Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	christian_a	good_a	great_a	1,012	4	2.0712	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26270	The government of the passions according to the rules of reason and religion viz, love, hatred, desire, eschewing, hope, despair, fear, anger, delight, sorrow, &c.	Ayloffe, W. (William)	1700 (1700)	Wing A4290; ESTC R23106	50,268	134

before God grow rich by former Losses thus learning Experience at our own expence we shall never permit our Passions to grow to that fatal height again as to offend God or dethrone our Reason Thus our very Misfortunes may be made to tend to our Advantage and Examples in other things shew us that a Storm may drive us into the wish'd for Haven and the same furious Billows that cast away our Vessel may cast us afterwards on shore Not that a wise Man would leap overboard and trust his safety to the necessity of a Miracle no more should a prudent Christian permit his Passions to come this length to reap the benefit of Repentance for it whereof he is not assured We must not sin that Grace may abound In pursuit of these Truths we may venture to advance on more which is this that considering all things our condition is not so deplorable as some of us peradventure imagine who impute the greatest share of our Misdemeanours to the misery of our Nature Our good Fortune is in our own Hands we sail upon an Ocean whose Billows are absolutely at our disposal we can both avoid the danger of Rocks and if there arise any Tempest we can immediately lay it and what was instanced upon another Juncture we may apply here in honour to Reason which is an Emanation from God himself 't is something extraordinary since the Winds and the Seas of our Passions and corrupt Nature obey it By what means we may moderate our Passions VVE might here use the Policy of the Huntsman who uses tame Beasts to catch the Wild and oppose Hope to Fear that she might not despond Joy to Sorrow that it grow not excessive However there may seem some plausibleness in the method yet it is not safe We may prove the reality of Ovid's Acteon and perish by those Hounds we used for our pleasure We fortifie one Passion to repel the violence of another which now having its force augmented by our indulgence may rebel it self and be more hard to repress than the other was 'T is not safe to shew them how to conquer Tho' in common Policy the practice may hold off making War toobta in a more advantageous Peace or to use the interest of reconciled Enemies to pacifie those who still harass us with Incursions and acts of Hostility and to sow Discord between those Neighbours whose agreement and good intelligence might be prejudicial to us yet in Morality those Maxims have no Authority at all Reason which is the grand Sovereign of all the Passions must use her utmost care and diligence in watching over the first motions of our Passions and by taking away from them all those Objects which serve only to promote their Rebellion keep them in order with so much the less difficulty The Effects must cease when the Cause doth The only great Remedy against these fatal Intestine Commotions is not to give them any occasion of revolting 'T is the Pride of the World the Grandeur of Court the Glories of a Triumph that foment our Ambition and by shewing us these splendid Trophies of other Heroes make us uneasie till we have acquired the same empty Vanities for our selves too So Caesar wept at the reflection that he began to follow Arms at that Age wherein Alexander had conquered the whole World In the private retirement of a Country Village or a poor Farm we see none of all these empty Toys they are utterly strangers to such things and by not seeing any Image of them their Souls are never agitated with that raging Phrenzy that sacrifices every thing to its own ends Nor indeed can we expect it should spare any thing since it sacrifices its own tranquility to the accomplishing its own desires So is it likewise with Sorrow dim Lights dark Chambers every thing coloured with black a profound slence through the whole Family amazement and horrour in every Face makes the impression so much the deeper And indeed one would think Man did not labour so much to bridle his Passion as to indulge it Take away these lugubrious ornaments let the person afflicted but go abroad and converse with those who have no cause to weep and the source of their Tears will quickly dry up Nature it self will be weary of always lamenting and peradventure no Sorrow would be so very intense as 't is did we not heighten it by Circumstances The same may be observed of all the other Passions which are not so difficult to govern but that we will not seriously set about it but on the contrary by our fatal Artifices we render them more obstinate in their Rebellion and assist them in their Insurrections as if we were desirous of being miserable by them or afraid of being victorious over them Our Passions are really in themselves so many Seeds of Virtue THE Knowledge of Man being generally but superficial only we are taken with the mere Appearances of things And this was it which made the Dogma's of the Stoicks be received with so universal and so great an approbation They promised no less than to make Angels of their Sectators and to place them in a Condition beyond that of poor Mortality Philosophy alone was to elevate them above all the Storms and Thunders of our Passions and by fixing them in a higher Region of Serenity free them from all those troublesome Disorders which interrupt the happy Calm and Tranquility of the Soul But alas these were empty deluding promises and all these proud Waves turned into meer Froth Had it been possible for them to have made good these haughty pretensions they had at once superseded all those Helps which Nature has given us to become virtuous and the inferiour part of Man's Soul had been without any function For the Passions are but the mediate motions thereof by whose means without being separated from its body it is united to what it desireth or keeps at a distance from those Objects it apprehends Joy is the dilation of the Soul and Sorrow its contraction Desires make us as it were advance and Fear sollicits us to retire So that to abstract the Passions from the Soul were to deprive her of all her motions and render her impuissant as well as useless under the notion of constituting her felicity No reasonable Man would sure purchase his Happiness at so exorbitant a price For if Contentment consisteth in tasting the good we possess it must incontestably and naturally follow that the Passions are so many necessary motions of our Soul and that Joy must consummate the Bliss to which our Desires at first gave Life The Passions being so many Seeds of Virtue that if we will be at the pains to cultivate and improve them they will produce extraordinary delicious and agreeable Fruit. The Man is not born virtuous and that the Art which renders him such is as difficult to acquire as 't is glorious to possess yet it seems to be one power of the Soul to

