LETTERS CXLIX., CL. 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 CXLIX. 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. GRNTLEMEN 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. As nothing that may reflect to the prejudice of your outward Good, either Personal or as you are a Civil Government, shall easily pass with us: so, much less what shall tend to your discouragement, as you are Saints, to your Congregations, gathered in that way of fellowship commonly known by the name of Independents, whether of one judgment or other :-'this' shall be far from being actually discountenanced, or passively 'left to ' suffer damage, by any applying themselves to me. I do, once for all, give you to understand, that I should thereby destroy and disappoint one of the main ends for which God hath planted me in the station I am in. Wherefore I desire you in that matter to rest secure. True it is that two Ministers, one Mr. Cole and one Mr. Pye, did present to me a Letter in the name of divers Ministers of Newcastle, the Bishoprick of Durham and Northumberland; of an honest and Christian purpose: the sum whereof I extracted, and returned an Answer thereunto;—a true Copy whereof I send you here enclosed. By which I think it will easily appear, that the consideration of my kindness is well deserved by them; provided they observe the condition 'there' expressed: which in charity I am bound to believe they will: and without which their own consciences and the world will know how to judge of them. Having said this, I, or rather the Lord, require of you, That you walk in all peaceableness and gentleness, inoffensiveness, truth and love towards them, as becomes the Servants and Churches of Christ. Knowing well that Jesus Christ, of whose diocese both they and you are, expects it. Who, when He comes to gather His People, and to make Himself "a name and praise amongst all the people of the earth,”— He "will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out, and will get them praise and fame in every land, where they have been put to shame."* And such "lame ones and "driven out ones were not the Independents only, and Presbyterians, a few years since, by the Popish and Prelatical Party in these Nations; but such are and have been the Protestants in all lands,-persecuted, and faring alike with you, in all the Reformed Churches. And therefore, knowing your charity to be as large as all the Flock of Christ who are of the same Hope and Faith of the Gospel with you; I thought fit to commend these few words to you ;-being well assured it is written in your heart, So to do with this that I shall stand by you in the maintaining of all your just privileges to the uttermost. And committing you to the blessing of the Lord, I rest, Your loving friend, OLIVER P.t LETTER CL. CARDINAL MAZARIN, the governing Minister of France in those days, is full of compliance for the Lord Protector; whom, both Zephaniah, iii., 19, 20. † Thurloe, v., 714: in Secretary Thurloe's hand for the sake of France and for the Cardinal's sake, it is very requisite to keep in good humor. On France's score, there is Treaty with France and War with its enemy Spain; on the Cardinal's are obscure Court-intrigues, Queen-mothers, and one knows not what in brief, the subtle Cardinal has found, after trial of the opposite course too, that friendship, or even at times obedientservantship to Cromwell, will be essentially advantageous to him. Some obscure quarrel has fallen out between Charles Stuart and the Duke of York his Brother. Quarrel complicated with open politics, with Spanish War and Royalist Revolt, on Oliver's side; with secret Queen-mothers and back-stairs diplomacies on the Cardinal's :-of which there flit in the dreariest manner this and the other enigmatic vestige in the Night-realm of Thurloe ;* and which is partly the subject of this present Letter. A Letter unique in two respects. It is the only one we have of Oliver Cromwell, the English Puritan King, to Giulio Mazarini, the Sicilian-French Cardinal, and King of Shreds and Patches; who are a very singular pair of Correspondents brought together by the Destinies! It is also the one glimpse we have from Oliver himself of the subterranean Spy-world, in which by a hard neces. sity so many of his thoughts had to dwell. Oliver, we find, cannot quite grant Toleration to the Catholics; but he is well satisfied with this 'our weightiest affair,'-not without weight to me at least, who sit expecting Royalist Insurrections backed by Spanish Invasions, and have Assassins plotting for my life at present on the word of a Christian King !'— Concerning the 'affair' itself, and the personages engaged in it, let us be content that they should continue spectral for us, and dwell in the subterranean Night-realm which belongs to them. The 'Person' employed from England, if anybody should be curious about him, is one Colonel Bamfield, once a flaming Presbyterian Royalist, who smuggled the Duke of York out of this Country 'in woman's clothes;' and now lives as an Oliverian Spy, very busy making mischief for the Duke of York. Berkley' is the Sir John Berkley who rode with Charles First to the Isle of Wight long since;† the Duke of York's Tutor at present. Of 'Lock. Antea, i., 236. * iv., 506; v., 753; &c., &c |