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epublic; and the plans of imaginary republics, for the settlement of the state, were every day the topics of conversation among these armed legislators. Royalty it was agreed to abolish: nobility must be set aside: even all ranks of men be levelled; and a universal equality of property, as well as of power, be introduced among the citizens. The saints, they said, were the salt of the earth: an entire parity had place among the elect; and by the same rule that the apostles were exalted from the most ignoble professions, the meanest sentinel, if enlightened by the Spirit, was entitled to equal regard with the greatest commander. In order to wean the soldiers from these, licentious maxims, Cromwell had issued orders for discontinuing the meetings of the agitators; and he pretended to pay entire obedience to the parliament, whom being now fully reduced to subjection, he purposed to make for the future, the instruments of his authority. But the "levellers,"--for so that party in the army was called,--having experienced the sweets of dominion, would not so easily be deprived of it. They secretly continued their meetings: they asserted, that their officers, as much as any part of the church or state, needed reformation: several regiments joined in seditious remonstrances and petitions:[*] separate rendezvouses were concerted; and every thing tended to anarchy and confusion. But this distemper was soon cured by the rough but dexterous hand of Cromwell. He chose the opportunity of a review, that he might display the greater boldness, and spread the terror the wider. He seized the ringleaders before their companions; held in the field a council of war; shot one mutineer instantly; and struck such dread into the rest, that they presently threw down the symbols of sedition, which they had displayed, and thenceforth returned to their wonted discipline and obedience.[**] Cromwell had great deference for the counsels of Ireton, a man who, having grafted the soldier on the lawyer the statesman on the saint, had adopted such principles as were fitted to introduce the severest tyranny, while they seemed to encourage the most unbounded license in human society. Fierce in his nature, though probably sincere in his intentions, he purposed by arbitrary power to establish liberty, and, in prosecution of his imagined religious purposes, he thought himself dispensed from all the ordinary rules of morality, by which inferior mortals must allow
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