Page:Eikonoklastes - in answer to a book intitl'd Eikon basilike - Milton (1649).djvu/17

 of mind in the people, I must confess I cannot willingly afcribe to the naturall disposition of an Englishman, but rather to two other causes. First to the Prelats and thir fellow-teachers, though of another Name and Se&, whose Pulpit~ftufFe y both first and last, hath bin the Do&rinand perpetuall infusion of servility and wretchedness to all thir hearers, and thir lives the type of worldlinefs and hypocrifie, without the leaft true pattern of vertue, righteousness, or selfe-denyall in thir whole pra&ice. I attribute it next to the fa&ious inclination of moil: men divided from the public by feverall ends and humors of thir owne. At first no man less belov'd, no man more generally condemn'd then was the King from the time that it became his cuftom to breake Parlamentsat home, and either wilfully or weakly to betray Proteftants abroad 5 to the beginning of these Ccmbuftions. All men inveigh'd againft him, all men, except Court-vafials, oppos'd him and his Tyrannical! proceedings the cry was univerfall 5 and this full Parlament was at firft unanimous in thir dislike and Proteftation againft his evill Goverment. But when they who fought themfelves and not the Public, began to doubt that all of them could not by one and the fame way attain to thir ambitious purpofes, then was the Ring, or his Name at leaft, as a fit property,fir ft made ufe of, his doings made the beftof, and by degrees juftifi'd: Which begot him fuch a party, as after many wiles and ftruglings with his inward feares, imbold'n cl him at length to fett up his Standard againft the Parlament. When as before that time, all