Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
ground_n	division_n	front_n	rear_n	2,538	5	13.5524	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29123	A sermon preached at the minster in Yorke at the assizes there holden, the thirtieth day of March, 1663 / by Thomas Bradley ...	Bradley, Thomas, 1597-1670.	1663 (1663)	Wing B4138; ESTC R34267	29,067	58

bites fore Secondly Your Under-Excise-man that farms the Excise at the second third or fourth hand he is a Biter a sorer Biter then the former for let it come through as many hands as it will they will all gaine let it fall never so heavy upon the subject and very heavy it must needs fall for these two reasons first because there are so many Chapmen one under another all which must and will make up their markets make themselves gainers Secondly because there are so many under-Officers belonging to them Informers Gagers Spies Collectors Clarks and I know not how many more subservient to the Farmers all which will have a living out of it and some of them more then every man shall know off or that any man can take account of them for all which must be squeezed out of the poor subject yet never comes home to the place or use for which it was intended whereas if it were assess't as now it stands and collected Villatim as some other of his Majesties Revenues are by Officers of Trust in every Parish and so transmitted to other higher Officers till it were landed where it should be the Revenue would be greater and the Clamour lesse but where there are so many Biters on worke at once and with such long teeth too dayly and hourly tearing of by such full bitts as they do no marvail if the poor people shrinke under their teeth and complain so sore no marvail if they grow so fatt and the people so lean upon whom they prey these long teeth of theirs would be filed at least if not broken off they are both too sharpe and to long the Government of this Kingdome is in no particular Arbitrary but in this Male-administration of the Excise the Excise-man is a Biter 3. A third sort of biters are your cunning and unconscionable Barterers in buying selling bargaining or exchanging Thou shalt not defraud thy brother nor go beyond him in bargaining say's the Apostle 1 Thes 4.6 and that with an intimation too for the Lord is the avenger of all such things in the same text there is a great deal of fraud in buying and selling by which men goe beyond their brethren by lying and swearing false weights false measures false gloses upon counterfeit wares to set them forth to the eye to make them the more vendable by asking so far above the worth that if a man bid but to the halfe or sometimes to the fift part he is sure to be catch't by recommending things by perswafive arguments above the worth thus much it cost me thus much it is worth thus much I have been offer'd and never a word true by trusting at too great an advantage and a hundred more such frandes which it is no wisedome so much as to mention ne magis admonere quam prohibere viderer neither is the buyer free from his frauds too It is naught it is naught saith the buyer but when he is gone he boasteth and therefore our Saviour takes them both in when speaking of buyers sellers even in the Temple he calls them both thieves Mat 21.19 It is written my house shall he called the house of prayer but you have made it a denne of thieves the cunning and unconscionable bargainer whether it be in buying or selling is a biter in the Scripture language a thief though the Law do not call him so under this head I may ranke all Engrossers Forestallers Regrators Monopolizers and a hundred more but what need I go so far as to the shops and markets to looke after them I doubt they may be found nearer home 4. What thinke you of a driving Lawyer that is not willing to bring his Clyents Cause to an issue too soon but having discovered a good purse to follow it makes it his study to spinne it out with as long a thred as he can I heard a soldier of fortune say in the beginning of these late unhappy warrs a great Officer he was that if they did husband it wel he did not doubt but they might so mannage their businesse as to make those warrs last seaven years I wish he had had his wish so he had had no more and I the next he should have been but little better for them I doubt there are some other professions of his mind in these driving and protracting wayes and I should have told you something more of your proceedings in this kind but that you heard somthing of it already 5. For a small Officer to grope for a small Bribe perhaps to excuse a Jury-man or to helpe a friend or two to be put upon the taly to help a verdict is but a small matter he is scarce worth the name of a biter he doth but snap and away let him passe 6. But what think you of a Martiall he is an Officer I think that hath the ordering of Causes to put them into ranke and file and to dispose of them in such a method and order as they are to be call'd on which being oft' times numerous are enough to make up a pretty Army he had need be honest for great is his power and much to the advantage or dis-advantage of those for or against whom he will please to use it he can alter his rankes and files as helisteth cut off his files by the middle and by a word of command and a motion not of his pike but of his pen dispose of each of the divisions when he please make the whole body of the Causes wheel to the right or to the left and so alter the ground or by a countermarch bring the front into the rear and the rear into the front he had need be honest he shall have temptations enough to use this his power and skill for the speeding of Trialls and too often doth so but he cannot herein gratify one but he must injure another asmuch and that bites fore but that 's no matter so he have a morsell from the one hee 'll make no bones to snap at the others good he may well go for a Biter 7. There is one sort of beasts amongst you I know nor whether I may place hī amōg the wild beasts or tame but a deadly biter he is they call him a Barrater a Common-barrater he is made up of many ingredients all starke naught this is one that makes it his businesse to create suits of Law and to foment them vexatious suits and then to imploy himselfe in them with all treachery falshood and unfaithfullnesse that may be that out of the troubled waters he may fish to himselfe advantage is not this one of his tricks to sue a Neighbour unto an outlawry and he never hear of it nor know who hurt him till he see it come out against him is not this another for some slight respasse to sue a man that dwells the next door by him a man that keeps Church and market and which he sees and converses with every