Selected quad for the lemma: country_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
country_n	city_n	government_n	situation_n	1,767	5	11.4391	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41307	Observations concerning the original and various forms of government as described, viz. 1st. Upon Aristotles politiques. 2d. Mr. Hobbs's Laviathan. 3d. Mr. Milton against Salmatius. 4th. Hugo Grotius De jure bello. 5th. Mr. Hunton's Treatise of monarchy, or the nature of a limited or mixed monarchy / by the learned Sir R. Filmer, Barronet ; to which is added the power of kings ; with directions for obedience to government in dangerous and doubtful times.	Filmer, Robert, Sir, d. 1653.	1696 (1696)	Wing F920; ESTC R32803	252,891	546

other and is quite contrary to the indivisible nature of Sovereignty The Truth is the Consuls having but annual Sovereignty were glad for their own Safety and Ease in Matters of great Importance and Weight to call together sometimes the Senate who were their ordinary Council and many times the Centuries of the People who were their Council extraordinary that by their Advice they might countenance and strengthen such Actions as were full of Danger and Envy and thus the Consuls by weakening their Original Power brought the Government to Confusion Civil Dissension and utter Ruine so dangerous a thing it is to shew Favour to Common People who interpret all Graces and Favours for their Rights and just Liberties the Consuls following the Advice of the Senate or People did not take away their Right of Governing no more than Kings lose their Supremacy by taking Advice in Parliaments Not only the Consuls but also the Pretors and Censors two great Offices ordained only for the ease of the Consuls from whom an Appeal lay to the Consuls did in many things exercise an Arbitrary or Legislative power in the Absence of the Consuls they had no Laws to limit them for many Years after the Creation of Consuls ten men were sent into Greece to choose Laws and after the twelve Tables were confirmed whatsoever the Pretors who were but the Consuls Substitutes did command was called jus honorarium and they were wont at the Entrance into their Office to collect and hang up for Publick View a Form of Administration of Justice which they would observe and though the edictum Praetoris expired with the Pretors Office yet it was called Edictum perpetuum What Peace the Low-Countries have found since their Revolt is visible it is near about an hundred Years since they set up for themselves of all which time only twelve years they had a Truce with the Spaniard yet in the next year after the Truce was agreed upon the War of Juliers brake forth which engaged both Parties so that upon the matter they have lived in a continual War for almost an hundred years had it not been for the Aid of their Neighbours they had been long ago swallowed up when they were glad humbly to offer their new hatch'd Commonweal and themselves Vassals to the Queen of England after that the French King Henry the Third had refused to accept them as his Subjects That little Truce they had was almost as costly as a War they being forced to keep about thirty thousand Souldiers continually in Garrison Two things they say they first fought about Religion and Taxes and they have prevailed it seems in both for they have gotten all the Religions in Christendom and pay the greatest Taxes in the World they pay Tribute half in half for Food and most necessary things paying as much for Tribute as the price of the thing sold Excise is paid by all Retailers of Wine and other Commodities for each Tun of Beer six Shillings for each Cow for the Pail two Stivers every Week for Oxen Horses Sheep and other Beasts sold in the Market the twelfth part at least be they never so oft sold by the year to and fro the new Master still pays as much they pay five Stivers for every Bushel of their own Wheat which they use to grind in Publick Mills These are the Fruits of the low-Low-Country War It will be said that Venice is a Commonwealth that enjoys Peace She indeed of all other States hath enjoyed of late the greatest Peace but she owes it not to her kind of Government but to the natural Situation of the City having such a Bank in the Sea of near threescore Miles and such Marshes towards the Land as make her unapproachable by Land or Sea to these she is indebted for her Peace at home and what Peace she hath abroad she buys at a dear Rate and yet her Peace is little better than a continued War The City always is in such perpetual Fears that many besieged Cities are in more Security a Senator or Gentleman dares not converse with any Stranger in Venice shuns Acquaintance or dares not own it they are no better than Bandito's to all humane Society Nay no People in the World live in such Jealousie one of another hence are their intricate Solemnities or rather Lotteries in Election of their Magistrates which in any other Place would be ridiculous and useless The Senators or Gentlemen are not only jealous of the Common People whom they keep disarmed but of one another they dare not trust any of their own Citizens to be a Leader of their Army but are forced to hire and entertain Foreign Princes for their Generals excepting their Citizens from their Wars and hiring others in their Places it cannot be said that People live in Peace which are in such miserable Fears continually The Venetians at first were subject to the Roman Emperour and for fear of the Invasion of the Hunnes forsook Padua and other Places in Italy and retired with all their Substance to those Islands where now Venice stands I do not read they had any Leave to desert the defence of their Prince and Country where they had got their Wealth much less to set up a Government of their own it was no better than a Rebellion or Revolting from the Roman Empire At first they lived under a kind of Oligarchy for several Islands had each a Tribune who all met and governed in common but the dangerous Seditions of their Tribunes put a necessity upon them to choose a Duke for Life who for many hundreds of years had an Absolute Power under whose Government Venice flourished most and got great Victories and rich Possessions But by insensible degrees the Great Council of the Gentlemen have for many years been lessening the Power of their Dukes and have at last quite taken it away It is a strange Errour for any man to believe that the Government of Venice hath been always the same that it is now he that reads but the History of Venice may find for a long time a Sovereign Power in their Dukes and that for these last two hundred years since the diminishing of that Power there have been no great Victories and Conquests obtained by that Estate That which exceeds admiration is that Contarene hath the confidence to affirm the present Government of Venice to be a mixed Form of Monarchy Democraty and Aristocraty For whereas he makes the Duke to have the Person and Shew of a King he after confesseth that the Duke can do nothing at all alone and being joyned with other Magistrates he hath no more Authority than any of them also the Power of the Magistrates is so small that no one of them how great soever he be can determine of any thing of moment without the allowance of the Council So that this Duke is but a man dressed up in Purple a King only in Pomp and Ornament in Power but a Senator within the City

