edings had compelled the soldiers to live
at free quarters on the country. They supposed that he sought to make the
protectorship hereditary in his family. It was not true; had they inserted
such a provision in "the instrument," on that ground alone he would have
rejected it. He spoke in the fear of the Lord, who would not be mocked, and
with the satisfaction that his conscience did not belie his assertion. The

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1655. Jan. 19.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1655. Jan. 22.]

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