Selected quad for the lemma: head_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
head_n	arm_n	belly_n	leg_n	2,979	5	10.3355	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45613	The common-wealth of Oceana	Harrington, James, 1611-1677.	1656 (1656)	Wing H809; ESTC R18610	222,270	308

no other Cause then her Equality For Venice to say that she is quiet because she disarms her Subjects is to forget that Lacedemon disarmed her Helots and yet could not in their regard be quiet wherefore if Venice be defended from external causes of commotion it is first through her situation in which respect her Subjects have no hope and this indeed may be attributed unto her fortune and secondly through her exquisite Justice whence they have no will to invade her but this can be attributed to no other cause then her prudence which will appear to be greater as we look nearer for the effects that proceed from fortune if there be any such thing are like their cause unconstant but there never happened unto any other Common-wealth so undisturbed and constant a tranquillity and peace in her self as is that of Venice wherefore this must proceed from some other cause then Chance And we see that as she is of all others the most quiet so the most equal Common-wealth Her body consists of one Order and her Senate is like a rolling stone as was said which never did nor while it continues upon that rotation ever shall gather the mosse of a divided or ambitious interest much lesse such an one as that which grasped the people of Rome in the talons of their own Eagles And if Machiavill a verse from doing this Common-wealth right had consider'd her Orders as his reader shall easily perceive he never did he must have been so far from attributing the prudence of them unto Chance that he would have touched up his admirable work unto that perfection which as to the civil part hath no pattern in the universall World but this of Venice Rome secure by her Potent and Victorious Arms from all external causes of commotion was either beholding for her peace at home unto her Enemies abroad or could never rest her head My Lords you that are Parents of a Common-wealth and so freer Agents then such as are meer natural have a care Fo ras no man shall shew me a Commonwealth born streight that ever became crooked so no man shall shew me a Common-wealth born crooked that ever became streight Rome was crooked in her birth or rather prodigious her twins the Patricians and Plebeian Orders came as was shewn by the foregoing story into the world one body but two heads or rather two bellies for notwithstanding the Fable out of Aesop whereby Menenius Agrippa the Orator that was sent from the Senate unto the People at Mount Aventine shew'd the Fathers to be the belly and the people to be the Arms and the Legs which except that how sloathful soever it might seem were nourished not these but the whole body must languish and be dissolved it is plain that the Fathers were a distinct belly such an one as took the meat indeed out of the peoples mouthes but abhorring the Agrarian returned it not in the due and necessary nutrition of a Common-wealth Neverthelesse as the people that live about the Cataracts of Nilus are said not to hear the noise so neither the Roman Writers nor Machiavill the most conversant with them seem among so many of the Tribunitian storms to hear their natural voice for though they could not misse of it so far as to attribute them unto the strife of the People for participation in Magistracy or in which Machiavill more particularly joyns unto that about the Agrarian this was to take the businesse short and the remedy for the disease Cujus levamen mali Plebes nisi suis in summo imperio locatis nullum speraret A People when they are reduced unto misery and despair become their own Polititians as certain beasts when they are sick become their own Physitians and are carried by a natural instinct unto the desire of such herbs as are their proper cure but the people for the greater part are beneath the beasts in the use of them Thus the people of Rome though in their misery they had recourse by instinct as it were unto the two main Fundamentals of a Common-wealth Participation of Magistracy and the Agrarian did but taste and spet at them not which is necessary in Physick drink down the potion and in that their healths For when they had obtained participation of Magistracy it was but lamely not to a full and equall rotation in all elections nor did they greatly regard it in so much as they had gotten And when they had attained unto the Agrarian they neglected it so far as to suffer the Law to grow obsolete but if you do not take the due dose of your Medicines as there be slight tasts which a man may have of Philosophy that incline unto Atheisme it may chance be poyson there being a like taste of the Politiques that inclines to Confusion as appears in the Institution of the Roman Tribunes by which Magistracy and no more the people were so far from attaining unto peace that they in getting but so much got but heads for eternal feud whereas if they had attained in perfection either unto the Agrarian they had introduced the equality and calm of Lacedemon or unto Rotation they had introduced that of Venice And so there could have been no more Enmity between the Senate and the People of Rome then there was between those Orders in Lacedemon or is in Venice Wherefore Machiavill seemeth unto me in attributing the peace of Venice more unto her luck then her prudence of the whole stable to have saddled the wrong horse for though Rome quae non imitabile fulmen Aere et cornupedum cursu simulârat Equorum in her Military part could beat it better beyond all comparison upon the sounding hoof Venice for the Civil hath plainly had the wings of Pegasus The whole Question then will come upon this Point Whether the People of Rome could have obtained these Orders And first to say that they could not have obtained them without altering the Common-wealth is no argument seeing neither could they without altering the Common-wealth have obtained their Tribunes which neverthelesse were obtained And if a man consider the posture that the people were in when they obtained their Tribunes they might as well and with as great ease for as much as the reason why the Nobility yielded unto the Tribunes was no other then that there was no remedy have obtained any thing else And for experience it was in the like case that the Lacedemonians set up their Ephors and the Athenians after the battel of Plateae bowed the Senate so hard a thing it is for a Commonwealth that was born crooked to become streight as much the other way Nor if it be objected that this must have ruin'd the Nobility and in that deprived the Common-wealth of the Greatnesse which she acquired by them is this opinion holding but confuted by the sequell of the story shewing plainly that the Nobility through the defect of such Orders that is to say of Rotation and

