Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	witness_v	world_n	year_n	42	3	3.7834	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42895	Plato's demon, or, The state-physician unmaskt being a discourse in answer to a book call'd Plato redivivus / by Thomas Goddard, Esq.	Goddard, Thomas.	1684 (1684)	Wing G917; ESTC R22474	130,910	398

Trav. Most willingly And to help the unfaithfulness of my memory I 'le take my constant companion Grotius in my Pocket Mer. And I that I may be able now and then to make some opposition or at least ask some pertinent Questions will take with me our friend Plato Redivivus Trav. Best of all You will find whatever is well or ill said by him already scor'd to your hand Mer. Come then let us walk You see Cousin that my Garden is but small but the Soil is very proper for Fruit and lies well enough to the South Sun which is a great advantage to us Trav. Yes And I see you have plasht your Vines upon Treilles which sure ripens the Fruit better than when they touch the Walls Then your Gravel walks are particular to our Country and finer than any thing I have seen of that kind either in France or Italy Mer. You may take notice also that I want not Water for I have an excellent Spring which lies close by the Arbour to which we are going that serves all the offices of my House Here Sir is the walk I told you of Trav. It is indeed very pleasant and I suppose we see at the end of it the Arbour you mean Mer. The same There we shall have a very fine prospect over a great part of our Country But what will please me much better I hope to have there the advantage of your Discourse upon a subject which will be no less delightful than profitable to a man who has had neither time nor learning enough to examine those high points which do not much belong to a man of my profession Trav. Sir I am very well satisfied concerning your judgment and your learning also For I remember you were reputed the best Scholar in Paul's School when I was at Westminster And if the death of your Father had not happen'd in the nick of time you were design'd for Oxford when I went to Cambridg However having lately had occasion to read somewhat more of these matters than it may be you have done I shall be very willing to give you my opinion as far as my reading goes provided you will excuse my ignorance and presumption in seeming to inform you of what possibly you are better instructed than my self Mer. Pray dear Cousin let 's lose no time in complements we are now in the Arbour and here are seats convenient enough Trav. Sir I am ready to obey your commands And that we may proceed in some method at least as good as your Author there has taken and because I suppose it is thought by some that he has treated as fully and clearly upon that subject as is necessary to satisfie a reasonable man let us examine him from the beginning to the end Mer. That I fear will be too tedious for you Trav. No Sir you have only to read those places which are marked with the red lead Pen And if you please to add any arguments of your own which I am confident will have more weight than many which he has produc'd I will endeavour to give you the most plain and satisfactory Answers I can Mer. Agreed And in the first place I find you have wounded even Plato himself in the very Title of the Book Trav. No Sir it is only his Ghost or Doemon Plato Redivivus For to tell you the truth I never was a friend to such troublesome spirits But in earnest do you not think it a little arrogance in our Polypragmatick notwithstanding the gentle excuse of the Publisher to assume the Title even of Plato himself I am confident could Plato look into the world again he would be much asham'd to see how ill a figure his Ghost makes among all sober men and it would prove a second death more cruel than the first to see himself so ill Travestie Mar. But Cousin he that maintains Plato's opinions may surely without offence call himself Plato's Friend and Disciple and Honoris gratia as our Author says take upon himself the name of him whom he admires and follows that is common enough at this day among our selves Trav. 'T is true but in that case he ought rather to have stiled himself Plato Britannicus That would have made distinction enough between the Master and the Scholar agreed better with the instances which you have brought on his behalf and have been more modest than Redivivus However you must consider that Plato and others living then under Common-wealths wrote in favour of that Form of Government under which their lives and fortunes were protected And besides many of them being but the late corruptions of Monarchy or Aristocracy wanted the learn'd Philosopher's defence But to alter nay totally destroy the ancient establish'd Government under which we enjoy all the blessings and liberties which our Ancestors ever did or we can reasonably desire would have been so much contrary to the Wisdom and Judgment of Plato that he would no more-have wrote in our days for a Democracy in London than for Monarchy at Athens Add to this the vast difference between the State of Greece in those days and that of Great Britain in these The first was divided into several different Governments all aemulous of one anothers greatness and were oftentimes forc'd to make great alterations in their Polities according to the misfortunes or success of their Neighbours who besides were all upon the same Continent and had no other bounds or separation between them than a hedge or brook or at most a little River But England having subsisted gloriously and happily more than 1700 years as authentick History can witness under a Monarchical Government and divided from the world by a Ditch which nature has made not easily passable Toto divisos orbe Britannos fears no interruption whatsoever in our Tranquillity or Government but such as may proceed from seditious men whom false mischievous and calumniating persons such as our Author may if tolerated decoy into some Rebellion as unnatural as to themselves destructive To conclude I appeal to all wise men whether the Government of Athens in those days be more applicable and necessary for us and ours in these than to affirm that the Government of France could not possibly subsist except they introduce the Discipline of Geneva or Polity of the little Commonwealth of Luca or Genoua Mer. I am much pleased with this way of reasoning and am well satisfi'd that times and places and circumstances may alter our reason exceedingly and that no one Polity or Form of Governments or laws whatsoever are universally proper for all places Plato I think introduc'd in his Commonwealth a commonalty or common use of Wives or Women as well as of all other Goods and Chattels Lycurgus forbad the use of Gold and Silver divided all the Lands equally amongst all and permitted the noble exercise of stealing Sure could these two learned men preach the same Doctrine in our days at London as they did then in Sparta