which by small pain delivers us from the Torments of the Damned to enjoy the Felicities of the Angels Of Pleasure IF Hope is thought to merit so many and so high Encomiums as that she is the most charming agreeable Passion that rises in Mans Soul and that which flatters our senses with the most sensible delectation what shall we say of Pleasure which is the delicious fruitwhereof the other was but a bud or blossom at most This is the effect and the other was but a fair promise This is the motion of the Soul that terminates all the rest As Love is the commencement this is the consummation and in all the different forms which Love assumes he is the most agreable in this in all the others he is mix'd with troubles dangers fatigues hardships and as many various miseries as he is metamorphos'd into different shapes yet in this of Pleasure he is absolutely all the desires he is at once victorious triumphant and happy Pleasure is the fruition of an agreeable good which renders the Soul satisfied interdicting any motion of desire sorrow or fear this definition excludes all those delights our Memory furnishes us with in the recollection of a past Felicity Those shadows of Joy may serve to entertain our thoughts with but are not solid enough to constitute a real Tranquillity It being as natural to regret a Felicity which we have lost as desire one that is absent from us As also all those infamous Pleasures which Voluptuousness creates the pain of desiring them exceeds by much the delectation of fruition They are such Mortal Enemies of our quiet that they are never enjoy'd without rendring us miserable as well as criminal at one fatal stroke wounding both Soul and Body True Pleasure is never so agreable as when 't is extream the greater it is the more it ravishes us The solid satisfaction of a rational Creature consisteth in the Mind and Man cannot be contented if the more noble part of his System is not happy The knowledge of Truth and the practice of Virtue ought to be his great divertisement He must follow the most pure of his inclinations and in the composition of his Body he must labour rather to please the Angel than gratifie the Beast He must remember that the Body is but the Slave of the Soul and in his choice of Pleasures he ought to give the Deference to the Sovereign If any man is of a contrary sentiment we cannot but conclude that Sin which depriv'd him of Grace has robb'd him likewise of his Understanding and Reason too The pleasures of the Senses are limited but those of the Soul are not so That sweet Odour which gratifies the Smel pleases no other Sense Musick which ravishing the Soul from the Body puts us in Heaven with the glorious Cherubims has no effect but upon the Ear. Virtue satisfies every faculty of the Soul and indeed she is never contented by halves what charms her in one power is diffusive and her Joy becomes universal The happiness of the Body is but a shadow and its felicity but an empty vain appearance Whilst that of the Soul is real solid and substantial not to be taken away from them who possess it even by death it self but what will accompany them into a happy Eternity Of the good use of Pleasure THose who condemn Pleasure at the same time condemn Nature accusing her of over-sights in all her Works for she has so mixt it in all the most minute affairs of our lives that we do nothing wherein she has not equally an agreableness as a necessity Hunger makes us eat and our Nourishment pleases the Palate whilst it concerns our Lives As Pleasure is useful to the Body so it is necessary to the Soul We would not combate against Vice but for the Joy and Glory which the Conquest yields us Who would go through the many difficulties that attend the acquiring of knowledge but for the sweetness they reap after their labours But as Nature has diffus'd some pleasure in all these things 't is to serve us not as an impellent motive but as an assistant only and to be rather our refreshment under our difficulties than the reward of them A spur or encouragement to arrive at the end but it must not be the end it self The pleasures or enjoyments of the Earth may divert us but must not take up too much of us Nature designing them not so much for our felicity as our comfort Our blessed Saviour has assur'd us that all the pleasures and happiness of this World are not worth our looking after and therefore he counsels us to renounce forthwith the blandishments of the World and establish our felicity in Heaven He has order'd us by the mouth of his Apostles never to open the door of our hearts but to those pure unallayed consolations which have the Holy Ghost for their source and spring and consulting our Interests only he obliges us to look after a Joy which being grounded upon himself cannot be ravish'd from us either by the Malice of Man or by the Iniquity of Fortune and which having an infinite goodness for their Cause and Object have their duration only circumscribed by Eternity Of Sorrow THis Passion seems to be natural to Man the others but accidental Few Parts of our Body are Partakers of our Pleasures or capable of receiving any one Particular But no Part of us but alas is sensible of Pain Sorrow and Grief The Spirit is dejected and the Eyes mourn Sadness displays it self through the whole Oeconomy The very deplorableness of our State doth argue Pain to be more essential to us than Pleasure We are born in Tears we live in Sorrow and dye in Sighs For one vain transient and imaginary Pleasure we feel a thousand real weighty Evils And what is a farther Confirmation of the Misery of our Condition we are much more sensible of Pain than Pleasure A small Distemper destroys all our most solid Contentment a Fit of the Gout or Stone is capable to make a Conqueror forget his Lawrels and the Pomp of all his Triumphs Grief is a real Evil that attacks both Soul and Body at once making a double Wound at each Blow When the Body is necessitated to undergo the sharpness of Tortures the rigours of the Seasons and the violence of Distempers the Soul is obliged to sigh with her and that Bond which unites them makes their Misery common she apprehends Wounds tho' she is invulnerable and Death tho' she is immortal and this only by reason of that strict Communication which she has with the Body We all agree that the Soul cannot be happy whilst the Body is miserable and to confirm us in this Opinion we know that the Soul of our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ tho' it was happy in it self yet it was pierced with Grief when he said to his Disciples My Soul is sorrowful even unto death And the Felicity of his Divinity seem'd to be