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It was agitated by the principles of the Levellers, tending to reduce all to an equality; by the doctrines of the Fifth-monarchy men, subversive of civil government; by religious theorists, the pretended champions of liberty of conscience, who condemned an established ministry as Babylonish and antichristian;
This reminds me of a raid up the river, conducted by one of our senior captains, an enthusiast whose gray beard and prophetic manner always took me back to the Fifth-Monarchy men. He was most successful that day, bringing back horses, cattle, provisions, and prisoners; and one of the latter complained bitterly to me of being held, stating that Captain R. had promised him speedy liberty.
So, no doubt, after the restoration of Charles II. in England, there were good men who thought that all would have gone very differently, if only the genius of the great creator of the Ironsides had taken counsel with the genius of Venner, the Fifth-Monarchy Man, and Feak, the Anabaptist prophet.
I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and blessed God. January 6, 1661. This night was suppressed a bloody insurrection of some fifth-monarchy enthusiasts.
Lawson, and Portman, and the Fifth-monarchy men, among whom he was a great brother, importuned that he might be general; and it was pleasant to see how Blackburne himself did act it, how when the Commissioners of the Admiralty would enquire of the captains and admirals of such and such men, how they would with a sigh and casting up the eyes say, "Such a man fears the Lord," or, "I hope such a man hath the Spirit of God," and such things as that.
Their contest against the overshadowing empire, which was so obstinately striving to become the fifth-monarchy of history, was waged by land: and naval forces, which in their aggregate numbers would scarce make a startling list of killed and wounded in a single modern battle; by ships such that a whole fleet of them might be swept out of existence with half-a-dozen modern broadsides; by weapons which would seem to modern eyes like clumsy toys for children.
One would think, from some of the notions he deems it necessary to combat, that we were living in the time of the Fifth-Monarchy men, and that Captain Venner with his troop was ready to issue from the garrets of Batterymarch Street, to find Armageddon in Dock Square, and the Beast of the Revelation in the Chief of Police.
It is thus narrated by Bishop Burnet, 1660: 'The king had not been many days at Whitehall, when one Venner, a violent fifth-monarchy man, who thought it was not enough to believe that Christ was to reign on earth, and to put the saints in possession of the kingdom, but added to this that the saints were to take the kingdom themselves.
Somebody told me this, that they hear that Thomson, with the wooden leg, and Wildman, the Fifth-Monarchy man, a great creature of the Duke of Buckingham's, are in nomination to be Commissioners, among others, upon the Bill of Accounts. All the morning at my chamber doing something towards the settling of my papers and accounts, which have been out of order a great while.
The occasion of this stopping of letters at that time was that mad prank of those infatuated fifth-monarchy men, who from their meeting-house in Coleman Street, London, breaking forth in arms, under the command of their chieftain Venner, made an insurrection in the city, on pretence of setting up the kingdom of Jesus, who, it is said, they expected would come down from heaven to be their leader; so little understood they the nature of his kingdom, though he himself had declared it was not of this world.
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