Selected quad for the lemma: love_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A44763
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The vision, or, A dialog between the soul and the bodie fancied in a morning-dream.
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Howell, James, 1594?-1666.
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1651
(1651)
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Wing H3127; ESTC R11503
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50,341
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190
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c. The Roman Catholicks though they Invoke Saints and pray for the dead c. All these with sundrie sorts of Christians besides all the while they have the Symbole of saving Faith and same Apostolical Creed with me all the while they have the Decalog and holy Scriptures I have so much Charitie to hold that they differ from me not as much in Religion as in Opinion Now Opinion is that great Ladie which sways the World therefore I wish that they might go up the same scale of bliss with me Nor are the Swiâ—s and Gritons to be hated because they permit the Lutheran to preach in one end of the Church and the Calvinist in the other yet in theiâ— moral civilities and negotiations they live peaceably together To conclude this discours touching common Charitie and Love 't is tru my Fellow-cretures my Kindred and Friends have a great share of it but I reserve the quintessence thereof for my Creator and Saviour the one being the sea the other the spring of all felicitie I love my Creator a thousand degrees more than I fear him which makes me praise him more often than pray unto him and for matter of fear as I displayed my self elsewhere I fear none more than my self who am indeed my greatest foe I mean those obliquities and depravations which are my inmates whereof the ill spirit takes his advantage ever and anon to make me run into aberrations so that I may say I stand more in fear of my self than of the devil or death who is the king of fears Now touching this Elixer of love that I reserve for my Creator it melted one morning into these Stanzas As the parchd field doth thirst for rain When the Dog-star makes Sheep and Swain Of an unusual drowth coplain So thirsts my heart for Thee As the chac'd deer doth pant and bray After some brook or cooling bay When hounds have worried her astray So pants my heart for Thee As the forsaken Dove doth mone When her beloved mate is gone And never rests while self-alone So mones my heart for Thee Or as the teeming Earth doth mourn In black like Lover at an urn Till Titan's quickning beams return So do I mourn mone pant thirst For Thee who art my last and first Soul I am glad beyond measure to hear these discourses drop from you first that you make so good use of the objects of this Inferior world as to study your Creator in them proceeding from the effects to the search of the cause which is the method of Philosophy whereas the Theolog proceeds commonly from the cause to the effect The Pagan Philosophers by the twilight of nature soard so high that they came to discover there was a primus Motor an Ensentium an optimus maximus they came to know that he was ubiquitary and diffus'd through the Universs to give vigor life and motion to all parts as I do in that bodie of yours though invisibly if I may be so bold as assimilat so incomprehensible a greatness to so small a thing Now there is no finit intellect can form a quidditative apprehension of God no not the Angels themselves There may be negative conceptions of him as to say he is immortal immense independent simple and infinit c. Or there may be relative conceptions had of him as when we call him Creator Governor King c. Or there may be positive conceptions of him as the chiefest Good a pure Act or he may be described by an aggregation of Attributs as Mercifull Wise Pious c. But for the comprehensive quidditie of God it cannot be understood by any created Power Among all these one of the best wayes to describe him is by Abstracts as to call him goodness it self Justice it self Power Pity Piety it self He being the rule of all these some of those ancient Wisards among the Egyptians and Grecians came by reach of natural resons to the knowledge of one Incomprehensible Guide and conserver of the Univers specially Tresmegistus and Socrates but they durst not broach their opinions publiquely for fear of the fury of the Peeple among whom there was a kind of zeal in those dark times Plato flew as high as Socrates his Master in Divinitie and among other Passages throughout his Works there is one that is very pregnant for Writing to a friend of his he saith When I write to thee seriously I begin my Epistle with God save thee when otherwise The Gods save thee Aristotle Plato's scholler courted Nature onely groping her secrets a great Philosopher he was and no less a Sophister he was the first that entangled Philosophy with subtilties coin'd words and Paralogisms as the Classicans did first distract divinitie so that it was no improper Character which one gave That Aristotles school was a great skold Touching the celestial bodies I love you the better that you are affected with them so much that you sometimes speculat and spel your Creator among the stars Now some of the Rabbins hold that the word Iehovah which is the highest name of God Almightie and pronounced publickly in the Synagog but once a year may be plainly made up among the Oriental stars Nay they affirm that all the Hebrew letters may be found in the firmament which letters were the true characters of the constellations before the Egyptians came with their Hieroglyphicks that the Greeks hois'd up such monsters so near the throne of God as Bears Bulls Lions Goats Rams and Scorpions together with pitchers and planks of rotten wood They hold moreover that the fate and periods of Monarchies may be read not onely in Comets but in those fixd stars that are vertical over them When Medusa's head was vertical to Greece there were divers that presaged her destruction Ierusalem's ruin was read plainly among the stars some years before Nay Postel a Christian writer takes God and Christ to witness that in the Hebrew characters among the stars vidit omnia quae in Rerum natura constituta sunt he saw all things that were constituted by nature Doubtless that toung which was spoken in Paradise and by the Almightie himself may have some extraordinarie priviledge and mysteries in it nor was Postel lunatic when he broke out into such a protestation But the Authors of this opinion add unto it this caution that he who will be a schollar and a proficient in this sydereal school to spel the stars and studie this book for the Heavens are calld so in holy Scriptures must be an extraordinarie pious patient and prudent wel-wisd man so he may find old Orpheus words to be tru when speaking of God he sings {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Thy certain order doth run immutable commands aong the starrs Now touching those ancient notaries of Nature it may be well thought those large Ideas of knowledge they had were illuminations from Heven whence every good and perfect gift
