349 sity rather then honesty had moov'd them to counterfeit repentance and ingenuity. This they did by a publick declaration, how they had bene seduc'd, and done wickedly in interrupting the parliament, and that God had never since that time own'd them and their councells as before, and that they desir'd to humble themselves before God and man for the same, and to returne to their dutie in defending the parliament in the discharge of their remaining trust. According to this declaration, the armie kept a day of solemne humiliation before the Lord; yet all this, as the event after manifested, in hypocrisie.m Now the parliament were sate, and no sooner assembled but invaded by severall enemies. The presbiterians had long since espoused the royal! interest, and forsaken God ttnd the people's cause, when they could not obteine the reines of government in their owne hands, and exercise -dominion over all their brethren." It was treason by the law of those men in power, to talk of re- ' storin"g the king; therefore the presbiterians must face the designe, and accordingly all the members eiected in 1648, now came to claime their seates in the house, whom Coli. Pride, that then guarded the parliament, turn'd back, and thereupon there was some heate in the lobbie between them and the other members. m There are 'copies of this declaration extant, signed by Lambert, Fleetwood, &c. one particularly in the hands of John Towneley, Esq. as likewise pamphlets written at that time, calling on the army to make the only amends they could to the nation, by restoring the parliament. n Rapin, in a parallel passage, vol. ii. p. 611, says, that u the presbyterians, see- " ing no hopes of recovering the ground they had lost, agreed with the, king's party to (( deliver the nation from th.e servitude to which it was reduced by an independent par- (( liament, and an army whose officers were mostly fanaticks. · The particulars and a terms of this union are not known, because the historians who speak of it, being aH " royalists, have not thought fit to do so much honour to the presbyterians. But it (( cannot be concealed , that from this time they not only ceased to be the king'" ene- " mies, but very much promoted his restoration." Behold the honour he asks for them granted by their greatest enemy an independent !-As was their motive such was their reward ; beginning in rage and folly, they ended in di sgrace and ruin. '
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