A10663:62
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.
That they their Patients may both please & cure, With mixed-sweets their palates they allure.
That they their Patients may both please & cure, With mixed-sweets their pallats they allure.
And hence is that observation, that the first reformers and drawers of men into Civill society▪ and the practise of Virtue, wrought upon the Will by the ministry rather of the Fancy, than of rigid Reason; not driving them thereunto by punctual Arguments, but alluring them by the ⟨p. 21⟩sweetness of Eloquence; not pressing the necessity of Morality, by naked inferences, but rather secretly instilling it into the Will, that it might at last find it self reformed, and yet hardly perceive how it came to be so. And this was done by those Musical, Poetical, and Mythological persuasions; whereby men in their discourses, did as it were paint Virtues and Vices; giving unto spiritual things Bodies and Beauties, such as might best affect the Imagination: Yea, God himself hath been pleased to honour this way of setting out higher Notions, in that we find some room in the holy Scriptures for Mythologies; as that of the Vine, the Fig-tree, and the Bramble, for Riddles, for Parables, Similitudes, and Poetical Numbers and1 Raptures, whereby heavenly Doctrines are shadowed forth, and do condescend unto humane frailties. And another reason hereof is, because the desires of men are fixed as well on pleasant as on profitable objects; so that those inducements must needs have most Authority, which have that happy mixture of […] & dulce together; not only pressing necessity upon the Understanding, but pointing as it were and deciphering delight to the Fancy. And this reason Scaliger 2gives in his Inquiry, how false Things, such as Plato his Elysium, Homers Fictions, Orpheus his Music, should delight wise men: Propterea quod exuperant vulgares limits veritatis, saith he; because they are not exacted to the rigour and strictness of Reason, nor grounded on the severity of