Selected quad for the lemma: truth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
truth_n	word_n	write_v	wrought_v	91	3	7.4989	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29010	Occasional reflections upon several subiects, whereto is premis'd a discourse about such kind of thoughts	Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691.	1665 (1665)	Wing B4005; ESTC R17345	188,000	462

Advantages abroad yet to bring them to that pass the Author may perhaps undergoe many a trouble that we dream not of For he that has to do with difficult or weighty Subjects cannot present us a good Book or a Fine Discourse with the same ease that a rich man can present us a fine pair of Gloves or a fine Collation which may be had at an hour's warning from the next Milleners or Confectioners For to be able to write one good Book on some Subjects a man must have been at the trouble to read an hundred To grow capable to give a better rendring of a Greek Text he must perchance have perus'd Suidas Stephanus Hesychius and I know not how many Lexicographers and Scholiasts To be qualifi'd to make a Translation of an Hebrew Word or Phrase that shall illustrate a dark Text or clear a Difficulty or more fitly agree with his notion or accommodation of a place in Scripture a man must have not onely like a School-Boy learn'd an Hebrew Grammar and turn'd over Buxtorf's Schindler's and other Dictionaries but which is worse he must in many cases hazard his eyes and his patience in conversing with such Jewish Writings not onely as Elias his Tishbi and Kimchi's Michlol but to gain a little Rabbinical Learning and find out some unobvious signification of a Word or Phrase he must devour the tedious and voluminous Rhapsodies that make up the Talmud in many of which he can scarce learn any thing but the Art of saying nothing in a multitude of words and in others which are not so useless the most he will find in I know not how many dull pages written with as little Wit as Truth will perhaps be an Account of some wild Opinion or some obsolete Custom or some superstitious Rite of a generation of people whose Fancies and Manners scarce any thing makes worth our inquiring after but their having liv'd many Ages since And even when a man sets himself to write those smooth Composures where Eloquence is conspicuous and seems to be chiefly design'd the Author seldom comes by his Contentment on as easie terms as the Readers come by theirs For not to mention that sometimes Periods that in a well printed Book look very handsomely and run very evenly were not in the written Copy without interlining and Transcriptions Those that are Schollars themselves can hardly write without having an ambition or at least a care to approve their Discourses to them that are so too And in the judgment of such Perusers to be able to write well one must not onely have skill in the Subject but be well skill'd in the way of writing lest the Matter be blemish'd by the manner of Handling it And although to shew ones self a Master in treating of variety of Themes with a florid style and even in those Composures that are design'd chiefly to express Wit and move Affections one may think that Nature may be well let alone to supply any she has been kind to with all they need yet even in these cases there are some Toils and uneasinesses that are scarce to be avoided since a discreet man though never so rich in Natures's gifts will think himself oblig'd to study Rhetorick that he may be sure he does not transgress the Laws of It. For though an Author 's Natural parts may make his Book abound with Wit yet without the help of Art he will scarce make it free from faults And to be well stock'd with Comparisons which when skilfully manag'd make the most taking passages of fine Pieces one must sometimes survey and range through the works of Nature and Art which are the chief Ware-houses where variety and choice of Similitudes is to be had and to obtain those pleasing Ornaments there is oftentimes requir'd no less pains than to devise useful Notions As one must search the Ditches amongst Briars and Weeds not onely to find Medicinable Herbs but to gather Prim-roses and Violets So that Lindamor to conclude if we consider the trouble that applauded Composures do oftentimes cost their Authors we should be sensible we owe more than most men think we do to those to whom we owe good Books But then unless they find some Recompence for their Labours in the satisfaction of promoting piety or in the well-natur'd Pleasure they feel themselves in pleasing others I should scarce doubt but that some of the Writers we think so happy may rather deserve our Esteem than our Envy REFLECTION VIII Upon a Child that cri'd for the Stars I Remember P. S. did once upon just the like Theme discourse to the following purpose Amongst those numerous Eyes that these fair Lights attract in so clear a night as this there are not perhaps any that are more delighted with them than this Child's seem to be And those Persians that ador'd the rising Sun could not be more charm'd with that glorious Object than this Child is with these twinkling Lights that need his absence to become so much as visible But his is a pleasure that is not more great than unquiet for it makes him querulous and unruly and because he cannot by his struggling and reaching forth his little hands get possession of these shining Spangles that look so finely their fires produce water in his eyes and cries in his mouth that are very little of kin to the Musick the Platonists fanci'd in the Spheres he looks at Whereas though my inclinations for Astronomy make me so diligent a Gazer on the Stars that in spight of my great Obnoxiousness to the inclemency of the nocturnal air I gladly spend the coldest hours of the night in contemplating them I can yet look upon these bright Ornaments of Heaven it self with a mind as calm and serene as those very nights that are fittest to observe them in I know divers men for whom Nature seems to have cut out too much work in giving them in an unconfinedly amorous Disposition of mind strong Appetites for almost all the fair Objects that present themselves to their sight These amorous Persons may be I grant very much delighted when they first gaze upon a Corstellation of fair Ladies but the Heart commonly pays dear for the Pleasure of the Eye and the eager desires that Beauty creates are in such men excited too often not to be frequently disappointed and are wont to be accompani'd with so many jealousies and fears and repulses and difficulties and dangers and remorses and despairs that the unhappy Lovers if those that love more than one can merit that Title do rather languish than live if you will believe either their own querulous words or their pale and melancholly looks which would make one think they were just entring into the Grave or bad been newly digged out of it Whereas a person that has his Affections and Senses at that command which Reason and Religion require and confer can look upon the same Objects with pleas'd but not with dazl'd Eyes He considers these bright

