The Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth

The ready and easy way to establish a free Commonwealth.

A Lthough since the writing of this treatise, the face of things hath had some change, writs for new elections have been recalled, and the members at first chosen, readmitted from exclusion, yet not a little rejoicing to hear declared the resolution of those who are in power, tending to the establishment of a free Commonwealth, and to remove, if it be possible, this noxious humor of returning to bondage, instilld of late by some deceivers, and nourishd from bad principles and falls apprehensions among too many of the people, I thought best not to suppress what I had written, hoping that it may now be of much more use and concernment to be freely publishd, in the midst of our Elections to a free Parliament, or their sitting to consider freely of the Government; whom it behooves to have all things represented to them that may direct thir judgment therein; and I never read of any State, scarce of any tyrant grown so incurable as to refuse counsel from any in a time of public deliberation; much less to be offended. If thir absolute determination be to enthrall us, before so long a Lent of Servitude, they may permit us a little Shroving-time first, wherein to speak freely, and take our leaves of Liberty. And because in the former edition through haste, many faults escaped, and many books were suddenly dispersd, ere the note to mend them could be sent, I took the opportunity from this occasion to revise and somewhat to enlarge the whole discourse, especially that part which argues for a perpetual Senate. The treatise thus revis'd and enlarged, is as follows.

The Parliament of England, assisted by a great number of the people who appeerd and stuck to them faithfullest in defense of religion and thir civil liberties, judging kingship by long experience a government unnecessary, burdensome and dangerous, justly and magnanimously abolishd it; turning regal bondage into a free Commonwealth, to the admiration and terror of our emulous neighbors. They took themselves not bound by the light of nature or religion, to any former covenant, from which the King himself by many forfeitures of a latter date or discovery, and our own longer consideration theron had more & more unbound us, both to himself and his posterity; as hath been ever the justice and the prudence of all wise nations that have ejected tyranny. They covnanted to preserve the Kings person and authority in the preservation of the true religion and our liberties; not in his endeavoring to bring in upon our consciences a Popish religion, upon our liberties thralldom, upon our lives destruction, by his occasioning, if not complotting, as was after discovered, the Irish massacre, his fomenting and arming the rebellion, his covert leaguing with the rebels against us, his refusing more then seven times, propositions most just and necessary to the true religion and our liberties, tenderd him by the Parliament both of England and Scotland. They made not thir covenant concerning him with no difference between a king and a god, or promisd him as Job did to the Almighty, to trust in him, though he slay us: they understood that the solemn engagement, wherein we all forswore kingship, was no more a breach of the covant, then the covenant was of the protestation before, but a faithful and prudent going on both in the words, well weighd, and in the true sense of the covenant, without respect of persons, when we could not serve two contrary masters, God and the king, or the king and that more supreme law, sworn in the first place to maintain, our safety and our liberty. They knew the people of England to be a free people, themselves the representers of that freedom; & although many were excluded, & as many fled (so they pretended) from tumults to Oxford, yet they were left a sufficient number to act in Parliament; therefor not bound by any statute of preceding Parliaments; but by the law of nature only, which is the only law of laws truly and properly to all mankind fundamental; the beginning and the end of all Government; to which no Parliament or people that will thoroughly reform, but may and must have recourse; as they had and must yet have in church reformation (if they thoroughly intend it) to evangelic rules; not to ecclesiastical canons, though never so ancient, so ratifi'd and establishd in the land by Statutes, which for the most part are mere positive laws, neither natural nor moral, & so by any Parliament for just and serious considerations, without scruple to be at any time repealed. If others of thir number, in these things were under force, they were not, but under free conscience; if others were excluded by a power which they could not resist, they were not therefore to leave the helm of government in no hands, to discontinue thir care of the public peace and safety, to desert the people in anarchy and confusion; no more then when so many of thir members left them, as made up in outward formality a more legal Parliament of three estates against them. The best affected also and best principl'd of the people, stood not numbering or computing on which side were most voices in Parliament, but on which side appeerd to them most reason, most safety, when the house divided upon main matters: what was well motiond and advised, they examind not whether fear or persuasion carried it in the vote; neither did they measure votes and counsels by the intentions of them that voted; knowing that intentions either are but guessd at, or not soon enough known; and although good, can neither make the deed such, nor prevent the consequence from being bad: suppose bad intentions in things otherwise welldon; what was welldon, was by them who so thought, not the less obeyed or followd in the state; since in the church, who had not rather follow Iscariot or Simon the magician, though to covetous ends, preaching, then Saul, though in the uprightness of his heart persecuting the gospel? Safer they therefor judgd what they thought the better counsels, though carried on by some perhaps to bad ends, then the worse, by others, though endevord with best intentions: and yet they were not to learn that a greater number might be corrupt within the walls of a Parliament as well as of a city; whereof in matters of nearest concernment all men will be judges; nor easily permit, that the odds of voices in thir greatest council, shall more endanger them by corrupt or credulous votes, then the odds of enemies by open assaults; judging that most voices ought not always to prevail where main matters are in question; if others hence will pretend to disturb all counsels, what is that to them who pretend not, but are in real danger; not they only so judging, but a great though not the greatest, number of thir chosen Patriots, who might be more in weight, then the others in number; there being in number little virtue, but by weight and measure wisdom working all things: and the dangers on either side they seriously thus waighd: from the treaty, short fruits of long labors and seven years war; security for twenty years, if we can hold it; reformation in the church for three years: then put to shift again with our vanquishd master. His justice, his honor, his conscience declared quite contrary to ours; which would have furnishd him with many such evasions, as in a book entitl'd an inquisition for blood, soon after were not conceald: bishops not totally removed, but left as it were in ambush, a reserve, with ordination in thir sole power; thir lands already sold, not to be alienated, but rented, and the sale of them called sacrilege; delinquents few of many brought to condign punishment; accessories punishd; the chief author, above pardon, though after utmost resistance, vanquished; not to give, but to receive laws; yet besought, treated with, and to be thankd for his gracious concessions, to be honourd, worshipd, glorified. If this we swore to do, with what righteousness in the sight of God, with what assurance that we bring not by such an oath the whole sea of bloodguiltiness upon our own heads? If on the other side we prefer a free government, though for the present not obtained, yet all those suggested fears and difficulties, as the event will prove, easily overcome, we remain finally secure from the exasperated regal power, and out of snares; shall retain the best part of our liberty, which is our religion, and the civil