The British Churches Under Cromwell [pp. 629-655]

1867.J Tke Briti~h ChurcAes under ~romwe~ 639
way to it, in any instance, it was as a Christian gives way, half
unawares, to a strong temptation. It divided for the time
being his otherwise far loftier aim. The unprejudiced student
of his public career will find facts which suggest the operation
of ambition, but not one which can be imputed to that motive
alone. Dealing fairly with the subject, he will discover that
Cromwell's motive, as known to himself, was something very
different. llis assenting to the Parliamentary purge, his taking
part in the execution of the I~ing, and dissolution of the Long
Parliament, have been considered as the most questionable of
his public acts, and those into which ambition entered most
largely. They were certainly to him the occasion of power,
but the cause of weakness, thro~ing government into his hands,
but alienating the body of the people from him, the latter a
weakness which would have been fatal, but for the devotion of
the army. And yet, even in those cases, he must be a super.
ficial thinker, who does not perceive that there were motives at
work with which ambition had little to do-overmastering
necessities which make it difficult to conceive of how Cromwell
could have taken any other course that would have turned out
better. The charge of hypocrisy reiterated against him by
royalist writers, but never established in a single instance, later
and more critical investigation has finally exploded.
By advocates of the restoration he was persistently repre.
sented, or rather misrepresented, as Luther was by papists.
Between the two men there is much resemblance in the main;
the same was their gradual progress with the progress of events;
the same their strong grasp of truth, often in defiance of the
ordinary means of reaching it; the same their practical good
sense and power in holding a check upon extreme radicalism,
as well as in conducting vast and varied designs of reform, and
the same self-consecration to a special calling in the cause of
God. But the piety of the Protector is more consistently
reverential than that of the Reformer. Luther occasionally
made unduly free with sacred language, Cromwell, never.
In that most valuable of all powers in a ruler, discrimination
of character in selecting fit men for places of office and trust,
Cromwell has never been surpassed. In this matter he suffered
himself to be biased by no party, sect, or relationship. General