THat your Petitioners are deeply sensible though not of their sins, and the displeasure of God, yet of their unhappiness, and your Honours dis­pleasure, and of the woeful effects of it towards them: That they do with sad hearts remember a time, when by their crafty insinuations, and dexterous compliances, they had scrued themselves into the generallity of Places of Power and Trust in the State, Army and Navy, whereby their Bowels were refreshed, their Backs cloathed, their (otherwise contemptible) selves, rendred considerable, and in a capacity to gratifie their Friends, and tread their Enemies under their feet: That they do unfeignedly repent of their late great declination, and fall from the height of their hopes, and of the fatal miscarriage of their renowned General the Lord Lambert, and the Dissipation of his Forces, whereby so it is (may it please your Honours) that your Petitioners are cast out of their places like an abhominable branch, are reduced to their first nothing, exposed to the scorn and contempt of the wicked world, and the danger of the Law, which they never understood nor regarded.

In consideration of the premises and diverse following considerations, your Petitioners make their humble Application to you, that they may once more enjoy the Sun shine of your honours favour, and may be restored unto their former capacity, and may be for ever secured in the possession of all their liberties, Civil and Re­ligious; wherein they desire to be rightly understood; By Civil Liberties they mean, not only that they may enjoy their common Rights as English men, but that they may have a Monopoly of all places of command or advantage in the Nation, and that none, but such as they approve of, may have a share in them: And by Religious Liberty, they understand not only a liberty from persecution themselves, but a power to persecute others, to pull down Tithes, Ministers, and all such as shall not suit with their Principles, and comply with their desires: And that you would please to forsake all other Parties and Interests in the Nation, and cast your self wholly upon them for your support, and defence.

1. Because your Petitioners being but few in number, and for the most part inconsiderable in Estate, and Interest, and generally odious to this and all other Nati­tions, it wi [...]l argue a singular degree of generosity, and confidence, and valour, and self-denyal to rely upon them.

2. It is a point o [...] highest Justice, and absolute necessity, that you should confer places of profit upon such as cannot live without them, and that you should bestow places of trust upon such as have been so long accustomed to command that really they know not how to obey.

3. It is most reasonable that your Petitioners should enjoy such Liberty in their sence, because they are so tender of the liberties of others, having by their for­mer Actings, and late Petition delivered to your Lordship's Honours, Feb. 9. expressed their desires, that none may enjoy any place of Trust or Profit either in Church or State, but such as shall subscribe the Oath of Abjuration, and such as are against all Coercive power in matters of Religion, whereby they do very well understand that the generality of sober and consciencious men, Ministers and others, will be kept out of all power, put under your Petitioners Feet, and they, and their Families undone, and brought to utter ruine. Now, may it please your Honours, for as much as the generallity of the sober party of the Nation will hereby be deprived of their liberty both Civil and Religious if your Petitioners should not enjoy such liberty (as they have expressed) there would be no liberty left in the whole Nation.

4. Because your Petitioners have been the unfortunate instruments of pulling you out of the House two several times, the one under the late Tyrant Oliver, when they set up a Mock-Parliament in opposition to you, the other under the ever to be honoured John Lambert, when they strongly hoped and indeavoured to keep you for ever out of doors. Now having, through their own folly and cowardize, neglected the improvement of so great and Goodly opportunities; they humbly crave that you would once more put them into a capacity of turning you out of doors, and they promise to manage it the next time to better advantage.

5. Because you ought to mete out to men as they would measure out to others, which is a part of justice; And therefore we may expect your gracious pardon of our late defection, and that you would make us the objects of your clemency, because as we have formerly desired, so we do not yet cease to call upon you, and cry out for your severest justice and greatest rigour towards Sir George Booth and all his adherents, who yet never were guilty of so desperate a design as we were to overthrow the Government of the Nation by Parliaments.

6. Because it will be an act of meer grace and goodness to shew any favour to us, such as is no way by us deserved, and to say the truth cannot in any reason be ex­pected, and that whether you look upon us for the time past, present, or to come; for the time past, because we have given such proof of our perfidiousness, that we deserve never to be trusted more; for the present, because it is not our choice or inclination, but our necessity that brings us to you, having no other string to our Bow: for the future, because you will thereby be engaged to settle the Nation in the way of a faction, and so necessitate your selves to the perpetration of Armies and Taxes, and other Burdens, and render your selves uncapable of setling a Free State, by reason of those everlasting heart burnings, which hereby you will create and foment, so that if you shall please to gratifie us in our request, and bring us into play again, you will do an act of unparallell'd grace and favour, and such as all the world will wonder at, and you will make us laugh in our sleeves.

7. How ever you may suspect, that we only dissemble with you for the present, for our own ends (as we have often done formerly) and that our principles at present are not right and real to you; we desire you to hope that we shall grow better, because we never use to hold our principles long: And if you think (as well you may) that there is some secret engagement between us and Lambert, that we shall joyn with him when ever he shall lift up his head and hold up his finger (for doing of which we shall be enabled by your granting of our petition) we intreat you to give no credit to it, because it is notoriously known that our consciences are of such a make, that no Engagements, nor Oathes, nor Covenants with God or men, could ever hold us, when our Interest obliged us to break them, and we have left fresh Instances of late memory, that although we received Commissions from your honours (to our great advantage, and the grief of the whole Nation) and though some of us professed great repentance for our former defection from you, and though we solemnly promised subjection and faithfulness to you, yet as soon as ever we saw a dore open [...]or the better promoting of our own interest (which is the Good Old Cause) we unanimously deserted you and puld you out of the house, and rejoy­ced at your dowfal, and it was not our fault that ever you returned again to your power.

8. That we may not be tedious (as we use alwayes to be in all our writings and discourses;) we desire you to consider with your selves how hopefull and likly a way this is to bring us to settlement, (which all people do so earnestly pant after.) For seeing there is so great a sympathy between State and Chnrch, that they laugh, and weep, live and dye together, it cannot be otherwise, but that we who are such known friends to order and establishment in the Church, should be the Authors and Promoters o [...] Settlement in the State: And i [...] any shall unhappily object that we are a sort of men, whose Principles and Interests ingage us to unsettle­ment, it being both our proper humour, and only strength and advantage to fish in troubled waters; we entreat them to consider that even such a sort o [...] men are most necessary in a State, and there can be no settlement without them, as Musick cannot be without discord, and bodies cannot subsist without contrary elements. And besides our troublesome restlesness will make all People the more desirous of rest, and so we shall prove the happy occasions of the establishing of the publick Peace. Upon which considerations, we humbly lay our desires at your Honours Feet. And (because many of us cannot fight)

Your Petitioners shall ever pray.