No man (to
borrow one of their favourite terms) was more _gifted_ this way than
Cromwell; he had discerned the current of the public humour, and could
adopt the disguise which suited his ambition. Every step which led him
to the summit of power was prefaced by what he called seeking the Lord;
that is, attending sermons and prayers, by which the suborned performers
of those profane and solemn farces prepared their congregations to
desire what their employers had previously determined to do; thus giving
an air of divine inspiration to the projects of fraud, murder, and
ambition. By such a perversion of public worship, joined with an
affectation of disinterested purity, that celebrated preparative for
military despotism, the self-denying ordinance was introduced into the
Commons. After numerous prayers and sermons, intreating Providence to
strengthen the hands of the faithful, by choosing new instruments to
carry on the godly work, an agent of Cromwell's inferred, that the Lord
had indeed prompted their counsels, and proposed that henceforth no peer
or member of Parliament should hold any public office.
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