had been any faith in men's vows and proteftations) the wars were undertaken. Merciful God! did the right of this miferable conqueft remain then in his majesty; and didst thou fuffer him to be deftroyed, with more barbarity than if he had been conquered even by Savages and Canibals? Was it for king and parliament that we fought; and has it fared with them juft as with the army which we fought againft, the one part being flain, and the other fled? It appears therefore plainly, that Cromwell was not a conqueror, but a thief and robber of the rights of the king and parliament, and an ufurper upon those of the people. I do not here deny conqueft to be fometimes (though it be very rarely) a true title; but I deny this to be a true conqueft. Sure I am, that the race of our princes came not in by fuch a one. One nation may conquer another fometimes juftly; and if it be unjustly, yet ftill it is a true conqueft, and they are to answer for the injuftice only to God Almighty (having nothing else in authority above them) and not as particular rebels to their country, which is, and ought always to be, their fuperior and their lord. If perhaps we find ufurpation instead of conqueft in the original titles of fome royal families abroad (as no doubt there have been many ufurpers before ours, though none in fo impudent and execrable a manner) all I can fay for them is, that their title was very weak, till, by length of time, and the death of all juster pretenders, it became to be the true, because it was the only one.

Your third defence of his highnefs (as your highness pleases to call him) enters in moft feasonably after his pretence of conqueft; for then a man may fay any thing. The government was broken; who broke it? It was diffolved; who diffolved it? It was extinguished; who was it, but Cromwell, who not only put out the light, but caft away even the very fnuff of it? As if a man fhould murder a whole family, and then poffefs himself of the house, because it is better that he, than that only rats fhould live there. Jefus God! (faid 1, and at that word I perceived my pretended angel to give a start. and trembled, but I took no notice of it, and went on) this were a wicked pretenfion, even though the whole family were deftroyed; but the heirs (bleffed be God!) are yet furviving, and likely to out-live all heirs of their difpoffeffors, befides their infamy. "Rode, caper, vitem, &c." There will be yet wine enough left for the facrifice of those wild beafts, that have made so much spoil in the vineyard. But did Cromwell think, like Nero, to fet the city on fire, only that he might have the honour of being founder of a new and more beautiful one? He could not have such a shadow of virtue in his wickedness; he meant only to rob more fecurely and more richly in midst of the combustion; he little thought then that he should ever have been able to make himfelf master of the palace, as well as plunder the goods of the commonwealth. He was glad to fee the public veffel (the fovereign of the feas) in as defperate a condition as his own little canoe, and thought only, with fome scattered planks of that great shipwreck, to make a better fifherboat for himself. But when he saw that, by the drowning of the mafter, (whom he himself treacherously knocked on the head, as he was fwimming for his life) by the flight and difperfion of others, and cowardly patience of the remaining company, that all was abandoned to his pleafure; with the old hulk, and new mishapen and difagreeing pieces of his own, he made up, with much ado, that piratical veffel which we have feen him command, and which, how tight indeed it was, may best be judged by its perpetual leaking.

First, then (much more wicked than thofe foolish daughters in the fable, who cut their old father into pieces, in hope by charms and witchcraft to make him young and lufly again) this man endeavoured to deftroy the building, before he could imagine in what manner, with what materials, by what workmen, or what architect, it was to be rebuilt. Secondly, if he had dreamt himself to be able to revive that body which he had killed, yet it had been but the infupportable infolence of an ignorant mountebank; and thirdly, (which concerns us neareft) that very new thing, which he made out of the ruins of the old, is no more like the original, either for beauty, ufe, or duration, than an artificial plant, raised by the fire of a chemift, is comparable to the true and natural one which he first burnt, that out of the afhes of it he might produce an imperfect fimilitude of his own making.

Your laft argument is fuch (when reduced to fyllogifm) that the major propofition of it would make ftrange work in the world, if it were received for truth; to wit, that he who has the best parts in a nation, has the right of being king over it. We had enough to do here of old with the contention between two branches of the fame family: what would become of us, when every man in England fhould lay his claim to the government? And truly, if Cromwell fhould have commenced his plea, when he feems to have begun his ambition, there were few perfons befides, that might not at the fame time have put in theirs too. But his deferts, I fuppofe, you will date from the fame term that I do his great demerits, that is, from the beginning of our late calamities (for, as for his private faults before, I can only with, and that with as much charity to him as to the public, that he had continued in them till his death, rather than changed them for thofe of his latter days); and therefore we mult begin the confideration of his greatnefs from the unlucky era of our own misfortunes; which puts me in mind of what was faid lefs truly of Pompey the Great, Noftra miferia magnus es." But, becaufe the general ground of your argumentation confifts in this, that all men who are effecters of extraordinary mutations in the world, muft needs have extraordinary forces of nature, by which they are enabled to turn about, as they please, so great a wheel; I shall fpeak firft a few words upon this univerfal propofition, which feems fo reafonable, and is fo popular, before I defcend to the particular examination of the eminences of that perfon which is in queftion.

