The circumstances of my narrative oblige me again to recur to the state
of public affairs. The treaty of Uxbridge was now pending; the
necessities of the King compelled him to enquire on what terms his
subjects would sheath the sword, and the rapid ascendancy of the fanatic
party in Parliament, added to the mutual accusations and recriminations
of their generals, induced the moderate Presbyterians to try if, by
reconciliation with their Sovereign, they could gain strength to oppose
the power which openly threatened their destruction and his. The
artifices of Cromwell and his adherents need not be minutely detailed in
a work intended only to give an admonitory picture of those times. In
one point those men differed from the majority of modern Reformers, or
rather the manners of that age were different from ours. Religion was
then the mode; men and women were in general expounders and preachers;
ordinary conversation was interlarded with Scripture phrases; common
events were providences; political misconstructions of the sacred story
were prophecies; and a fluency of cant was inspiration.
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