others beside him have likewise seen the like feat done, and not in jest. Yet he proved on, and it was so yielded by the king himself, and all his sages, that neither wine, nor women, nor the king, but truth of all other things was the strongest.

For me, though neither asked, nor in a nation that gives such rewards to wisdom, I shall pronounce my sentence somewhat different from Zorobabel; and shall defend that either truth and justice are all one, (for truth is but justice in our knowledge, and justice is but truth in our practice;) and he indeed so explains himself, in saying that with truth is no accepting of persons, which is the property of justice, or else if there be any odds, that justice, though not stronger than truth, yet by her office, is to put forth and exhibit more strength in the affairs of mankind.

For

truth is properly no more than contemplation; and her utmost efficiency is but teaching: but justice in her very essence is all strength and activity; and hath a sword put into her hand, to use against all violence and oppression on the earth. She it is most truly, who accepts no person, and exempts none from the severity of her stroke. She never suffers injury to prevail, but when falsehood first prevails over truth; and that also is a kind of justice done on them who are so deluded. Though wicked kings and tyrants counterfeit her sword, as some did that buckler fabled to fall from heaven into the capitol, yet she communicates her power to none but such as, like herself, are just, or at least will do justice. For it were extreme partiality and justice, the flat denial and overthrow of herself, to put her own authentic sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked man, or so far to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals, that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men transgressing, and not receive like punishment from men, when he himself shall be found the highest transgressor.

We may conclude, therefore, that justice, above all other things, is and ought to be the strongest; she is the strength, the kingdom, the power, and majesty of all ages. Truth herself would subscribe to this, though Darius and all the monarchs of the world should deny. And if by sentence thus written it were my happiness to set free the minds of Englishmen from longing to return poorly under that captivity of kings from which the strength and supreme |

sword of justice hath delivered them, I shail have done a work not much inferior to that of Zorobabel; who, by well-praising and extolling the force of truth, in that contem- . plative strength conquered Darius, and freed his country and the people of God from the captivity of Babylon. Which I shall yet not despair to do, if they in this land whose minds are yet captive be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the strength and supremacy of justice, as that heathen king was to confess the strength of truth: or let them but, as he did, grant that, and they will soon perceive that truth resigns all her outward strength to justice: justice therefore must needs be strongest, both in her own, and in the strength of truth. But if a king may do among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure, and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men, then, contrary to the magnified wisdom of Zorobabel, neither truth nor justice, but the king, is strongest of all other things, which that Persian monarch himself, in the midst of all his pride and glory, durst not assume.

A FREE COMMONWEALTH

[From A Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, 1660]

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 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 histories since the reformation.

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 than 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 commonalty 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 annexed to each city, may build houses or palaces befitting their quality; may bear part in the government, make their own judicial laws, or use those that are, and execute them by their own elected judicatures and judges without appeal, in all things of civil government between man and man. So they shall have justice in their own hands, law executed fully and finally in their own counties and precincts, long wished and spoken of but never yet obtained. They shall have none then to blame but themselves, if it be not well administered; 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 their cities from the whole territory on such occasion, declare and publish their assent or dissent by deputies, within a time limited, sent to the grand council; yet so as this their 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 sovereign within itself, ofttimes to the great disadvantage of that union.

In these employments they may, much better than they do now, exercise and fit themselves till their lot fall to be chosen into the grand council, according as their 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 practiced in the old Athenian commonwealth, reputed the first and ancientest place of civility in all Greece; that they had in their several cities a peculiar, in Athens a common government, and their right as it befell them to the administration of both.

They should have here also schools and academies at their own choice, wherein their children may be bred up in their own sight to all learning and noble education; not in

grammar only, but in all liberal arts 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 numb and neglected; would soon make the whole nation more industrious, more ingenious 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 a 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 fleeced, for their own shearing, and the supply of regal prodigality; but otherwise softest, basest, viciousest, servilest, easiest to be kept under. And not only in fleece, but in mind also sheepishest ; and will have all the benches of judicature annexed to the throne, as a gift of royal grace, that we have justice done us; whenas nothing can be more essential to the freedom of a people than to have the administration of justice and all public ornaments in their own election and within their own bounds, without long traveling or depending upon remote places to obtain their 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-mentioned we shall also far exceed the United Provinces, by having not as they, (to the retarding and distracting ofttimes of their counsels or urgentest occasions,) many sovereignties united in one commonwealth, but many commonwealths under one united and intrusted sovereignty. And when we have our forces by sea and land either of a faithful army or a settled militia in our own hands, to the firm establishing of a free commonwealth, public accounts under our own inspection, general laws, and taxes, with their 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 senate 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 mentioned; or that it be at those times in the

people's choice, whether they will change them, or renew their power, as they shall find cause.

ON THE DETRACTION WHICH FOLLOWED UPON MY WRITING CERTAIN TREATISES

A book was writ of late called Tetrachordon,

And woven close, both matter, form, and style;

The subject new: it walked the town a while,

Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on.

Cries the stall-reader, "Bless us! what a word on

A title-page is this!"; and some in file Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile

End Green. Why, is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,

Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?

Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek

That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.

Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheek,

Hated not learning worse than toad or asp, *

When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek.

ON THE SAME

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When straight a barbarous noise environs

me

Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs;

As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs

Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny, Which after held the sun and moon in fee.

But this is got by casting pearl to hogs, That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

And still revolt when truth would set them free.

License they mean when they cry liberty;

For who loves that must first be wise and

good:

But from that mark how far they rove

we see,

For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.

ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT

Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord,

And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,

To seize the widowed whore Plurality From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred,

Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword To force our consciences that Christ set free,

And ride us with a Classic Hierarchy, Taught ye by mere A.S. and Rutherford?

Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent,

Would have been held in high esteem with Paul

Must now be named and printed heretics By shallow Edwards and Scotch What-d'yecall!

But we do hope to find out all your tricks, Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent,

That so the Parliament May with their wholesome and preventive shears

Clip your phylacteries, though baulk your

Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plowed,

And on the neck of crownèd Fortune proud Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued,

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued,

And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud,

And Worcester's laureate wreath: yet much remains

To conquer still; peace hath her victories No less renowned than war: new foes arise,

Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.

Help us to save free conscience from the paw

Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their

maw.

ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,

Forget not in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow

O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way,

Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

THE NATION'S PROTEST (PIEDMONT)' To the Most Serene and Potent Prince, Louis, King of France.

1 "An emphatic State-Letter; which Oliver Cromwell meant, and John Milton thought and wrote into words; not unworthy to be read."Carlyle.

Most Serene and Potent King, Most Close Friend and Ally,-Your Majesty may recollect that during the negotiations between us for the renewing of our League (which many advantages to both nations, and much damage to their common enemies, resulting therefrom, now testify to have been wisely done), there fell out that miserable slaughter of the people of the valleys; whose cause, on all sides deserted, and trodden down, we, with the utmost earnestness and pity, recommended to your mercy and protection. Nor do we think your Majesty, for your own part, has been wanting in an office so pious and indeed so human, in so far as either by authority or favor you might have influence with the Duke of Savoy: we certainly, and many other Princes and States, by embassies, by letters, by entreaties directed hither, have not been wanting.

After that most sanguinary massacre, which spared no age nor either sex, there was at last a peace given; or rather, under the specious name of peace, a certain more disguised hostility. The terms of peace were settled in your town of Pignerol: hard terms; but such as these poor people indigent and wretched, after suffering al manner of cruelties and atrocities, might gladly acquiesce in; if only, hard and unjust as the bargain is, it were adhered to. It is not adhered to: those terms are broken; the purport of every one of them is, by