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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93715	A modest plea for an equal common-wealth against monarchy. In which the genuine nature and true interest of a free-state is briefly stated: its consistency with a national clergy, mercenary lawyers, and hereditary nobility examined; together with the expediency of an agrarian and rotation of offices asserted. Also, an apology for younger brothers, the restitution of gavil-kind, and relief of the poor. With a lift at tythes, and reformation of the lawes and universities. All accommodated to publick honour and justice, without injury to any mans propriety, and humbly tendered to the Parliament. By a lover of his country in order to the healing the divisions of the times.	Sprigg, William, fl. 1657.	1659 (1659)	Wing S5078; Thomason E999_11; ESTC R203651	64,567	117

A Modest Plea FOR AN Equal Common-wealth Against MONARCHY In which the Genuine Nature and true Interest of a FREE-STATE is briefly stated Its Consistency with a National Clergy Mercenary Lawyers and Hereditary Nobility examined together with the Expediency of an Agrarian and Rotation of Offices asserted ALSO An Apology for Younger Brothers the Restitution of Gavil-kind and relief of the Poor With a lift at Tythes and Reformation of the Lawes and Universities All accommodated to publick Honour and Justice without injury to any Mans Propriety and humbly tendered to the Parliament By a Lover of his COUNTRY in order to the Healing the Divisions of the Times In the Multitude of Counsellors there is safety LONDON Printed for Giles Calvert at the Black-spread-Eagle at the West End of Pauls 1659. To The Right Honourable The High Court of PARLIAMENT The Supream Authority of the Three Nations Right Honorable BEing moved to give in a Testimony against the most Epidemical Abuses and corrupt Interests of the Times I know none to whom with more justice it might be Dedicated than your Honours whom the providence of God hath called to be our Reformers into whose hands God hath pleased to put a great price an opportunity of making this Nation the happiest in the World In order to which he hath also pav'd your way causing the Hills to melt like Wax and the Mountains to dissolve like Snow before you having smitten the Great ones of the Earth and caused Princes to fall at your feet and removed whatsoever stood before you or might in the least obstruct or retard the work of Reformation so that no man can any longer say There is a Lion in the way God hath put the Nation like wax into your hands that you may mould and cast it into what Form your Honours please We are now Rasa tabula and your Honours may write what you please upon us I hope it will be holiness to the Lord that we may for the future be truly term'd a Holy Common-wealth and Royal Priesthood unto God It was not for nought the Lord raised your Honours as from the Dead and restored you to the Administration of that Power that was so long detained in unrighteousness from you without doubt God hath some great worke for you And now behold the Expectations of all men are upon you all the Nations of the Earth are looking to see what your Honours will do for whom God hath wrought so many wonders whom God hath Crowned with so many signal Victories for whom God hath so often appeared in the High Places of the Field making bare the Arm of his Power and rebuking the pride of your Enemies God hath also sent a day of Tryal that the falshood and Hipocrisie of many might be discovered that all corrupt interests and Persons might be made manifest And they that were not of you are gone out from among you they that were not spirited for the Great Worke of the Lord that having put their hands to this Plow looked back and behold they are turned to Pillars of Salt God hath made them Monuments of his disple●sure and blasted their designs But the Hearts of Gods People are still with you and their Hands even the Hands of Moses and of Israel are lifed up in your defence Also God is with you And who then shall be against you I need not now desire of your Honours not to build on old Foundations I know your Honours experience hath taught you they will not they cannot stand Our Common-wealth hath stuck long in the birth and the Nation been cast into strong Pangs and Throwes in bringing forth our Liberties and it seems could not be Delivered altogether without blood But we hope now through the dexterous midwifery of your Honours Prudence what hath been so long expected will be brought forth a●d that we and Posterity shall have cause to bless God in behalf of your Honours as for the Builders of our Breaches and the Restorers of Pathes to dwel in It was not intended that this Pamphlet should fawn upon your Honours in the midst of your Triumphs being most part of it committed to the Press before the breaking forth of the late Rebellion when the Author little thought his Thesis should so soon be disputed with swords points and decided in so solemn an Appeal to Heaven where it hath been imprisoned till now by the injury of the Printer But if your Honours please to receive it into your Protection and pardon the boldness of this address