Manton, by prayer, recommended his Highness, the Parliament, the Council, his Highness's forces by sea and land, the whole Government, and people of these three nations, to the blessing and protection of God Almighty. After this, the people giving several great shouts, and the trumpets sounding, his Highness sat down in the chair of state, holding the sceptre in his hand."[155] Heralds; Garter, and Norroy, King-at-Arms; his Highness's Gentlemen; men of the Long Robe; the Judges; Commissioners of all sorts; Robert, Earl of Warwick, bareheaded, with the sword of the Commonwealth; the Lord Mayor, with the City sword; Privy Counsellors and Generals took part in the ceremony--whilst on seats, built scaffold-wise, sat the Members of Parliament; and below them, the Judges and the Aldermen of London. [Sidenote: 1658, January.] When the ceremony had ended, the Protector--having saluted the foreign ambassadors--entered his state coach, together with the Earl of Warwick, Lord Richard Cromwell, his son, and Bulstrode, Lord Whitelocke, who sat with him on one side; and Lord Viscount Lisle and General Montague on the other: Lord Claypole led the horse of honour caparisoned with the richest trappings. At night there were great rejoicings. [Sidenote: _Re-assembling of Parliament._] Parliament reassembled January the 20th, 1658. Lord Commissioner Fiennes made a speech that day before his Highness, in which he entered at large upon the subject of toleration and charity. He spoke quaintly of the _Rock_:--"A spirit of imposing upon men's consciences, where God leaves them a latitude;" and of the _Quicksand_:--"An abominable licentiousness to profess and practise any sort of detestable opinions and principles." The object of the Petition and Advice was to steer a middle course between the two. He strongly inveighed against bigotry, and maintained that the right way was the golden mean, even God's way. God, when he came to Elijah, was not in the whirlwind, the earthquake, or the fire; but in the small still voice. So with men's religious profession. "It must," said his Lordship, "be a small and still voice, enough to hold forth a certain and distinct sound, but not to make so great a noise as to drown all other voices besides. It is good, it is useful, to hold forth a certain confession of the truth; but not so as thereby to exclude all those that cannot come up to it in all points, from the privileges which belong to them as Christians, much less, which belong to them as men."[156] The members who had been excluded were now admitted, after having taken the oath according to the "Petition and Advice." They were extremely republican in their ideas, and were inveterate enemies to the Protector: their influence with their own party outside had been increased by their recent conduct, which was regarded as proving their strong attachment to "the good old cause." At the same time some of Cromwell's warmest friends