The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 85

by Thomas Carlyle

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LETTER LXXXV

TO COLONEL ROBERT HAMMOND: THESE

“Knottingley, near Pontefract,” 25th Nov. 1648.

Dear Robin,—No man rejoiceth more to see a line from thee than myself. I know thou hast long been under trial. Thou shalt be no loser by it. All “things” must work for the best.

Thou desirest to hear of my experiences. I can tell thee: I am such a one as thou didst formerly know, having a body of sin and death; but I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord there is no condemnation, though much infirmity; and I wait for the redemption. And in this poor condition I obtain mercy, and sweet consolation through the Spirit. And find abundant cause every day to exalt the Lord, and abase flesh,—and herein^[1] I have some exercise.

As to outward dispensations, if we may so call them: we have not been without our share of beholding some remarkable providences, and appearances of the Lord. His presence hath been amongst us, and by the light of His countenance we have prevailed.^[2] We are sure the goodwill of Him who dwelt in the Bush has shined upon us; and we can humbly say, We know in whom we have believed; who can and will perfect what remaineth, and us also in doing what is well-pleasing in His eyesight.

 

I find some trouble in your spirit; occasioned first, not only by the continuance of your sad and heavy burden, as you call it, but “also” by the dissatisfaction you take at the ways of some good men whom you love with your heart, who through this principle, That it is lawful for a lesser part, if in the right, to force “a numerical majority” etc.

To the first: Call not your burden sad or heavy. If your Father laid it upon you, He intended neither. He is the Father of lights, from whom comes every good and perfect gift; who of His own will begot us, and bade us count it all joy when such things befall us; they being for the exercise of faith and patience, whereby in the end we shall be made perfect (James i.).

Dear Robin, our fleshly reasonings ensnare us. These make us say, ‘heavy,’ ‘sad,’ ‘pleasant,’ ‘easy.’ Was there not a little of this when Robert Hammond, through dissatisfaction too, desired retirement from the Army, and thought of quiet in the Isle of Wight?^[3] Did not God find him out there? I believe he will never forget this—And now I perceive he is to seek again; partly through his sad and heavy burden, and partly through his dissatisfaction with friends’ actings.

Dear Robin, thou and I were never worthy to be doorkeepers in this Service. If thou wilt seek, seek to know the mind of God in all that chain of Providence, whereby God brought thee thither, and that Person to thee; how, before and since, God has ordered him, and affairs concerning him: and then tell me, Whether there be not some glorious and high meaning in all this, above what thou hast yet attained? And, laying aside thy fleshly reason, seek of the Lord to teach thee what that is; and He will do it. I dare be positive to say, It is not that the wicked should be exalted, that God should so appear as indeed He hath done.^[4] For there is no peace to them. No, it is set upon the hearts of such as fear the Lord, and we have witness upon witness, That it shall go ill with them and their partakers. I say again, seek that spirit to teach thee; which is the spirit of knowledge and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, of wisdom and of the fear of the Lord. That spirit will close thine eyes and stop thine ears, so that thou shalt not judge by them; but thou shalt judge for the meek of the Earth, and thou shalt be made able to do accordingly. The Lord direct thee to that which is well-pleasing in His eyesight.

As to thy dissatisfaction with friends actings upon that supposed principle, I wonder not at that. If a man take not his own burden well, he shall hardly others; especially if involved by so near a relation of love and Christian brotherhood as thou art. I shall not take upon me to satisfy; but I hold myself bound to lay my thoughts before so dear a friend. The Lord do His own will.

You say: ‘God hath appointed authorities among the nations, to which active or passive obedience is to be yielded. This resides in England in the Parliament. Therefore active or passive resistance’ etc.

Authorities and powers are the ordinance of God. This or that species is of human institution, and limited, some with larger, others with stricter bands, each one according to its constitution. “But” I do not therefore think the Authorities may do anything,^[5] and yet such obedience be due. All agree that there are cases in which it is lawful to resist. If so, your ground fails, and so likewise the inference. Indeed, dear Robin, not to multiply words, the query is, Whether ours be such a case? This ingeniously is the true question.

