Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	account_v	avoid_v	great_a	16	3	2.0729	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45043	Paradoxes by J. De la Salle.	Hall, John, 1627-1656.	1653 (1653)	Wing H354; ESTC R32039	27,903	231

presently toutched with the delicate composure and Symmetry of their bodies The sweetnesses and killing languors of their eyes the meslange and harmony of their colours the happiness and spirituality of their countenances the charms and allurements of their Mine the Air and command of their smiles so that it is no wonder if Plato said that Souls were unwilling to depart out of such fair bodies whereas men are meer-rough-cast bristly and made up of tough materials if they approach any thing near beauty do so much degenerate from what they are This gains us our main Topick For if the majesty or comeliness of the person of a Governour gain so much upon the people as Politicians have observed and experience teaches it doth what advantage have they in Magically chaining and winning of the People given them by Nature which the other cannot obtain by Art for who would not be sooner smitten with Tresses curiously snak't and built up by a ravishing Architecture then with Commodus hair though poudred with Gold who would not adore a face glowing with all kinde of sweetnesses rather than a countenance Savage with bristles or indented with soars That this is a truth needs so little Demonstration that looking but into any story you shall finde even the greatest conquerours lusty and proud in their triumphs humbled and brought on their knees by some fair enchantress This we account admirable in Alexander and Scipio that they cold avoid in Caesar and Mark Anthony we pardon it in respect of the greatness of their other actions And therefore if great Captains and founders of Empires be things of a more excellent nature then ordinary lazy governours that creep in by succession or be stilted by election and these people have ever commanded them and made them decline in their very meridians hath not nature think we given them a Priority and enjoy they it not in effect though they seem not to enjoy it in shew But a Martiall-man you will say is a savage bruitish thing a thing that knows how to run into dangers and to despise them one whose thoughts are always at random and abroad seldom with drawn and upon their guard and therfore it is no wonder if such men be easily surprised with such dazling triffles But when a man tells you that even the wisest men have been strange doters on this sexe and absolutely given up to them it will change the case I suppose there is no man thinks Solomon a fool and it is well known how these white Devils seduc'd him Augustus that was certainly one of the steadiest men in the world one that in his youth out-witted the hoary senate was all his life time led by one Livia who had that great prevalescence with him that he by her means disposed the succession of the Empire upon a son of her womb by a former husband though he had nearer kindred of his own But to make this yet plainer age we say begets wisdom now how general the affection of old Men is to Women needs no proof especially the older they grow some of threescore marrying Girles of sixteen and therefore it is a clear Argument of the truth of this point and of the wisdom of those reverend seniours that proceed accordingly Besides as certainly there wants not its reason in Philosophy that all vertues are of this we plead for so we may in the perusal of History finde as many fair and brave examples of virtue given by women as there hath been by men Look over the ●oul of them and yee may easily fill each of them into a sufficient common place where many things put down as nobly done by men it may be are either bruitish heady or passionate whilest in the woman things appear more smooth and temperate Or if there be any thing of passion or exorbitancy it is but an addition of lustre to their sex as a blush or glowing in the face sets off their beauty Now if it be necessary that governours should be of good entertainment affable open of countenance and such as seem to harbour no crooked or dark design no men can be so fit for Government as women are For besides their natural sweetness and innocency their talk is commonly directed to such things as it may easily be inferred that their heads are not troubled about making of Wars enlarging of Empires or founding of Tyrannies So if we consider both what hath been said and that even those attributes which are to be most wish'd for in a Governour are in them we shall clearly gain what we desire What greater happiness to a people than to have a Governour that 's religious Now all Philosophy and Experience teaches us that the softest mindes are most capable of these impressions and that women are for the most part more violently hurried away by such agitations than men are How few men-Prophets do histories afford us incomparison to Prophetesses and even at this day who such absolute followers of the Priests as the women are If you wish them mercifull these are the tenderest things on the earth They have tears at command and if tears be the effect of Pitty and compassion and pitty and compassion be the mother of virtue must we not think that mercy rules most in them and is the soonest expected from them If you wish affection to the Country where can you better have it Have not the women many times cut of their Hairs to make Ropes for Engines and Strings for Bowes Have they not given up all their Rings and Jewels to defray charges Have they not