part will be from these who defer us, much more easily recoverd, being neither so suttle nor so awful as a King reinthron'd. Nor were thir actions less both at home and abroad then might become the hopes of a glorious rising Commonwealth: nor were the expressions both of army and people, whether in thir public declarations or several writings other then such as testifi'd a spirit in this nation no less noble and well fitted to the liberty of a Commonwealth, then in the ancient Greeks or Romans. Nor was the heroic cause unsuccesfully defended to all Christendom against the tongue of a famous and thought invincible adversary; nor the constancy and fortitude that so nobly vindicated our liberty, our victory at once against two the most prevailing usurpers over mankind, superstition and tyranny unpraisd or uncelebrated in a written monument, likely to outlive detraction, as it hath hitherto covinc'd or silenced not a few of our detractors, especially in parts abroad. After our liberty and religion thus prosperously fought for, gaind and many years possessd, except in those unhappy interruptions, which God hath removed, now that nothing remains, but in all reason the certain hopes of a speedy and immediate settlement forever in a firm and free Commonwealth, for this extolld and magnifi'd nation, regardless both of honor wonn or deliverances voutsafit from heaven, to fall back or rather to creep back so poorly as it seems the multitude would to thir once abjured and detested thralldom of Kingship, to be ourselves the slanderers of our own just and religious deeds, though don by some to covetous and ambitious ends, yet not therefor to be staind with their infamy, or they to asperse the integrity of others, and yet these now by revolting from the conscience of deeds welldon both in church and state, to throw away and forsake, or rather to betray a just and noble cause for the mixture of bad men who have ill managed and abused it (which had our fathers don heretofore, and on the same pretence deserted true religion, what had long ere this become of our gospel and all protestant reformation so much intermixt with the avarice and ambition of some reformers?) and by thus relapsing, to verify all the bitter predictions of our triumphing enemies, who will now think they wisely discerned and justly censured both us and all our actions as rash, rebellious, hypocritical and impious, not only argues a strange degenerate contagion suddenly spread among us fitted and prepared for new slavery, but will render us a scorn and derision to all our neighbors. And what will they at best say of us and of the whole English name, but scoffingly as of that foolish builder, mentiond by our Savior, who began to build a tower, and was not able to finish it. Where is this goodly tower of a Commonwealth, which the English boasted they would build to overshaddow kings, and be another Rome in the west? The foundation indeed they laid gallantly; but fell into a worse confusion, not of tongues, but of factions, then those at the tower of Babel; and have left no memorial of thir work behind them remaining, but in the common laughter of Europ. Which must needs redound the more to our shame, if we but look on our neighbors the United Provinces, to us inferior in all outward advantages; who notwithstanding, in the midst of greater difficulties, courageously, wisely, constantly went through with the same work, and are setl'd in all the happy enjoyments of a potent and flourishing Republic to this day.

Besides this, if we return to Kingship, and soon repent, as undoubtedly we shall, when we begin to find the old encroachments coming on by little and little upon our consciences, which must necessarily proceed from king and bishop united inseparably in one interest, we may be forced perhaps to fight over again all that we have fought, and spend over again all that we have spent, but are never like to attain thus far as we are now advanced to the recovery of our freedom, never to have it in possession as we now have it, never to be voutsafit hereafter the like mercies and signal assistances from heaven in our cause, if by our ungrateful backsliding we make these fruitless; flying now to regal concessions from his divine condescensions and gracious answers to our once importuning prayers against the tyranny which we then groand under: making vain and viler then dirt the blood of so many thousand faithful and valiant English men, who left us in this liberty, bought with thir lives; losing by a strange after game of folly, all the battles we have wonn, together with all Scotland as to our conquest, hereby lost, which never any of our kings could conquer, all the treasure we have spent, not that corruptible treasure only, but that far more precious of all our late miraculous deliverances; treading back again with lost labor all our happy steps in the progress of reformation; and most pitifully depriving ourselves the instant fruition of that free government which we have so dearly purchased, a free Commonwealth, not only held by wisest men in all ages the noblest, the manliest, the equallest, the justest government, the most agreeable to all due liberty and proportiond equality, both human, civil, and Christian, most cherishing to virtue and true religion, but also (I may say it with greatest probability) plainly commended, or rather enjoind by our Savior himself, to all Christians, not without remarkable disallowance, and the brand of gentilism upon kingship. God in much displeasure gave a king to the Israelites, and imputed it a sin to them that they sought one: but Christ apparently forbids his disciples to admit of any such heathenish government: the kings of the gentiles, saith he, exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them, are called benefactors: but ye shall not be so; but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that serveth. The occasion of these his words was the ambitious desire of Zebede's two sons, to be exalted above thir brethren in his kingdom, which they thought was to be ere long upon earth. That he speaks of civil government, is manifest by the former part of the comparison, which infers the other part to be always in the same kind. And what government coms nearer to this precept of Christ, then a free Commonwealth; wherein they who are greatest, are perpetual servants and drudges to the public at thir own cost and charges, neglect thir own affairs; yet are not elevated above thir brethren; live soberly in thir families, walk the streets as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly, without adoration. Whereas a king must be adored like a Demigod, with a dissolute and haughty court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masks and revels, to the debaushing of our prime gentry both male and female; not in thir passetimes only, but in earnest, by the loos employments of court service, which will be then thought honorable. There will be a queen also of no less charge; in most likelihood outlandish and a Papist; besides a queen mother such already; together with both thir courts and numerous train: then a royal issue, and ere long severally thir sumptuous courts; to the multiplying of a servile crew, not of servants only, but of nobility and gentry, bred up then to the hopes not of public, but of court offices; to be stewards, chamberlains, ushers, grooms, even of the close-stool; and the lower thir minds debas'd with court opinions, contrary to all virtue and reformation, the haughtier will be thir pride and profuseness: we may well remember this not long since at home; or need but look at present into the French court, where enticements and preferments daily draw away and pervert the Protestant Nobility. As to the burden of expense, to our cost we shall soon know it; for any good to us, deserving to be termd no better then the vast and lavish price of our subjection and their debausherie; which we are now so greedily cheapning, and would so fain be paying most inconsiderately to a single person; who for anything wherein the public really needs him, will have little else to do, but to bestow the eating and drinking of excessive dainties, to set a pompous face upon the superficial actings of State, to pageant himself up and down in progress among the perpetual bowings and cringings of an abject people, on either side deifying and adoring him for nothing don that can deserve it. For what can he more then another man? who