"REX EOLUS altè Luctantes ventos tempestatesque sonoras IMPERIO premit. Illi indignantes magno cum murmure montis The various murmurs subsided where he looked, and yet he was strenuous for the Presbyterian creed, while he trod under his foot the intolerant Presbyters. His object was afterwards to fill the various parishes with those whom his " tryers should pronounce to be accomplished in the knowledge of God's ELECTION, let the wilder fanatic rave as he list :-but he gathered round him all the learning and talents in the age, Milton, Marvel, Thurloe, Whitelock, Owen, &c. Even Blake was an Oxonian. In this sketch I have confined myself to the great dominant religious parties, omitting the countless "maggots of corrupted texts.”* Thus, as we have seen, the "Covenant," and "Smectymnuus," having, like battering rams, first beat down the walls of our ancient and hallowed Sion, a motley army of discordant saints, decrying synods as well as surplices, insulted and spurneď the astonished Presbyter! These were followed by more crazy enthusiasts, led on by Fane, to the shouts of "King Jesus;" while the whole host trod in the dust, with the same evangelical disdain, * Butler. the Episcopalian PRAYER-BOOK and the Presbyterian DIRECTORY. The dark, supercilious, and unmoved countenance of Cromwell,-unmoved, save at times smiling with some grim pleasantry,—was occasionally seen in front of this multifarious host, which seemed to cower only beneath his keen glance and stern eyebrows. He stood as the master-spirit, controuling and directing the whole army of various enthusiasm. Much must be attributed to the powers of an individual who could make this tumultuous mass roll in subjection; who could work its heterogeneous compound to his purposes, and who, when the purpose was attained, could raise or hush its murmur with a glance of his eye. This was when the MASTER-SPIRIT was in its vigour, and could control "dracones reluctantes," on every side. Before his last illness, whether he was sincere, or the most consummate dissembler, a sane judgment seemed to infuse itself, and the Protector was disposed to establish, not only a House of Lords, but something like Episcopacy. Hitherto he had the heavenly "assurance" that all he had done was by the direction of the Almighty. Whenever he felt, or pretended to feel, any natural compunctions, he had nothing to do but to "seek the Lord!" So he expressed, with tears, his reluctance to expel the Parliament; but, "after seeking the Lord," he must do as the Lord com manded! and so with the blood of the King he bathed the scaffold, whilst he piously recommended the dupe Fairfax to "seek the Lord" also! His own end now drew nigh, yet the same awful delusion was kept up. "His spiritual doctors assured him, being once in a state of grace, he could not finally fail," so he need not be alarmed for his soul: and when his physicians saw the symptoms of death, "he assured them they were mistaken;"* for those who had even greater influence with the Almighty (Owen, &c.) had "been seeking Him together," and the answer was, "he should not die!" Can any thing be conceived so blasphemous? Even thanksgivings for his life were offered up to God, when the arrow of death was in his heart! But, Lord of life and death! how awful, how terrible, must have been that agony, if, in a moment of sound mind, with eternity before him, he felt for the first time that all had been delusion! As his mind was sinking, new terrors were excited by the voice of his beloved daughter, departing before his eyes, and faintly murmuring "murder!" He might now have seen, in sick and shadowy imaginings, the forms of those cut off by him, and heard the voice of the brave, the virtuous Capel "Let me sit heavy on thy thoughts to-night!" or of the shade of the intrepid Lord Derby * See the account of his death. + Mrs. Claypole. Of Dr. Hewson. "Let me sit heavy on thy thoughts to-night! or the "crowned Majesty of England," pale, and with look majestic, yet more in sorrow than in anger, pronouncing "Let me sit heavy on thy thoughts to-night!" What must have been the agonies of death to such a man! Without venturing to say such were his feelings, some feelings of the kind he must have had; and if ever there was a man whose life and death might seem to fulfil the idea of a compact with the powers of darkness, it was "THE LORD PROTECTOR OF ENGLAND." A spectre, it is recorded, appeared before him in youth. He plunged into dissipation - he left the sober and scriptural communion in which he had been bred. He became an enthusiast - whether from constitution or hypocrisy. He rose from the station of a private life to be the dictator of the fortunes of England, and, still "seeking the Lord!" he rose to more than royal power and dominion. Look on him now, enfeebled, and consulting in vain the phantasma of fanatical delusion which attended him through life. It forsakes him in his utmost need; or turns, to shew him, as in a glass, the spectre of Predestination, pointing to the pit, "where the worm dyeth not." He dies - his prophets are found liars; and the instant his last breath has left his frame, the whole isle is shaken by a hurricane, such as no man ever before remembered! "Oh!" might the humble Christian exclaim, Thou, who has given us the Bible, save me from fanatic enthusiasm!- keep me, through life, in the path of sober and scriptural piety — and, when my last hour approaches, "let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !" It seems extraordinary that Cromwell should not at this time have consulted his "Astrologer" Lilly, as well as his "Soothsayers," who, in articulo mortis, prophesied smooth things!" as Astrology is part of Predestinarianism, and indeed derived from it in Chaldæa. 66 I have been the more particular, respecting the part which the author of "Paradise Lost" bore in this drama, as the importance of that part has been less noticed by historians-for, I believe, the great talents, the learning, the blameless lives, the powerful arguments, of Usher and Hall, would have preserved the Church, if Milton had not descended, with all his overwhelming might, of learning, eloquence, and scorn, into the contest; as I also believe, from passages in his "Defensio Populi Anglicani,” that, when the chiefs of the army were vacillating about the King's death, the "Grande Spectaculum” of national justcie was suggested by Milton. He was soon afterwards made Latin Secretary. |