a. Obs. [SUPER- II. III.] a. In early use, with reference to the Jesuits: That is above or overrules ordinary politics or policy. b. Later, taken in the sense: Over-politic, exceedingly crafty.
1599. Sandys, Europæ Spec. (1632), 46. That super-politike and irrefragable order as they compt it, of the Jesuites, who couple in their perswasions, as one God and one Faith, so one Pope and one King.
[1640. Howell, Dodona’s Gr., 79. That super-politique and irrefragable Societie of the Loyolists.]
1641. Milton, Reform., II. 53 [quoting Sandys].
1647. Jer. Taylor, Lib. Proph., viii. 152. At the Florentine Council the Latins acted their masterpiece of wit and stratagem, the greatest that hath been till the famous and superpolitick design of Trent.
1659. Gauden, Slight Healers (1660), 90. By a super-politick policy.
So Superpolitical a., that is above or independent of politics.
1667. Locke, Ess. conc. Toleration, in Fox Bourne, Life (1876), I. 182. The private and super-political concernment between God and a man’s soul, wherein the magistrate’s authority is not to interpose.
