liament was now assembled, and discovered in every vote
the same dispositions in which they had separated. The exalting of their
own authority, the diminishing of the king's, were still the objects
pursued by the majority. Every attempt which had been made to gain the
popular leaders, and by offices to attach them to the crown, had failed
of success, either for want of skill in conducting it, or by reason of
the slender preferments which it was then in the king's power to confer.
The ambitious and enterprising patriots disdained to accept, in detail,
of a precarious power, while they deemed it so easy, by one bold
and vigorous assault, to possess themselves forever of the entire
sovereignty. Sensible that the measures which they had hitherto pursued
rendered them extremely obnoxious to the king; were many of them in
themselves exceptionable; some of them, strictly speaking, illegal; they
resolved to seek their own security, as well as greatness, by enlarging
popular authority in England. The great necessities to which the king
was reduced; the violent prejudices which generally, throughout the
nation, prevailed against him; his facility in making the most important
concessions; the example of the Scots, whose encroachments had totally
subverted monarchy; all these circumstances further instigated the
commons in their invasion of royal prerogative. And the danger to which
the constitution seemed to have been so lately exposed, persuaded many
that it never could be sufficiently secured, but by the entire abolition
of that authority which had invaded it.

But this project it had not been in the power, scarcely in the intention
of the popular leaders to execute, had it not been for the passion
which seized the nation for Presbyterian discipline, and for the wild
enthusiasm which at that time accompanied it. The license which the
parliament had bestowed on this spirit, by checking ecclesiastical
authority; the countenance and encouragement with which they had honored
it; had already diffused its influence to a wonderful degree; and
all orders of men had drunk deep of the intoxicating poison. In every
discourse or conversation this mode of religion entered; in all
business it had a share; every elegant pleasure or amusement it utterly
annihilated; many vices or corruptions of mind it promoted: even
diseases and bodily distempers were not totally exempted from it; and
it became requisite, we are told, for all physicians to be e