e judgment of parliament.

It could not escape the sagacity of the lord-general that the fanatics,
with whose aid he had subverted the late government, were not the men to be
intrusted with the destinies of the three kingdoms; yet he deemed it his
interest to indulge them in their wild notions of civil and religious
reformation, and to suffer himself for a while to be guided by their
counsels. Their first measure was to publish a Vindication of their
Proceedings.[1] The long parliament they pronounced[a] incapable "of
answering those ends which God, his people, and the whole nation,
expected." Had it been permitted to sit a day longer, it would "at one blow
have laid in the dust the interest of all honest men and of their glorious
cause." In its place the council of war would "call to the government
persons of approved fidelity and honesty;" and therefore required "public
officers and ministers to proceed in their respective places," and conjured
"those who feared and loved the name of the Lord, to be instant with him
day and night in their behalf."[2]

[Footnote 1: Printed by Henry Hills and Thomas Brewster, printers to the
army, 1653.]

[Footnote 2: Ludlow, ii. 24. Thurloe, i. 289, 395. Sir H. Vane, after all
the affronts which he had received, was offered a place in the council; but
he replied that, though the reign of the saints was begun, he would defer
his share in it till he should go to heaven.--Thurloe, i. 265.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1653. April 22.]

They next proceeded to establish[a] a council of state. Some proposed that
it should consist of ten members, some of seventy, after the model of the
Jewish Sanhedrim; and others of thirteen, in imitation of Christ and his
twelve apostles. The last project was adopted as equally scriptural, and
more convenient. With Cromwell, in the place of lord president, were joined
four civilians and eight officers of high rank; so that the army still
retained its ascendancy, and the council of state became in fact a military
council.

From this moment for some months it would have embarrassed any man to
determine where the supreme power resided. Some of the judges were
superseded by others: new commissioners of the treasury and admiralty were
appointed; even the monthly assessment of one hundred and twenty thousand
pounds was continued for an additional half-year; and yet these and similar
acts, all of them belonging to the highest authority in the state, appeared
to eman