even in the expression of a late courtpoet, sits only like a great cypher set to no purpose before a long row of other significant figures. Nay it is well and happy for the people if thir King be but a cypher, being oft times a mischief, a pest, a scourge of the nation, and which is worse, not to be removed, not to be control'd, much less accused or brought to punishment, without the danger of a common ruin, without the shaking and almost subversion of the whole land. Whereas in a free Commonwealth, any governor or chief counselor offending, may be removed and punishd without the least commotion. Certainly then that people must needs be mad or strangely infatuated, that build the chief hope of thir common happiness or safety on a single person: who if he happen to be good, can do no more then another man, if to be bad, hath in his hands to do more evil without check, then millions of other men. The happiness of a nation must nee • s be firmest and certainest in a full and free Council of thir own electing, where no single person, but reason only swa • es. And what madness is it, for them who might manage nobly thir own affairs themselves, sluggishly and weakly to devolve all on a single person; and more like boys under age then men, to commit all to his patronage and disposal, who neither can perform what he undertakes, and yet for undertaking it, though royally paid, will not be thir servant, but thir lord? how unmanly must it needs be, to count such a one the breath of our nostrils, to hang all our felicity on him, all our safety, our well-being, for which it we were aught else but sluggards or babies, we need depend on none but God and our own counsels, our own active virtue and industry; Go to the Ant, thou sluggard, saith Solomon; consider her ways, and be wise; which having no prince, ruler, or lord, provides her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. which evidenly shows us, that they who think the nation undon without a king, though they look grave or haughty, have not so much true spirit and understanding in them as a pismire: neither are these diligent creatures hence concluded to live in lawless anarchy, or that commended, but are set the examples to imprudent and ungovernd men, of a frugal and selfgoverning democratie or Commonwealth; safer and more thriving in the joint providence and counsel of many industrious equals, then under the single domination of one imperious Lord. It may be well wonderd that any Nation styling themselves free, can suffer any man to pretend hereditary right over them as thir lord; when as by acknowledging that right, they conclude themselves his servants and his vassals, and so renounce thir own freedom. Which how a people and thir leaders especially can do, who have fought so gloriously for liberty, how they can change thir noble words and actions, heretofore so becoming the majesty of a free people, into the base necessity of court flatteries and prostrations, is not only strange and admirable, but lamentable to think on. That a nation should be so valorous and courageous to win thir liberty in the field, and when they have wonn it, should be so heartless and unwise in thir counsels, as not to know how to use it, value it, what to do withit or with themselves; but after ten or twelve years prosperous war and contestation with tyranny, basely and besottedly to run their necks again into the yoke which they have broken, and prostrate all the fruits of thir victory for naught at the feet of the vanquishd, besides our loss of glory, and such an example as kings or tyrants never yet had the like to boast of, will be an ignomine if it befall us, that never yet befell any nation possessd of thir liberty; worthy indeed themselves, whatsoever they be, to be forever slaves: but that part of the nation which consents not with them, as I persuade me of a great number, far worthier then by their means to be brought into the same bondage. Considering these things so plane, so rational, I cannot but yet further admire on the other side, how any man who hath the true principles of justice and religion in him, can presume or take upon him to be a king and lord over his brethren, whom he cannot but know whether as men or Christians, to be for the most part every way equal or superior to himself: how he can display with such vanity and ostentation his regal splendor so supereminently above other mortal men; or being a Christian, can assume such extraordinary honor and worship to himself, while the kingdom of Christ our common King and Lord, is hid to this world, and such gentilish imitation forbid in express words by himself to all his disciples. All Protestants hold that Christ in his church hath left no vicegerent of his power, but himself without deputy, is the only head thereof, governing it from heaven: how then can any Christianman derive his kingship from Christ, but with worse usurpation then the Pope his headship over the church, since Christ not only hath not left the least shadow of a command for any such vicegerence from him in the State, as the Pope pretends for his in the Church, but hath expressly declared, that such regal dominion is from the gentiles, not from him, and hath strictly charged us, not to imitate them therein.

I doubt not but all ingenuous and knowing men will easily agree with me, that a free Commonwealth without single person or house of lords, is by far the best government, if it can be had; but we have all this while say they been expecting it, and cannot yet attain it. It is true indeed, when monarchy was dissolvd, the form of a Commonwealth should have forthwith been framed; and the practice thereof immediately begun; that the people might have soon been satisfied and delighted with the decent order, ease and benefit thereof: we had been then by this time firmly rooted, past fear of commotions or mutations, & now flourishing: this care of timely settling a new government instead of y ^e old, too much neglected, hath been our mischief. Yet the cause thereof may be ascribed with most reason to the frequent disturbances, interruptions and dissolutions which the Parliament hath had partly from the impatient or disaffected people, partly from some ambitious leaders in the Army; much contrary, I believe, to the mind and approbation of the Army itself and thir other Commanders, once undeceivd, or in thir own power. Now is the opportunity, now the very season wherein we may obtain a free Commonwealth and establish it forever in the land, without difficulty or much delay. Writs are sent out for elections, and which is worth observing in the name, not of any king, but of the keepers of our liberty, to summon a free Parliament: which then only will indeed be free, and deserve the true honor of that supreme title, if they preserve us a free people. Which never Parliament was more free to do; being now called, not as heretofore, by the summons of a king, but by the voice of liberty: and if the people, laying afide prejudice and impatience, will seriously and calmly now consider thir own good both religious and civil, thir own liberty and the only means thereof, as shall be here laid before them, and will elect thir Knights and Burgesses able men, and according to the just and necessary qualifications (which for aught I hear, remain yet in force unrepeald, as they were formerly decreed in Parliament) men not addicted to a single person or house of lords, the work is don; at least the foundation firmly laid of a free Commonwealth, and good part also erected of the main structure. For the ground and basis of every just and free government (since men have smarted so oft for committing all to one person) is a general council of ablest men, chosen by the people to consult of public affairs from time to time for the common good. In this Grand Council must the sovrantie, not transferrd, but delegated only, and as it were deposited, reside; with this caution they must have the forces by sea and land committed to them for preservation of the common peace and liberty; must raise and manage the public revenue, at least with some inspectors deputed for satisfaction of the people, how it is imploid; must make or propose, as more expressly shall be said anon, civil laws; treat of commerce, peace, or war with foreign nations, and for the carrying on some particular affairs with more secrecy and expedition, must elect, as they have already out of thir own number and others, a Council of State.

