Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	certain_a	company_n	good_a	35	3	2.1572	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60124	A second vindication of the magistracy and government of England by way of an answer to the several replies &c.	Shower, Bartholomew, Sir, 1658-1701.	1689 (1689)	Wing S3658; ESTC R37550	16,902	8

A SECOND VINDICATION OF THE Magistracy and Government OF ENGLAND By way of ANSWER to the several REPLIES c. IT is very observable that since the late Revolution nothing hath more disturbed our Peace than the Liberty of the Press and amongst all our new Prints the most malignant and mischievous Libels on the present Government have been written by those Lawyers who pretend themselves the greatest Zealots for its Honor and Service which may be suspected as false unless it be withal considered that some modern Royallists have nothing recommendatory of themselves but the miscarriages of others and others of them have such great ones of their own that an extenuation or excuse is impossible and therefore to cloud their own Deformities they would blacken other Mens Reputations and in order to it they have censured Innocence and arraigned Laws and where a slip or fault hath been tho so small as scarcely to deserve the name of one they have magnified it into an execrable Villany and for a colour of such their Calumny and Slander they have vented new Gospel and Law both nay they have broached such Notions to the World as are directly fatal to that Crown of which they boast themselves the Makers and Supporters and yet in doing so they pretend to merit It is strange but true for the Fact is plain and the Consequence too upon the present Change the Republicans of both Gowns did deem it their Policy and Interest to bespatter and reproach other Mens Actions and like base and mean spirits gave ill Names and Words to every thing in which themselves had not been concerned and made reviling so customary that it is become the modish sin of the Age. It is most certain the old English Honor Frankness Ingenuity and good Nature is quite abandoned from some Companies and Places in the Town and instead of Folly we have assumed a vice in our common Conversation instead of Drollery and Banter the new fashioned Wit at 's allows nothing as acceptable but Lying and Slander nay the very Spark of a Courtier hath changed his note whereas fulsom gross and false Flattery was wont to be his Talent he is now got to the other extreme i.e. revengeful weak and false Characters both of Persons and Actions Which is the worst is difficult to determine but falshood is the most predominant humor in both and that Age is surely unhappy which is plagued with a Surfeit of either especially when the excess is so great as now that no Gentleman can be thought a good Companion no Clergyman a true Protestant no Lawyer an honest Englishman no Courtier a faithful Servant unless he can and do Rail and Snarl and Scold and that at things that were justly used in former times and must necessarily be used in these times and will be so in all times whatsoever even in Secula Seculorum These little stinging Animals do value themselves upon their Honesty because they find Faults but it is in cases where no Eye can spie them but their own they value themselves upon their Wit because their censures are sharp and biting but that is so easie so very easie a Province that Nature teaches even the rudest of her breed to be Satyrical and the Natural oftentimes outdoes the pretended Scholar in Rib●ldry and hath perhaps a better faculty that way for fancy and piquancy of reflection Now as the Fact is thus Criminal and Ridiculous both so must the Consequence prove fatal to the Government which they would be thought but intend not to support for when once resolved to Arraign all past proceedings they are forced for the maintenance of such their Reflections to vent those Opinions Doctrines and Rules in Divinity and Law which have in every Age save one been justly exploded as destructive to the honor and being of the then Possessors of the Crown and can conduce to no other end than the utter Subversion of this and every other Government that doth but smell of a Monarchy It cannot be denied but in most Reigns there have been some occasions given for disgust to the People that Kings have born too hard upon their Subjects that the Subjects have worthily complained of some Warps from the Law but no Man ever with Sense pretended that this is a reason to induce a belief that every Act of State and every Judgment of Law in former times was Arbitrary and unwarrantable no surely the Publishers of such Reflections are of another thought themselves and some folks imagine they who formerly were ingaged in Seditious Practices against the Crown would now upon the present occasion explode that Law which doth condemn such Practices that they may with impunity repeat them whensoever the King or his Ministers shall chance to disoblige them and that this is the true reason of half the new Libels and invectives upon past Proceedings It is now apparent to all Mankind that every Line or at least Page of some Mens Works are designed only as a Courtship to the Mobb by bridling the Sovereignty and clipping the Prerogative even to such a degree as doth absolutely deprive it of those Rights Powers and Authorities which the ancient Law continued Usage and our present Representatives consent to allow it To check this growing itch of Pamphleting the Nation into another Change and to vindicate the Rights of the Crown and justifie the Magistracy of England from the obloquy which was industriously thrown on it in one Particular there was three months since a Sheet Printed and Published at which some Men took offence but others were of Opinion that its Publication was seasonable and well timed that its reflection on the trifling Defence which it assumed to answer were just and smooth and very soft considering the occasion given for a more Satyrical Stile from the fondness and incoherence of the Defenders expressions and inferences and that the mode of managing his Argument was modest and tender with a decent and due regard to the memory of the unfortunate deceased which had suffered more than enough of Injury by that pretended Justification A Cholerick and Sedulous Enquiry hath been made after the Authors Name but the Inquisitor is still at a loss notwithstanding his confidence of a certain knowledg who it was that came behind and struck him c. But to give him some satisfaction after all his fatigue in searching I will ascertain who it was not he may assure himself that none concerned in that Tryal were concerned or privy to its Vindication and when it was Composed and Writ the Party intended it chiefly for his own and the worlds diversion from the ungrateful necessity of Reading always on one side by the interposal of a few Lines on the other that our Humors might not be quite sowned and our Genius turn too pevish through the influence of Satyr and Libel with which the World hath too much abounded of late years nor had there been one word more published upon that Subject but