[Footnote 1:  Journals, July 15-19, Nov. 17, Dec. 1, 6-10.  Exact Relation, 418-424.]

[Footnote 2:  Beverning, one of the Dutch ambassadors, went to the meeting on one of these occasions.  In a letter, he says:—­“The scope and intention is to preach down governments, and to stir up the people against the united Netherlands.  Being then in the assembly of the saints, I heard one prayer, two sermons.  But, good God! what cruel and abominable, and most horrid trumpets of fire, murder, and flame.”—­Thurloe, i. 442.]

stripped the pope of many of those titles with which he had so long been honoured by the Protestant churches, and the lord-general was publicly declared to be the beast in the Apocalypse, the old dragon, and the man of sin.  Unwilling to invade the liberty of religious meetings, he for some time bore these insults with an air of magnanimity:  at last he summoned[a] the two preachers before himself and the council.  But the heralds of the Lord of Hosts quailed not before the servants of an earthly commonwealth:  they returned rebuke for rebuke, charged Cromwell with an unjustifiable assumption of power, and departed from the conference unpunished and unabashed.[1]

By the public the sermons at Blackfriars were considered as explanatory of the views and principles of the Anabaptists in the house.  The enemies of these reformers multiplied daily:  ridicule and abuse were poured upon them from every quarter; and it became evident to all but themselves that the hour of their fall was rapidly approaching.  Cromwell, their maker, had long ago determined to reduce them to their original nothing; and their last vote respecting the ministry appeared to furnish a favourable opportunity.  The next day, the Sunday, he passed with his friends in secret consultation; on the Monday these friends mustered in considerable numbers, and at an early hour took their seats in the house.  Colonel Sydenham rose.  He reviewed[b] all the proceedings of the parliament, condemned them as calculated to injure almost every interest in the state, and, declaring that he would no longer sit in so useless an assembly, moved that the house should proceed to Whitehall, and deliver back the supreme power into the hands of him from whom

[Footnote 1:  Thurloe, i. 442, 534, 545, 560, 591, 621.]

[Sidenote a:  A.D. 1653.  Dec. 6.] [Sidenote b:  A.D. 1653.  Dec. 12.]

it was derived.  The motion was seconded and opposed; but the Independents had come to act, not to debate.  They immediately rose:  the speaker, who was in the secret, left the chair; the sergeant and the clerk accompanied him, and near fifty members followed in a body.  The reformers, only twenty-seven in number (for most of them had not yet arrived), gazed on each other with surprise; their first resource was to fall to prayer; and they were employed in that holy exercise, when Goff and White, two officers, entered, and requested them to withdraw.  Being required to show their warrant, they called in a company of soldiers.  No resistance was now offered; the military cleared the house, and the keys were left with the guard.[1]