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THE POLITICAL USE OF THE BIBLE IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN:
exclusive to the church, but through “acts of Kingly
power, as acts of judgment and justice,” as his rule
extended “to Civil Government” as Isaiah 9:7 indicates.
According to Rev. 11:15 and Dan 7:13-14, Christ “shall
be the Monarch, or absolute King and Soveraigne,” and
“reign personally upon earth 1000 years.” The “saints
shall be his Vicegerents during the time of this Monarchy
according as it is written, Dan. 7.27. 257
Christ was not only the sovereign monarch but the chief
lawgiver, as he “alone hath this Legislative power, and
none but he. So saith Isaiah, ch. 33.22. Jehovah is our
Legislator, or Law-giver.” 258 Aspinwall read Matthew 28
as the Father’s delegation of this power to Christ alone,
and therefore, law finds its basis in Christ’s delegated
authority: “And this wilbe the perfect state & model of
Civil Governments under the fifth Monarchy, Christ
alone shalbe Law-giver, and if he be the Law-giver alone,
you may easily conclude that he will own no other Laws,
but what himself hath given, which though they be few
and brief, yet are they compleatly sufficient and
perfect.” Aspinwall denied Parliament had legislative
authority in the Fifth Monarchy, defining their function
as judicial justice, “to provide that wise, godly, and
faithful Judges and Justices, be placed in all meet places
of the Nation, to execute judgment and justice,
according to the judicials given by Christ.” Their
authority also extended to constituting “subordinate
Officers in all places of power and trust, and to see they
be men thoroughly purged and refined.” 259
Barebone’s Resigns: Cromwell Establishes
Protectorate with the Instrument of
Government (December 12, 1653)
Despite its heralded initiation, Barebone’s went the way
of the Long Parliament and the Rump. Cromwell
accepted the resignation of his own nominated assembly
on December 12, 1653, established himself as Lord
Protector, and authorised the Instrument of
Government as the new constitution for Britain.
The reasons for Barebone’s resignation are intriguing,
the more obvious being the assembly’s lack of expertise
in administering legislation and the affairs of state,
especially foreign policy and diplomacy. Internal
divisions also fractured the body along ‘party’ lines, as
radicals and zealots confronted moderates, and the
executive was heavily integrated with the legislative, not
to mention faltering attendance. The triggering
mechanism appears to have been the continuing
controversy over tithes and support of the established
clergy, which Fifth Monarchists and other religious
radicals demanded be totally jettisoned. On
December 12, the moderates entered the Chamber,
denounced the majority decision to scrap the system of
tithes, and moved that the Parliament dissolve itself. A
walk-out was underway, and the resigned marched to
Whitehall Palace to inform Cromwell and receive his
confirmation. When the public learned of the events,
Woolrych notes that “if the Rump had had few
mourners but the Rumpers, Barebone’s had fewer by
far — not many indeed outside the ranks of the Fifth
Monarchy men.” 260
Cromwell, “the little Horne be now up
in England”
The first Protectorate Parliament sat on September 3,
1654, with Fifth Monarchists postured as its greatest
enemy. This parliamentary and constitutional departure
so radicalised them that Cromwell, once God’s
instrument for inaugurating the Kingdom, was now at
war with it, and worse, as a general in the army of
Antichrist. Fifth Monarchists reinterpreted events
biblically as quickly as they occurred; Cromwell, reviled
and vilified from Fifth Monarchy pulpits across
London, was now an apostate, nothing less than that
little horn which they characterised Charles I as being,
and therefore, a persecutor of the saints. Some landed
in prison for their prophetic tirades, especially those
who preached imminent destruction of and
disobedience to the Protectorate. As a result,
Cromwell’s Protectorates appeared to unite the militant
Fifth Monarchists.
Aspinwall published The Legislative Power is Christ’s
Peculiar Prerogative on August 20, 1656 before the sitting
of the second Protectorate Parliament (September 17,
1656 – February 4, 1657). He rehearsed the need for
total legislative reform; that only “the Judicials of Moses,
as the Rules of Judgment in all cases, capital, criminal, or
Civil” should be implemented, but which could be
informed hermeneutically by the Scriptures as a whole.
He also reiterated Christ’s complete dominion and
authority “over all Nations of the world, as well in
Temporal or civil things, as in Spirituals.” 261
He also confronted the issue of the franchise in regards
to rule of the saints after the manner of
Deuteronomy 1:13, Exodus 24:1 and Numbers 11:24.
Nevertheless, unlike some Fifth Monarchists, Aspinwall
called for the saints to “submit unto Civil Powers under the
4th Monarchy,” as “Joseph under Pharoah, . . . Obadiah
under Ahab, a wicked Prince, and an usurper, . . . Daniel
under Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, . . . Nehemiah under
257
Ibid., 4, 5, 6.
258
Ibid., 8.
259
Ibid., 9, 10.
260
Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, 558.
261
William Aspinwall, The legislative power is Christ’s peculiar
prerogative (London, August 20, 1656), A2, 4. See also 5-8.
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