them.
But if the essential end of Rulers be the Common peace, and their Lawes
obliging as they become relative: Restore us then to those under which we
lived with so much sweetness and tranquility, as no age in the World, no
Government under Heaven could ever pretend the like. And if the People (as
you declare) are to be the Judges of it, summon them together in a Free
Parliament, according to its legal Constitution; or make a universal
_Balott_, and then let it appear, if _Collonel Lambert_ and half a dozen
Officers, with all their seduced Partizans, make so much as a single
_Cypher_ to the _Summe Total_. And this shall be enough to answer those
devious Principles set down in the porch of that specious Edifice; which
being erected upon the Sand, will (like the rest that has been _daubed
with untempered mortar_) sink also at the next high wind that blowes upon
it. But I am glad it is at last avowed, upon what pretexts that late
pretended Parliament have pleaded on the behalf of themselves and party,
their discharge from all the former Protestations, Engagements, solemn
Vowes, Covenants, with hands (as you say) lift up to the most high God, as
also their Oaths and Allegiance, &c. because I shall not in this discourse
be charged with slandering of them, and that the whole World may detest
the Actions of such perfidious Infidels, with whom nothing sacred has
remain'd inviolable.
But there is yet a piece of Artifice behind, of no less consequence then
the former, and that is, a seeking to perswade the present Army, that
_They_ were the men, who first engaged thus solemnly to destroy the
Government under which they were born, and reduce it to this miserable
condition: whereas it is well known by such as converse daily with them,
that there is hardly one of ten amongst them, who was then in Armes; and
that it was the Zelots under _Essex_, and the succeeding Generals, who
were the persons whose perfidiousness{2} he makes so much use of, and that
the present Army consists of a far more ingenuous spirit, and might in one
moment vindicate this aspersion, make their conditions with all advantage,
and these Nations the most happy People upon the Earth, as it cannot be
despaired but they will one day do, when by the goodness of Almighty God,
they shall perfectly discern through the mist which you have cast upon
their eyes, lest they should discover the Imposture of these _Egyptian_
Sorcerers.
And now, _Sir_, if after all this
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