different revolutions which had happened were attributed to his cunning.  How blind were men who would not see the hand of Providence in its merciful dispensations, who ridiculed as the visions of enthusiasm the observations “made by the quickening and teaching Spirit!” It was supposed that he would not be able to raise money without the aid of parliament.  But “he had been inured to difficulties, and never found God failing when he trusted in him.”  The country would willingly pay on account of the necessity.  But was not the necessity of his creation?  No:  it was of God; the consequence of God’s providence.  It was no marvel, if men who lived on their masses and service-books, their dead and carnal worship, were strangers to the works of God; but for those who had been instructed by the Spirit of God, to adopt the same language, and say that men were the cause of these things, when God had done them, this was more than the Lord would bear.  But that he might trouble them no longer, it was his duty to tell them that their continuance was not for the benefit of the nation, and therefore he did then and there declare that he dissolved the parliament.[1]

This was a stroke for which his adversaries were unprepared.  “The instrument” had provided that the parliament should continue to sit during five months, and it still wanted twelve days of the expiration of that term.  But Cromwell chose to understand the clause not of calendar but of lunar months, the fifth of which had been completed on the preceding evening.  Much might have been urged against such an interpretation; but a military force was ready to

[Footnote 1:  Printed by Henry Hills, printer to his highness the lord-protector, 1654.  Whitelock, 610-618.  Journals, Jan. 19, 20, 22.]

support the opinion of the protector, and prudence taught the most reluctant of his enemies to submit.

The conspiracies to which he had alluded in his speech had been generated by the impatience of the two opposite parties, the republicans and the royalists.  Of the republicans some cared little for religion, others were religious enthusiasts, but both were united in the same cause by one common interest.  The first could not forgive the usurpation of Cromwell, who had reaped the fruit, and destroyed the object of their labours; the second asked each other how they could conscientiously sit quiet, and allow so much blood to have been spilt, and treasure expended, so many tears to have been shed, and vows offered in vain.  If they “hoped to look with confidence the King of terrors in the face, if they sought to save themselves from the bottomless pit, it was necessary to espouse once more the cause of Him who had called them forth in their generation to assert the freedom of the people and the privileges of parliament."[1] Under these different impressions, pamphlets were published exposing the hypocrisy and perjuries of the protector; letters and agitators passed from regiment to regiment; and