They have seen the
If God give you a

so!”—Have they the Gospel as we have? sun but a little; we have great lights. spirit of Reformation, you will preserve this Nation from “turning again" to those fooleries:--and what will the end be? Comfort and blessing. Then "Mercy and Truth shall meet together." Here is a great deal of "truth" among professors, but very little "mercy!" They are ready to cut the throats of one another. But when we are brought into the right way, we shall be merciful as well as orthodox: and we know who it is that saith, "If a man could speak with the tongues of men and "angels, and yet want that, he is but sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal!”

แ

Therefore I beseech you in the name of God, set your hearts to this 'work.' And if you set your hearts to it, then you will sing Luther's Psalm.1 That is a rare Psalm for a Christian!and if he set his heart open, and can approve it to God, we shall hear him say, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." If Pope and Spaniard, and Devil and all, set themselves against us,-though they should "compass us like bees," as it is in the Hundred-and-eighteenth Psalm,-yet in the name of the Lord we should destroy them! And, as it is in this Psalm of Luther's: "We will not fear,

though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be "carried into the middle of the sea; though the waters thereof (6 roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." [A terrible scene indeed:-but there is

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1 Psalm Forty-sixth; of which Luther's Paraphrase, Eine feste Burg ist, unser Gott, is still very celebrated. Here is the original Psalm :

'God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble; therefore we will not fear,-though the Earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters roar and be troubled; though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof!

'There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the City of God, the 'Holy Place of the Tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The Hea'then raged, the Kingdoms were moved: He uttered His voice, the Earin 'melted. The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

'Come behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He hath made in 'the Earth! He maketh wars to cease unto the ends of the Earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the 'fire :-Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the Heathen, I will be exalted in the Earth! The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.'

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something in the Heart of Man, then, greater than any “scene;” which, in the Name of the Highest, can defy any "scene" or terror whatsoever? Yea," answers the Hebrew David; "Yea," answers the German Luther; " Yea," the English Cromwell. The Ages responsive to one another; soul hailing soul across the dead Abysses; deep calling unto deep.] "There is a river, the "streams whereof shall make glad the City of God. "the midst of her; she shall not be moved." [No!] repeats two or three times, "The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge." [What are the King of Spain, Charles Stuart, Joseph Wagstaff, Chancellor Hyde, and your triple-hatted Chimera at Rome? What is the Devil in General, for that matter,—the still very extensive Entity called “Devil," with all the force he can raise ?]

God is in

Then he

may

I have done. All I have to say is, To pray God that He bless you with His presence; that He who hath your hearts and mine would show His presence in the midst of us.

I desire you will go together, and choose your Speaker.*

The latest of the Commentators expresses himself in reference to this Speech in the following singular way:

No Royal Speech like this was ever delivered elsewhere in the 'world! It is, with all its prudence, and it is very prudent, sa'gacious, courteous, right royal in spirit,—perhaps the most art'less transparent piece of Public Speaking this Editor has ever 'studied. Rude, massive, genuine; like a block of unbeaten gold. A Speech not so fit for Drury Lane, as for Valhalla, and the 'Sanhedrim of the Gods. The man himself, and the England he presided over, there and then, are to a singular degree visible in 'it; open to our eyes, to our sympathies. He who would see Oliver, will find more of him here than in most of the history'books yet written about him.

6

6

'On the whole, the cursory modern Englishman cannot be expected to read this Speech:—and yet it is pity; the Speech might do him good, if he understood it. We shall not again hear 'a Supreme Governor talk in this strain: the dialect of it is very ' obsolete; much more than the grammar and diction, forever ob‘solete,—not to my regret the dialect of it. But the spirit of it is a thing that should never have grown obsolete. The spirit of it * Burton's Diary, i, Introd. pp. clviii.-clxxix. (from Additional Ayscough MSS. no. 6125),

' will have to revive itself again; and shine out in new dialect and ' vesture, in infinitely wider compass, wide as God's known Uni✦ verse now is,—if it please Heaven! Since that spirit went obsolete, and men took to "dallying" with the Highest, to "being 'bold" with the Highest, and not "bold with men" (only Belial, ' and not "Christ" in any shape, assisting them), we have had but sorry times, in Parliament and out of it. There has not been a Supreme Governor worth the meal upon his periwig, in comparison, since this spirit fell obsolete. How could there? Belial ' is a desperately bad sleeping-partner in any concern whatever! 'Cant did not ever yet, that I know of, turn ultimately to a good account, for any man or thing. May the Devil swiftly be com'pelled to call-in large masses of our current stock of Cant, and ' withdraw it from circulation! Let the people "run for gold," as 'the Chartists say; demand Veracity, Performance, instead of mealy-mouthed Speaking; and force him to recall his Cant. · Thank Heaven, stern Destiny, merciful were it even to death, 'does now compel them verily to "run for gold :" Cant in all directions is swiftly ebbing into the Bank it was issued by.'—

Speech being ended, the Honourable Members 'went to the House,' says Bulstrode; and in the Lobby, with considerable crowding I think, 'received, from the Chancery Clerk, Certificates in this form,'-for instance:

'COUNTY OF BUCKS. These are to certify that' Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke is returned by Indenture one of the Knights to serve in this present Parliament for the said County, and approved by his Highness's Council. NATH. TAYLER, Clerk of the Commonwealth in Chancery.'

