[The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 by David Masson]@TWC D-Link book
The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660

CHAPTER II
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I presume not to give my censure on this action,--not knowing, as yet I do not, the bottom of it.

I speak only what it appears to us without doors till better cause be declared, and I am sure to all other nations,--most illegal and scandalous, I fear me barbarous, or rather scarce to be exampled among any Barbarians, that a paid Army should, for no other cause, thus subdue the Supreme Power that set them up.

This, I say, other nations will judge to the sad dishonour of that Army, lately so renowned for the civilest and best-ordered in the world, and by us here at home for the most conscientious.

Certainly, if the great officers and soldiers of the Holland, French, or Venetian forces should thus sit in council and write from garrison to garrison against their superiors, they might as easily reduce the King of France, or Duke of Venice, and put the United Provinces in like disorder and confusion." He adds more in the same strain, and calls upon the Army, as one "jealous of their honour," to "manifest and publish with all speed some better cause of these their late actions than hath hitherto appeared, and to find out the Achan amongst them whose close ambition in all likelihood abuses their honest natures against their meaning to these disorders,"-- in other words, to disown and denounce Lambert.
But, having thus delivered his conscience on the subject of the second dismission of the Rump, he declares farther complaint to be useless, and proceeds to inquire what is now to be done.
"Being now in anarchy, without a counselling and governing power, and the Army, I suppose, finding themselves insufficient to discharge at once both military and civil affairs, the first thing to be found out with all speed, without which no Commonwealth can subsist, must be a SENATE or GENERAL COUNCIL OF STATE, in whom must be the power first to preserve the public peace, next the commerce with foreign nations, and lastly to raise moneys for the management of these affairs.

This must either be the [Rump] Parliament readmitted to sit, or a Council of State allowed of by the Army, since they only now have the power.
The terms to be stood on are _Liberty of Conscience to all professing Scripture to be the Rule of their Faith and Worship_ and the _Abjuration of a Single Person_.


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