Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/349

Rh blessed in, and thereby much endeared to their hearts,—began now to fear, and withdraw their affections from us, in this politic path which we had stepped into, and walked in to our hurt, the year before. And as a farther fruit of the wages of our backsliding hearts, we were also filled with a spirit of great jealousy and divisions amongst ourselves; having left that Wisdom of the Word, which is first pure and then peaceable; so that we were now fit for little but to tear and rend one another, and thereby prepare ourselves, and the work in our hands, to be ruined by our common enemies. Enemies that were ready to say, as many others of like spirit in this day do, of the like sad occasions amongst us, “Lo, this is the day we looked for.” The King and his Party prepare accordingly to ruin all; by sudden Insurrections in most parts of the Nation: the Scot, concurring with the same designs, comes in with a potent Army under Duke Hamilton. We in the Army, in a low, weak, divided, perplexed condition in all respects, as aforesaid:—some of us judging it a duty to lay-down our arms, to quit our stations, and put ourselves into the capacities of private men,—since what we had done, and what was yet in our hearts to do, tending, as we judged, to the good of these poor Nations, was not accepted by them.

‘Some also even encouraged themselves and us to such a thing, by urging for such a practice the example of our Lord Jesus; who, when he had borne an eminent testimony to the pleasure of his Father in an active way, sealed it at last by his sufferings; which was presented to us as our pattern for imitation. Others of us, however, were different-minded; thinking something of another nature might yet be farther-our duty ;—and these therefore were, by joint advice, by a good hand of the Lord, led to this result; viz. To go solemnly to search-out our own iniquities, and humble our souls before the Lord in the sense of the same; which, we were persuaded, had provoked the Lord against us, to bring such sad perplexities