Ecclesiastical History of England, Vol. 1 of 2: The Church of the Restoration (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Ecclesiastical History of England, Vol. 1 of 2: The Church of the Restoration
HE knell of the Puritan Commonwealth was rung when Oliver Cromwell died. The causes of its dissolution may easily be discovered. Some of them had been in operation for a long time, and had prepared for the change which now took place.1 Puritanism never won a majority of the English people. By some of the greatest in the nation it was espoused, and their name, example, and influence, gave it for a time a position which defied assault but the multitude stood ranged on the Opposite side. Forced to succumb, and stricken with silence, the disaffected nevertheless abated not a jot of their bitter antipathy to the party in power. Even amongst those who wore the livery of the day, who used the forms, who adopted the usages of their masters, many lacked the slightest sympathy with the system which, from self-interest or timidity, they had been induced to accept. The Puritans were not the hypocrites the hypocrites really were people of another religion, or of no religion, who pretended to be Puritans.
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