But the officers had overrated their own strength: the country
called for an end to all arbitrary proceedings; the punishment of Naylor
proved the necessity of a check on the judicial proceedings of the
parliament, and that check could only be procured by investing the
protector with additional authority. This answer made several proselytes;
but the majority adhered pertinaciously to their former opinion.[1]
Nor was this spirit confined to the army; in all companies men were heard
to maintain that, to set up monarchy again was to pronounce condemnation
on themselves, to acknowledge themselves guilty of all the blood which had
been shed to put it down. But nowhere did the proposal excite more cordial
abhorrence than in the conventicles of the Fifth-monarchy-men. In their
creed the protectorate was an impiety, kingship a sacrilegious assumption
of the authority belonging to the only King, the Lord Jesus. They were his
witnesses foretold in the Apocalypse; they had now slept their sleep of
three years and a half; the time was come when it was their duty to rise
and avenge the cause of the Lord. In the conventicles of the capital the
lion of Judah was chosen for their military device; arms were prepared, and
the day of rising was fixed.
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