And laid about as hot and brain-fick Till he who had no more to show And glad to turn itinerant, To troll and teach from town to town, 80 85 90 95 100 Ver. 78.] W. Prynne, a voluminous writer. Had store of money in her purse, When he took her for better or worfe : The Independents (whofe firft ftation That ferv'd for horfe and foot at once, And in the faddle of one fteed The Saracen and Christian rid; Were free of every spiritual order, To preach, and fight, and pray, and murder) 110 115 No Ver. 118.] The officers and foldiers among the Independents got into pulpits, and preached and prayed as well as fought. Oliver Cromwell was fam'd for a preacher, and has a fermon* in print, intituled, Cromwell's Learned, Devout, and Confcientious Exercise, beld at Sir Peter Temple's in Lincoln's Inn-fields, upon Rom. xiii. 1. in which are the following flowers of rhetoric: "Dearly beloved brethren and fifters, it is "true, this text is a malignant one; the wicked and ungodly have abufed it very much; but, thanks be "to God, it was to their own ruin. "But now that I spoke of Kings, the question is, "Whether, by the higher powers, are meant kings or "commoners? Truly, beloved, it is a very great question among thofe that are learned: for may not every one that can read obferve, that Paul fpeaks in "the plural number, higher powers? Now, had he "meant fubjectic. to a king, he would have faid, "Let every foul be fubject to the higher power," if ed meant one man; but by this you fee he "C meant 3, however, is now well known to be an im N. No fooner got the start, to lurch Both difciplines of War and Church, And Providence enough to run The chief commanders of them down, The common enemy o' th' Saints, 120 And "meant more than one: he bids us "be subject to "the higher powers," that is, the Council of State, "the House of Commons, and the Army." Ib. p. 3. When in the Humble Petition there was inferted an article against public preachers being members of Parliament, Oliver Cromwell excepted against it exprefsly; "Because he (he faid) was one, and divers officers of "the army, by whom much good had been done"and therefore defired they would explain their ar"ticle." (Heath's Chronicle, p. 408.) Ib.] Sir Roger L'Eftrange obferves (Reflection upon Poggius's Fable of the Hufband, Wife, and Ghoftly Father, part I. fab. 357.) upon the pretended faints of thofe times, "That they did not fet one ftep, in the "whole tract of this iniquity, without fecking the "Lord first, and going up to enquire of the Lord, according to the cant of thofe days; which was no "other than to make God the author of fin, and to "impute the blackest practices of hell to the infpira❝tion of the Holy Gholt." It was with this pretext, of feeking the Lord in prayer, that Cromwell, Ireton, Harrifon, and others of the Regicides, cajoled General Fairfax, who was determined to refcue the King from execution, giving orders to have it fpeedily done: and, when they had notice that it was over, they perfuaded the General that this was a full return of prayer; and, God having fo manifefted his pleasure, they ought to acquiefce in it. (Perenchief's Life of King Charles 1.) |