Selected quad for the lemma: water_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
water_n	air_n	element_n	fire_n	13,062	5	7.1789	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49151	Of liberty and servitude translated out of the French into the English tongue, and dedicated to Geo. Evelyn, Esquire.; De la liberté et de la servitude. English	La Mothe Le Vayer, François de, 1583-1672.; Evelyn, John, 1620-1706.	1649 (1649)	Wing L302; ESTC R1325	26,155	156

I 'le tell if you disgust it read no more The Proem YOU did wonder Melpoclitus to heare me say that th●re were but very few men Free and that those who were so esteemed to be lived for the most part in Servitude that albeit the whole World apparently breathed after Liberty yet was she knowne but to very few people and that many men contended for her without ever obtaining the least Possession thereof as did the Trojans for the beautifull Hellen when she was in Aegypt This is that obliges me to make you participate of some Meditations which I have heretofore framed upon this Subject discovering you the greatest secret of my soule and communicating unto you all which the Morall that I exercise doth furnish me withall together of most delectable and most free thereupon Let us therefore begin by some Considerations generall of Liberty and Servitude OF LIBERTY AND SERVITUDE in generall CHAP. 1. LIberty seemes to be a Present of Nature wherewith she doth even gratifie all sorts of living Creatures And therfore we see very few who conserve it not as carefully as they doe their own lives yea many who often expose themselves even unto death it selfe to the end they may not lose the Possession of so great a good Philostratus who writes on this subject relates that Apollonius refused to goe a hunting with the King of Persia because he would not be a spectatour of the Captivity of beasts which they tooke contrary to the right of nature And in another place he tells us that although the Elephant be of all other Creatures the most docile and obedient to mankind yet he cannot forbear in the night time to deplore his servitude Sundrie Philosophers and principally those of the sect of Pythagoras are pleased to give them their Liberty and many good Anchorits have in that imitated them Yea there are yet some Chineses who purchase Birds Fishes out of meer Devotion to exercise upon them the same act of charity No man can denie but wee have oftentimes beheld living Creatures perish out of anguish and dispaire after the losse of this precious Liberty And certainly it is no wonder that they should all be so passionate to retain it seeing the very elements themselves whereof they are composed cannot but with great difficultie suffer the least Constraint In vaine doth any man oppose himselfe to their inclinations For as Aire and fire cannot be hindred from aspiring the Earth alwayes searches the Center and the Course of the Waters will be so free that there is no resistance which to obtaine it doth not surmount By this it is evident how essentiall a thing Libertie is to our animal part Now if wee consider the superior that informes us and by which we tearme our selves reasonable we shall then no longer wonder at this common aversion of all men living against servitude For without so much as touching the Prerogatives of our free will and of that which is one of the most frequent Conceptions of our humanity to wit that the spirit cannot be compelled farther then as after a sort it doth consent unto wee know by the example of the Angels that the immateriall substances are those which doe most of all research the Independency Was it not that which moved the most haughty of them all to covet an elation even above the Clouds that he might therby render himselfe like to the Almighty in effect as saith Aquinas there was no appearance to believe that Lucifer and those of his Party had ever any intention to render themselves intirely like unto God the most inferiour of men informed with common sence would never imagine a thought so extravagant how then should we attribute it unto Intelligencies so pure so illuminated as those were of whom we speake before their disgrace doubtlesse it proceeded from having affected to possesse from their owne selves and independently the Beatitude which they onely enjoyed from the hands of God And hence it is that the Devill is named in holy-Writt Belial as who should say one that desired to shake off the Yoake and depend no more upon any Now since we thus naturally seeke to be Free and so by consequence fly Servitude not onely like the rest of Animalls but much more in respect of that whereby we are distinguished from them and for that which we communicate with the Superiour Intelligencies it implies that man ought to be the most free of all sublunary Creatures And yet notwithstanding all this it is possible that there is generally and in all respects no greater slave than man himselfe But of this we shall better inform our selves if in the first place we a little Consider in what Liberty doth Consist In what our Liberty and our Servitude doth consist CHAP. II. THere is a double liberty to wit that of the Bodie and that of the mind whereof there is a third composed which is mixed of these two the Doctrine of Contraries would have us constitute so many different species of Servitude As touching the corporall liberty it is lost by the law of nations at what time any have been superiour in warre and who instead of putting all their enemies to the Sword reserved some unto whom life hath been given This Reservation made the first Servants or Captives if we credit the Latine Grammer and the Greeks have affirmed that Iupiter tooke from them one halfe of their Spirit at the very same instant that he condemned them to so miserable a servitude Notwithstanding whether it were so or not their Condition is contrary to that antient Privilege of nature whereof we have have newly spoken and it is very likely it was this wch obliged the first Indian Philosophers of whom Diodorus speaks to prohibit by a law expresse the use of Servants I know very well that St Augustine maketh sinne to be the Authour of this kind of servitude observing that there was no such thing in the world before the crime of Cham what time he derided his Father who threw so great a malediction upon all his Posterity But since Warres and discords have no other Origin than only Sin it selfe there is nothing in the Latine Originall of which we speak which doth not very well accommodate with the Text in Genesis We are onely to observe that Christianity hath extirpated it out of most Places where the Corporall Servitude hath been well knowne retaining very few slaves within all her extent besides those whom the inormity of their Crimes have rendred such Thus hath corporall liberty been reestablished which Consists in being absolute master of ones Proper Person as being that which the most miserable amongst us may in some sort attribute unto himself if their misfortures have not engaged them into the hands of Infidells The Liberty of the mind consists in the understanding or in the will if these two faculties do not joyntly possesse it according as the most Part of