surely it is indispensable to have satisfaction' on that score; also that it is perilous not to get it; and furthermore that labyrinths of constitutional and other logic are by no means the course towards that.

For the Right Honourable the Lord Wharton: These.

MY DEAR FRIEND, MY LORD,

:

Cork, 1st Jan. 1649.

If I know my heart, I love you in truth and therefore if, from the jealousy of unfeigned love, I play the fool a little, and say a word or two at guess, I know you will pardon it.

It were a vain thing, by Letter, to dispute-over your doubts, or undertake to answer your objections. I have heard them all; and I have rest from the trouble of them, and 'of' what has risen in my own heart; for which I desire to be humbly thankful. I do not condemn your reasonings; I doubt them. It's easy to object to the glorious Actings of God, if we look too much upon Instruments! I have heard computations made of the Members in Parliament: "The good kept out, the worst left in," &c.:-it has been so these nine years: yet what hath God wrought? The greatest works last; and still is at work! Therefore take heed of this scandal.

Be not offended at the manner 6 of God's working;' perhaps no other way was left. What if God accepted their zeal, even' as He did that of Phinehas,2 whom

1 Original has, most bad remaining:''these nine years' means, ever since the Parliament first met.

2 And behold, one of the Children of Israel came, and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman; in the sight of Moses, and in the

reason might have called before a jury! What if the Lord have witnessed His approbation and acceptance to this 'zeal' also,-not only by signal outward acts, but to the heart of good men' too? What if I fear, my Friend should withdraw his shoulder from the Lord's work, -Oh, it's grievous to do so!-through scandals, through false mistaken reasonings — ?

1

a

"There's difficulty, there's trouble; here, in the other way, there's safety, ease, wisdom: in the one no clearness"- this is an objection indeed,—" in the other satisfaction."--"Satisfaction:" it's well if we thought of that first, and as' severed from the other considerations, which do often bias, if not bribe the mind. Whereby mists are often raised in the way we should walk in, and we call it darkness or "dissatisfaction:" Oh, our deceitful hearts! Oh, this flattering world! How great is it to be the Lord's servant in any drudgery2 (I thought not to have written near SO far as the other side: love will not let me alone; I have been often provoked to it by you')-- in all hazards His worst is far above the world's best! He makes us able, in truth, to say so; we cannot of ourselves. How hard a thing is it to reason ourselves up to the Lord's service, though it be so honourable; how

6

6

sight of all the Congregation of the Children of Israel, who were weeping 'before the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation,'-by reason of those very sins. And when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron 'the Priest, saw it, he rose up from among the Congregation, and took a " javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, ' and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stayed from the Children of Israel.' (Numbers, xxv. 6-8.)

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1 of' safety,' profit, &c.

2 Turns the leaf, we perceive.

easy to put ourselves out there, where the flesh has so many advantages!—

You were desired to go along with us: I wish it still. Yet we are not triumphing;-we may, for aught flesh knoweth, suffer after all this: the Lord prepare us for His good pleasure! You were with us in the Power of things: why not in the Form? I am persuaded your heart hankers after the hearts of your poor Friends; and will, until you can find others to close with which, I trust, though we in ourselves be contemptible, God will not let you do!

My service to the dear little Lady: I wish you make her not a greater temptation to you, in this matter,' than she is! Take heed of all relations. Mercies should not be temptations: yet we too oft make them So. The Lord direct your thoughts into the obedience of His will, and give you rest and peace in the Truth. Pray for

Your most true and affectionate

Servant in the Lord,

OLIVER CROmwell.

'P.S.' I received a Letter from Robert Hammond, whom truly I love in the Lord with most entire affection: it much grieved me, not because I judged, but feared the whole spirit of it was from temptation;— indeed I thought I perceived a proceeding in that which the Lord will, I trust, cause him to unlearn. I

;

Shadow of condescension, implied in this, strikes his Excellency; which he hastens to retract.

would fain have written to him, but am straitened in time. Would he would be with us a little! Perhaps it would be no hurt to him.*

Of Wharton and his dubitations, which many share in, we shall again hear. Of Wharton, young Colonel Hammond, young Colonel Montague, Tom Westrow, Henry Lawrence, idle Dick, men known to us, and men unknown; - of them and their abstruse reasonings,' and communings with the Lord Lieutenant in St. James's Park, we shall have a hint by and by. Some of whom received full satisfaction,' and

others never could.

Here is a kind of Epistle General, in a quite other tone, intended to give 'satisfaction' to a quite other class, if they are capable of it.

* Gentleman's Magazine (London, 1814), lxxxiv. p. 418. Given there without editing; no notice whence: clearly genuine.--Note to Third Edition. Original, in autograph, endorsed by Wharton, 'rec: 30 January,' is now (1848) in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; Postscript here is added from the Original. This Letter, and two others to be given by and by (CXLVI. and CLXXXI.), came to the Fitzwilliam Museum, some thirty years ago; discovered among the Court-rolls of the Manor of Wymondham Cromwell, Norfolk.’

·

DECLARATION

OF THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND, FOR THE UNDECEIVING OF DELUDED PEOPLE.

THE Supreme Council of Kilkenny,' still more the Occult Irish Hierarchy' which was a main element thereof, remains, and is like to remain, a very dark entity in History: little other, after all one's reading, than a featureless gaunt shadow; extinct, and the emblem to us of huge noises that are also extinct. History can know that it had features once: -of fierce dark-visaged Irish Noblemen and Gentlemen; darkvisaged Abbases O'Teague, and an Occult Papist Hierarchy; earnestly planning, perorating, excommunicating, in a high Irish tone of voice: alas, with general result which Nature found untrue. Let there be noble pity for them in the hearts of the noble. Alas, there was withal some glow of real Irish Patriotism, some light of real human valour, in those old hearts but it had parted company with Fact; came forth enveloped in such huge embodiment of headlong ferocity, of violence, hatred, noise, and general unveracity and incohe rency, as-as brought a Cromwell upon it at last! These reflections might lead us far.

What we have to say here is, that in the present expiring condition of the Irish Rebellion, nearly trodden to destruction now, it has been judged very fitting, That there be an end of