And although it may seem strange at first hearing, by reason that men's minds are prepossed with the notion of successive Parliaments, I affirm that the Grand or General Council being well chosen, should be perpetual: for so thir business is or may be, and oft times urgent; the opportunity of affairs gaind or lost in a moment. The day of counsel cannot be set as the day of a festival; but must be ready always to prevent or answer all occasions. By this continuance they will become every way skillfullest, best provided of intelligence from abroad, best acquainted with the people at home, and the people with them. The ship of the Commonwealth is always under sail; they sit at the stern; and if they steer well, what need is there to change them; it being rather dangerous? And to this, that the Grand Council is both foundation and main pillar of the whole State; and to move pillars and foundations, not faulty, cannot be safe for the building. I see not therefor, how we can be advantaged by successive and transitory Parliaments; but that they are much likelier continually to unsettle rather then to settle a free government; to breed commotions, changes, novelties and uncertainties; to bring neglect upon present affairs and opportunities, while all minds are suspense with expectation of a new assembly, and the assembly for a good space taken up with the new settling of itself. After which, if they find no great work to do, they will make it, by altering or repealing former acts, or making and multiplying new; that they may seem to see what thir predecessors saw not, and not to have assembld for nothing: till all law be lost in the multitude of clashing statutes. But if the ambition of such as think themselves injured that they also partake not of the government, and are impatient till they be chosen, cannot brook the perpetuity of others chosen before them, or if it be feared that long continuance of power may corrupt sincerest men, the known expedient is, and by some lately propounded, that annually (or if the space be longer, so much perhaps the better) the third part of Senators may go out according to the precedence of thir election, and the like number be chosen in thir places, to prevent the settling of too absolute a power, if it should be perpetual: and this they call partial rotation. But I could wish that this wheel or partial wheel in State, if it be possible, might be avoided; as having too much affinity with the wheel of fortune. For it appears not how this can be don, without danger and mischance of putting out a great number of the best and ablest: in whose stead new elections may bring in as many raw, unexperienc'd and otherwise affected, to the weakening and much altering for the worse of public transactions▪ Neither do I think a perpetual Senate, especially chosen and entrusted by the people, much in this land to be feared, where the well-affected either in a standing army, or in a settled militia have thir arms in thir own hands. Safest therefor to me it seems and of least hazard or interruption to affairs, that none of the Grand Council be moved, unless by death or just conviction of some crime: for what can be expected firm or steadfast from a floating foundation? however, I forejudge not any probable expedient, any temperament that can be found in things of this nature so disputable on either side. Yet least this which I affirm, be thought my single opinion, I shall add sufficient testimony. Kingship itself is therefor counted the more safe and durable, because the king and, for the most part, his council, is not changed during life: but a Commonwealth is held immortal; and therein firmest, safest and most above fortune: for the death of a king, causeth ofttimes many dangerous alterations; but the death now and then of a Senator is not felt; the main body of them still continuing permanent in greatest and noblest Commonwealths, and as it were eternal. Therefor among the Jews, the supreme council of seaventie, called the Sanhedrim, founded by Moses, in Athens, that of Areopagus, in Sparta, that of the Ancients, in Rome, the Senate, consisted of members chosen for term of life; and by that means remaind as it were still the same to generations. In Venice they change indeed ofter then every year some particular councils of State, as that of six, or such other; but the true Senate, which upholds and sustains the government, is the whole aristocracie immovable. So in the United Provinces, the States General, which are indeed but a council of st te deputed by the whole union, are not usually the same persons for above three or six years; but the States of every city, in whom the sovrantie hath been placed time out of mind, are a standing Senate, without succession, and accounted chiefly in that regard the main prop of thir liberty. And why they should be so in every well orderd Commonwealth, they who write of policy, give these reasons; "That to make the Senate successive, not only impairs the dignity and luster of the Senate, but weakens the whole Commonwealth, and brings it into manifest danger; while by this means the secrets of State are frequently divulgd, and matters of greatest consequence committed to inexpert and novice counselors, utterly to seek in the full and intimate knowledge of affairs past." I know not therefor what should be peculiar in England to make successive Parliaments thought safest, or convenient here more then in other nations, unless it be the fickl'ness which is attributed to us as we are Ilanders: but good education and acquisit wisdom ought to correct the fluxible fault, if any such be, of our watery situation. It will be objected, that in those places where they had perpetual Senats, they had also popular remedies against thir growing too imperious: as in Athens, besides Areopagus, another Senate of four or five hunderd; in Sparta, the Ephors; in Rome, the Tribunes of the people. But the event tells us, that these remedies either little availd the people, or brought them to such a licentious and unbridl'd democratie, as in fine ruind themselves with thir own excessive power. So that the main reason urged why popular assemblies are to be trusted with the people's liberty, rather then a Senate of principal men, because great men will be still endeavoring to enlarge thir power, but the common sort will be contented to maintain thir own liberty, is by experience found false; none being more immoderate and ambitious to amplify thir power, then such popularities; which was seen in the people of Rome; who at first contented to have thir Tribunes, at length contended with the Senate that one Consul, then both; soon after, that the Censors and Praetors also should be created Plebeian, and the whole