It was this which, in the estimation of many of the
combatants, gave the chief interest to the quarrel; this which made it,
according to the language of the time, "a wrestle between Christ and
antichrist," 1. Every good Protestant had been educated in the deepest
horror of popery; there was a magic in the very word which awakened the
prejudices and inflamed the passions of men; and the reader must have
observed with what art and perseverance the patriot leaders employed it
to confirm the attachment, and quicken the efforts of their followers.
Scarcely a day occurred in which some order or ordinance, local or general,
was not issued by the two houses; and very few of these, even on the most
indifferent subjects, were permitted to pass without the assertion that the
war had been originally provoked, and was still continued by the papists,
for the sole purpose of the establishment of popery on the ruins of
Protestantism. The constant repetition acted on the minds of the people as
a sufficient proof of the charge; and the denials, the protestations, the
appeals to heaven made by the king, were disregarded and condemned as
unworthy artifices, adopted to deceive
[Footnote 1: Journals, Feb. 25, March 21; of Lords, 287, 303.]
the credulous and unwary.
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