SPEECH II.

BUT now the new Parliament has got itself elected; not without much interest:-the first Election there has been in England for fourteen years past. Parliament of Four-hundred, thirty Scotch. thirty Irish; freely chosen according to the Instrument, according to the Bill that was in progress when the Rump disappeared. What will it say to these late inarticulate births of Providence, and high transactions? Something edifying, one may hope.

Open Malignants, as we know, could not vote or be voted for, to this Parliament; only active Puritans or quiet Neutrals, who had clear property to the value of 2007. Probably as fair a Representative as, by the rude method of counting heads, could wel! be got in England. The bulk of it, I suppose, consists of constitutional Presbyterians and use-and-wont Neutrals; it well represents the arithmetical account of heads in England: whether the real divine and human value of thinking-souls in England, that is a much deeper question; upon which the Protector and this First Parliament of his may much disagree. It is the question of questions, nevertheless; and he that can answer it best will come best off in the long-run. It was not a successful Parliament this, as we shall find. The Lord Protector and it differed widely in certain fundamental notions they had!—

We recognize old faces, in fair proportion, among those Fourhundred ;-many new withal, who never become known to us. Learned Bulstrode, now safe home from perils in Hyperborean countries, is here; elected for several places, the truly valuable man. Old-Speaker Lenthall sits, old Major-General Skippon, old Sir William Masham, old Sir Francis Rouse. My Lord Her. bert (Earl of Worcester's son) is here; Owen, Doctor of Divinity, for Oxford University;—a certain not entirely useless Guibon Goddard, for the Town of Lynn, to whom we owe some Notes of the procedure. Leading Officers and high Official persons have

Deen extensively elected; several of them twice and thrice: Fleetwood, Lambert, the Claypoles, Dunches, both the young Crom wells; Montague for his County, Ashley Cooper for his. On the other hand, my Lord Fairfax is here; nay Bradshaw, Haselrig, Robert Wallop, Wildman, and Republicans are here. Old Sir Harry Vane; not young Sir Harry, who sits meditative in the North. Of Scotch members we mention only Laird Swinton, and the Earl of Hartfell; of the Irish, Lord Broghill and Commissary-General Reynolds, whom we once saw fighting well in that country.* And now hear the authentic Bulstrode; and then the Protector himself.

September 3d, 1654.-The Lord's day, yet the day of the Parliament's meeting. The Members met in the afternoon at sermon, in the Abbey Church at Westminster; after sermon they attended the Protector in the Painted Chamber; who made a Speech to them of the cause of their summons,' Speech unre ported; after which, they went to the House, and adjourned to the next morning.

'Monday, September 4th.--The Protector rode in state from Whitehall to the Abbey Church in Westminster.

Some hundreds of Gentlemen and Officers went before him bare; with the Life-guard; and next before the coach, his pages and laqueys richly clothed. On the one side of his coach went Strickland, one of his Council, and Captain of his Guard, with the Master of the Ceremonies; both on foot. On the other side went Howard,† Captain of the Life-guard. In the coach with him were his son Henry, and Lambert; both sat bare. After him came Claypole, Master of the Horse; with a gallant led horse richly trapped. Next came the Commissioners of the Great Seal,' Lisle, Widdrington, and I; Commissioners of the Treasury, and divers of the Council in coaches; last the ordinary Guards.

'He alighting at the Abbey Church door,' and entering, 'the Officers of the Army and the Gentlemen went first; next them four maces; then the Commissioners of the Seal, Whitlocke carrying the Purse; after, Lambert carrying the Sword bare:

* Letter LXXII. vol i., p. 387.

† Colonel Charles, ancestor of the Earl of Carlisle.

the rest followed. His Highness was seated over against the Pulpit; the Members of the Parliament on both sides.

'After the sermon, which was preached by Mr. Thomas Goodwin, his Highness went, in the same equipage, to the Painted Chamber. Where he took seat in a chair of state set upon steps,' raised chair with a canopy over it, under which his Highness sat covered, and the Members upon benches round about sat all bare. All being sitent, his Highness,' rising, 'put off his hat, and made a large and subtle speech to them.**

Here is a Report of the Speech, 'taken by one who stood very near,' and 'published† to prevent mistakes.' As we, again, stand at some distance,-two centuries with their chasms and ruins,— our hearing is nothing like so good! To help a little, I have, with reluctance, admitted from the latest of the Commentators a few annotations; and intercalated them the best I could; sup pressing very many. Let us listen well; and again we shall understand somewhat.

GENTLEMEN,

You are met here on the greatest occasion that, I believe, England ever saw; having upon your shoulders the Interests of Three great Nations with the territories belonging to them;—and truly, I believe I may say it without any hyperbole, you have upon your shoulders the Interest of all the Christian People in the world. And the expectation is, that I should let you know, as far as I have cognisance of it, the occasion of your assembling together at this time.

