Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	history_n	king_n	time_n	2,563	5	3.4716	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28308	Some remarks upon government, and particularly upon the establishment of the English monarchy relating to this present juncture in two letters / written by and to a member of the great convention, holden at Westminster the 22nd of January, 1689.	A. B.; N. T.	1689 (1689)	Wing B31; ESTC R2761	23,032	29

in every part is sick and therefore can find rest in no posture Humane Laws grow out of Vices which gives to every Government a tincture of Corruption That the Government of England was originally and always under the same constitution that now or of late it did appear to be I cannot conceive though Sir Edward Coke and some others do seem with much earnestness to contend for it I am of opinion that like Epicurus his World it is grown by Chance and Time to what it now is or lately was by various Concussions and Confluence of People Interests Factions and Laws like so many Attoms of different shapes and disposures springing from meer Accident in several Ages for where there are Men there will be also Interests which creates Factions and Parties and these as they prevail or are supprest produce Laws for or against them which so far alters the former Government as new Laws are introduc'd in the room and place of old ones which were thought fit to be Repealed and Abrogated Althô some Governments seem to be built upon firmer and more unalterable Foundations than others yet there is none but ought to adapt it self to the Circumstances and Disposition of the People Govern'd and as these do daily change so ought the Government to shift and tack with them that it may the better hit with the Necessities and changing Circumstance of those for whom it was first instituted That Property is founded in Dominion I look upon to be a most undeniable Truth for Naturally in the same degree that a Man has a Right and possession in a thing he must necessarily have the Power and Dominion over it To argue or defend the contrary is as great an absurdity in Nature as to say the Fire must be hot and yet not burn such Cumbustibles as are cast into it It is upon this account that the Grand Seignior is so Despotick in his Government for by the Constitutions of that State all Lands are in the Crown none hold longer than during pleasure or for Life and then their Lands revert to him that gave them For the same reason in the days of Englands Ignorance and Poverty when Arts and Learning were strangers to the Land and the people were scarcely removed from their primitive estate of Nature and War when every man had a universal Right to all things and no man could by a peculiar property pretend to a Possession longer then his Sword and Bow could maintain it Then I say were our Governours like Generals absolure and unlimitted 'T is true indeed we have some dark shadows of Laws and Councils then in use which our Governours thought fit as they saw occasion to make use of and we also find the People sometimes dissatisfied treating their Magistrate with much Roughness and ill Usage upon his Male Administration yet this does not at all argue that their Governours were limitted and bound up by Laws as now they are These things are all practiz'd in France Turky and the most Arbitrary Monarchies in the World. Without Laws and Methods such as these one Man is not able to govern Millions and therefore Moses who under God was Absolute and Arbitrary was necessitated to appoint certain Rules and Methods and to admit of others into the Government with him as Assistants by their Councel and Advice the Work being too great for one Man to discharge It was from the King 's absolute Property in the Lands of England which in those Times none could pretend to but by and through him who held the Sword as well as from his power over the Laws that our old Tenures sprung of Knight service Serjeantry Escuage Socage Villenage c. Then were all Tenures servile and all Persons held mediately or immediately from the King which our Law-Books tell us we still do but there was a vast difference between our then and present Holdings the first being by actual Services paid these now being only Nominal and Titular To hold in Socage is by the service of the Plow as almost all persons are said to do The Tenant was in old Times actually bound to Plow the Lords Lands in consideration of which Service he granted to his Plow-man instead of Wages to hold another piece of Land to his own proper use but now though the Tenure does nominally remain yet the Service is absolute every Man being now become by the circular motions of Chance or Providence his own Lord and his own Plow-man His Property and Possession makes him the Lord over those Glebes which his Necessity derived from his Ancestor Adams Transgression makes him Till Those Governments which succeeded the Patriarchal were all Military all people being then left by Nature in a state of War but some Countries ripening into Prudence and Knowledge sooner than others they also sooner betook themselves to Compact and to such Methods of living as might be for their Common Advantage Amongst these England was none of the earliest Reformers but continued long after Greece and Rome in that Natural state that the first Fathers of Families lest it and there was reason for it in respect it was an Island and in those Times when Navigation was in a great degree a stranger to the World not so apt for Commerce or Correspondence with other Countries which were more civilized they had then no Government but what conduc'd to War and no other King but a General Caesar in his Commentaries telis us that he found the Brittains poor ignorant and destitute of Laws but he also gives them the Character of a People dispos'd to War Brittannnos in Bello promptos in Armis expertes All things as in the state of Nature were in Common even to their Wives and Children But the Romans having given them a taste of the sweetness and advantage of Government they soon after began as Tacitus in his Annals acquaints us to make Application to their General to protect and defend them by his Power and Strength in the peaceable enjoyment of certain proportions and allotments of Land against all Invaders In lieu of which Protection to them and their Heirs they promise and swear to him and his Heirs certain Services together with Homage and Fealty With this Notion of Tacitus Bide seems to concur in the 4th Book of his History where he says That Generals and Kings were amongst the Brittains as Terms Univocal for Kings went always out to Battle in times of War and in Peace exercis'd the Legislative power at home And Ammianus in his 15th Book is more plain and positive for he tells us That Brittanni nulla separali fruebantur possessione nisi Principis concessu potestate defendantur From hence it may be reasonably allowed that England was first Governed by an absolute Power not from the Election of the People nor by Conquest but from the Temper Disposition and Circumstances of that Age of the World in which most Countries lay under the same sort of Government