Whitlocke, in particular, a man of honor, who loved his country, though in every change of government he always adhered to the ruling power, said, that besides the ingratitude of discarding, and that by fraud and artifice, so many noble persons, to whom the parliament had hitherto owed its chief support, they would find it extremely difficult to supply the place of men now formed by experience to command and authority: that the rank alone possessed by such as were members of either house, prevented envy, retained the army in obedience, and gave weight to military orders: that greater confidence might safely be reposed in men of family and fortune, than in mere adventurers, who would be apt to entertain separate views from those which were embraced by the persons who employed them: that no maxim of policy was more undisputed, than the necessity of preserving an inseparable connection between the civil and military powers, and of retaining the latter in strict subordination to the former: that the Greeks and Romans, the wisest and most passionate lovers of liberty, had ever intrusted to their senators the command of armies, and had maintained an unconquerable jealousy of all mercenary forces: and that such men alone, whose interests were involved in those of the public, and who possessed a vote in the civil deliberations, would sufficiently respect the authority of parliament, and never could be tempted to turn the sword against those by whom it was committed to them.[*] * Whitlocke, p.

114, 115.Rush.

vol.vii.p.

6.
Notwithstanding these reasonings, a committee was chosen to frame what was called the "self-denying ordinance," by which the members of both houses were excluded from all civil and military employments, except a few offices which were specified.

This ordinance was the subject of great debate, and for a long time rent the parliament and city into factions.