[2]
On the appointed day, the 4th of July, one hundred and twenty of these
faithful and godly men attended[b] in the council-chamber at Whitehall.
They were seated on chairs round the table; and the lord-general took his
station near the middle window, supported on each side by a numerous body
of officers. He addressed the company standing, and it was believed by his
admirers, perhaps by himself, "that the Spirit of God spoke in him and by
him." Having vindicated in a long narrative the dissolution of the late
parliament, he congratulated the persons present on the high office to
which they had been called. It was not of their own seeking. It had come to
them from God by the choice of the army, the usual channel through which in
these latter days the Divine mercies had been dispensed to the nation. He
would not
[Footnote 1: Thurloe, i. 395. Compare the list of the members in Heath,
350, with the letters in Milton's State Papers, 92, 94, 96.]
[Footnote 2: Thurloe, i. 274. Whitelock, 547. "It was a great satisfaction
and encouragement to some that their names had been presented as to that
service, by the churches and other godly persons."--Exact Relation of the
Proceedings, &c. of the last parliament, 1654, p. 2.]
[Sidenote a: A.
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