e topic
was the Dutch war. God, they maintained, had given Holland into the hands
of the English; it was to be the landing-place of the saints, whence
they should proceed to pluck the w---- of Babylon from her chair and to
establish the kingdom of Christ on the continent; and they threatened with
every kind of temporal and everlasting woe the man who should advise peace
on any other terms than the incorporation of the United Provinces with the
commonwealth of England.[2] When it was known that Cromwell had receded
from this demand, their indignation

[Footnote 1: Journals, July 15-19, Nov. 17, Dec. 1, 6-10. Exact Relation,
418-424.]

[Footnote 2: Beverning, one of the Dutch ambassadors, went to the meeting
on one of these occasions. In a letter, he says:--"The scope and intention
is to preach down governments, and to stir up the people against the united
Netherlands. Being then in the assembly of the saints, I heard one prayer,
two sermons. But, good God! what cruel and abominable, and most horrid
trumpets of fire, murder, and flame."--Thurloe, i. 442.]

stripped the pope of many of those titles with which he had so long been
honoured by the Protestant churches, and the lord-general was publicly
declared to be the beast in the Apocalypse, the old dragon, and the man of
sin. Unwilling to invade the liberty of religious meetings, he for some
time bore these insults with an air of magnanimity: at last he summoned[a]
the two preachers before himself and the council. But the heralds of the
Lord of Hosts quailed not before the servants of an earthly commonwealth:
they returned rebuke for rebuke, charged Cromwell with an unjustifiable
assumption of power, and departed from the conference unpunished and
unabashed.[1]

By the public the sermons at Blackfriars were considered as explanatory of
the views and principles of the Anabaptists in the house. The enemies of
these reformers multiplied daily: ridicule and abuse were poured upon them
from every quarter; and it became evident to all but themselves that the
hour of their fall was rapidly approaching. Cromwell, their maker, had long
ago determined to reduce them to their original nothing; and their last
vote respecting the ministry appeared to furnish a favourable opportunity.
The next day, the Sunday, he passed with his friends in secret
consultation; on the Monday these friends mustered in considerable numbers,
and at an early hour took their seats in the house. Colonel Sy