"

I have often obferved (with all fubmiflion and refignation of fpirit to the infcrutable myfteries of Eternal Providence) that when the fulness and maturity of time is come, that produces the great confufions and changes in the world, it usually pleafes God to make it appear, by the manner of them, that they are not the effects of human force or policy, but of the divine juftice and predeftination; and, though we fee a man, like that which we call Jack of the Clock-houfe, ftriking, as it were, the hour of that fulness of time, yet our reafon muft needs be convinced, that the hand is moved by some secret, and, to us who ftand without, invifible direction. And the stream of the current is then fo violent, that the ftrongeft men in the world cannot draw up against it; and none are fo weak, but they may fail down with it. Thefe are the fpring-tides of public affairs, which we fee often happen, but feek in vain to discover any certain causes :

And one man then, by maliciously opening all the fluices that he can come at, can never be the fole author of all this (though he may be as guilty as if really he were, by intending and imagining to be fo); but it is God that breaks up the flood-gates of fo general a deluge, and all the art then and induitry of mankind is not fufficient to raise up dikes and ramparts against it. In fuch a time it was as this, that not all the wifdom and power of the Roman fenate, nor the wit and eloquence of Cicero, nor the courage and virtue of Brutus, was able to defend their country, or themfelves, against the unexperienced rafhnefs of a beardlefs boy, and the loofe rage of a voluptuous madman. The valour and prudent counfels on the one fide are made fruitlefs, and the errors and cowardice on the other harmlefs, by unexpected accidents. The one general faves his life, and gains the whole world, by a very dream; and the other lofes both at once, by a little mistake of the fhortness of his fight. And though this be not always fo, for we fee that, in the tranflation of the great monarchies from one to another, it pleafed God to make choice of the moft eminent men in nature, as Cyrus, Alexander, Scipio and his contemporaries, for his chief inftrument and actors in fo admirable a work (the

VOL. II.

U

end of this being, not only to destroy or punish one nation, which may be done by the worlt of mankind, but to exalt and blefs another, which is only be effected by great and virtuous perfons); yet, when God only intends the temporary challifement of a people, he does not raife up his fervant Cyrus (as he himself is pleafed to call him) or an Alexander (who had as many virtues to do good, as vices to do harm) but he makes the Maffanicllos, and the Johns of Leyden, the inftruments of his vengeance, that the power of the Almighty might be more evident by the weakuels of the means which he chooses to demonftrate it. He did not affenble the ferpents and the monfters of Afric, to correct the pride of the Egyptians; but called for his armies of locufts out of Æthiopia, and formed new ones of vermin out of the very duft; and becaufe you fee a whole country deftroyed by thefe, will you argue from thence they muft needs have had both the craft of foxes, and the courage of lions?

It is eafy to apply this general obfervation to the particular cafe of our troubles in England: and that they feem only to be meant for a temporary chaflifement of our fins, and not for a total abolishment of the old, and introduction of a new government, appears probable to me from thefe confiderations, as far as we may be bold to make a judgment of the will of God in future events. First, because he has fuffered nothing to fettle or take root in the place of that, which hath been fo unwifely and unjuftly removed, that none of these untempered mortars can hold out against the next blaft of wind, nor any stone flick to a stone, till that which thefe foolish builders have refufed be made again the head of the corner. For, when the indifpofed and long-tormented commonwealth has wearied and spent itself almoft to nothing, with the chargeable, various, and dangerous experiments of feveral mountebanks, it is to be fuppofed, it will have the wit at laft to fend for a true phyfician, especially when it fees (which is the fecond confideration) moft evidently (as it now begins to do, and will do every day more and more, and might have done perfectly long fince) that no ufurpation (under what name or pretext foever) can be kept up without open force, nor force without the continuance of thofe oppreffious upon the people, which will at laft tire out their patience, though it be great even to flupidity. They cannot be fo dull (when poverty and hunger begins to whet their understanding) as not to find out this no extraordinary myftery, that it is madness in a nation to pay three millions a year for the maintaining of their fervitude under tyrants, when they might live free for nothing under their prices. This, I fay, will not always lie hid, even to the floweit capacities; and the next truth they will discover afterwards is, that a whole people can never have the will, without having at the fame time the power, to redeem themfelves. Thirdly, it does not look (methinks) as if God had forfaken the family of that man, from whom he has railed up five children, of as eminent virtue, and all other commendable qualities, as ever perhaps (for fo many together, and fo young) in any other family in the whole world. Efpecially, if we add hereto this confideration, that by protecting and profe.ving fome of them already through as great dangers as ever were paft with fafety, either by prince or private perfon, he has given them already (as we may reasonably hope it to be meant) a promife and earneft of his future favours. And lastly (to return clofely to the difcourfe from which I have a little digreffed) because I fee nothing of thofe excellent parts of nature, and mixture of merit with their vices, in the late disturbers of our peace and happines, that ufes to be found in the perfons of thofe who are born for the erection of new empires.

