Farmer Humphreys's zeal for the holy covenant, which he was
assured confirmed these privileges, not only induced him to take it
himself, but to insist on his carter, Jobson's, subscribing to it also.
Not that he intended the blessed panacea should work a similar change in
the situation of Jobson, who, he discovered, was predestined to hard
work and hard fare; but, as the good cause might want an arm of flesh in
its defence, the muscular strength of the ploughman, like that of the
ox, would help to drag the new ark into the sanctuary. For this purpose,
he carefully concealed from Jobson the latent privileges and immunities
that were vested in these cabalistical words, nor did he think it any
infringement of his principles to inforce by his own behaviour the
abominable doctrine of passive obedience, and to insist that Jobson
should either become a covenanter, or quit his service, and forfeit his
wages. Jobson had once heard the _rigmarole_, as he called it, read
over, and by a strange perverseness of understanding, fancied these
indentures of faith and unity, to be no other than binding himself to
the Devil, to pull down the church and curse the King, and he preferred
persecution and poverty to such servitude.
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