Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	accident_n	folly_n	great_a	21	3	2.1554	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50369	The observator, upon the successe of former Parliaments: being by way of parralell compared with this present Parliament. Published to un-deceive the people.; Discourse concerning the successe of former Parliaments.	May, Thomas, 1595-1650.	1643 (1643)	Wing M1411B; ESTC R202948	5,260	8

THE OBSERVATOR UPON The Successe of former Parliaments BEING By way of Parralell compared with this present PARLIAMENT Published to un-deceive the People LONDN Printed for I. H. and H. VVhite 1643. The Observator VPON The successe of former Parliaments THe constitution of our English Monarchy is by wise men esteemed one of the best in Europe as well for the strength and honour of the Prince as the security and freedome of the Peopl and the Basis on which both are founded is the conveniencie of that great Councell the Parliament Without which neither can the Prince enjoy that honour and felicity that Phillip de Commines a forrainer so much admires where he delivers what advantages the Kings of England have by that representative Body of their People by whose assistance in any action they can neither want means or loose reputation Nor on the other side can the People have any possibility of pleading their own rights and liberties for in the interim between Parliaments the People are too scattered and confused a body to appeare in vindication of their proper interests and by too long absence of such Assemblies they would loose all For as Iunius observes Populus authoritatem suam tacitè non utendo amittit sic plerumque accidit ut quod omnes curare tenentur curat nemo quod omnibus commissum est nemo sibi commendatum putet The People insensibly loose their power for want of using it for so it happens that what all should looke after no man does what is committed to all no man thinks his own charge And in that interim it happens that those Optimates Regni who under the Prince are entrusted with government meaning Councellours Judges and other great Magistrates either through fear flatterie or private corruption doe often betray the Peoples rights to the Prince The state of government standing thus If distempered times happen to be as our Chronicles have shewed some where by dissention between Prince and People the Kingdomes ruin hath been endangered it doth not so much prove that the English Government is not the best as that the best Government may be abused For in every Monarchy how limited soever the Prince his person is invested with so much Majesty that it would seem a mockery in Sate if there were no considerable power entrusted into his hands yea so much as that if he be bad or weak he may endanger the ruin of the Kingdome so necessary is it for all humane ordinances how wise so ever to leave somewhat to Chance and to have alwaies need of recourse to God for his assisting or curing providence And though the Kingdome of England by vertue of the government thereof will be as hardly brought into confusion as any in Europe yet there is no warrant against the possibility of it For it was ever heretofore seen that our Parliaments were rather a strength and advantage to an honourable wife Prince than a remedy against a bad or weak one or if we change the expression they were rather an excellent diet to preserve a good raign in strength than Physick to cure a bad one and therefore have bin as much loved by sound and healthy Princes as loathed by them that were out of temper the latter having thought them a depression of their Dignity as the former have esteemed them an advantage to their strength So that in such times only the true convenience of that great Counsell hath been perceived by England and admir'd by forrain Authors in the other times it was that those witty complaints have bin in fashion as Sir Robert Cotton speaks of a bad time that Princes in Parliaments are lesse then they should be and Subjects greater But on the contrary that they have been an advantage unto Kings the constant Series of our History will shew 1. By those great atchievments which they have enabled our wise Kings to make who were most constant in calling them and consenting to them 2. That no one Prince was ever yet happy without the use of them It may therefore seem a Paradox that any Prince should disaffect that which is so high an advantage to him and a great wonder that some Kings of England not vicious in their dispositions nor very shallow in their understandings have so much kicked against Parliaments And that such have been before we shew what reasons may be of it see the characters of some Princes whose successe and fortunes are known ●o all that read the Histories as they are delivered by Polidore Virgil who in his sixteenth booke speaks thus of Henry the third Fuit ingenio miti animo magis nobili quam magno cultor religionis adversus inopes liberalis He was of a gentle nature a mind rather noble then great a lover of Religion and liberall to the poor In his eighteenth Book thus of Edward the second Fuit illi natura bona ingenium mite quem primò juvenili errore actum in leviora vitia incidentem tandem in graviora malorum consuetudines consilia traxerunt Non deerant illi animi vires si repudiatis malis suasoribus ille justè exercuisset He was of a good nature and mild disposition who first by the errours and rashnesse of Youth falling into small faults was afterwards drawn into greater by the society and counsels of wicked men there was not wanting in him a strength of mind if avoiding evill counsell he could have made a just use of it And in his twentieth Book thus of Richard the second Fuit in illo spiritus non vilis quem consociorum improbitas insulsitas extinxit He was of a spirit not low or base but such as was quite destroyed by the wickednesse and folly of unhappy Consociates A reason of this accident may be that their soules though not vicions have not been so large nor their affections so publike as their great calling hath required but being too much mancipated to private fancies and unhappy Favourites and long flattered in those affections under the specious name of firmnesse in Friendship not being told that the adaequate object of a Prince his love should be the whole people and that they who receive publike honour should return a generall love and care they have too much neglected the Kingdome grow afraid to looke their faces in so true a glasse as a Parliament and flying the remedy encrease the disease till it come to that unhappy height that rather then acknowledge any unjust action they strive for an unjust power to give it countenance and so by along consepuence become hardly reconcilable to a Parliamentary way Such Princes have beene a greater affliction to this Kingdom than those who haye been most wicked and more incureable for these reasons 1. They have not been so conscious to themselves of great crimes and therefore not so apt to be sensible of what they have bin made to do by evill Councell And therefore they are more prone to suspect the