lived

And, I confefs, I find nothing of that kind, no not any fhadow (taking away the falfe light of fome profperity) in the man whom you extol for the firit example of it. And certainly, all virtues being rightly divided into moral and intellectual, I know not how we can better judge of the former, than by men's actions; or of the latter, than by their writings or fpeeches. As for thefe latter (which are leaft in merit, or rather which are only the inftruments of mischief, where the other are wanting) I think you can hardly pick out the name of a man who ever was called great, befides him we are now fpeaking of, who never left the memory behind him of one wife or witty apophthegn even amongst his domestic fervants or greatest flatterers. That little in print,

you to

which remains upon a fad record for him, is fuch, as a fatire against him would not have made him fay, for fear of tranfgreffing too much the rules of probability. I know not what you can produce for the jutilication of his parts in this kind, but his having been able to deceive fo many particular perions, and fo many whole parties; which if you pleafe to take notice of for the advantage of his intellectuals, I defire allow me the liberty to do fo too when I am to fpeak of his morals. The truth of the thing is this, that if craft be wildea, and diflimulation wit (ailifted both and improved with hypocrifies and perjuries) I must not deny him to have been fingular in both; but fo grofs was the manner in which he made ufe of them, that, as wife men ought not to have believed him at firft, fo no man was fool enough to believe him at Ja: neither did any man feem to do it, but thofe who thought they gained as much. by that diffembling, as he did by his. His very actings of godlinefs grew at laft as ridiculous, as if a player, by putting on a gown, fhould think he reprefented excellently a woman, though his beard at the fame time were feen by all the fpectators. If you ak me, why they did not hifs, and explode him off the ftage; I can only answer, that they durft not do fo, because the actors and the door-keepers were too ftrong for the com pany. I must confefs that by thefe arts (how grofsly foever managed, as by hypocritical praying and filly preaching, by unmanly tears and whinings, by falfehoods and perjuries even diabolical) he had at firft the good-fortune (as men call it, that is, the illfortune) to attain his ends; but it was because his ends were fo unreafonable, that no human reafon could foresee them; which made them, who had to do with him, believe, that he was rather a well-meaning and deluded bigot, than a crafty malicious impoftor: that thefe arts were helped by an indefatigable induftry (as you term it) I am fo far from doubting, that I intended to object that diligence, as the worlt of his crimes. It makes me almoft mad, when I hear a man commended for his diligence in wickedness. If I were his fon, I fhould with to God he had been a more lazy perfon, and that we might have found him fleeping at the hours when other men are ordinarily waking, rather than waking for thofe ends of his when other men were ordinarily afleep. How diLigent the wicked are, the Scripture often tells us, "Their feet run to evil, and they "make hatte to fhed innocent blood," Ifai. lix. 7. "He travels with iniquity," Pfal. "He devifeth mischief upon his bed," Pfal. xxxiv. 4. "They fearch out ini"quity, they accomplish a diligent fearch," Pfal. Ixiv. 6. and in a multitude of other places. And would it not feem ridiculous, to praife a wolf for his watchfulness, and for his indefatigable industry in ranging all night about the country, whilst the sheep, and perhaps the fhepherd, and perhaps the very dogs too, are all asleep?

vii. 14.

The Chartreux wants the warning of a bell

To call him to the duties of his cell;
There needs no noife at all t' awaken fin,

Th' adulterer and the thief his larum has within.