empire put into their hands; adoring lastly those, who most were adverse to the Senate, till Marius by fulfilling thir inordinate desires, quite lost them all the power for which they had so long been striving, and left them under the tyranny of Sylla: the balance therefor must be exactly so set, as to preserve and keep up due authority on either side, as well in the Senate as in the people. And this annual rotation of a Senate to consist of three hunderd, as is lately propounded, requires also another popular assembly upward of a thousand, with an answerable rotation. Which besides that it will be liable to all those inconveniencies found in the foresaid remedies, cannot but be troublesome and chargeable, both in thir motion and thir session, to the whole land; unweildie with thir own bulk, unable in so great a number to mature thir consultations as they ought, if any be allotted them, and that they meet not from so many parts remote to sit a whole year lieger in one place, only now and then to hold up a forest of fingers, or to convey each man his bean or ballot into the box, without reason shewn or common deliberation; incontinent of secrets, if any be imparted to them, emulous and always jarring with the other Senate. The much better way doubtless will be in this wavering condition of our affairs, to defer the changing or circumscribing of our Senate, more then may be done with ease, till the Commonwealth be thoroughly setl'd in peace and safety, and they themselves give us the occasion. Militarie men hold it dangerous to change the form of battle in view of an enemy: neither did the people of Rome bandie with thir Senate while any of the Tarquins livd, the enemies of thir liberty, nor sought by creating Tribunes to defend themselves against the fear of thir Patricians, till sixteen years after the expulsion of thir kings, and in full security of thir state, they had or thought they had just cause given them by the Senate. Another way will be, to welqualifie and refine elections: not committing all to the noise and shouting of a rude multitude, but permitting only those of them who are rightly qualified, to nominat as many as they will; and out of that number others of a better breeding, to choose a less number more judiciously, till after a third or fourth sifting and refining of exactest choice, they only be left chosen who are the due number, and seem by most voices the worthiest. To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education, to teach the people faith not without virtue, temperance, modesty, sobriety, parsimonie, justice; not to admire wealth or honor; to hate turbulence and ambition; to place everyone his private welfare and happiness in the public peace, liberty and safety. They shall not then need to be much mistrustful of thir chosen Patriots in the Grand Council; who will be then rightly called the true keepers of our liberty, though the most of thir business will be in foreign affairs. But to prevent all mistrust, the people then will have thir several ordinary assemblies (which will henceforth quite annihilate the odious power and name of Committies) in the chief towns of every county, without the trouble, charge, or time lost of summoning and assembling from far in so great a number, and so long residing from thir own houses, or removing of thir families, to do as much at home in thir several shires, entire or subdivided, toward the securing of thir liberty, as a numerous assembly of them all formd and convened on purpose with the wariest rotation. Wher of I shall speak more ere the end of this discourse: for it may be referrd to time, so we be still going on by degrees to perfection. The people well weighing and performing these things, I suppose would have no cause to fear, though the Parliament, abolishing that name, as originally signifying but the parlie of our Lord's and Commons with thir Norman king when he pleasd to call them, should, with certain limitations of thir power, sit perpetual, if thir ends be faithful and for a free Commonwealth, under the name of a Grand or General Council. Till this be don, I am in doubt whether our State will be ever certainly and thoroughly setl'd; never likely till then to see an end of our troubles and continual changes or at least never the true settlement and assurance of our liberty. The Grand Council being thus firmly constituted to perpetuity, and still, upon the death or default of any member, suppli'd and kept in full number, there can be no cause alleag'd why peace, justice, plentiful trade and all prosperity should not thereupon ensue throughout the whole land; with as much assurance as can be of human things, that they shall so continue (if God favor us, and our willful sins provoke him not) even to the coming of our true and rightful and only to be expected King, only worthy as he is our only Savior, the Messiah, the Christ, the only heir of his eternal father, the only by him anointed and ordained since the work of our redemption finishd, Universal Lord of all mankind. The way propounded is plane, easy and open before us; without intricacies, without the introducement of new or obsolete forms, or terms, or exotic models; idea's that would effect nothing, but with a number of new injunctions to manacle the native liberty of mankind; turning all virtue into prescription, servitude, and necessity, to the great impairing and frustrating of Christian liberty: I say again, this way lies free and smooth before us; is not tangl'd with inconveniencies; invents no new incumbrances; requires no perilous, no injurious alteration or circumscription of men's lands and proprieties; secure, that in this Commonwealth, temporal and spiritual lords removed, no man or number of men can attain to such wealth or vast possession, as will need the hedge of an Agrarian law (never succesful, but the cause rather of sedition, save only where it began seasonably with first possession) to confine them from endangering our public liberty; to conclude, it can have no considerable objection made against it, that it is not practicable: least it be said hereafter, that we gave up our liberty for want of a ready way or distinct form proposed of a free Commonwealth. And this facility we shall have above our next neighbouring Commonwealth (if we can keep us from the fond conceit of something like a duke of Venice, put lately into many men's heads, by someone or other sutly driving on under that notion his own ambitious ends to lurch a crown) that our liberty shall not be hampered or hoverd over by any engagement to such a potent family as the house of Nassaw of whom to stand in perpetual doubt and suspicion, but we shall live the clearest and absolutest free nation in the world.

