Selected quad for the lemma: nation_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
nation_n	abraham_n	isaac_n	son_n	1,181	5	5.7372	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52850	Discourses concerning government, in a way of dialogue wherein, by observations drawn from other kingdoms and states, the excellency of the English government is demonstrated, the causes of the decay thereof are considered, and proper remedies for cure proposed / by Henry Nevill ...; Plato redivivus. 1698	Neville, Henry, 1620-1694.	1698 (1698)	Wing N503A; ESTC R39070	112,421	300

this Point I shall have occasion to insist and expatiate upon many things which both my self and others have Publish'd in former times For which I will only make this excuse that the Repetition of such matters is the more pardonable because they will be at least new to you who are a stranger to our Affairs and Writings And the rather because those discourses shall be apply'd to our present condition and suited to our present occasions But I will say no more but obey you and proceed I will not take upon me to say or so much as Conjecture how and when Government began in the World or what Government is most Ancient History must needs be silent in that point for that Government is more Ancient than History And there was never any Writer but was bred under some Government which is necessarily supposed to be the Parent of all Arts and Sciences and to have produced them And therefore it would be as hard for a man to Write an account of the beginning of the Laws and Polity of any Countrey except there were memory of it which cannot be before the first Historiographer as it would be to any person without Records to tell the particular History of his own Birth Doct. Sir I cannot comprehend you may not Historians Write a History of Matters done before they were born If it were so no man could Write but of his own times Eng. Gent. My meaning is Where there are not Stories or Records extant for as for Oral Tradition it lasts but for one Age and then degenerates into Fable I call any thing in Writing whereby the account of the Passages or Occurrences of former times is derived to our knowledge a History although it be not pend Methodically so as to make the Author pass for a Wit And had rather read the Authentick Records of any Country that is a Collection of their Laws and Letters concerning Transactions of State and the like than the most Eloquent and Judicious Narrative that can be made Noble Ven. Methinks Sir your discourse seems to imply that we have no account extant of the beginning of Governments pray what do you think of the Books of Moses which seem to be pend on purpose to inform us how he by Gods Command led that People out of Egypt into another Land and in the way made them a Government Besides does not Plutarch tell us how Theseus gathered together the dispersed Inhabitants of Attica brought them into one City and under one Government of his own making The like did Romulus in Italy and many others in divers Countries Eng. Gent. I never said that we had not sufficient knowledge of the Original of particular Governments but it is evident that these great Legislators had seen and lived under other Administrations and had the help of Learned Law-givers and Philosophers excepting the first who had the Aid of God himself So that it remains undiscovered yet how the first REgulation of man-kind began And therefore I will take for granted that which all the Politicians conclude Which is That Necessity made the first Government For every man by the first Law of Nature which is common to us and brutes had like Beasts in a Pasture right to every thing and there being no Property each Individual if he were the stronger might seize whatever any other had possessed himself of before which made a State of perpetual War To Remedy which and the fear that nothing should be long enjoyed by any particular person neither was any mans Life in safety every man consented to be debar'd of that Universal Right to all things and confine himself to a quiet and secure enjoyment of such a part as should be allotted him Thence came in Ownership or Property to maintain which it was necessary to consent to Laws and a Government to put them in Execution Which of the Governments now extant or that have been formerly was first is not possible now to be known but I think this must be taken for granted that whatsoever the Frame or Constitution was first it was made by the Perswasion and Meditation of some Wise and vertuous Person and consented to by the whole Number And then that it was instituted for the good and Preservation of the Governed and not for the Exaltation and greatness of the Person or Persons appointed to Govern The Reason why I beg this Concession is That it seems very improbable not to say impossible that a vast number of people should ever be brought to consent to put themselves under the Power of others but for the ends abovesaid and so lose their Liberty without advantaging themselves in any thing And it is full as impossible that any person or persons so inconsiderable in number as Magistrates and Rulers are should by force get an Empire to themselves Though I am not ignorant that a whole people have in imminent Dangers either from the Invasion of a powerful Enemy or from Civil Distractions put themselves wholly into the hands of one Illustrious Person for a time and that with good Success under the best Forms of Government But this is nothing to the Original of States Noble Ven. Sir I wonder how you come to pass over the Consideration of Paternal Government which is held to have been the beginning of Monarchies Eng. Gent. Really I did not think it worth the taking notice of for though it be not easie to prove a Negative yet I believe if we could trace all Foundations of Polities that now are or ever came to our knowledge since the World began we shall find none of them to have descended from Paternal Power we know nothing of Adam's leaving the Empire to Cain or Seth It was impossible for Noah to retain any Jurisdiction over his own three Sons who were dispersed into three parts of the World if our Antiquaries Calculate right and as for Abraham whilst he lived as also his Son Isaac they were but ordinary Fathers of Families and no question governed their own Houshold as all others do but when Jacob upon his Death-bed did relate to his Children the Promise Almighty God had made his Grandfather to make him a great Nation and give his Posterity a fruitful Territory he speaks not one word of the Empire of Reuben his first-born but supposes them all equal And so they were taken to be by Moses when he divided the Land to them by Lot and by Gods command made them a Commonwealth So that I believe this fancy to have been first started not by the solid Judgement of any man but to flatter some Prince and to assert for want of better Arguments the jus Divinum of Monarchy Noble Ven. I have been impertinent in interrupting you but yet now I cannot repent of it since your Answer hath given me so much satisfaction but if it be so as you say that Government was at first Instituted for the Interest and Preservation of Mankind how comes it to pass That