A10663:151
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the…A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the…
A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soul of man With the several dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edward Reynolds, late preacher to the honourable society of Lincoln's Inn: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.A treatise of the passions and faculties of the soule of man With the severall dignities and corruptions thereunto belonging. By Edvvard Reynoldes, late preacher to the honorable society of Lincoln's Inne: and now rector of the Church of Braunston in Northamptonshire.
London: printed by R. Hearne and John Norton for Robert Bostock, 1640
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And another Reason, why we seek to warrant and to maintain a Passion, when we have given way unto it, is the love of our Ease: For every man, though he can be content to delight in the pleasure of a Corrupt Passion; yet that part of it, which hath the sting in it, is unpleasant: and therefore there is required the hand of Reason, by Apologies, Pleadings, and Blandishments, either to mollify the Passion, that it shall not then pierce, or to harden and arm the subject, that it may not be sensible of it.
And another Reason, why we seeke to warrant and to maintaine a Passion, when we have given way unto it, is the love of our Ease: For every man, though he can be content to delight in the pleasure of a Corrupt Passion; yet that part of it, which hath the sting in it, is unpleasant: and therefore there is required the hand of Reason, by Apologies, Pleadings, and Blandishments, either to mollifie the Passion, that it shall not then pierce, or to harden and arme the subject, that it may not be sensible of it.
And, that this Deceit and Ex•ation is a proper work of Passion, (besides our own daily experience) this one Argument might sufficiently prove; namely, the Practice of1 Heretics: who proposing to themselves either Gain, or any other Carnal and corrupt End; did thereupon presently (as the Apostle notes) vent the perverse Disputes of their own corrupt Minds, and make all Truth an ⟨p. 66⟩Hand-maid and Lackey to their own Lusts▪ 2And proportionably thereunto, their custom hath been, Priùs persuader quàm docere, to3 creep upon the Affections of Men, and get footing there, before ever they would adventure the entertainment of their false Doctrines And as it is said of God, that he first accepted Abel, and then his Sacrifice; so do they labour first, to work an approbation of their Persons in the hearts of Men; whence in the second place, their perverse Conceits do find the easier access to their Understandings.