On the contrary, if there be a king, which the inconsiderate multitude are now so mad upon, mark how far short we are like to come of all those happiness, which in a free state we shall immediately be possessd of. First, the Grand Council, which, as I showed before, should sit perpetually (unless thir leisure give them now and then some intermissions or vacations, easily manageable by the Council of State left sitting) shall be called, by the kings good will and utmost endeavor, as seldom as may be. For it is only the king's right, he will say, to call a parliament; and this he will do most commonly about his own affairs rather then the kingdom's, as will appear plainly so soon as they are called. For what will thir business then be and the chief expense of thir time, but an endless tugging between petition of right and and royal prerogative, especially about the negative voice, militia, or subsidies, demanded and oft times extorted without reasonable cause appeering to the Commons, who are the only true representatives of the people, and thir liberty, but will be then mingl'd with a court-faction; besides which within thir own walls, the sincere part of them who stand faithful to the people, will again have to deal with two troublesome counter-working adversaries from without, mere creatures of the king, spiritual, and the greater part, as is likeliest, of temporal lords, nothing concernd with the people's liberty. If these prevail not in what they please, though never so much against the people's interest, the Parliament shall be soon dissolvd, or sit and do nothing; not suffered to remedy the least greevance, or enact aught advantageous to the people. Next, the Council of State shall not be chosen by the Parliament, but by the king, still his own creatures, courtiers and favorites; who will be sure in all thir counsels to set thir master's grandeur and absolute power, in what they are able, far above the people's liberty. I deny not but that there may be such a king, who may regard the common good before his own, may have no vicious favorite, may hearken only to the wisest and incorruptest of his Parliament: but this rarely happens in a monarchy not elective; and it behooves not a wise nation to commit the sum of thir wellbeing, the whole state of thir safety to fortune. What need they; and how absurd would it be, when as they themselves to whom his chief virtue will be but to hearken, may with much better management and dispatch, with much more commendation of thir own worth and magnanimity govern without a master. Can the folly be paralleled, to adore and be the slaves of a single person for doing that which it is ten thousand to one whether he can or will do, and we without him might do more easily, more effectually, more laudably ourselves? Shall we never grow old enough to be wise to make seasonable use of gravest authorities, experiences, examples? Is it such an unspeakable joy to serve, such felicity to wear a yoke? to clink our shackles, locked on by pretended law of subjection more intolerable and hopeless to be ever shaken off, then those which are knocked on by illegal injury and violence? Aristotle, our chief instructer in the Universities, least this doctrine be thought Sectarian, as the royalist would have it thought, tells us in the third of his Politics, that certain men at first, for the matchless excellence of thir virtue above others, or some great public benefit, were created kings by the people; in small cities and territories, and in the scarcity of others to be found like them: but when they abused thir power and governments grew larger, and the number of prudent men increasd, that then the people soon deposing thir tyrants, betook them, in all civilest places, to the form of a free Commonwealth. And why should we thus disparage and prejudicate our own nation, as to fear a scarcity of able and worthy men united in counsel to govern us, if we will but use diligence and impartiality to find them out and choose them, rather yoking ourselves to a single person, the natural adversary and oppressor of liberty, though good, yet far easier corruptible by the excess of his singular power and exaltation, or at best, not comparably sufficient to bear the weight of government, nor equally disposed to make us happy in the enjoyment of our liberty under him.

But admit, that monarchy of itself may be convenient to some nations; yet to us who have thrown it out, received back again, it cannot but prove pernicious. For kings to come, never forgetting thir former ejection, will be sure to fortify and arm themselves sufficiently for the future against all such attempts hereafter from the people: who shall be then so narrowly watchd and kep so low, that though they would never so fain and at the same rate of thir blood and treasure, they never shall be able to regain what they now have purchased and may enjoy, or to free themselves from any yoke imposed upon them: nor will they dare to go about it; utterly disheartn'd for the future, if these thir highest attempts prove unsuccesfull; which will be the triumph of all tyrants hereafter over any people that shall resist oppression; and thir song will then be, to others, how sped the rebellious English? to our posterity, how sped the rebels your fathers? This is not my conjecture, but drawn from God's known denouncement against the gentilizing Israelites; who though they were governd in a Commouwealth of God's own ordaining, he only thir king, they his peculiar people, yet affecting rather to resemble heathen, but pretending the misgovernment of Samuel's sons, no more a reason to dislike thir Commonwealth, then the violence of Eli's sons was imputable to that priesthood or religion, clamourd for a king. They had thir longing; but with this testimony of God's wrath; ye shall cry out in that day because of your king whom ye shall have chosen, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Us if he shall hear now, how much less will he hear when we cry hereafter, who once delivered by him from a king, and not without wondrous acts of his providence, insensible and unworthy of those high m •… ies, are returning precipitantly, if he withhold us not, back to the captivity from whence he freed us. Yet neither shall we obtain or buy at an easy rate this new guilded yoke which thus transports us: a new royal-revenue must be found, a new episcopal; for those are individual: both which being wholly dissipated or bought by private persons or assigned for service don, and especially to the Army, cannot be recoverd without a general detriment and confusion to men's estates, or a heavy imposition on all men's purses; benefit to none, but to the worst and ignoblest sort of men, whose hope is to be either the ministers of court riot and excess, or the gainers by it: But not to speak more of losses and extraordinary levies on our estates, what will then be the revenges and offenses rememberd and returned, not only by the chief person, but by all his adherents; accounts and reparations that will be required, suites, incitements, inquities, discoveries, complaints, informations, who knows against whom or how many, though perhaps neuters, if not to utmost infliction, yet to imprisonment, fines, banishment, or molestation; if not these, yet disfavor, discountnance, disregard and contempt on all but the known royalist or whom he favors, will be plenteous: nor let the new royaliz'd presbyterians persuade themselves that thir old doings, though now recanted, will be forgotten; what ever conditions be contrived or trusted on. Will they not believe this; nor remember the pacification, how it was kept to the Scots; how other solemn promises many a time