And most of the officers, having risen from the dregs of the people, had no other prospect, if deprived of their commission, than that of returning to languish in their native poverty and obscurity.
These motives of interest acquired additional influence, and became more dangerous to the parliament, from the religious spirit by which the army was universally actuated.

Among the generality of men educated in regular, civilized societies, the sentiments of shame, duty, honor, have considerable authority, and serve to counterbalance and direct the motives derived from private advantage: but, by the predominancy of enthusiasm among the parliamentary forces, these salutary principles lost their credit, and were regarded as mere human inventions, yea, moral institutions, fitter for heathens than for Christians.[*] The saint, resigned over to superior guidance, was at full liberty to gratify all his appetites, disguised under the appearance of pious zeal.

And besides the strange corruptions engendered by this spirit, it eluded and loosened all the ties of morality, and gave entire scope, and even sanction, to the selfishness and ambition which naturally adhere to the human mind.
The military confessors were further encouraged in disobedience to superiors, by that spiritual pride to which a mistaken piety is so subject.

They were not, they said, mere janizaries; mercenary troops enlisted for hire, and to be disposed of at the will of their paymasters.[**] Religion and liberty were the motives which had excited them to arms; and they had a superior right to see those blessings, which they had purchased with their blood, insured to future generations.

By the same title that the Presbyterians, in contradistinction to the royalists, had appropriated to themselves the epithet of godly, or the well affected,[***] the Independents did now, in contradistinction to the Presbyterians, assume this magnificent appellation, and arrogate all the ascendant which naturally belongs to it.
* Rush.