If the [Rump] Parliament be again thought on, to salve honour on both sides, the well-affected party of the City and the Congregated Churches may be induced to mediate by public addresses and brotherly beseechings; which, if there be that saintship among us which is talked of, ought to be of highest and undeniable persuasion to reconcilement.

If the Parliament be thought well dissolved, _as not complying fully to grant Liberty of Conscience, and the necessary consequence thereof, the Removal of a forced Maintenance from Ministers_ [Milton's own sole dissatisfaction with the Restored Rump], then must the Army forthwith choose a Council of State, whereof as many to be of the Parliament as are undoubtedly affected to these two conditions proposed.

That which I conceive only able to cement and unite the Army either to the Parliament recalled or this chosen Council must be a mutual League and Oath, private or public, not to desert one another till death: that is to say that the Army be kept up and all these Officers in their places during life, and so likewise the Parliament or Councillors of State; which will be no way unjust, considering their known merits on either side, in Council or in Field, unless any be found false to any of these two principles, or otherwise personally criminous in the judgment of both parties.

If such a union as this be not accepted on the Army's part, be confident there is a Single Person underneath.

That the Army be upheld the necessity of our affairs and factions will [at any rate] constrain long enough perhaps to content the longest liver in the Army.