[Ads-l] kakistocracy

[Shapiro, Fred]

I should add that the author of the 1644 sermon was Paul Gosnold.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2024 2:30 PM
To: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: kakistocracy

The Oxford English Dictionary's first citation for the word "kakistocracy" is dated 1829.  Here is a much earlier usage, probably as far back as can be found.  This is also a quite wonderful passage with a super-long sentence around the k-word.

1644 A sermon preached at the publique fast the ninth day of Aug. 1644 at St. Maries, Oxford, before the honorable members of the two Houses of Parliament (1674)

Prayer is for, or against: if we be friends to the peace of Ierusalem, we must be enemies to the enemies of it; if we pray for that, we must pray against these. Now if God be the authour of peace, warre and discord can have no authour but Gods adversary the Devill; and they that are the stirrers up and fomenters of it, must needs be his instruments whosoever they be. If the peace-makers be blessed, for they shall be called the sonnes of God; then cursed are the warre-makers, cursed to the pit of hell, for they shall be called you know what: if there be any devils upon earth, these are they; as like their father, as if they had beene spit out of his mouth, who was a lyar, and a murderer from the beginning. Therefore we need not make any scruple of praying against such: against those Sanctimonious Incendiaries, who have fetched fire from

________________________________
[View Image - Image 11 (page 18)]
Image 11 (page 18)
heaven to set their Country in combustion, have pretended Religion to raise and maintaine a most wicked rebellion: against those Nero's, who have ripped up the wombe of the mother that bare them, and wounded the breasts that gave them sucke: against those Cannibal's who feed upon the flesh and are drunke with the bloud of their own brethren: against those Catiline's who seeke their private ends in the publicke disturbance, and have set the Kingdome on fire to rost their owne egges: against those tempests of the State, those restlesse spirits who can no longer live, then be stickling and medling; who are stung with a perpetuall itch of changing and innovating, transforming our old Hierarchy into a new Presbytery, and this againe into a newer Independency; and our well-temperd Monarchy into a mad kinde of Kakistocracy. Good Lord! what wild irregular courses have these men runne, since the reines have layen loose upon them? I am afraid, they will never leave chopping and changing, plotting and practising, till in conclusion they bring all to confusion, all to an Anarchy or savage Ataxie, Prayer, Peace, Ierusalem, and all. Therefore it is no breach of charity to pray against these men. How long, Lord, how long holy and just shall our bloud and wrongs be
________________________________
Page 19

unreveng'd upon them? how long shall the Devill and his instruments have place and power to deface and defile thy Temples, to profane thy service, to persecute thy ministers, to pursue the life and honour of thine Anointed, and to seduce the silly people like sheepe to the slaughter? How long shall they blaspheme thy Name and Religion by making it an instrument of such hellish practises? How long Lord, how long holy and just?


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org