been content to perish with their husbands in their habitations and what greater love of country can be shewn And how great would this be if a woman lookes upon her self as the mother of her Country What tenderness would she not have towards the people her children When you see private women sometimes shew such extraordinary effects thereof that it comes near dotage or madness Or would you have affection to the people at home No effect so violent as that of women murthers banishments proditions have been but small matters thence arisen and what Tragical effects their despairs have brought Poets and Romances will abundantly shew Thus were this noble sex restor'd to that right which nature hath bestowed on it we should have all Quiet and Serene in common-wealths-Courts would not be taken up with factions and underminings but all would flow into pleasure and liberty Instead of molding of Armies we should be preparing of masks and instead of depressing of Factions we should have balls amorous appointments So that men might follow their handycrafts oxen might Plow Mill-horses drive about the Wheele whilest all this labour sweat should serve but for the furtherance and easiness of the Court Then also should we have no Wars which Slectingius and Socinus argue so much and the people pray so much against For women being of tender conditions and most part of sedentary lives

imperfection that they durst not do it and therefore Virgill speaking of Venus saies Et vera incessu patuit Dea. Which as a modern Poet hath english'd it She did not go And step like us but awfully did flow And swim to sight Intimating that even the motion of such miserable Divinities must needs be nobler and more vigorous than the poor and weak haltings of common man Nor is it much to be urg'd that nature recompences this sometimes in others by extraordinary swiftness for not to say that such are very few and these in a manner useless rather made indeed for matches than service who was ever yet heard of that could outrun a Hart or a Barbary or to make equal journies with a Dromedary And if it should be suppos'd that they were able to do so that were nothing but declining into the nature of those creatures and falling back from their own worth into that Glass Besides we are to consider the means by which men commonly arrive at lameness and and those for the most part are honourable For as there are but few diseases that cause it so it proceeds for the most part either from hurts or loss of members which must needs be from a mans particular valour or else receav'd in the defence of his Countrey If it be the former what greater assurance can you have of a high and a daring soul than to sacrifice ones limbs to the sence and tenderness of honour If the latter what more noble and generous martyrdom can be imagin'd than to loose part of what we brought into the world with us as a sacrifice to that common mother to whom we owe all we have or to speak a little more pressingly to all the interests both of our Altars and Chimneyes Friends Children Laws and Liberties Certainly upon this occasion one man may safely and rationally be more proud of a pair of Crutches than another man who hath meerly obey'd the agitations and stings of ambition ought in conscience to be of a triumphal Charriot To all this we are to add that we by this means enjoying rest enjoy that which all things even to the lowest inanimates tend unto with a strong appetency stones themselves violently rush down to their Centre encrease their motion when they approach it flames and fire mount upward impatient of these Unctious and Sulphureous Prisons to which we confine them All things tend to quiet and rest Consider but even the nature of things and it will be found but a mechanical protrusion clashing and arietation of atoms which scuffles being once ceas'd they rest in shapes and quiet themselves into a Body But to go no further than the minde of man all the passions and traverses of it are but so many hurries and tempests and they must be calmed before a man can see himself as waters must be smooth'd which a man would make a mirrour of Or if a man give himself to the pursuit of sciences there is no way so advantageous as quiet and a serene attendance upon our thoughts Hence it was that the Poets secluded the Muses to Mount Parnassus to Fountains and Groves as knowing that Cities were not places for any profound and abstractive meditations and consequently much conversation an enemy unto it Out of this reason I believe it was that Sr Henry Wotton after so many Embassies and Negotiations concluded an Epigraphe of his Tandem hoc didici animas sapientiores fieri quiescendo But least I may seem to speak without ground and not out of Experience and the things themselves as many subtle and aery wits have done whose contemplations have been rarified into such thinness that they have vanish'd into nothing things and actions being ever the best furniture and directors of conceptions whilest the minde it self towring meerely by the strength of its own notions either looses it self in its height or falls down out of weariness it will be but necessary that I quote an example or two the one of a Spaniard the other of a Countreyman the one of as little merit as he hath much fame the other of very small fame considering the greatness of his worth 'T is Ignatius Loyola and Mr Anthony Bacon son to the Lord Keeper Bacon Brother to the Lord Chancellour The first being a Spanish souldier and becoming bed-rid of his wounds recollected that great minde of his which had been usually employ'd