to your Honours it will oblige the Author to study how he may better deserve the Countenance of your Authority and render himselfe more serviceable to your Honours to whom he hath in all Humility devoted himselfe c. An Epistle to the Reader Candid Reader BEing in Capacity of doing my Country no greater service I have presented her with a Glass or Mirror in which a candid and discerning eye may discover some of the Political Errata's or Wens that disfigure the Face and crase the constitution of her Government which I humbly conceive proceeds chiefly from the lameness and imperfection of our late Reformation in which though we have for a long time been strugling and wrestling with Tyranny and Oppression yet have had our endeavours seconded with little better success then were Hercules's that famous Hero's incounters with the Hydra of which having lopp'd off one Head there still sprang up two in like manner we were willing to flatter our selves into a conceit that Tyranny had received a mortal wound by that fatal stroke that took off the Kings Head and unhorsed the Nobility But experience the Mistress of true wisdome hath taught it is not lopping the boughs or cutting off the top branch of Monarchy that will deliver a Nation from bondage unless the Ax be laid to the root thereof to the evil root of bitterness whence springs all our misery to the root of every usurping and domineering interest whether in things Civil or Divine for otherwise we do but prune dress and culturate the stock that it may grow the thicker the faster that it may thrive the better A King being but one person the top and head of a Monarchick State the taking away of him is but the taking down the upper story or uncovering the roof of the Government whereby it is exposed to all storms and tempests to the injuries of ill weather which is altogether unsafe and imprudent if the rest of the structure be designed to stand if the whole Frabrick be not demolished And is not this our present state and condition Have we not deprived our selves of all the conveniencies of Monarchy of whatever of excellency or beauty was in it and retained onely the flawes and evils of it Was it not the grand evil of that state that it set up a few great Families and raised them to an extravagant and excessive height by the ruine and oppression of the rest Were not all the Lawes

with the whole constitution of its Government made in favour of the elder brethren and great families while the bulk of the people which consists of younger Sons were left to shift for themselves and scramble fer a poor livelihood and is it not so still Are they not still the Sons of Fortune and their own right hands the Heirs of their own merits that is vagabonds on the face of the Earth having no lot among their brethren sine nomine lare without House Name or Family and is not this a greater evil in a Free-state that pretend to an Equal Commonwealth Nay may not these say It were well if it were with us as in the dayes of old when by reason of the Multitude of Preferments it was as improbable for a person of worth and ingenuity to miss of employment as how to find it or if any one were so unhappy as not to finde entertainment in neither Court nor Hierarchy could yet offer a repulse hide his head in a Monastery or religious House that used to receive such to whom the world was most inhospitable May not these say was it for our interest to put down one Court and King to set them up in every great Gentlemens Family Was it for our advantage to throw down the ancient Nobility whose greatness was ballanced by a jealous Monarch to set up a more numerous of a modern stamp without any ballance are they the less formidable for waving invidious Titles or will they not be our Masters if they be our Landlords Have we gained any thing by throwing down of Bishops do not all their Lands run into one and the same Channel for inriching and aggrandizing of elder Brethren Nay may not the things we have destroyed witness against us and the dayes of old reprove and expostulate with us Was this our evil was this our crime that we secured part of our Lands in a common stock and publick revenue intailed on the Altar for the relief of our younger Children from whom they are now wrested Is there not as unequal a distribution of the wealth and Riches of the Land as ever Is there not as much Pride Covetousness Extortion and Oppression now as ever Do not men notwithstanding all the light that hath dawn'd upon the Word and the many Hazards and Casualties Riches are exposed unto with as great travail both of mind and body accumulate wrath as ever do they not endeavour to build their nest as high as ever though as Solomon hath observed they know not who shall come after them whether their own or the Son of a stranger shall inherit them whether a wise man or fool shall be master over all their works is not this an ancient evil and still a great vanity that men should be more brutish and unnatural then the worst of bruits to their own flesh and like Canibals destroy the very fruit of their own loyns by exposing their younger Children to misery and poverty to build themselves a great Name in the Earth when as they know not