argument for the permanence
of the Supreme Governing Body, with illustrations from the
Sanhedrim of the Jews, the Areopagus of Athens, the Senates of
Lacedaemon and Home, the full Venetian Senate, and the
States-General of the United Provinces]. I know not therefore what
should be peculiar in England to make successive Parliaments
thought safest, or convenient here more than in all other nations,
unless it be the fickleness which is attributed to us as we are
Islanders. But good education and acquisite wisdom ought to correct
the fluxible fault, if any such be, of our watery situation. I
suppose therefore that the people, well weighing these things,
would have no cause to fear or murmur, though the Parliament,
abolishing that name, as originally signifying but the
_parley_ of our Commons with their Norman King when he pleased
to call them, should perpetuate themselves, if their ends be
faithful and for a free Commonwealth, under the name of a GRAND OR
GENERAL COUNCIL: nay, till this be done, I am in doubt whether our
State will be ever certainly and thoroughly settled.... The GRAND
COUNCIL being thus firmly constituted to perpetuity, and still upon
the death or default of any member supplied and kept in full
number, there can be no cause alleged why peace, justice, plentiful
trade, and all prosperity, should not thereupon ensue throughout
the whole land, with as much assurance as can be of human things
that they shall so continue (if God favour us and our wilful sins
provoke Him not) even, to the coming of our true and rightful and
only to be expected King, only worthy as He is our only Saviour,
the Messiah, the Christ, the only heir of his Eternal Father, the
only by Him anointed and ordained, since the work of our redemption
finished, Universal Lord of all mankind. The way propounded is
plain, easy, and open before us, without intricacies, without the
mixture of inconveniences, or any considerable objection to be
made, as by some frivolously, that it is not practicable. And this
facility we shall have above our next neighbouring Commonwealth (if
we can keep us from the fond conceit of something like a Duke of
Venice, put lately into many men's heads by some one or other
subtly driving on, under that pretty notion, his own ambitious ends
to a crown),[1] that our liberty shall not be hampered or hovered
over by any engagement to such a potent fami