in war into that fatall invention of the Order of the Jesuits which as in its increase it is in a manner miraculous so in its discipline it is no less For of what profession Physick excepted hath it not brought forth excellent men in great numbers How have they out-stript all other Orders in a few years and were it not for their blinde cursed dependance upon the Pope whereby they even wilfully put out their own reason and that they are a sort of men absolutely given to the aggrandization of their own society they were certainly to be imitated by the best Governments on the earth But as Physitians say that too good a posture of health is sickness because the humours being in Equilibration may the sooner be over-turned and we see the most admirable inventions have brought along with them their inconveniences so is this sort of men out of an intended harmless society grown up into such artifice and insinuation of State that like your sutlest poisons they work most dangerously and subtily unseen and have been so inconsistent with civill government that France once banish'd them for a time and the state of Venice for ever For the other as he writ nothing so his infirmity with-held him from doing much He that could but consider the marvellous spirit of his Brother the difference of Lamenesse put into the scale might easily shape an Idaea of him but with this disproportion the one tower'd into all the heights of sciences and like an Eagle was one of the first that could behold intellectuall truth the other div'd into the secrets of state and like a cruel Mineralist left no vein unsearch'd The one had a hand larger than his Fortune for all those great offices and preferments he past through supply'd onely his state and liberality into a great debt and a poverty not fit to be mention'd to posterity without ignominy to his Prince The other had a providence so much greater than his necessities as you may say exceeded on the other side He was a great Transactour for the Essex faction when they and the house of the Cecills upon the setting of Queen Elizabeth strove who should be the greatest adorers of rising King James He wanted not kindred on the other side which he knew very well and so cunningly used it that by throwing out doubtfull and suspicious words when he lay bed-rid he got Essex house in the Strand given him at one time which what he sold it for Sir Henry Wotton will tell you and also ask you this question What he would have done if he had been ble to walk Certainly he was a man of a vast and a regular minde so great a Commander of himself and so much a master in the Arts of life and Government that his Brother the high Chancellour was not to be blam'd when he wish'd his infirmity upon himself so that the other might go abroad about her Majesties service What I have said of this head that is to say of Natural restraint as I may so call it I believe may very well serve also for civill restraint or imprisonment which though for the most part it be but temporary as the other is and assures not of a continuation so long as life yet it seems to be accompany'd with more horrours and more dangers For being inflicted by the civill Magistrate it seems but as an earnest of some further punishment But if we examine the grounds upon which most men are thrown into Goales which we finde to be either for the breach of some law or for denying to act some what against law or else such as whose attempts have not been answered with success there will not any thing so formidable be found in it For if it be the former it is our deserts and we ought to submit to it as to that which the law imposeth upon us for our demerits and at most it is but a gentle schooling for an errour wherein the progress of the party offending is hindred and it may be his final ruine prevented while in the mean time he is at leisure to look into himself and to make use of his experience for future causes If it be the second what more noble occasion in the world of suffering than in denying obedience to unjust commands which certainly may assure and pacifie any resolv'd and constant honesty amidst the greatest torments much more restraint For what greater satisfaction can any man have than the fruition of his integrity though it be clouded and covered with never so much misfortune And for the third since it is not much more than the fortune of the war and every man that attempts must needs hazard it were unworthiness and pusillanimity to attempt if a man will not be content with the dispensations of fortune to which we remit our selves withall not knowing how she in her lubricity may every moment change cases Upon the whole it will appear that since Restraint is the most high happy and wholesome course of life and that our souls which are much nobler than our Bodies are much advantag'd thereby and yet these souls though such immortal and noble substances are but imprison'd and pent up in our bodies it were a very great injustice that the body should ill resent any confinement when that the immortal soul that actuates it is so close a prisoner to the body it self FINIS Errata For page line read plentation 13 15 plantation esicurial 14 13 escurial he ib. 14 it things ib 15 these things whey 26 ult when pish 28 12 pitch he 35 8 he that but ib. 12 by ever 36 3 ever torment ignomy ib. 12 ignominy whom 37 6 which was 57 1 were beast 61 14 best desused 62 13 diffused aftergate 64 12 wherrby carying 75 8 carving undo 77 3 out-do if 93 17 have after dangers 94 16 be such subsistance 96 2 substance cornell 98 12 kernel nours 141 18 nours and