Nature unlawful may be made so by circumstances and if so then I fear That that can be no other than ill which makes a Man needlessy disable himself to do good The Apostle that discountenanc'd Woman's wearing of Gold or precious things upon their Bodies would sure have opposed their having more sumptuous Ornaments upon their Walls These cannot pray for us but the poor and distressed they keep us from relieving may either successfully pray to God for us or cry to him against us The Scripture that represents Dives in Hell without saying that he oppressed or defrauded any gives no other account of his Doom than that living at a high rate and going richly dress'd he neglected to relieve the starving poor A few such Closets as this Ladies might be easily enlarged and contrived into an Hospital A small part of these Superfluities would relieve the necessities of many Families and a liberal Heart might purchase Heaven at an easier rate than the furniture of this Closet cost the Owner of it Nor is this practice so unallied to a fault as to escape a punishment even in this World these Courtiers of Applause being oftentimes reduced to live in want even in the midst of a plentiful Fortune these costly trifles so engrossing all that they can spare that they must sometimes deny themselves things convenient and perhaps almost necessary to flaunt it out with those that are neither the one nor the other and being frequently enough fain to immolate their own inclinations and desires though perchance strong and innocent to their Vanity And those that have once found the happiness there is in making others happy will think their Treasure better bestowed in feeding hungry Mouths than idle Eyes The costly Practice I am yet censuring does not onely offend Charity but starve it by substracting from it that which should feed it and enable it to act like it self And for my part I think he that devises and by his Example brings Credit to a new Expensive way of Vanity does really destroy more Poor than if he usurped an Alms-house or ruined an Hospital And by the ill President he leaves he takes the way to be uncharitable even after Death and so do harm when Misers and Usurers themselves are wont by their Legacies to do some good To conclude 't is no very Christian practice to disobey the Dictates of Piety without having so much to plead for so doing as the pretence of following the Dictates of Custom And 't is a great deal better to be without a gay Closet than to be without Charity which loveliest of Christian virtues she must sure very much want that will needlessly begin an new Example to give a bad one REFLECTION X. Upon his seeing a Lark stoop to and caught with Day-nets Eusebius Lindamor Euseb POor Bird thou wert just now so high upon the Wing that the tir'd Gazers fear'd thou hadst lost thy self in Heaven and in thy fatal stooping seem'st to have brought us thence a Message that so rellishes of that place that I should be troubl'd to see thee so rudely entertain'd if that Circumstance were not necessary to the Instructions of thy Message some Birds you know Lindamor we usually beguile with Chaff and others are generally drawn in by appropriated Baits and by the Mouth not the Eye But the aspiring Lark seems compos'd of more sprightly and refin'd Materials she is ever a Natural though no Native Persian and the Sun makes not a cloudless Visit to our Horizon which that grateful Creature gives not a welcome to both by Notes which could he hear them he would think worthy of him and by a flight as aspiring as if she meant he should hear them and in a word so conspicuous is this Creatures fondness of Light that Fowlers have devis'd a way to catch her by it and pervert it to her Ruine For placing broken Looking-glasses upon a moveable Frame betwixt their Nets the unwary Bird while she is gazing upon that glittering Light the Glass reflects and sporting her self in those Beams which derive a new Glory from their very being broken heedlessly gives into the Reach of the surprizing Nets which suddenly cover her and which the Light it self kept her from seeing The Devil is like this Fowler Lindamor and you or I had perhaps resembl'd the unhappy Lark if sometimes Providence did not both graciously and seasonably interpose and ev'n when we were come near enough to have been cover'd by the Nets rescu'd us from them for it has ever been that old Serpent's Policy and practice to take the exactest measure of our Inclinations that he may skilfully suit his Temptations to them well knowing that that Dexterity gains him a Devil within us that conspires with him without us to make us Instances of that Truth which represents Things divided against themselves as ruinous If therefore the Tempter find by Experience that you are indispos'd to be wrought upon by common Temptations to forget the Practice of Religion that you have Unconcern'dness enough not to be much distracted with the empty and trifling Chaff Youth is wont to be caught with which perhaps seldome employ any of your Thoughts so much as those of Scorn and Pity that the very Gain and solider Goods of this World for which many thought wise Men lose those of the next cannot make you so greedy nor so fond of them as he desires If I say the Devil have sufficiently observ'd how uneasie it were to intice you with common Baits he will alter his Method strait and attempt to catch you with Light He knows as well as I do that you have a Curiosity or rather a Greediness of Knowledge that is impatient of being confin'd by any other Limits than those of Knowledge it self and accordingly seldome or perhaps never disturbing or frightning you he will let you freely sport your self about the glittering Intellectual Glass Men call Philosophy and suffer you not onely to gaze upon all its pieces and survey a pretty Number but peradventure pry into more than one and among so numerous and delighting Objects I fear that if you will frankly own what my own Guilt makes me suspect you of you must confess That he had made you so share your Time that you should scarce have left your self any for Heavenly Themes and the Meditation of Death which consequently might have then surpris'd you had it invaded you if Providence had not mercifully snatch'd you out from between the Nets you were allur'd to before you were quite involv'd in them and by Sickness or else by Means in other cases so unlikely as outward Distractions call'd your Thoughts home by driving them away from those enchanting Studies whose Light might much likelier have betrai'd you into the Net than have shewn it you Lind. Though I am not surpris'd to hear Eusebius yet I am glad to hear a Scholar talk at this rate and believe with you that many a one that was neither Crow nor