To this I shall say nothing, though I could say very much; but only desire thee to see what thow findest in thy own heart to two or three plain considerations. First, Whether Salus Populi be a sound position.^[6] Secondly, Whether in the way in hand,^[7] really and before the Lord, before whom conscience has to stand, this be provided for;—or if the whole fruit of the War is not like to be frustrated, and all most like to turn to what it was, and worse? And this, contrary to Engagements, explicit Covenants with those^[8] who ventured their lives upon those Covenants and Engagements, without whom perhaps, in equity, relaxation ought not to be? Thirdly, Whether this Army be not a lawful Power, called by God to oppose and fight against the King upon some stated grounds; and being in power to such ends, may not oppose one Name of Authority, for those ends, as well as another Name,—since it was not the outward Authority summoning them that by its power made the quarrel lawful, but the quarrel was lawful in itself? If so, it may be, acting will be justified in foro humano.—But truly this kind of reasonings may be but fleshly, either with or against: only it ts good to try what truth may be in them. And the Lord teach us.

My dear Friend, let us look into providences; surely they mean somewhat. They hang so together; have been so constant, so clear, unclouded. Malice, swoln malice against God’s people, now called ‘ Saints, to root-out their name;—and yet they, “these poor Saints,” getting arms, and therein blessed with defence and more!—I desire, he that is for a principle of suffering^[9] would not too much slight this. I slight not him who is so minded: but let us beware lest fleshly reasoning see more safety in making use of this principle than in acting! Who acts, if he resolve not through God to be willing to part with all? Our hearts are very deceitful, on the right and on the left.

What think you of Providence disposing the hearts of so many of God’s people this way,—especially in this poor Army, wherein the great God has vouchsafed to appear! I know not one Officer among us but is on the increasing hand.^[10] And let me say, it is after much patience,—here in the North. We trust, the same Lord who hath framed our minds in our actings is with us in this also. And all contrary to a natural tendency, and to those comforts our hearts could wish to enjoy as well as others. And the difficulties probably to be encountered with, and the enemies:—not few; even all that is glorious in this world. Appearance of united names, titles and authorities “all against us”;—and yet not terrified, “we”; only desiring to fear our great God, that we do nothing against His will. Truly this is our condition.^[11]

And to conclude. We in this Northern Army were in a waiting posture; desiring to see what the Lord would lead us to. And a Declaration^[12] is put out, at which many are shaken:—although we could perhaps have wished the stay of it till after the Treaty, yet seeing it is come out, we trust to rejoice in the will of the Lord, waiting His farther pleasure—Dear Robin, beware of men; look up to the Lord. Let Him be free to speak and command in thy heart. Take heed of the things I fear thou hast reasoned thyself into; and thou shalt be able through Him, without consulting flesh and blood, to do valiantly for Him and His people.

Thou mentionest somewhat as if, by acting against such opposition as is like to be, there will be a tempting of God. Dear Robin, tempting of God ordinarily is either by acting presumptuously in carnal confidence, or in unbelief through diffidence: both these ways Israel tempted God in the wilderness, and He was grieved by them. Not the encountering “of” difficulties, therefore, makes us to tempt God; but the acting before and without faith.^[13] If the Lord have in any measure persuaded His people, as generally He hath, of the lawfulness, nay of the duty,—this persuasion prevailing upon the heart is faith; and acting thereupon is acting in faith; and the more the difficulties are, the more the faith. And it is most sweet that he who is not persuaded have patience towards them that are, and judge not and this will free thee from the trouble of others actings, which, thou sayest, adds to thy grief. Only let me offer two or three things, and I have done.

Dost thou not think this fear of the Levellers (of whom there is no fear) ‘that they would destroy Nobility,’ “etc.” has caused some to take up corruption, and find it lawful to make this ruining hypocritical Agreement, on one part?^[14] Hath not this biased even some good men? I will not say, the thing they fear will come upon them; but if it do, they will themselves bring it upon themselves. Have not some of our friends, by their passive principle (which I judge not, only I think it liable to temptation as well as the active, and neither of them good but as we are led into them of God, and neither of them to be reasoned into, because the heart is deceitful),—been occasioned to overlook what is just and honest, and to think the people of God may have as much or more good the one way than the other? Good by this Man,—against whom the Lord hath witnessed; and whom thou knowest! Is this so in their hearts; or is it reasoned, forced in?^[15]

Robin, I have done. Ask we our hearts, Whether we think that, after all, these dispensations, the like to which many generations cannot afford,—should end in so corrupt reasonings of good men; and should so hit the designings of bad? Thinkest thou, in thy heart, that the glorious dispensations of God point out to this? Or to teach His people to trust in Him, and to wait for better things,—when, it may be, better are sealed to many of their spirits?^[16] And I, as a poor looker-on, I had rather live im the hope of that spirit “which believes that God doth so teach us,” and take my share with them, expecting a good issue, than be led away with the others.

