"The hand of the Lord hath done this"—it is He who hath wrought all the salvations and deliverances we have received. For what end! To see and know and understand together, that he hath done and wrought all this for the good of the whole flock. Therefore I beseech you—but I think I need not,—have a care of the whole flock! Love the sheep, love the lambs; love all, tender all, cherish and countenance all, in all things that are good. And if the poorest Christian, the most mistaken Christian, shall desire to live peaceably and quietly under you,—I say if any shall desire but to live a life of godliness and honesty, let him be protected.
And indeed this hath been the way God dealt with us all along, to keep things from our eyes all along, so that we have seen nothing in all his dispensations long beforehand;—which is also a witness, in some measure, to our integrity.
X. Speech V. September 12, 1654.
Indeed that hath been one of the vanities of our contest. Every sect saith, "O, give me liberty!" But give it to him and to his power he will not yield it to anybody else....
XI. To the First Protectorate Parliament, January 22, 1654-55.
Is it ingenuous to ask liberty, and not to give it? What greater hypocrisy than for those who were oppressed by the bishops to become the greatest oppressors themselves so soon as their yoke was removed. I could wish that they who call for liberty now also had not too much of that spirit, if the power were in their hands!
As for profane persons, blasphemers, such as preach sedition; the contentious railers, evil speakers, who seek by evil words to corrupt good manners, persons of loose conversation—punishment from the Civil Magistrate ought to meet with these. Because, if they pretend conscience; yet walking disorderly and not according but contrary to the gospel and even to natural lights, they are judged of all. And their sins being open make them subjects of the magistrate's sword, who ought not to bear it in vain.—The discipline of the Army was such, that a man would not be suffered to remain there, of whom we could take notice that he was guilty of such practices as those....
... And if it be my "liberty" to walk abroad in the fields, or to take a journey, yet it is not my wisdom to do so when my house is on fire!
XII. Speech to the Major-Generals.