Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	great_a	king_n	power_n	10,273	5	4.9736	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55808	A satyr against common-wealths	H. P.	1684 (1684)	Wing P34; ESTC R5472	7,775	17

A SATYR AGAINST Common-Wealths Fallitur egregio quisquis sub principe credit Servitium nunquam libertas gratior extat Quam sub rege pio Claudian de laudibus Stiliconis LONDON Printed for Joseph Hindmarsh Bookseller to his Royal Highness and Francis Hicks Bookseller in Cambridge 1684 A PREFACE TO THE READER IN vain do we give Kings the pompous Titles of Great and Mighty In vain has Heaven allotted them a Power resembling that of its own free and uncontrolable if like Billiard-Table Kings they are onely set up to be shaken and thrown down by the saucy touches of their humble Vassals If their Authority has such confinements as some Men would have us persuaded it has Princes are at best but glittering Pageants all the professions of steady Loyalty but solemn impertinencies and Heaven it self is a sharer in the gaudy Delusion It is not long since this Isle was reckon'd amongst the blackest instances of Treason and Rebellion when the best of Kings and the best of Men fell by the rude violence of a consecrated Axe ever since we have felt the unfortunate consequences of that dismal Blow a Blow which like that that was given to the Worlds great Redeemer rent the Vail of the Church of England in two abolish'd all its pious Canons and made them give place to the New-fangled Whimsies of Religious Hypocrites a fact so horrid and unexampled that if we may believe Salmasius Cui simile nec praeterita secula vidêrunt nec ventura forsitan videbunt All this was done under the flattering disguises of Religion by Men who had the impudence to boast of a more than ordinary Inspiration and who pretended to have received more light from Heaven than that Ass whom the Antients fondly accused for drinking up the Moon who could throw themselves into all the Postures of Religion with as great facility as a Skilfull Tumbler can act the Italian Strades and with a sort of popular Piety cheated three Nations into a belief that whatsoever they did was highly lawful so true is that which Machiavel says fere omnes homines magis specie colore rerum quàm rebus ipsis permoventur judicant In vain do our learned Tribe go about to reclaim these Men by dint of Argument all their sober reasonings are to them but important Trifles and were always accounted too weak baits to catch the Carpes of Geneva Lake And who I pray would take the pains to convince a Taylor by a Syllogism who perhaps after the consummation of a pair of Breeches creeps into a Coffee-House where after he has lin'd his Pallet with that factious juice he looks upon his long and limber Fingers to have been contriv'd by Nature for the handling of a Scepter and curses the bitter fates that had dwindled it into a Needle away he goes home and performs the Offices of distributive Justice upon his Apprentices shoulders and fancies every piece of Parchment cut from an old Bond to make his measures withal little less to be than clippings from of Magna Charta Such a Knave as this deserves no other Logick than what the Pillory can afford him to make his Ears pay for the petulancy of his Tongue Another sort of Man there is whom in the Country Language we may call Substantial who perhaps has got fourscore pounds a year and joys in having a little Dove-coat annex'd to his Farm-house who is famous all over the Neighbouring Villages for his little Chesnut Mare who in a Race at a late Wake signalized her self by distancing a Cart-horse such a Man as this you can never convince by dint of Argument he tells you roundly that at the first opportunity be'l draw his Yard and half of Rapier to defend his Religion and rusty Bacon from the rude insults of Arbitrary Power You would laugh in your Sleeve if you have any to hear his brisk and debonair reasonings about the Authority of the Commons of England and you cannot imagine with what deference and regard he is entertain'd amongst the Mobile beeause he gives them to know the transactions of State and fills the whole Lordship with News 't is odds but you shall see him at the next Election of a Knight of the Shire brandishing in his Campagn Coat and Mountero at the head of a Troop of Dapper-Day-Labourers on whom prodigal Fortune has munificently bestow'd two pounds a Year and who with complicated Interests are striving to set up their Idol Representative Now the defections of such a Man as this from the Principles of Loyalty we cannot think to obviate by the most improved reasonings his Prejudices stop up all the Avenues of his Soul hindring the least beam of Truth to enter in and enlighten his Understanding his too fervent Zeal for his Principles will not give him the leisure to be convinced and his ignorance baffles all the attempts of Reason as he does not take up any Opinion for the Affinity it bears to Truth so neither does he relinguish any for its opposition to the same if his interest invites him he easily accords with any thing and his Reason finds no regrets in entertaining a profitable Error as you cannot disengage him from his mistakes so neither can you settle him in a Truth although you bring all the Credentials of a firm Demonstration and the reason is because a Discourse to him is no more than it is to a School-Boy the jingling of a Noun and Verb together If then any thing will do it must be Satyr and we may if we observe find in the dullest apprehensions a quicker resentment of a Jest than of an Argument the one renders that ridiculous which the other perhaps cannot make appear to be false and Satyrs are like those Indian Apes of whom I have read that when Alexander came into those parts They straight rally'd thelr deformed Squadrons rank'd themselves in Battalia camp'd and decamp'd with all the moving Solemnities of a real Army and brought greater affronts upon that all-conquering Army with their Martial Grimaces than all the force of Darius and Parus I have made the Comparison let some courteous Reader make out the Application For this cause it is that I have ridicul'd all the Commonwealths that lay in my way from great old Rome to little modern Geneva What I have said on this Theam if the Peruser be not too phlegmatick must needs create in him some fastidious thoughts of that way of Governing More especially I have hinted at our late pretended Republican Powers and in particular at their monstrous innovations about Religions where I have let any thing slip from my Pen that may seem extravagant I hope it will not be look'd upon as an unruly Effort of my own but onely as an endeavour to expose the Giddy Enthusiasts of those times I shall say nothing neither as to the matter or manner of the Verse I know the whole Poem will labour under the imputations of uneasie roughness yet I could never imagine that