This trouble I have been at, because my soul loves thee, and T would not have thee swerve, or lose any glorious opportunity the Lord puts into thy hand. The Lord be thy counsellor. Dear Robin, I rest thine,

OLIVER CROMWELL.^[17]

 

Colonel Hammond, the ingenuous young man whom Oliver much loves, did not receive this Letter at the Isle of Wight, whither it was directed; young Colonel Hammond is no longer there. On Monday the 27th, there came to him Colonel Ewer, he of the Remonstrance; Colonel Ewer with new force, with an Order from the Lord General, and Army-Council that Colonel Hammond do straightway repair to Windsor, being wanted at head-quarters there. A young Colonel, with dubitations such as those of Hammond’s, will not suit in that Isle at present. Ewer, on the Tuesday night, a night of storm and pouring rain, besets his Majesty’s lodgings in the Town of Newport (for his Majesty is still on parole there), with strange soldiers, in a strange state of readiness, the smoke of their gun-matches poisoning the air of his Majesty’s apartment itself;—and on the morrow morning at eight of the clock, calls out his Majesty’s coach; moves off with his Majesty in grim reticence and rigorous military order, to Hurst Castle, a small solitary stronghold on the opposite beach yonder.^[18]

For, at London, matters are coming rapidly to a crisis. The resumed Debate, ‘Shall the Army Remonstrance be taken into consideration?’ does not come out affirmative; on the contrary, on Thursday the 30th, it comes out negative by a Majority of Ninety: ‘No, we will not take it into consideration.’ ‘No?’ The Army at Windsor, thereupon, spends again ‘a Day in Prayer.’ The Army at Windsor has decided on the morrow that it will march to London;—marches, arrives accordingly, on Saturday December 2d; quarters itself in Whitehall, in St. James’s; ‘and other great vacant Houses in the skirts of the City and Villages about, no offence being given anywhere.’^[19] In the drama of Modern History one knows not any graver, more noteworthy scene;—earnest as very Death and Judgment. They have decided to have Justice, these men; to see God’s Justice done, and His judgments executed on this Earth. The abysses where the thunders and the splendours are bred,—the reader sees them again laid bare; and black Madness lying close to the Wisdom which is brightest and highest:—and owls and godless men who hate the lightning and the light, and love the mephitic dusk and darkness, are no judges of the actions of heroes! ’Shedders of blood?’ Yes, blood is occasionally shed. The healing Surgeon, the sacrificial Priest, the august Judge pronouncer of God’s oracles to men, these and the atrocious Murderer, are alike shedders of blood; and it is an owl’s eye that, except for the dresses they wear, discerns no difference in these!—Let us leave the owl to his hootings; let us get on with our Chronology and swift course of events.

On Monday 4th December, the House, for the last time, takes ‘into farther debate’ the desperate question, Whether his Majesty’s concessions in that Treaty of Newport are a ground of settlement?—debates it all Monday; has debated it all Friday and Saturday before. Debates it all Monday ‘till five o’clock next morning; at five o’clock next morning, decides it, Yea. By a Majority of Forty-six,—One-hundred and twentynine to Eighty-three—it is at Five o’clock on Tuesday morning decided, Yea, they are a ground of settlement. The Army Chiefs and the Minority consult together, in deep and deepest deliberation, through that day and night; not, I suppose, without Prayer; and on the morrow morning this is what we see:

