The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Prayer-Meeting
The Scotch Army of Forty-thousand, ‘to deliver the King from Sectaries’, is not a fable but a fact. Scotland is distracted by dim disastrous factions, very uncertain what it will do with the King when he is delivered; but in the meanwhile Hamilton has got a majority in the Scotch Parliament; and drums are beating in that country: the ‘ Army of Forty-thousand, certainly coming,’ hangs over England like a flaming comet, England itself being all very combustible too. In few weeks hence, discontented Wales, the Presbyterian Colonels declaring now for Royalism, will be in a blaze; large sections of England, all England very ready to follow, will shortly after be in a blaze.
The small Governing Party in England, during those early months of 1648, are in a position which might fill the bravest mind with misgivings. Elements of destruction everywhere under and around them; their lot either to conquer, or ignominiously to die. A King not to be bargained with; kept in Carisbrook, the centre of all factious hopes, of world-wide intrigues: that is one element. A great Royalist Party, subdued with difficulty, and ready at all moments to rise again: that is another. A great Presbyterian Party, at the head of which is London City, ‘the Purse-bearer of the Cause,’ highly dissatisfied at the course things had taken, and looking desperately round for new combinations and a new struggle: reckon that for a third element. Add lastly a headlong Mutineer, Republican, or Levelling Party: and consider that there is a working House of Commons which counts about Seventy, divided in pretty equal halves too,—the rest waiting what will come of it. Come of it, and of the Scotch Army advancing towards it!—
Cromwell, it appears, deeply sensible of all this, does in these weeks make strenuous repeated attempts towards at least a union among the friends of the Cause themselves, whose aim is one, whose peril is one. But to little effect. Ludlow, with visible satisfaction, reports how ill the Lieutenant-General sped, when he brought the Army Grandees and Parliament Grandees ‘to a Dinner’ at his own house ‘in King Street,’ and urged a cordial agreement: they would not draw together at all.[1] Parliament would not agree with Army; hardly Parliament with itself: as little, still less, would Parliament and City agree. At a Common Council in the City, prior or posterior to this Dinner, his success, as angry little Walker intimates, was the same. ‘Saturday 8th April 1648,’ having prepared the ground beforehand, Cromwell with another leader or two, attended a Common Council; spake, as we may fancy, of the common dangers, of the gulfs now yawning on every side: ‘but the City,’ chuckles my little gentleman in gray, with a very shrill kind of laughter in the throat of him, ‘were now wiser than our First Parents; and rejected the Serpent and his subtleties.’[2] In fact, the City wishes well to Hamilton and his Forty-thousand Scots; the City has, for some time, needed regiments quartered in it, to keep-down open Royalist-Presbyterian insurrection. It was precisely on the morrow after this visit of Cromwell’s that there arose, from small cause, huge Apprentice-riot in the City: discomfiture of Trainbands, seizure of arms, seizure of City Gates, Ludgate, Newgate, loud wide cry of ‘God and King Charles!’—riot not to be appeased but by ‘desperate charge of cavalry,’ after it had lasted forty hours.[3] Such are the aspects of affairs, near and far.
Before quitting Part Third, I will request the reader to undertake a small piece of very dull reading; in which however, if he look till it become credible and intelligible to him, a strange thing, much elucidative of the heart of this matter, will disclose itself. At Windsor, one of these days, unknown now which, there is a Meeting of Army Leaders. Adjutant-General Allen, a most authentic earnest man, whom we shall know better afterwards, reports what they did. Entirely amazing to us. These are the longest heads and the strongest hearts in England; and this is the thing they are doing; this is the way they, for their part, begin despatch of business. The reader, if he is an earnest man, may look at it with very many thoughts, for which there is no word at present.
‘In the year Forty-seven, you may remember,’ says Adjutant Allen, ‘we in the Army were engaged in actions of a very high nature; leading us to very untrodden paths,—both in our Contests with the then Parliament, as also Conferences with the King. In which great works,—wanting a spirit of faith, and also the fear of the Lord, and also being unduly surprised with the fear of man, which always brings a snare, we, to make haste, as we thought, out of such perplexities, measuring our way by a wisdom of our own, fell into Treaties with the King and his Party: which proved such a snare to us, and led into such labyrinths by the end of that year, that the very things we thought to avoid, by the means we used of our own devising, were all, with many more of a far worse and more perplexing nature, brought back upon us. To the overwhelming of our spirits, weakening of our hands and hearts; filling us with divisions, confusions, tumults, and every evil work; and thereby endangering the ruin of that blessed Cause we had, with such success, been prospered in till that time.
‘For now the King and his Party, seeing us not answer their ends, began to provide for themselves, by a Treaty with the then Parliament, set on foot about the beginning of Forty-eight. The Parliament also was, at the same time, highly displeased with us for what we had done, both as to the King and themselves. The good people likewise, even our most cordial friends in the Nation, beholding our turning aside from that path of simplicity we had formerly walked in and been blessed in, and thereby much endeared to their hearts,—began now to fear, and withdraw their affections from us, in this politic path which we had stepped into, and walked in to our hurt, the year before. And as a farther fruit of the wages of our backsliding hearts, we were also filled with a spirit of great jealousy and divisions amongst ourselves; having left that Wisdom of the Word, which is first pure and then peaceable; so that we were now fit for little but to tear and rend one another, and thereby prepare ourselves, and the work in our hands, to be ruined by our common enemies. Enemies that were ready to say, as many others of like spirit in this day do,[4] of the like sad occasions amongst us, “Lo, this is the day we looked for.” The King and his Party prepare accordingly to ruin all; by sudden Insurrections in most parts of the Nation: the Scot, concurring with the same designs, comes in with a potent Army under Duke Hamilton. We in the Army, in a low, weak, divided, perplexed condition in all respects, as aforesaid:—some of us judging it a duty to lay-down our arms, to quit our stations, and put ourselves into the capacities of private men,—since what we had done, and what was yet in our hearts to do, tending, as we judged, to the good of these poor Nations, was not accepted by them.