is a despotical or masterly Monarchy now he confesseth that in truth the masterly Government is profitable both to the Servant by Nature and the Master by Nature and he yields a solid reason for it saying It is not possible if the Servant be destroyed that the Mastership can be saved whence it may be inferred That if the Masterly Government of Tyrants cannot be safe without the Preservation of them whom they govern it will follow that a Tyrant cannot govern for his own Profit only and thus his main Definition of Tyranny fails as being grounded upon an impossible Supposition by his own Confession No Example can be shewed of any such Government that ever was in the World as Aristotle describes a Tyranny to be for under the worst of Kings though many particular men have unjustly suffered yet the Multitude or the People in general have found Benefit and Profit by the Government It being apparent that the different kinds of Government in Aristotle arise only from the difference of the number of Governours whether one a few or many there may be as many several Forms of Governments as there be several Numbers which are infinite so that not only the several Parts of a City or Commonweal but also the several Numbers of such Parts may cause multiplicity of Forms of Government by Aristotle's Principles It is further observable in Assemblies that it is not the whole Assembly but the major part only of the Assembly that hath the Government for that which pleaseth the most is always ratified saith Aristotle lib. 4. c. 4. by this means one and the same Assembly may make at one Sitting several Forms of Commonweals for in several Debates and Votes the same number of men or all the self-same men do not ordinarily agree in their Votes and the least Disagreement either in the Persons of the men or in their number alters the Form of Government Thus in a Commonweal one part of the Publick Affairs shall be ordered by one Form of Government and another part by another Form and a third part by a third Form and so in infinitum How can that have the Denomination of a Form of Government which lasts but for a moment only about one fraction of Business for in the very instant as it were in the Twinkling of an eye while their Vote lasteth the Government must begin and end To be governed is nothing else but to be obedient and subject to the Will or Command of another it is the Will in a man that governs ordinarily mens Wills are divided according to their several Ends or Interests which most times are different and many times contrary the one to the other and in such cases where the Wills of the major part of the Assembly do unite and agree in one Will there is a Monarchy of many Wills in one though it be called an Aristocracy or Democracy in regard of the several Persons it is not the many Bodies but the one Will or Soul of the Multitude that governs Where one is set up out of many the People becometh a Monarch because many are Lords not separately but altogether as one therefore such a People as if it were a Monarch seeks to bear Rule alone Lib. 4. c. 4. It is a false and improper Speech to say that a whole Multitude Senate Council or any Multitude whatsoever doth govern where the major part only rules because many of the Multitude that are so assembled are so far from having any part in the Government that they themselves are governed against and contrary to their Wills there being in all Government various and different Debates and Consultations it comes to pass oft-times that the major part in every Assembly differs according to the several Humours or Fancies of men those who agree in one Mind in one Point are of different Opinions in another every Change of Business or new Matter begets a new major part and is a Change both of the Government and Governours the Difference in the Number or in the Qualities of the Persons that govern is the only thing that causes different Governments according to Aristotle who divides his Kinds of Government to the Number of one a few or many As amongst the Romans their Tribunitial Laws had several Titles according to the Names of those Tribunes of the People that preferr'd and made them So in other Governments the Body of their Acts and Ordinances is composed of a Multitude of momentary Monarchs who by the Strength and Power of their Parties or Factions are still under a kind of a civil War fighting and scratching for the Legislative Miscellany or medly of several Governments If we consider each Government according to the Nobler Part of which it is composed it is nothing else but a Monarchy of Monothelites or of many men of one Will most commonly in one Point only but if we regard only the baser part or Bodies of such Persons as govern there is an interrupted Succession of a Multitude of short-lived Governments with as many Intervals of Anarchy so that no man can say at any time that he is under any Form of Government for in a shorter time than the word can be spoken every Government is begun and ended Furthermore in all Assemblies of what Quality soever they be whether Aristocratical or Democratical as they call them they all agree in this one Point to give that honourable Regard to Monarchy that they do interpret the major or prevailing part in every Assembly to be but as one man and so do feign to themselves a kind of Monarchy Though there be neither Precept nor Practice in Scripture nor yet any Reason alledged by Aristotle for any Form of Government but only Monarchy yet it is said that it is evident to common Sense that of old time Rome and in this present Age Venice and the Low-Countries enjoy a Form of Government different from Monarchy Hereunto it may be answered That a People may live together in Society and help one another and yet not be under any Form of Government as we see Herds of Cattel do and yet we may not say they live under Government For Government is not a Society only to live but to live well and vertuously This is acknowledged by Aristotle who teacheth that the End of a City is to live blessedly and honestly Political Communities are ordained for honest Actions but not for living together only Now there be two things principally required to a blessed and honest life Religion towards God and Peace towards men that is a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty 1 Tim. 2.2 Here then will be the Question Whether Godliness and Peace can be found under any Government but Monarchy or whether Rome Venice or the Low Countries did enjoy these under any popular Government In these two Points let us first briefly examine the Roman Government which is thought to have been the most glorious For