but that their Heirs like those of Augustus may be their greatest Enemies instead of the first-born for whom they design their Princely Patrimonies How justly doth God often blast and curse these great Estates that are the product of so much partiality Oppression and unrighteousness and may be not also the Government by which it is permitted Certainly did we belive the Scriptures that it is so difficult a thing for a Rich Man to be saved and that poverty is a temptation to take the name of God in vain we should not be so industrious on the one hand to bar the doors of Heaven against our first-born and render their passage through the Gate that 's streight enough to all more difficult then a Camels through the eye of a Needle and on the other hand offer temptations to the rest to do evil I say we should not make the Tables of the one become their snares to wax fat and forget God and to tempt the other with misery which not unoften ministers as bad councel as that of Jobs wife to curse God and dye To conclude will virtue be in any reputation while riches are in such great esteem Oh what Iliads of evils are the off-spring of this Covetousness and Oppression but to proceed after all our great expectations are we not still in the wildern●s instead of being arrived at the Canaan of our Liberties that good Land we promised our selves by our Reformation or else as Samuel sometime said to Saul What means this bleating of Sheep and Oxen so what means the sighing and mourning of the people what means those harsh and querulous notes that are continually grating in our ears are they not witnesses hereof is not every mans mouth like the Children of Israels found full of bitter complaints Is there not a great m●rmuring throughout the Nation doth not not every one cry out more then ever of the deadness of Trade of the hardness and iniquitie of the times and is it without cause are not all Trades and Professions over stocked is not knavery crept into every shop fraud and deceit into all professions and are not Thieves and Beggars daylie multipliplyed and those of none of the worst Names and Families throughout the Land And have not too complaints been added many and various indeavours into how many several forms and moulds of Government have we of late been cast How many new experiments have we made of how many instruments and new devices made tryals and all to no purpose into how great pangs and what sore travail hath the Common-wealth been cast and yet not able to bring forth the desired and expected Reformation we have so long waited for How hath the Nation staggered and reeled to and fro like a drunken Man We have set up and pulled down we build and then again destroy we go forwards and backwards not knowing which way to turn us being all this while groping in the dark not knowing what ayleth us or what we would have onely we are sick and that unto the death Also many have been the Physitians that have undertaken our cure to heal the distempers of our State but have prov'd meere Mountebancks either their ignorance mistaking or fear concealing the rise and cause of our malady and so proved very unsuccessful in their undertakings what shall we then do shall we tamper no more but leave time to work out Cure to heal and make up our breaches without doubt that cannot be safe for our disease growes upon us daylie we are every day worse then other the very symptomes of death and dissolution are hastening upon us and though I pretend not to be a Prophet or the son of a Prophet yet I dare venture to predict if what is spell'd from visible and natural causes may be so termed that unless God please to raise some noble and generous spirits to undertake the discovery and with undaunted Reformation destroy

fix in Nations under less disadvantage then we vvho have been so long used to a contrary vvay of Government which I speak not to discourage but rather awaken the endeavours and resolutions of our Senators to watch and secure our liberties The ancient Commonwealths have been necessitated to make use sometimes of violent physick to purge and evacuate the rank humours of the Body Politick and such as I would not have prescribed a Christian State supposing there may be found out such as are more safe and gentle It was the unhappiness of the Grecian and Roman Republique to be o●ten guilty of the greatest ingratitude towards them that best deserved of them and not unoften to stain their hands with their bloods whose former merits seemed to challenge a Crown rather then a Cross from them How often hath Greece for the security of her liberty sacrificed that life by which she hath formerly been preserved from ruine and destruction Who hath not heard of the unhappy Tragedy of that valiant Captain that more then once preserved the Capitol and snatched Rome as a prey out of the very teeth of the Galls its barbarous and at last fatal enemies And how often hath Greece rewarded her Captains victories with Banishment instead of Triumph and that upon the single account of some small suggestion of jealousie or weak argument of too great Magnificence or Popularity so jealous were those Republiques of their liberty that the General of an Army durst