CHAPTER XI.

MORALITY, GLORY, AND ANTIPOPERY OF ENGLAND.

The State-Principal Duty-The Glory of England-Morality-Triumphs of Great Britain—Commerce-Justice-Opposition to Spain— Antipopery-Cromwell's Name-The Lion of the Tribe of Judah.

To Cromwell the State was a divine institution, the maintaining and governing of which belonged supremely to God. He would not, like certain parties, look upon it as a purely human society. He did not think that it was based simply on terrestrial facts, such as conquests, treaties, and constitutions. He was not indeed blind to the influence of these things, but over all, according to his views, the intervention of the Deity was to be recognized.

In some of his applications of this principle he went too far. The State is an institution against iniquity. The prince is the minister of God to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. In this respect, we may believe that the civil power and the Church have regard to the same object, since Christ, the Head of the Church, came into the world to take away sin. But that resistance to evil, which characterizes the Church and the State alike, must be accomplished in two different ways. It is by very dissimilar and by very opposite means that these great societies attain the end they have in view. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. This is the means whereby the Church suppresses evil:

and in this

there is no connection with that constraint and with that sword which a ruler beareth not in vain.

From these paths, so different and so distinct, laid down

for each of these societies, there results a rule which is too frequently overlooked. The State should be careful not to aim at producing what is beyond its function: the Church should not presume to do that from which it ought to abstain. As in the State it is necessary to keep the legislative, judicial, and executive powers distinct, that all may go on harmoniously; so, in the nation, we must distinguish between the sphere of the Church and of the State, that the people may be happy and prosperous. We cannot deny that Oliver seems occasionally to have gone too far, as a political chief, in matters of religion.

.......

But there is one point which he saw very clearly, and in regard to which his notions were true, ... the prosperity and power of a nation are based essentially on its morality and on its faith. He understood more distinctly perhaps than any other ruler, that no country can exist and flourish unless it have within itself some principle of life.

He had, indeed, other passions not less noble than that of religious liberty. The greatness, prosperity, and glory of England was a no less potent necessity in him, and he worthily acted up to it. He said one day in council: "I hope to make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a Roman has been." And in effect he so augmented the general resources and maritime power of the nation, that he procured for it a more extensive European celebrity and influence than it had ever possessed under any of its kings.

But the Protector knew that righteousness exalteth a nation, and it was by this means he desired to elevate his own. God himself spoke to this people.

The army was subjected to an admirable moral discipline, which, with the piety that animated most of the officers and soldiers, concurred in keeping up a purity of manners till then unknown, especially in the garrison and in the camp.

The same morality prevailed at the Protector's court. Everything was becoming and honorable: everything in strong contrast with the levity and debauchery that sur

rounded the unfortunate son of Charles I. in a foreign country, and of which the catholic court of France ere long presented so deplorable an example.

The moral purity which distinguished the epoch of the Protectorate is a fact of great importance. We are here, in truth, called upon to apply the rule given in the Word of God: Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. When unbelievers and libertines pronounce for the reign of Charles II.,-a reign characterized by great public licentiousness, and against the commonwealth, so remarkable for its christian virtues,– we can easily understand them. But when moral and religious people do the same, we are at a loss to account for their motives. This is a matter of such consequence that we feel it our duty to quote on this point the opinions of writers both English and French,-writers very Romish, very royalist, and very hostile to the Protector.

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Dr. Lingard, a witness beyond suspicion, does homage to the morality of his government, although, with the candor habitual to the mass of Papists, he will not see in it anything besides appearances. Among the immediate consequences of the Restoration [of Charles II., in 1660], nothing appeared to the intelligent observer more extraordinary than the almost instantaneous revolution which it wrought in the moral habits of the people. Under the government of men making profession of godliness, vice had been compelled to wear the exterior garb of virtue; but the moment the restraint was removed, it stalked forth without disguise, and was everywhere received with welcome. The cavaliers, to celebrate their triumph, abandoned themselves to ebriety and debauchery; and the new loyalists, that they might prove the sincerity of their conversion, strove to excel the cavaliers in licentiousness. Charles, who had not forgotten his former reception in Scotland, gladly availed himself of the opportunity to indulge his favorite propensities."*

* Lingard, Hist. England, xi. 244. London, 1839.

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Such is the testimony of an English writer; and now let us hear what a Frenchman says. Chateaubriand, in spite of all his prejudices against Protestantism, is struck with the difference in a moral light between the two revolutions of France and England. "This brief republic," he observes, was not without glory abroad, or without virtue, liberty, and justice at home...... This difference between the two revolutions, which have nevertheless led to the same result, the same liberty, proceeds from the religious sentiment which animated the innovators of Great Britain." He adds farther on: 'Setting aside the illegality of Cromwell's measures an illegality necessary perhaps after all to maintain his illegal power...... the ursupation of this great man was a glorious one. At home, he asserted the reign of order. Like many despots, he was the friend of justice in everything which did not touch his own person; and justice serves to console a people for the loss of their liberty."*

......

Such are the avowals which truth has extorted from these writers, so eminent but so blinded by obstinate prejudices. The superior morality which characterized England in the time of Cromwell, showed itself abroad by incontestable proofs.

The English nation, which, under the two first Stuarts, foreigners had begun to regard as pusillanimous, suddenly displayed the most striking valor both by land and sea. Freedom and piety, equally dear both to the soldiers and sailors, gave them fresh energy, and urged them on to fight everywhere, as if in defence of the most sacred rights.

We shall not recount all the high deeds of arms by which England gave token to the world of the renewal of her power. We are not writing a history of Great Britain. The victories gained over Holland by the English fleets under the command of Blake and Monk; the gallant Van Tromp, shot to the heart with a musket ball, and his shattered fleet escaping in disorder to the Texel; Cromwell in person reading

Les Quatre Stuards.

to parliament the account of these victories, and proposing a national recompense to the victorious admirals; the United Provinces acknowledging the supremacy of the British flag, making to the English a tardy reparation for old injuries, and even excluding the House of Orange from the stadtholdership, because of its alliance with the Stuarts; Spain the first to come forward and do homage to the Protector, and even urging him openly to seize upon the crown of England,..... a flattery to which his only reply was a disdainful silence; Portugal, France, the Elector of Brandenburg, at that time almost unknown in Europe, all the other states, and even Christina of Sweden, then on her way to Rome, laying at the feet of Great Britain and of her chief the tribute of their respect and admiration; the fleets of Spain beaten again and again; the Viceroy of Mexico, surrounded with his treasures, expiring on the deck of his burning ship; millions of ingots of gold carried to London as a monument of triumph; other ships and other galleons bringing fresh treasures from the New World, burnt and sunk a second time in the bay of Teneriffe; Gibraltar attracting the eagle eye of the Protector—“the town and castle of Gibraltar, if possessed and made tenable by us, would be both an advantage to our trade and an annoyance to the Spaniard ;". . . . . these are some of the facts which show how the Protector exalted and maintained in the sight of the foreigner the might and the glory of England.

But it was not in battles only that Cromwell sought the power of his country; his practised eye easily discerned what ought to make the prosperity of Great Britain, and his zeal for commerce surpassed that of all the sovereigns who had preceded him. He appointed a committee of merchants for the purpose of developing the resources of British trade. They first met in the Painted Chamber on the 27th November, 1655, and continued their labors until the day of his death. Everywhere we find the same impulse given by his potent hand. Southey acknowledges that Oliver's "good sense and