the King hath inherently antecedently and by Birth-right a Soveraign authority over all his people and this is confirm'd to him both by Statute Common Law and Custom according to that of 19. H. 6. 62. The Law is the inheritance of the King and people by which they are rul'd King and people But if the Commonwealths men gain their point if the Association and its brat bloody murder had taken its damnable effect then Government had most plainly signified the People and that is truly our Authors meaning for the words which immediately follow are these Nor is it to be imagin'd that they would give him more power than what was necessary to govern them What can be the antecedent to They and Them but the word Subjects which precedes in the beginning of the Sentence This is the true Presbyterian or Phanatick way of speaking their most mischievous Treasons which like a Bizzare with a little turn of the hand represents ether the Pope or the Devil But since we are so plainly assured of his meaning I 'll take the liberty for once to put it plainly into words and I think it will then run thus That our King having neither by birthright nor by a long undoubted Succession of above six hundred years any Authority of his own but only that which the people have intrusted in him for they would give him no more than what was just necessary to govern them p. 119. the people in whom the Soveraign power resides may call this their minister otherwise called King to an account for the administration of this his trust and in case he should not acquit himself according to their expectation the Soveraign Subject might punish this their Subject King turn him out of his office as all Supreme governours may their subordinate officers nay and set up any other form of Government whatsoever without doing any manner of injustice to their King This is our Authors doctrine as appears not only by inevitable consequences drawn from this m●tuated or fide-commissary power which he hath placed in the King but from the whole context and course of his Libel Now though Hell it self could not have invented a proposition more notoriously false though the whole Association could not have asserted a more Traiterous principle though the Supreme power or Soveraign right of Government hath been fixed to the imperial Crown of England ever since the beginning of History or Kings amongst us or the memorial of any time though more than twenty Parliaments which are the wisdom and Representatives of the whole Nation have by several explanatory Acts and Statutes confessed declared and affirmed that this Soveraign Authority or power of England is solely in the King and his la●●ul Heirs and Successors in exclusion to all other mortal power whatsoever Rex habet potestatem jurisdictionem super omnes qui in regno suo sunt Nay although all the Power Priviledges Liberties and even the Estates of the people proceeded originally from the meer bounty of our Kings as both ancient and modern Authors and Histories have evidently made it appear And after all notwithstanding our Author hath not produced one single authority or one little peice of an Act Statute or Law to prove that the Soveraign power is in the people or that the King held his authority only in trust from them as he plainly affirms or when they entrusted him with it or had it in themselves to grant yet by an unparallelled piece of impudence and vanity he dares to bring his own private opinion in competition with the wisdom learning practice decrees and justice of the whole Nation condemn our Ancestors as betrayers of the peoples rights and priviledges and by a single ipse dixit prove himself the only true Physician learned Statesman and except some who in most Ages have been Executed for their most horrid Treasons the only worthy Patriot of his Countrey and Defender of its rights Now lest some of our ignorant and infatuated multitude like the Children of Hamel should dance after our Authors popular and Northern Bagpipe until he precipitates them all into inevitable ruin and destruction I am resolved not to insist at present upon his Majesties Hereditary and undoubted Soveraign right of power which he now possesses not only by prescription and a Succession of more than eight hundred years but by all the La●s of the Land as hath been already declared and the universal consent of all his good Subjects confirmed by their Oaths of Allegeance from which none but Rebels and perjured men can depart I will not I say at present urge those arguments which are sufficient to convince opiniastrete and wilful ignorance it self but will attack him in his strongest Gothick ●orts and the rational part upon which he seems most to value himself And first for these Goths I cannot find in any History when it was they came over into England nay I am confident that all Learned men will agree that there is no probable conjecture from any Author that they ever have been here or crost our Seas or came nearer us than Normandy one argument amongst others is the flourishing condition of our Island above France where the Goths and Vandalls had made some ravage in point of Learning and Sciences insomuch that Alcuinus an Englishman and Scholar to the Venerable Bede was sent unto Charles the Great to whom he became Doctor or Professor in Divinity Astronomy and Philosophy and by his direction erected the University of Paris But to return to our Goths it is certain that at first they travelled South-East which is very different from South-West such as i● our situation from theirs And yet our politick Author tells us positively according to his usual method that they establish'd their government in these parts after their conquest p. 93. And endeavouring to prove in p. 46. and 97. that according to their institution the people had an influence upon the Government he tells us that the Governments of France Spain and England by name and other countries where these people setled were fram'd accordingly Here we see our Country conquer'd and an excellent form of Government establish'd by the Goths so good and admirably just that we in this age must quit our happy Monarchy which hath subsisted most gloriously many Hundreds of years only to run a wool-gathering after these precarious Gothick Princes and yet no man could ever tell us when this conquest happen d nor by whom nor what became of them nor indeed any thing more than what the extravagant fancy of our Author hath imagin'd As for the Romans who conquer'd us sure they were neither Goths nor Northern people and so nothing can be pretended from that Conquest nor are the Saxons who next invaded us to be called Northern people by us at least who lye so much North to them our selves But forgiving Plato all his absurdities and incongruities the rather that we may find out the Truth and confound him with