ependence as a degradation of kingly government, and a great step
towards the establishment of a commonwealth in England.

But though his union with the political royalists brought great
accession of force to the king, he derived no less support from the
confederacy which he had at this time the address to form with the
church of England. He represented to the ecclesiastics the great number
of Presbyterians and other sectaries, who had entered into the popular
party; the encouragement and favor which they met with; the loudness of
their cries with regard to Popery and arbitrary power. And he made the
established clergy and their adherents apprehend, that the old scheme
for the abolition of prelacy as well as monarchy was revived, and that
the same miseries and oppressions awaited them, to which, during the
civil wars and usurpations, they had so long been exposed.

The memory also of those dismal times united many indifferent and
impartial persons to the crown, and begat a dread lest the zeal for
liberty should ingraft itself on fanaticism, and should once more
kindle a civil war in the kingdom. Had not the king still retained the
prerogative of dissolving the parliament, there was indeed reason to
apprehend the renewal of all the pretensions and violences which
had ushered in the last commotions. The one period appeared an exact
counterpart to the other: but still discerning judges could perceive,
both in the spirit of the parties and in the genius of the prince, a
material difference; by means of which Charles was enabled at last,
though with the imminent peril' of liberty, to preserve the peace of the
nation.

The cry against Popery was loud; but it proceeded less from religious
than from party zeal, in those who propagated, and even in those who
adopted it. The spirit of enthusiasm had occasioned so much mischief,
and had been so successfully exploded, that it was not possible, by
any artifice, again to revive and support it. Cant had been ridiculed,
hypocrisy detected; the pretensions to a more thorough reformation, and
to greater purity, had become suspicious; and instead of denominating
themselves the godly party, the appellation affected at the beginning
of the civil wars, the present patriots were content with calling
themselves the good and the honest party;[*] a sure prognostic that
their measures were not to be so furious nor their pretensions so
exorbitant.

The king too, though not endowed with the int