A10663:644
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.
Fear is an humbling & debasing Passion, which ⟨p. 275⟩always importeth some manner of servitude and subjection in whom it resideth; So then as in the former Passion of Hope I noted the fundamental cause thereof to be Weakness and W•nt: so likewise in this of Fear, the Root and first Principle is Weakness and Subjection; whereof the one implies a disability in us to resist, the other a necessity to undergo an evil.
Fear is an humbling & debasing Passion, which ⟨p. 275⟩alwaies importeth some manner of servitude and subjection in whom it resideth; So then as in the former Passion of Hope I noted the fundamentall cause thereof to be Weaknesse and W•nt: so likewise in this of Feare, the Root and first Principle is Weakness• and Subjection; whereof the one implyes a disability in us to resist, the other a necessity to undergoe an evill.
Hence it is that we fear the displeasure of Great men; or the Power of Unjust men; or the Competition of Popular and Plausible men; or1 the Cunning of Close and Malicious men; or the Revenge of Provoked men; or the Guilt of Injurious men that have wronged us already: because in all these cases there is some notice of Weakness and Subjection in us: so that Fear is of all other a naked Passion: For as Nakedness hath three evil properties; to disable for Defence; to expose to Injury; and from both to work shame in the consciousness of our dejected condition: So likewise Fear hath three properties; to make us Impotent and Obnoxious; and from both these to beget Shame. For though his speech was true,2 Rubor est virtutis color, that Shame and Virtue have the same colour (which makes it seem a companion rather of Perfection than of Weakness; yet indeed it is rather a sign of a mind virtuously disposed in restifying the quick apprehensiveness of its own defects, than any Adjunct of Virtue it self.