headstrong furious that he will at last tumble us both down the precipice of destruction Lastly whereas you alledge that I sit at the stern of that leaking bark of yours t' is true I do so but I sayl in her as one passing upon some part of the Danubius where she meets with the River Sava and the two Rivers running in collaterall consortship many miles without intermingling the Boats that row along the stream have oftentimes on the one side a black muddie water and on the Danubs side a clear stream In this manner do I sail in that bodie of yours through good and bad affections through clear and turbid humours though the last be more predominant whence such vapours arise that cause strange tempests in me and disturb the calm of my mind which makes me wearie of this habitation when I think on those pollutions and black specks wherewith I am contaminated whereunto my meditations tended lately in these few Stanzas of multifarious cadences Lord I cry Lord I fly To thy Throne of grace This world is irksom unto me In my mind Stings I find Of that dismal place Where pains still growing young ne'r die O thou whose clemencie Reacheth to earth from skie Set my sins from me as wide As is East From the West Or the Court of bliss From the Infern abyss So far let us asunder ever bide Angels blest With the rest Of that Heavenly quire Which Halelujas always sing Fain would I Mount on high And those seats aspire Where every season is a constant spring O thou who thought'st no scorn To be in Bethlem born Though grand Monarch of the sky Through a floud Of thy bloud Let me safely dive And at that port arrive Where I may ever rest from shipwrack free Faith and Hope Take your scope And my Pilots be To waft me to this blisfull bay Gently guid Through the tide Of Mans miserie My Bark that it lose not the way When landed I shall be At that Port pardon me If I bid you both farewell Onely love Reigns above 'Mong celestial souls Where passion not controuls Nor any thing but Charity doth dwel Lord of light In thy sight Are those Mounts of bliss Which humane brains transcend so far Ear nor ey Can descry Nor heart fully wish Or toungs of men and saints declare Those sense-surmounting joys That free from all annoys For those few up-treasur'd lie Which ere sun Shone at noon Have their names enroll'd In characters of gold Through the white volums of Eternitie Bodie You are beholden to my frailties for this and such like Meditations who raise them in you as rusty steel useth to strike sparks of fire sin it self becomes an advantage to us somtimes nay mankind may be said to be beholden to the Iews and Iudas because they were the outward Instruments that wrought salvation for the Cross which they set upon mount â—alvarie for the crucifying of our Saviour was the first Christian Altar that ever was erected and it may be well doubted whether he that hates the Altar shall ever have benefit of the Sacrifice as one said But I am sorry to hear from you that your dwelling in me is so tedious unto you all that I can say is I could wish you were better hous'd Now touching those Passions and Affections you speak of which are also my Inmates they are to the soul as sayls to a ship they are also as so many gales to fill those sayls as so many breezes to blow this small Vessel of mine wherein you are embarked to the haven of happiness and as I said before they are meer Emanations from you for there is nothing of motion in me but what I derive from you Now touching Affections and Passions how uncoth would all human actions be unless they were sweetned by them how stupid and slumbering would our Spirits be without them What a dull thing were Generation if there were no Concupiscence What comfort would there be in educating children if there were not a natural love that affected us Charitie would grow key-cold if Pity did not heat her to action and that Souldier fights best who being in the field is possess'd with the Passion of anger which the Philosopher calls the Whetstone of fortitude He cannot becom a true Penitent that is not affecteÌ„ with sorrow nor a true Convert who is not affected with hatred of sin Touching other infirmities you charge me withall you know I have them by natural and hereditary propagation from my first Parents whose corruption was entail'd upon all mankind which may also excuse at least extenuat my faults But besides these Resons I have another that may serve for an Apologie in my behalf which is that all these members of mine and that mass of bloud which runs through them with the cestern of Humors as likewise all the cells of my brain are guided and governed by the motions of celestial bodies whose influxes do perpetually invade me and are irresistible Add hereunto that there is a malus Genius an ill Spirit that is always busie about me and ready to take all advantages to impel me to acts of weakness All these things being well considered and weigh'd in a just balance conclude me to be of my self but a poor passive thing and to act by the impulses of others Touching those Affections and Passions you speak of which are nought else but a conglobation of the Spirits I not onely allow but am glad of them they serve as wings to carry me up to heaven and you after me or as you say they are as so many gales to send me thither provided that the one do onely blow not bluster and raise tempests And that the other be not irregular or exorbitant but directed to their true Object The Passions are as so many pleaders wrangling at a bar and Reson my chiefest facultie should be their Chancelor But oftentimes those troops of furious Spirits which Passion musters up and sends up boyling to the brain are so violent that those Spirits which are under the jurisdiction of Reson are not able to encounter them though she unite all her forces to that purpose Moreover whereas you would pin your infirmities upon your first Parents 't is true that although Adam at first was created in a state of integrity and perfection being he was the Epitome of the Creation and a kind of Microcosm a little World of himself whereunto there may be some allusion in his name which comprehends the four corners of the World the word Adam being made up of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} viz. East West North and South Although at first he was compleated to that state and yet made capable of a higher perfection which capacitie was no imperfection but a seale to a higher I say that although he was so accomplish'd to present happiness yet by the seducement of the ill Spirit he fatally fell from it nor was the fault as much in the Woman