And, if the diligence of wicked perfons be fo much to be blamed, as that it is only an emphafis and exaggeration of their wickedness, I fee not how their courage can avoid the fame cenfure. If the undertaking bold, and vaft, and unreasonable defigns can deferve that honourable name, I am fure, Faux and his fellow gunpowder friends, will have caufe to pretend, though not an equal, yet at least the next place of honour; neither can I doubt but, if they too had fucceeded, they would have found their applauders and admirers. It was bold unquestionably for a man in defiance of all human and divine laws (and with fo little probability of a long impunity) fo publicly and fo outrageously to murder his mafter; it was bold with fo much infolence and affront to expel and difperfe all the chief partners of his guilt, and creators of his power; it was bold to violate so openly and fo fcornfully all acts and conftitutions of a nation, and afterwards even of his own making; it was bold to affume the authority of calling, and bolder yet of breaking, fo many parliaments; it was hold to trample upon the patience of his own, and provoke that of all neighbouring countries; it was bold, I fay, above all boldneffes, to ufurp this tyranny to himself; and impudent above all impudences,

U z

to endeavour to tranfmit it to his pofterity. But all this boldness is fo far from being a fign of manly courage (which dares not trangrefs the rules of any other virtue) that it is only a demonftration of brutish madnefs or diabolical poffeffion. In both which laft cafes there ufe frequent examples to appear of fuch extraordinary force as may juftly feem more wonderful and astonishing than the actions of Cromwell; neither is it ftranger to believe that a whole nation fhould not be able to govern him and a mad army, than that five or fix men fhould not be ftrong enough to bind a distracted girl. There is no man ever fucceeds in one wickednefs, but it gives him the boldnefs to attempt a greater. It was boldly done of Nero to kill his mother, and all the chief nobility of the empire; it was boldly done, to fet the metropolis of the whole world on fire, and undauntedly play upon his harp whilft he faw it burning; I could reckon up five hundred boldnetles of that great perfon (for why should not he, too, be called fo?) who wanted, when he was to die, that courage which could hardly have failed any woman in the like neceffity.

It would look (1 muft confefs) like envy, or too much partiality, if I should say that perfonal kind of courage had been deficient in the man we speak of; I am confident it was not and yet I may venture, I think, to affirm, that no man ever bore the honour of fo many victories, at the rate of fewer wounds and dangers of his own body; and though his valour might perhaps have given him a juft pretenfion to one of the firft charges in an army, it could not certainly be a fufficient ground for a title to the com mand of three nations.

What then shall we fay? that he did all this by witchcraft? He did fo, indeed, in a great measure, by a fin that is called like it in the Scriptures. But, truly and unpaffionately reflecting upon the advantages of his perfon, which might be thought to have produced thofe of his fortune, I can efpy no other bat extraordinary diligence and infinite diffimulation; and believe he was exalted above his nation, partly by his own faults, but chiefly for ours.

We have brought him thus briefly (not through all his labyrinths) to the fupreme ufurped authority; and becaufe you fay it was great pity he did not live to command more kingdoms, be pleafed to let me reprefent to you in a few words, how well I conceive he governed these. And we will divide the confideration into that of his foreign and domeftic actions. The first of his foreign, was a peace with our brethren of Holland (who were the firft of our neighbours that God chaftifed for having fo great a hand in the encouraging and abetting our troubles at home): who would not imagine at first glimpfe that this had been the molt virtuous and laudable deed, that his whole life could have made any parade of? but no man can look upon all the circumftances without perceiving, that it was purely the fale and facrificing of the greatest advantages that this country could ever hope, and was ready to reap, from a foreign war, to the private interefts of his covetoufnefs and ambition, and the fecurity of his new and unfettled ufurpation. No fooner is that danger,paft, but this Beatus Pacificus is kindling a fire in the northern world, and carrying a war two thousand miles off weftwards. Two millions a year (befides all the vales of his protectorship) is as little capable to fuffice now either his avarice or prodigality, as the two hundred pounds were, that he was born to. He must have his prey of the whole Indiss both by fea and land, this great alligator. To fatisfy our Anti-Solomon (who has made filver almost as rare as gold, and gold as precious ftones in his new Jerufalem) we must go, ten thousand of his flaves, to fetch him riches from his fantafiical Ophir. And, becaufe his flatterers brag of him as the most fortunate prince (the Fauftus, as well as Sylla, of our nation, whom God never forfook in any of his undertakings), I defire them to contider, how, fince the English name was ever heard of, it never received fo great and fo infamous a blow as under the imprudent conduct of this unlucky Fauftus; and herein Fet me admire the juftice of God in this circumitance, that they who had enslaved their country (though a great army, which I wish may be obferved by ours with trembling), fhoul be fo thamefully defeated by the hands of forty flaves. It was very ridiculous to fe how prettily they endeavoured to hide this ignominy under the great name of the con