Wednesday 6th December 1648, ‘Colonel Rich’s regiment of horse and Colonel Pride’s regiment of foot were a guard to the Parliament; and the City Trainbands were discharged’ from that employment.^[20] Yes, they were! Colonel Rich’s horse stand ranked in Palaceyard, Colonel Pride’s foot in Westminster Hall and at all entrances to the Commons House, this day: and in Colonel Pride’s hand is a written list of names, names of the chief among the Hundred and twenty-nine; and at his side is my Lord Grey of Groby, who, as this Member after that comes up, whispers or beckons, ‘he is one of them: he cannot enter!’ and Pride gives the word, ‘To the Queen’s Court’; and Member after Member is marched thither, Forty-one of them this day; and kept there in a state bordering on rabidity, asking, By what Law? and ever again, By what Law? Is there a colour or faintest shadow of Law, to be found in any of the Books, Yearbooks, Rolls of Parliament, Bractons, Fletas, Cokes upon Lyttleton, for this? Hugh Peters visits them; has little comfort, no light as to the Law; confesses, ‘It is by the Law of Necessity; truly, by the Power of the Sword.’

It must be owned the Constable’s baton is fairly down, this day; overborne by the Power of the Sword, and a Law not to be found in any of the Books. At evening the distracted Forty-one are marched to Mr. Duke’s Tavern hard-by, a ‘Tavern called Hell’; and very imperfectly accommodated for the night. Sir Symonds D’Ewes, who has ceased taking notes long since; Mr. William Prynne, louder than any in the question of Law; Waller, Massey, Harley, and other remnants of the old Eleven, are of this unlucky Forty-one; among whom too we count little Clement Walker, ‘in his gray suit with his little stick,’^[21]—asking in the voice of the indomitablest terrier or Blenheim cocker, ‘By what Law? I ask again, By what Law?’ Whom no mortal will ever be able to answer. Such is the far-famed Purging of the House by Colonel Pride.

This evening, while the Forty-one are getting lodged in Mr. Duke’s, Lieutenant-General Cromwell came to Town. Pontefract Castle is not taken; he has left Lambert looking after that, and come up hither to look after more important things.

The Commons on Wednesday did send out to demand ‘the Members of this House’ from Colonel Pride; but Pride made respectful evasive answer;—could not, for the moment, comply with the desires of the Honourable House. On the Thursday Lieutenant-General Cromwell is thanked; and Pride’s Purge continues: new men of the Majority are seized; others scared away need no seizing;—above a Hundred in all;^[22] who are sent into their countries, sent into the Tower; sent out of our way, and trouble us no farther. The Minority has now become Majority; there is now clear course for it, clear resolution there has for some time back been in it. What its resolution was, and its action that it did in pursuance thereof, ‘an action not done in a corner, but in sight of all the Nations, and of God who made the Nations’, we know, and the whole world knows!—

1. ‘and in the latter respect at least.’
2. At Preston, etc.
3. 6th September of the foregoing Year.
4. For other purposes that God has so manifested Himself as, in these transactions of ours, He has done.
5. Whatsoever they like.
6. ‘The safety of the people the supreme law’: is that a true doctrine or a false one?
7. By this Parliamentary Treaty with the King.
8. Us soldiers.
9. Passive obedience.
10. Come or coming over to this opinion.
11. The incorrect original, rushing on in an eager ungrammatical manner, were it not that common readers might miss the meaning of it, would please me better; at any rate I subjoin it here as somewhat characteristic: ‘And let me say it is here in the North after much patience, we trust the same Lord who hath framed our minds in our actings, is with us in this also. And this contrary to a natural tendency, and to those comforts our hearts could wish to enjoy with others. And the difficulties probably to be encountered with, and the enemies, not few, even all that is glorious in this world, with appearance of united names, titles and authorities, and yet not terrified, only’ etc.
12. Remonstrance of the Army, presented by Ewer on Monday last.
13. Very true, my General,—then, now, and always!
14. Hollow Treaty at Newport.
15. I think it is ‘reasoned’-in, and by bad arguments too, your Excellency! The inner heart of the men, in real contact with the inner heart of the matter, had little to do with all that:—alas, was there ever any such ‘contact’ with the real truth of any matter, on the part of such men!
16. Already indubitably sure to many of them.
17. Birch, p. 101; ends the volume.
18. Colonel Cook’s Narrative, in Rushworth, vii. 1344.
19. Rushworth, vii. 1350.
20. Rushworth, vii. 1353:—see Whitlocke (2d edition, p. 360), Walker’s Independency, etc.
21. List in Rushworth, p. 1355.
22. List in Somers Tracts, vi. 37;—very incorrect, as all the Lists are,