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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: JFor t je Htbcrtg of unl(cenc'ti pr(nt(ng. THey who to States and Governours of the Commonwealth direct their Speech, High Court of Parlament, or wanting fuch accefle in a private condition, write that which they forefee may advance the publick good ; I fuppofe them as at the beginning of no meane endeavour, not a little alter'd and mov'd inwardly in their mindes: Some with doubt of what will be the fucceffe, others with feare of what will be the cenfure; forne with hope, others with confidence of what they have to fpeake. And me perhaps each of thefe difpofitions, as the fub jecT; was whereon I enter'd, may have at other times varioufly affected ; and likely might in thefe foremofl expreffions now alfo difclofe which of them fway'd mofl, but that the very attempt of this addreffe thus made, and the thought of whom it hath recourfe to, hath got the power within me to a paffion, farre more welcome then incidentall to a Preface. Which though I flay not to confeffe ere any afke, I fhall be blameleffe, if it be no other, then the joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wifh and promote their Countries liberty ; whereof this whole Difcourfe propofd will be a certaine teflimony, if not a Trophey. For this is not the liberty which wee can hope, that no grievance ever fhould arife in the Commonwealth, that let no man in this World expert; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply confider'd, and fpeedily reform'd, then is the utmofl bound of civill libertv attain'd. that wife menlooke for. To which if I now manifefl by the very found of this which I fhall utter, that wee are already in good part arriv'd, and yet from fuch a fleepe difadvantage of tyranny and fuperflition grounded into our principles as was beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery, it will bee attributed firfl,...
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