It was not, said Cromwell, by his own design that this had come to pass.
“I never looked to see such a day as this.... Indeed it is marvellous, and it hath been unprojected. It’s not long since either you or we came to know of it. And indeed this hath been the way God hath dealt with us all along; to keep things from our eyes all along, so that we have seen nothing in all His dispensations long beforehand—which is also a witness, in some measure, to our integrity.”
Since God had brought about so wonderful a thing, why should they not hope for things more wonderful still? “Why should we be afraid to say or think, that this way may be the door to usher in the things that God hath promised and prophesied of, and set the hearts of His people to wait for and expect?” Again and again Cromwell reiterated these hopes. “Indeed I do think somewhat is at the door. We are at the threshold.” “You are at the edge of the promises and prophecies.” He ended by quoting the 68th Psalm as a prophecy of the glory and the triumph of “the Gospel Churches.” “The triumph of that Psalm is exceeding high, and God is accomplishing it.”
The assembly to which he spoke was equally confident that its meeting marked the opening of a new era. “They looked,” as they declared, “for the long-expected birth of freedom and happiness.” “All the world over amongst the people of God” there was “a more than usual expectation of some great and strange changes coming upon the world, which we can hardly believe to be paralleled with any times but those a while before the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Full of hope, the assembly set to work to fulfil its mission. It voted itself the title of Parliament, invited Cromwell and four other representative officers to take part in its proceedings, elected a new Council of State, and appointed twelve great Committees for the redress of all kinds of grievances. It took in hand, simultaneously, the reform of the Law and of the Church. The abolition of the Court of Chancery was voted after a single day’s debate. Its delays and costliness had long been a scandal, and it was said that twenty-three thousand causes of five to thirty years’ standing were lying there undetermined. Next came an Act establishing civil marriage, and providing for the registration of births, marriages, and burials. Acts were passed for the relief of prisoners for debt, for the safe custody of idiots and lunatics, and for the removal of some smaller legal abuses. A committee was appointed to codify the Law, and sanguine reformers talked of reducing its great volumes “into the bigness of a pocket book, as it is proportionable in New England and elsewhere.” The Fifth Monarchy preachers at Blackfriars went further, and bade them abolish the law of man, and set up in its place the law of God. They required not a simplification of the laws of England, but a code based on the laws of Moses.
The Church was taken in hand with the same rough vigour as the Law. A proposal to abolish tithes at once was lost by a few votes, but even its opponents were willing to abolish them if lay tithe-owners were compensated, and if some other maintenance were provided for the clergy. So the whole question was referred to a committee. On the other hand, a resolution abolishing patronage was passed by seventeen votes, and a bill ordered to be drawn up to carry it into effect. There were also persistent rumours of an impending attack on the endowments of the universities, and a large party in the House were opposed to any established Church, or any ministry not dependent on voluntary support. Outside Parliament, the Fifth Monarchy preachers denounced the parochial clergy as “hirelings” and “priests of Baal.” Their sermons described the Church as an “outwork of Babylon,” and a part of the “Kingdom of the Beast.” The great design of Christ, they said, was to destroy all anti-Christian forms and churches and clergy all over the world. Their hymns summoned the faithful to follow the Lord to war.
“The Lord begins to honour us,
The Saints are marching on,
The sword is sharp, the arrows swift
To destroy Babylon.”
In private, the Fifth Monarchy men were caballing to make Harrison Lord General instead of Cromwell.