not make use of a little Plate in his House least it should cause envy or render him suspected of too much Grandure and Ambition and that he endeavoured to supplant the Commonwealth and render himself their Lord and Master Others have been constrained to level their Palaces with the ground lest the sumptuousness and magnificence of their Structure should become the object of the Peoples envy and hatred When these things come into my minde I cannot but wonder any should think it so easie and facile a thing to erect a Commonwealth as that it may be done with a wet finger and requires no more then inserting The Keepers of the Liberties instead of the name King and that then the work is finished without any farther trouble or alteration as many seem to be of opinion I confess had we not at so dear a rate bought experience to inform us of the contrary this mistake might have past for venial but that makes it an unpardonable errour Now what may as I humbly conceive have a considerable influence on the Nation for the better fixing it on the right basis of a Free-State are as followeth Of an Agrarian 1. FIrst that there may be an Agrarian fixed for stinting and setting bounds to the vast unsatiable desires that are found in greedy men after riches which makes them not onely lay field to field and joyn house to house as was the complaint of the old Prophets but to lay Town to Town Parish to Parish County to County and Island to Island May we ever expect a more righteous administration of things while there are no bounds set to the waves of this raging passion that is ready to swallow not onely the houses of the widow but whole Countreys while there is no check upon covetousness the root of all evils upon the immoderate desires of men that like the daughters of the Horsleach cry Give give that are more unsatiable then Hell or the Grave Shall a price be set on the poor mans sweat and labour and shall the growth of families have no bound shall they raise their houses according to the design of Babel to the Heavens as if having filled the earth with oppression they would take Heaven also by violence Is this suitable to a Commonwealth or was this the design of our Reformation to put the whole Land into the hands of a few Proprietors was it for this end Abbeys were demolished the Hierarchy taken down that a few Gentlemen or elder Brethren might have their lands because they had not enough before Is this the purchase of all our blood and treasure to set up a few more gr●at families to encrease the number of our Masters who when they have ingrossed the lands and wealth of the whole Nation there will remain nothing for either of them to purchase or us to sell but our selves to be their slaves and so restore vassallage that hath been so long abrogated We have had great disputes and sharp controversies first about a House of Lords and since a Senate But in my apprehension not worth a bulrush for the case is the same whether Lords or not Lords when as the great Landlords in each Country shall be constantly chosen by their Tenants to be our Legislators Were it not as good they should have patents to sit for life since we cannot suppose they will willingly accept of a Writ of Ease or sit out of play having to great stakes in the game so long as they can so easily be shouldered in by their Tenants Or if at any time they be kept out have we not experience that they will leavy war against the present power Doth not the war at this present day witness thereto is it not then all one whether we have an everlasting Parliament or successive if elections are but a new choice of the same men and that it be not difficult to prick a Parliament before the Writs are gone forth And were this all the inconvenience the evil were more tolerable but do we not see how apt these Gentlemen of such vast and rank Estates are to leavy war and imbrue the Land in blood doth not this proceed from the greatness of their retinue the multitude of their tenants the asfluency of their estates and fortunes Now what better expedient can be devised for this mischief then an Agrarian is it not more just and equirable then the Grecian ostracism or the Roman proscriptions can a Commonwealth be fixed without it is it not absolutely necessary that the proportion of lands be st●nted lest otherw●●e the whole Island in process of time fall into the hands of one or few Proprietors what then will become of our Free-state will not our Landlords erect what Government they please over us moreover will not this give great encouragement to hospitality works of charity that men should know the bounds of their Estates the pillars on which is wrote their ne plus ultra how can we ever expect good laws or a more righteous State while those worms of the earth that possess the greatest dunghills must be our Senators because they have the greatest rout of tenants to voyce them into the saddle of Authority Is this suitable to a Free-State or becoming Christians To what purpose is more wealth then what may with credit bear up the port of a chief Minister of State and furnish forth the comforts and enjoyments of this life is not he a Leviathan and more greedy then Death Hell or the grave