national conscience And if the conviction of a mans private conscience produceth his private Religion the conviction of the national conscience must produce a national Religion Whether this be well reason'd as also whether these two may stand together will best be shewn by the examples of the ancient Common-wealths taken in their order In that of Israel the Government of the National Religion appertained not unto the Priests and Levites otherwise then as to the Sanhedrim or Senate to which they had no right at all but by election It is in this capacity therefore that the people are commanded under pain of death to hearken unto them and to do according to the sentence of the Law which they should teach but in Israel the Law Ecclesiastical and Civill was the same therefore the Sanhedrim having the power of one had the power of both But as the National Religion appertained unto the Jurisdiction of the Sanhedrim so the liberty of conscience appertained from the same date and by the same right unto the Prophets and their disciples as where it is said I will raise up a Prophet and whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my Name I will require it of him which words relate unto prophetick right which was above all the orders of this Common-wealth whence Elijah not only refused to obey the King but destroyed his messengers with fire And whereas it was not lawful by the National Religion to sacrifice in any other place then the Temple a Prophet was his own Temple and might sacrifice where he would as Elijah did in Mount Carmel By this right John the Baptist and our Saviour unto whom it more particularly related had their disciples and taught the people whence is derived our present right of GATHERED CONGREGATIONS Wherefore the Christian Religion grew up according unto the orders of the Common-wealth of Israel and not against them Nor was the liberty of conscience infringed by this Government till the civil liberty of the same was lost as under Herod Pilate and Tiberius a three pild Tyranny To proceed Athens preserved her Religion by the testimony of Paul with great superstition If Alcibiades that Atheistical fellow had not shew'd them a fair pair of heeles they had shaven off his head for shaving their Mercuries and making their Gods look ridiculously upon them without beards Neverthelesse if Paul reasoned with them they loved news for which he was the more welcome and if he converted Dionysius the Areopagite that is one of the Senators there followed neither any hurt unto him nor losse of honour to Dionysius And for Rome if Cicero in his most excellent book De natura Deorum overthrew the National Religion of that Common-wealth he was never the farther from being Consul But there is a meannesse and poornesse in modern prudence not only unto the damage of Civil Government but of Religion it self for whereas Christian Religion is the farthest of any from countenancing War there never was a War of Religion but since Christianity For which we are beholding unto the POPE for the Pope not giving liberty of conscience unto Princes and Common-wealths they cannot give that unto their Subjects which they have not whence both Princes and Subjects either through his instigation or disputes among themselves have introduced that execrable custome never known in the world before of fighting for Religion and denying the Magistrate to have any Jurisdiction of it whereas the Magistrates losing the power of Religion loseth the liberty of conscience which hath nothing to protect it Wherefore if the people be otherwise taught it concerns them to look about them and to distinguish between the shreeking of the Lapwing and the voice of the Turtle To come unto Civil Lawes if they stand one way and the ballance another it is the case of a Government which of necessity must be new modell'd wherefore the Lawyers advising you upon like occasions to fit the Government unto their Lawes are no more to be regarded then your Taylor if he should desire you to fit your body unto his doublet there is also danger in the plausible pretence of reforming the Law except the Government be good in which case it is a good tree and bringeth not forth evil fruit otherwise if the Tree be evill you can never reform the fruit begin with reformation of the Government by the Lawes but first begin with reformation of the Lawes by the Government The best rule as to the Lawes in general is that they be few Rome by the testimony of Cicero was best governed under those of the twelve Tables and by the testimony of Tacitus Plurimae leges corruptissima respublica You will be told That where the Lawes be few they leave much unto arbitrary power but where they be many they leave more the Lawes in that case according to Justinian and the best Lawyers being as litigious as the Suitors Solon made few Lycurgus fewer Laws Common-wealths have fewest at this day of all other Governments And to conclude this part with a word de Judiciis or the constitution or course of Courts it is such in Venice as the arbitrary power of them can never retard or do hurt unto businesse but produceth the quickest dispatch and the most righteous dictates of Justice that are perhaps in humane nature The manner of them I shall not stand in this place to describe because it is exemplify'd at large in the Judicature of the people of Oceana And thus much of ancient Prudence and the first branch of this Preliminary Discourse The Second Part of the Preliminaries IN the Second Part I shall endeavour to shew the Rise Progresse and Declination of Modern Prudence The date of this kind of Policy is to be computed as was shewn from those Inundations of Goths Vandals Hunnes and Lombards that overwhelmed the Roman Empire But as there is no appearance in the bulk or constitution of Modern Prudence that she should ever have been able to come up and Grapple with the Ancient so something of necessity must have interposed whereby This came to be enervated and That to receive strength and encouragement And this was the execrable raign of the Roman Emperours taking rise from that foelix scelus the Arms of Caesar in which storm the ship of the Roman Common-wealth was forced to disburthen her self of that precious fraight which never since could emerge or raise the head but in the Gulph of Venice It is said in Scripture Thy evil is of thy self O Israel to which answers that of the Moralists Nemo nocetur nisi ex se as also the whole matter of the Politicks at present this Example of the Romans who through a negligence committed in their Agrarian Lawes let in the sink of Luxury and forfeited the inestimable treasure of Liberty for themselves and posterity Their Agrarian Lawes were such whereby their Lands ought to have been divided among the