprise let vs turne out of the walls all vnprofitable pleasures and knowe betimes that mirth becommeth neither the fortune nor condition of man so is hee enuironed with dangers and so subiect to intrappings omnis vita supplicium est there is no day houre or moment that brings a certaine cessation of armes but to the contrary our life is a continuall war-fare representing vnto vs incessant dangers and perils wherefore wee must alwayes stand vpon our guard and keep a straight watch vpon our selues not only examining the humors that goe in and out their arrants and pretences but euen euery motion and thought for of so many different pieces is the little world of man compounded so stirring so infatigable so full of changes and counter-changes so sodainely eleuated as soone deiected and in a word such a composition of contrarieties as he that doth not continually obserue himselfe and steddily fixe his eyes vpon all his actions shall sodainely grow a stranger to himselfe and be vtterly ignorant of his owne proceedings if this then be a time for mirth we may easily imagine who doth not alone call all the parts and faculties of man from their duties and charge to feast and glut themselues with sensualities but returneth them so corrupt and debaunched as like Hannibals army after their wintering in Campania they cannot bee knowne for the same men so haue they melted their courages with delicacie and with ryot made themselues impatient and almost incapable of discipline To conclude such is the weaknesse of man and so strong are his bodily inclinations as if he doth not diuert or breake the force of his affections reason alone is not able to resist them wherefore as Plato allowed old men mirth and wine to reuiue nature almost tyred in her long iourney and to refresh their spirits benummed with the coldnesse of their dwelling by the same reason it is forbidden youth whose bloud being now at the hottest by the least addition or increase falls into the diseases of excesse the most violent and vnresistable extremes wee see then it is prescribed but for a medicine and by the difference of the constitutions of young men and old it can bee no more wholsome for the one then dangerous for the other howsoeuer since it is prescribed medicinably the too frequent vse must either destroy the operation or leaue onely the malignant quality aliue and vncorrected vnto those whom the out-side of Fortune dazels and allures there is nothing to be sayd by way of aduice being such as neither nature nor education hath fauoured but are left to act the base and illiberal parts vpon this stage of the world this is the multitude the vulgar the people that are bought and sold and reckoned by the hundred and the thousand and beare no price single and alone a madnesse it were then to thinke to moue and conuert them together when our Sauiour that fedde 5000. of them and as many heard him could neither with the admirablenesse of his miracles nor the excellency of his doctrine preuaile with them all and returne them all beleeuers this were sufficient to deterre mee euen from but touching vpon this quick-sand were they not the harbour of opinion where shee is still rescued from the louers of truth neither is it impossible that some yet of her and their party vpon a truer information may forsake and bee ashamed of their station or to be a piece of the body of this great Beast There is nothing can enter into consideration more strange and improbable then to see euen the most actiue and vnderstanding spirits to refer themselues and their proceedings to the multitude to esteeme themselues at their price exceeds their memories and powers of satisfaction The young man that thought to escape the being seene in a Tauerne with retiring further into it was iustly reprehended for going further in but such is the nature of vice it hath an alluring looke and a detayning tayle our desires first allure vs to things vnlawfull and when we are there our feare bars vs in but if euery man knew how much more right he might haue from his owne tribunall if he will freely and sincerely giue his reason her owne power and how iustly an vnabused conscience will proceed and how sweetly and securely he sleeps that hath receiued from them his quietus est he would for euer disclaime the censure of opinion and with Phocion mistrust himselfe because the people praysed him erubuit quasi peccasset quod placuerit and