The Honest Design: OR, The true COMMONWEALTHS-MAN; Offering a Word in this Juncture of time, In dorder to a SETTLEMENT.  
Not unworthy the perusal of the General Council of The OFFICERS of the ARMY.  PROV. 14.34. 
Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin in a reproach to any people.  
LONDON: Printed for L. Chapman at the Crown in Popes-Head-Ally, 1659. may 2d   

THE HONEST design.  
PEace is the Daughter of War, cut out of her belly by the Sword: the Mother indeed is injurious and hateful, but the daughter is beloved; and may recompense these injuries, if we can but be as wise in using, as getting our Victories.  
A settlement consists in three things; Religion, Laws, and Liberties.  
For Religion, as Christians, we can be content to know our bounds, and submit to the Scriptures, if but rightly administered by moderate spirits. We hardly find Religion a thing to be debated by the Sword, but by the keys; only for matter of Discipline, we conceive such an indifferency in it, that we shall give way to any, that will most pliably conduce to our honest intents and the public safety; desiring truly to resent, that a meddling about this, may have been the just forfeiture of our best hopes, and late advantages.  
For matter of Laws, which should be rectified all to the good of the people, we profess that herein alone lies the life and being of that Reformation, which can requited, and answer what the Sword hath done.  
There is two parts of the Law; the Nomothetical part, which comprehends the Magistrate and all due justice; and this we solemnly honour, even for Conscience sake, Rom. 13. And the Eristical part, which is merely a very trade, driven on for the maintenance of the Lawyer, and the number that depends upon him, who like those Priests rejected of the Lord, Hos. 4.8. do eat up( or live upon) the sins of the people. Now these Law-contentions are either in things of a permanent nature, as matters of right in all manner of possessions, which we conceive capable of an undeclinable, easy Rule, subject no more unto controversy: or in things of a contingent nature, as matters of fact about words or actions; which being variable, and not to be pre-vided, must of necessity be left in a great part arbitrary.  
For things permanent, as all matters of possession; This we judge, mainly worth the undertaking, that all men may enjoy their own alike, that there might be but one kind of meum & tuum throughout the Land; without which, what are our Houses but as the brick and straw of Egypt? and what availeth it, to have Lands, though of inheritance( as many such Copy-holds there bee) when we must become slaves in the very buying, and holding of them? we resolve therefore, all tenors ought to be reduced to one, that which is freest, surest, and best for all parties. Let our Possessions be our own, as the writings are our own, as our Goods, and all things else we have are our own. How is our Food and Raiment ours? do we hold our clothes in Soccage, and eat by Copy? Let us have propriety, and but one way in England, of having things honestly our own; and the upon any dealing or making over House or Lands, let there be but certain appointed Courts for the registering all is done, and nothing valid, otherwise: certainly a very plain course( upon a few consideration and clauses that are due) might be taken, to end all Suits( were our heads one emptied of Law-quillets) and give us a quietus est in matters of possession for ever. Nay suppose all Purchases but a Parish-business. The first Church-Warden propounds, There is such a purpose of a bargain between A. and B. A. says openly, I sell such a House or Land to B. B. answers, And I buy the same of A. Then suppose the second Church-Warden reads the bargain briefly written, and says to both, Do you agree to this? both answer, We agree. Then let the Register pronounce the contract before the people, and we dare avouch, if the putting off the shoo only among the Jews in public, was a right unquestionable, Ruth 4.7. the present living knowledge of each place, might decide all Cases in their respective bounds, and we should give the Lawyers leave to get our Wives, as soon as pick a flaw in such a title.  
For things contingent, as all trespass or quarrels about words and actions. In every Shire there are several divisions; in each of them, let there be yearly chosen by the people, certain persons, Elders, able men, such as fear God,( Exod. 18.21.) men of truth, hating covetousness, for the patronage of justice. Let them have their monthly Sessions, and appoint other meeting at their pleasure; whither, as they shall have power to call all complaints, and determine them, as soon as they have heard both sides, without delay or charge; so all the honest Gentlemen that resort, shall be admitted into present counsel with them, that they may be ashamed to do injustice in the face of so many, and train up others by their righteousness. We think it fit there be the greatest liberty allowed them( that is safe) in their judgements, that they may not do us right only by book and rote, but by an acquired habit, and heart intent on equity. Especially this we account most necessary, that they may use their wisdom wholly, in appropriating penalties to present facts, limited only in the general heads( that they may not exceed) to proportionable retaliations: that so they may always study to approve themselves more and more worthy, in such new examples and pieces of equity, that the rarity may bring the ingenious spirits together to exercise their Counsels, and make them famous in the Roll of the Peoples honours, in whose free Votes and successive elections, should lie the hopes of all advancement. This is a way not only to keep the people in unity and peace, but to employ our Nobler families( now idle) in the study and emulation, who shall be most righteously active and excogitative for their Country. And herein, let there be no Appeal admitted, if once a Cause is adjudged, but only to the Parliament, where we shall prefer the worthy( 〈◇〉, with Sabinus) trained up by this inferior Judicature, and strictly call to account those that dare once to be corrupted; accounting no baseness like the villainy of unrighteousness; and no honour like that which makes men Gods in office, whilst we seek to imitate heaven in uprightness, and be the first that bring in our Kingdom, to become one of the Kingdoms of the Lord Jesus.  
For our Liberties. There have been several Petitions and overtures of late years about the removing Impropriations, the settling of the Ministry out of Suits, and a multitude of the like, which we account are to be collected by such as God shall make wise-hearted to the common good, and then we to stand by them; earnestly wishing such a self-denying Representative, who being well known in the perplexities and corruptions of our Law, and having some feeling of our inferior burdens, may be quiter out of love with the same, and so be able to sift away the Levellers bran and dross from those finer parts of righteousness, in whose establishment we see but little danger, and certain happiness.  
This is the sum of that Good Old Cause( populi salus & utilitas) which we desire may be( a little more rightly) set again afoot amongst us; and it may at last happily find acceptance with good men: Whereof we may however, we think, take up no other then the words of Achish to David: Surely, as the Lord liveth, thou hast been upright, and thy going out and coming in with us in the host, is good in my sight: for I have not found evil in thee, since the day of thy coming in to me; nevertheless the lords favour thee not.  
If there be any profession that makes others poor to enrich itself, such a one suits not a Commonwealth.  Oliver cromwell. 
The happy estate of a well-ordered Commonwealth, is, where all other things being equally common, precedency is measured, and preferment suited according to virtue and desert, and the contrary according to 'vice.  Anacharsis. 
Righteousness exalteth a nation.  Solomon.  
FINIS.