It hath been very well hinted to you this day, that you come hither to settle the Interests above mentioned: for your work here, in the issue and consequences of it, will extend so far, 'even to all Christian people.' In the way and manner of my speaking to you, I shall study plainness ; and to speak to you what is truth, and what is upon my heart, and what will in some measure reach to these great concernments.

After so many changings and turnings, which this Nation hath labored under,—to have such a day of hope as this is, and such a door of hope opened by God to us truly I believe, some months since, would have been beyond all our thoughts!—I confess it would have been worthy of such a meeting as this is, To have remembered that which was the riso

* Whitlocke, p. 582.

By G. Sawbridge, at the Bible on Ludgate Hill, London, 1654.
in the Sermon we have just heard.
§ commemorated.

'of,' and gave the first beginning to all these Troubles which have been upon this Nation: and to have given you a series of the Transactions, —not of men, but of the Providence of God, all along unto our late changes: as also the ground of our first undertaking to oppose that usurpation and tyranny* which was upon us, both in civils and spirituals; and the several grounds particularly applicable to the several changes that have been. But I have two or three reasons which divert me from such a way of proceeding at this time.

If I should have gone in that way, then' that which lies upon my heart' as to these things,' which is 'so' written there that if I would blot it out I could not,—would 'itself' have spent this day: the providences and dispensations of God have been so stupendous. As David said in the like case, Psalm xl., 5, "Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward; they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.”— Truly, another reason, unexpected by me, you had to-day in the Sermon :† you had much recapitulation of Providence; much allusion to a state and dispensation in respect of discipline and correction, of mercies and deliverances, 'to a state and dispensation similar to ours,'—to, in truth, the only parallel of God's dealing with us that I know in the world, which was largely and wisely held forth to you this day: To Israel's bringing out of Egypt through a wilderness by many signs and wonders, towards a Place of Rest,—I say towards it.‡ And that having been so well remonstrated to you this day, is another argument why I shall not trouble you with a recapitulation of those things;-though they are things which I hope will never be forgotten, because written in better Books than those of paper;-written, I am persuaded, in the heart of every good man!

'But' a third reason was this: What I judge to be the end of your meeting, the great end, which was likewise remembered to you this day; to wit, Healing and Settling. The remembering of Transactions too particularly, perhaps instead of healing,—at least in the hearts of many of you,―might set the wound fresh a-bleeding. 'And' I must profess this unto you, whatever thoughts pass upon me: That if this day, if this meeting, prove not healing, what shall we do! But, as 1

* Of Charles, Wentworth, Laud and Company.

This Sermon of Goodwin's is not in the collected Edition of his Works; not among the King's Pamphlets; not in the Bodleian Library. We gather what the subject was, from this Speech, and know nothing of it otherwise.

not yet at it; nota bene.

§ in the Sermon.

said before, I trust it is in the minds of you all, and much more in the mind of God, to cause healing. It must be first in His mind :—and He being pleased to put it into yours, this will be a Day indeed, and such a Day as generations to come will bless you for!-I say, for this and the other reasons, I have forborne to make a particular remembrance and enumeration of things, and of the manner of the Lord's bringing us through so many changes and turnings as have passed upon us.

Howbeit, I think it will be more than necessary to let you know, at least so well as I may, in what condition this Nation, or rather these Nations were, when the present Government* was undertaken. And for order's sake: It's very natural to consider what our condition was, in Civils; and then also' in Spirituals..

What was our condition! Every man's hand almost was against his brother; at least his heart' was;' little regarding anything that should cement, and might have a tendency in it to cause us to grow into one. All the dispensations of God; His terrible ones, when He met us in the way of His judgment† in a Ten-years Civil War; and His merciful ones they did not, they did not work upon us!‡ 'No.' But we had our humors and interests ;-and indeed I fear our humors went for more with us than even our interests. Certainly, as it falls out in such cases, our passions were more than our judgments.-Was not everything almost grown arbitrary? Who of us knew where or how to have right 'done him,' without some obstruction or other intervening? Indeed we were almost grown arbitrary in everything.

What was the face that was upon our affairs as to the Interest of the Nation? As to the Authority in the Nation; to the Magistracy; to the Ranks and Orders of men,-whereby England hath been known for hundreds of years? [The Levellers!]. A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; 'the distinction of these:' that is a good interest of the Nation, and a great one! The 'natural' Magistracy of the Nation, was it not almost trampled under foot, under despite and contempt, by men of Levelling principles? I beseech you, For the orders of men and ranks of men, did not that Levelling principle tend to the reducing of all to an equality? Did it 'consciously' think to do so; or did it only uncon. sciously' practise towards that for property and interest? At all events,' what was the purport of it but to make the Tenant as liberal a fortune as the Landlord? Which, I think, if obtained, would not have lasted

* Protectorate.

† punishment for our sins.

Reiteration of the word is not an uncommon mode of emphasis with

Oliver.