Mr. Tayler has received Four-hundred ‘Indentures' from Honourable Gentlemen; but he does not give out Four-hundred Certificates,' he only gives Three-hundred and odd. Near Onehundred Honourable Gentlemen can get no Certificate from Mr. Tayler,-none provided for you;-and without Certificate there is no admittance. Soldiers stand ranked at the door; no man enters without his Certificate! Astonishing to see. Haselrig, Scott and the stiff Republicans, Ashley Cooper and the turbulent persons, who might have leavened this Parliament into strange fermentation, cannot, it appears, get in! No admittance here: saw Honourable Gentlemen ever the like?—

The most flagrant violation of the Privileges of Parliament that was ever known! exclaim they. A sore blow to Privilege indeed. With which the Honourable House, shorn of certain limbs in this Whitlocke, p. 639.

rude way, knows not well what to do. The Clerk of the Commonwealth, being summoned, answers what he can; Nathaniel Fiennes, for the Council of State, answers what he can: the Honourable House, actually intent on Settling the Nation, has to reflect that in real truth this will be a great furtherance thereto; that matters do stand in an anomalous posture at present; that the Nation should and must be settled. The Honourable House, with an effort, swallows this injury; directs the petitioning Excluded Members to apply to the Council.' The Excluded Members, or some one Excluded Member, redacts an indignant Protest, with all the names appended;2 prints it, privately circulates it, 'in boxes sent by carriers, a thousand copies in a box:'—and there it rests; his Highness saying nothing to it; the Honourable House and the Nation saying nothing. In this Parliament, different from the last, we trace a real desire for Settlement.

As the power of the Major-Generals, 'in about two months hence,'3 or three months hence, was, on hint of his Highness himself, to the joy of Constitutional England, withdrawn, we may here close Part Ninth. Note first, however, as contemporary with this event, the glorious news we have from Blake and Montague at sea; who, in good hour, have at last got hold of a Spanish Fleet, and in a tragic manner burnt it, and taken endless silver therein.4 News of the fact comes in the beginning of October: in the beginning of November comes, as it were, the fact itself,- -some Eight-andthirty wagonloads of real silver: triumphantly jingling up from Portsmouth, across London pavements to the Tower, to be coined into current English money there. The Antichrist King of Spain has lost Lima by an earthquake, and infinite silver there also. Heaven's vengeance seems awakening. 'Never,' say the old Newspapers, never was there a more terrible visible Hand of God in judgment upon any People, since the time of Sodom and Gomorrah! Great is the Lord; marvellous are His doings, and 'to be had in reverence of all the Nations.' England holds universal Thanksgiving Day; sees Eight-and-thirty wagonloads of silver, sees hope of Settlement, sees Major-Generals abolished; and piously blesses Heaven.

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1 Commons Journals, vii. 424, 5, 6 (Sept. 18th-22d).

2 Copy of it and them in Whitlocke, pp. 641-3; see also Thurloe, v. 456, 490. 3 Kimber, p. 211. The real date and circumstances may be seen in Burton's Diary, i. 310 (7th Jan. 1656-7), Commons Journals, vii. 483 (29th Jan.); compared with Ludlow, ii. 581, 2. See Godwin, iv. 328.

4 Captain Stayner's Letter (9th Sept. 1656, Thurloe, v. 399); General Mon. tague's Letter (Ib. p. 433); Whitlocke, p. 643; &c.

5 6th October (in Cromwelliana, p. 160).

PART X.

SECOND PROTECTORATE PARLIAMENT,

1657-1658.

LETTERS CCXV., CCXVI.

Two Letters near each other in date, and now by accident brought contiguous in place; which offer a rather singular contrast; the one pointing as towards the Eternal Heights, the other as towards the Tartarean Deeps! Between which two Extremes the Life of men and Lord Protectors has to pass itself in this world, as wisely as it can. Let us read them, and hasten over to the new Year Fifty-Seven, and last Department of our subject.

LETTER CCXV.

NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, or the Municipal Authorities there, as we may perceive, are rather of the Independent judgment; and have a little dread of some encouragement his Highness has been giving to certain of the Presbyterian sect in those parts. This Letter ought to be sufficient reassurance.

To the Mayor of Newcastle: To be communicated to the Aldermen and others whom it doth concern.

Whitehall, 18th December 1656.

GENTLEMEN, AND MY VERY GOOD FRIENDS,

My Lord Strickland, who is one of our Council,

did impart to us a Letter written from yourselves to him, according to your desire therein expressed; which occasions this return from us to you.