"And that there was high cause for their dissolution, is most evident: not only in regard there was a just fear of that parliament's perpetuating themselves, but because it actually was their design. Had not their heels been trod upon by importunities from abroad, even to threats, I believe there never would have been any thoughts of rising, or of going out of that room, to the world's end. I myself was sounded, and by no mean persons tempted; and proposals were made me to that very end: that the parliament might be thus perpetuated; that the vacant places might be supplied by new elections, and so continue from generation to generation." He proceeds to object to the measure which the Parliament was really about to pass, that it would have established an uninterrupted succession of Parliaments, that there would have been "a legislative power always sitting," which would thereby have encroached upon the executive power. The speech then enlarges on the general assent of the people, of the army, of the judges, of the civic powers, to the instrument of government, to the Protectorate, and on the implied assent which they themselves had given by accepting their commissions under it. "And this being so, though I told you in my last speech that you were a free Parliament, yet I thought it was understood withal that I was the Protector, and the authority that called you! That I was in possession of the government by a good right from God and man. And I believe, that if the learnedest men in this nation were called to show a precedent equally clear of a government so many ways approved of, they would not in all their search find it. And if the fact be so, why should we sport with it? With a business so serious!... For you to disown or not to own it; for you to act with parliamentary authority especially, in the disowning of it, contrary to the very fundamental things, yea against the very root itself of this establishment, to sit and not own the authority by which you sit--is that which I believe astonisheth more men than myself; and doth as dangerously disappoint and discompose the nation, as any thing that could have been invented by the greatest enemy to our peace and welfare." After drawing the distinction between fundamentals, which may not be shaken, and circumstantials, which it is in the power of Parliament to alter and modify, he continues:--