eak truth less they anger other men; likewise
all who are wholly given to pleasure and sports, or men who are
full of talk: all these are empty of substance and cannot be
experienced men, therefore not fit to be chosen Officers in a
Commonwealth--yet they may have a voice in the choosing.

"_Secondly_, All those who are interested in the Monarchial Power
and Government, ought neither to choose nor to be chosen Officers
to manage Commonwealth's affairs; for these cannot be friends to
Common Freedom.... But seeing that few of the Parliament's friends
understand their Common Freedom, though they own the name
Commonwealth, therefore the Parliament's Party ought to bear with
the ignorance of the King's Party, because they are Bretheren, and
not make them servants, though for the present they be suffered
neither to choose nor be chosen Officers, lest that ignorant spirit
of revenge break out in them to interrupt our common peace.

"Moreover, All those who have been so hasty to buy and sell the
Commonwealth's Land, and so to entangle it upon a new accompt,
ought neither to choose nor be chosen Officers. For hereby they
declare themselves either to be for kingly interest, or else are
ignorant of Commonwealth's Freedom, or both, therefore unfit to
make Laws to govern a Free Commonwealth, or to be Overseers to see
those laws executed. What greater injury could be done to the
Commoners of England than to sell away their Land so hastily,
before the people knew where they were, or what Freedom they had
got by such cost and bloodshed as they were at? And what greater
ignorance could be declared by Officers than to sell away the
purchased Land from the purchasers, or from part of them, into the
hands of particular men to uphold Monarchial Principles?

"But though this be a fault, let it be borne withal, it was
ignorance of Bretheren; for England hath lain so long under kingly
slavery that few knew what Common Freedom was; and let a
restoration of this redeemed land be speedily made by those who
have possession of it. For there is neither Reason nor Equity that
a few men should go away with that Land and Freedom which the whole
Commoners have paid taxes, free-quarter, and wasted their estates,
healths and blood, to purchase out of bondage, and many of them are