to us? Let them but now read the diabolical forerunning libels, the faces, the gestures that now appear foremost and briskest in all public places; as the harbingers of those that are in expectation to reign over us; let them but hear the insolencies, the menaces, the insultings of our newly animated common enemies crept lately out of thir holes, thir hell, I might say, by the language of thir infernal pamphlets, the spew of every drunkard, every ribald; nameless, yet not for want of license, but for very shame of thir own vile persons, not daring to name themselves, while they traduce others by name; and give us to foresee that they intend to second thir wicked words, if ever they have power, with more wicked deeds. Let our zealous backsliders forethink now with themselves, show thir necks yok'd with these tigers of Bacchus, these new fanatics of not the preaching but the sweating-tub, inspired with nothing holier then the Venereal pox, can draw one way under monarchy to the establishing of church discipline with these new-disgorg'd atheismes: yet shall they not have the honor to yoke with these, but shall be yok'd under them; these shall plow on their backs. And do they among them who are so forward to bring in the single person, think to be by him trusted or long regarded? So trusted they shall be and so regarded, as by kings are wont reconciled enemies; neglected and soon after discarded, if not prosecuted for old traitors; the first inciters, beginners, and more then to the third part actors of all that followd; it will be found also, that there must be then as necessarily as now (for the contrary part will be still feared) a standing army; which for certain shall not be this, but of the fiercest Cavaliers, of no less expense, and perhaps again under Rupert: but let this army be sure they shall be soon disbanded, and likeliest without a • rear or pay; and being disbanded, not be sure but they may as soon be questiond for being in arms against thir king: the same let them fear, who have contributed monie; which will amount to no small number that must then take thir turn to be made delinquents and compounders. They who past reason and recovery are devoted to kingship, perhaps will answer, that a greater part by far of the Nation will have it so; the rest therefor must yield. Not so much to convince these, which I little hope, as to confirm them who yield not, I reply; that this greatest part have both in reason and the trial of just battle, lost the right of their election what the government shall be: of them who have not lost that right, whether they for kingship be the greater number, who can certainly determine? Suppose they be; yet of freedom they partake all alike, one main end of government: which if the greater part value, not, but will degeneratly forgo, is it just or reasonable, that most voices against the the main end of government should enslave the less number that would be free? More just it is doubtless, if it come to force, that a less number compel a greater to retain, which can be no wrong to them, thir liberty, then that a greater number for the pleasure of thir baseness, compel a less most injuriously to be thir fellow slaves. They who seek nothing but thir own just liberty, have always right to win it and to keep it, when ever they have power, be the voices never so numerous that oppose it. And how much we above others are concernd to defend it from kingship, and from them who in pursuance thereof so perniciously would betray us and themselves to most certain misery and thralldom, will be needless to repeat.

Having thus far shewn with what ease we may now obtain a free Commonwealth, and by it with as much ease all the freedom, peace, justice, plenty that we can desire, on the other side the difficulties, troubles, uncertainties, nay rather impossibilities to enjoy these things constantly under a monarch, I will now proceed to show more particularly wherein our freedom and flourishing condition will be more ample and secure to us under a free Commonwealth then under kingship.

The whole freedom of man consists either in spiritual or civil liberty. As for spiritual, who can be at rest, who can enjoy anything in this world with contentment, who hath not liberty to serve God and to save his own soul, according to the best light which God hath planted in him to that purpose, by the reading of his revealed will and the guidance of his holy spirit? That this is best pleasing to God, and that the whole Protestant Church allows no supreme judge or rule in matters of religion, but the scriptures, and these to be interpreted by the the scriptures themselves, which necessarily infers liberty of conscience, I have heretofore proved at large in another treatise, and might, yet further by the public declarations, confessions and admonitions of whole churches and states, obvious in all history since the Reformation.

This liberty of conscience which above all other things ought to be to all men dearest and most precious, no government more inclinable not to favor only but to protect, then a free Commonwealth; as being most magnanimous, most fearless and confident of its own fair proceedings. Whereas kingship, though looking big, yet indeed most pusillanimous, full of fears, full of jealousies, startl'd at every ombrage, as it hath been observd of old to have ever suspected most and mistrusted them who were in most esteem for virtue and generositie of mind, so it is now known to have most in doubt and suspicion them who are most reputed to be religious. Queen Elizabeth though herself accounted so good a Protestant, so moderate, so confident of her Subjects love would never give way so much as to Presbyterian rereformation in this land, though once and again besought, as Camden relates, but imprisond and persecuted the very proposers thereof; alleging it as her mind & maxim unalterable, that such reformation would diminish regal authority. What liberty of conscience can we then expect of others, far worse principl'd from the cradle, traind up and governd by Popish and Spanish counsels, and on such depending hitherto for subsistence? Especially what can this last Parliament expect, who having revived lately and publishd the covenant, have reingag'd themselves, never to readmitt Episcopacy: which no son of Charles returning, but will most certainly bring back with him, if he regard the last and strictest charge of his father, to persevere in not the doctrine only, but government of the church of England; not to neglect the speedy and effectual suppressing of errors and schisms; among which he accounted Presbyterie one of the chief: or if notwithstanding that charge of his father, he submit to the covenant, how will he keep faith to us with disobedience to him; or regard that faith given, which must be founded on the breach of that last and solemnest paternal charge, and the reluctance, I may say the antipathy which is in all kings against Presbyterian and Independent discipline? for they hear the gospel speaking much of liberty; a word which monarchy and her bishops both fear and hate, but a free Commonwealth both favors and promotes; and not the word only, but the thing itself. But let our governors beware in time▪ least thir hard measure to liberty of conscience be found the rock whereon they ship wrack themselves as others have now don before them in the cours wherein God was directing thir stearage to a free Commonwealth, and the abandoning of all those whom they call sectaries, for the detected falsehood and ambition of some, be a willful rejection of thir own chief strength and interest in the freedom of all Protestant religion, under what abusive name soever calumniated.