‘Some also even encouraged themselves and us to such a thing, by urging for such a practice the example of our Lord Jesus; who, when he had borne an eminent testimony to the pleasure of his Father in an active way, sealed it at last by his sufferings; which was presented to us as our pattern for imitation. Others of us, however, were different-minded; thinking something of another nature might yet be farther-our duty ;—and these therefore were, by joint advice, by a good hand of the Lord, led to this result; viz. To go solemnly to search-out our own iniquities, and humble our souls before the Lord in the sense of the same; which, we were persuaded, had provoked the Lord against us, to bring such sad perplexities upon us at that day. Out of which we saw no way else to extricate ourselves.
‘Accordingly we did agree to meet at Windsor Castle about the beginning of Forty-eight. And there we spent one day together in prayer; inquiring into the causes of that sad dispensation,’—let all men consider it; ‘coming to no farther result that day; but that it was still our duty to seek. And on the morrow we met again in the morning; where many spake from the Word, and prayed; and the then Lieutenant-General Cromwell,’—unintelligible to Posterity, but extremely intelligible to himself, to these men, and to the Maker of him and of them,—‘did press very earnestly on all there present to a thorough consideration of our actions as an Army, and of our ways particularly as private Christians: to see if any iniquity could be found in them; and what it was, that if possible we might find it out, and so remove the cause of such sad rebukes as were upon us (by reason of our iniquities, as we judged) at that time. And the way more particularly the Lord led us to herein was this: To look back and consider what time it was when with joint satisfaction we could last say to the best of our judgments, The presence of the Lord was amongst us, and rebukes and judgments were not as then upon us. Which time the Lord led us jointly to find out and agree in; and having done so, to proceed, as we then judged it our duty, to search into all our public actions as an Army afterwards. Duly weighing (as the Lord helped us) each of them, with their grounds, rules, and ends, as near as we could. And so we concluded this second day, with agreeing to meet again on the morrow. Which accordingly we did upon the same occasion, reassuming the consideration of our debates the day before, and reviewing our actions again.
‘By which means we were, by a gracious hand of the Lord, led to find out the very steps (as we were all then jointly convinced) by which we had departed from the Lord, and provoked Him to depart from us. Which we found to be those cursed carnal Conferences our own conceited wisdom, our fears, and want of faith had prompted us, the year before, to entertain with the King and his Party. And at this time, and on this occasion, did the then Major Goffe (as I remember was his title) make use of that good Word, Proverbs First and Twenty-third, Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Which, we having found out our sin, he urged as our duty from those words. And the Lord so accompanied by His Spirit, that it had a kindly effect, like a word of His, upon most of our hearts that were then present: which begot in us a great sense, a shame and loathing of ourselves for our iniquities, and a justifying of the Lord as righteous in His proceedings against us.
‘And in this path the Lord led us, not only to see our sin, but also our duty; and this so unanimously set with weight upon each heart, that none was able hardly to speak a word to each other for bitter weeping,’—does the modern reader mark it; this weeping, and who they are that weep? Weeping ‘partly in the sense and shame of our iniquities; of our unbelief, base fear of men, and carnal consultations (as the fruit thereof) with our own wisdoms; and not with the Word of the Lord,—which only is a way of wisdom, strength and safety, and all besides it are ways of snares. And yet we were also helped, with fear and trembling, to rejoice in the Lord; whose faithfulness and loving-kindness, we were made to see, yet failed us not;—who remembered us still, even in our low estate, because His mercy endures for ever. Who no sooner brought us to His feet, acknowledging Him in that way of His (viz. searching for, being ashamed of, and willing to turn from, our iniquities), but He did direct our steps; and presently we were led and helped to a clear agreement amongst ourselves, not any dissenting, That it was the duty of our day, with the forces we had, to go out and fight against those potent enemies, which that year in all places appeared against us.’ Courage! ‘With an humble confidence, in the name of the Lord only, that we should destroy them. And we were also enabled then, after serious seeking His face, to come to a very clear and joint resolution, on many grounds at large there debated amongst us, That it was our duty, if ever the Lord brought us back again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an account for that blood he had shed, and mischief he had done to his utmost, against the Lord’s Cause and People in these poor Nations.’ Mark that also!
‘And how the Lord led and prospered us in all our undertakings that year, in this way; cutting His work short, in righteousness; making it a year of mercy, equal if not transcendent to any since these Wars began; and making it worthy of remembrance by every gracious soul, who was wise to observe the Lord, and the operations of His hands,—I wish may never be forgotten.’ Let Fleetwood, if he have the same heart, go and do likewise.[5]
Abysses, black chaotic whirlwinds:—does the reader look upon it all as Madness? Madness lies close by; as Madness does to the Highest Wisdom, in man’s life always: but this is not mad! This dark element, it is the mother of the lightnings and the splendours; it is very sane, this!—
- ↑ Ludlow, i. 238.
- ↑ History of Independency, part i. 85.
- ↑ Rushworth, vii, 1051.
- ↑ 1659: Allen’s Pamphlet is written as a Monition and Example to Fleetwood and the others, now in a similar peril, but with no Oliver now among them.
- ↑ A faithful Memorial of that remarkable Meeting of many Officers of the Army in England at Windsor Castle, in the year 1648, etc. etc. (in Somers Tracts, vi. 499-501).