The other part of our freedom consists in the civil rights and advancements of every person according to his merit: the enjoyment of those never more certain, and the access to these never more open, then in a free Commonwealth. Both which in my opinion may be best and soonest obtained, if every county in the land were made a kind of subordinate Commonaltie or Commonwealth, and one chief town or more, according as the shire is in circuit, made cities, if they be not so called already; where the nobility and chief gentry from a proportionable compass of territory annexd to each city, may build, houses or palaces, befitting thir quality, may bear part in the government, make thir own judicial laws, or use these that are, and execute them by thir own elected judicatures and judges without appeal, in all things of civil government between man and man. so they shall have justice in thir own hands, law executed fully and finally in thir own counties and precincts, long wishd, and spoken of, but never yet obtained; they shall have none then to blame but themselves, if it be not well administerd; and fewer laws to expect or fear from the supreme authority; or to those that shall be made, of any great concernment to public liberty, they may without much trouble in these commonalties or in more general assemblies called to thir cities from the whole territory on such occasion, declare and publish thir assent or dissent by deputies within a time limited sent to the Grand Council: yet so as this thir judgment declared shall submit to the greater number of other counties or commonalties, and not avail them to any exemption of themselves, or refusal of agreement with the rest, as it may in any of the United Provinces, being sovran within itself, oft times to the great disadvantage of that union. In these employments they may much better then they do now, exercise and fit themselves, till thir lot fall to be chosen into the Grand Council, according as thir worth and merit shall be taken notice of by the people. As for controversies that shall happen between men of several counties, they may repair, as they do now, to the capital city, or any other more commodious, indifferent place and equal judges. And this I find to have been practisd in the old Athenian Commonwealth, reputed the first and ancientest place of civility in all Greece; that they had in thir several cities, a peculiar; in Athens, a common government; and thir right, as it befell them, to the administration of both. They should have here also schools and academies at thir own choice, wherein thir children may be bred up in thir own sight to all learning and noble education not in grammar only, but in all liberal ars and exercises. This would soon spread much more knowledge and civility, yea religion through all parts of the land, by communicating the natural heat of government and culture more distributively to all extreme parts, which now lie numm and neglected, would soon make the whole nation more industrious, more ingenuous at home, more potent, more honorable abroad. To this a free Commonwealth will easily assent; (nay the Parliament hath had already some such thing in design) for of all governments 〈◊〉 Commonwealth aims most to make the people flourishing, virtuous, noble and high spirited. Monarchs will never permit: whose aim is to make the people, wealthy indeed perhaps and well fleecit, for thir own she • ing and the supply of regal prodigality; but otherwise softest, basest, vitiousest, servilest, easiest to be kept under; and not only in fleece, • ut in mind also sheepishest; and will have all the benches of judicature annexd to the throne, as a gift of royal grace that we have justice don us; when as nothing can be more essential to the freedom of a people, then to have the administration of justice and all public ornaments in thir own election and within thir own bounds, without long travelling or depending on remote places to obtain thir right or any civil accomplishment; so it be not supreme, but subordinate to the general power and union of the whole Republic. In which happy firmness as in the particular above mentiond, we shall also far exce •… the United Provinces, by having, not as they (to the retarding and distracting oft times of thir counsels or urgentest occasions) many Sovranties united in one Commonwealth, but many Commonwealths under one united and entrusted Sovrantie. And when we have our forces by sea and land, either of a faithful Army or a setl'd Militia, in our own hands to the firm establishing of a free Commonwealth, public accounts under our own inspection, general laws and taxes with thir causes in our own domestic suffrages, judicial laws, offices and ornaments at home in our own ordering and administration, all distinction of lords and commoners, that may any way divide or sever the public interest, removed, what can a perpetual senat have then wherein to grow corrupt, wherein to encroach upon us or usurp; or if they do, wherein to be formidable? Yet if all this avail not to remove the fear or envy of a perpetual sitting, it may be easily provided, to change a third part of them yearly or every two or three years, as was above mentiond; or that it be at those times in the people's choice, whether they will change them, or renew thir power, as they shall find cause.

I have no more to say at present: few words will save us, well considerd; few and easy things, now seasonably don. But if the people be so affected, as to prostitute religion and liberty to the vain and groundless apprehension, that nothing but kingship can restore trade, not remembering the frequent plagues and pestilences that then wasted this city, such as through God's mercy we never have felt since, and that trade flourishes nowhere more then in the free Commonwealths of Italy, Germany, and the Low-Countries before thir eyes at this day, yet if trade be grown so craving and importunate through the profuse living of tradesmen, that nothing can support it, but the luxurious expenses of a nation upon trifles or superfluities, so as if the people generally should betake themselves to frugality, it might prove a dangerous matter, least tradesmen should mutiny for want of trading, and that therefor we must forgo & set to sale religion, liberty, honor, safety, all concernments Divine or human to keep up trading, if lastly, after all this light among us, the same reason shall pass for current to put our necks again under kingship, as was made use of by the Jews to return back to Egypt and to the worship of thir idol queen, because they falsely imagind that they then livd in more plenty and prosperity, our condition is not sound but rotten, both in religion and all civil prudence; and will bring us soon, the way we are marching, to those calamities which attend always and unavoidably on luxury, all national judgments under foreign or domestic slavery: so far we shall be from mending our condition by monarchizing our government, whatever new conceit now possesses us. However with all hazard I have ventured what I thought my duty to speak in season, and to forewarn my country in time: wherein I doubt not but there be many wise men in all places and degrees, but am sorry the effects of wisdom are so little seen among us. Many circumstances and particulars I could have added in those things whereof I have spoken; but a few main matters now put speedily in execution, will suffice to recover us, and set all right: and there will want at no time who are good at circumstances; but men who set thir minds on main matters and sufficiently urge them, in these most difficult times I find not many. What I have spoken, is the language of that which is not called amiss the good Old Cause: if it seem strange to any, it will not seem more strange, I hope, then convincing to backsliders. Thus much I should perhaps have said though I were sure I should have spoken only to trees and stones; and had none to cry to, but with the Prophet, O earth, earth, earth! to tell the very soil itself, what her perverse inhabitants are deaf to. Nay though what I have spoke, should happ'n (which Thou suffer not, who didst create mankind free; nor Thou next, who didst redeem us from being servants of men!) to be the last words of our expiring liberty. But I trust I shall have spoken persuasion to abundance of sensible and ingenuous men: to some perhaps whom God may raise of these stones to become children of reviving liberty; and may reclaim, though they seem now choosing them a captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves a little and consider whether they are rushing; to exhort this torrent also of the people, not to be so impetuos, but to keep thir due channel; and at length recovering and uniting thir better resolutions, now that they see already how open and unbounded the insolence and rage is of our common enemies, to stay these ruinous proceedings; justly and timely fearing to what a precipice of destruction the deluge of this epidemic madness would hurrie us through the general defection of a misguided and abused multitude.