BusterStronghart@Gmail.com

The levelers insisted on an equal distribution of power and property and disclaimed all dependence and subordination.

The millenaians or fifth-monarchy-men required, that government itself should be abolished, that all human powers be laid in dust, in order to pave the way for the dominion of Christ whose second coming they immediately expected.

The Antinomians even insisted that the obligations of morality and natural law were suspended, and that the elect, guided by internal principle, more perfect and divine, were superior to the beggarly elements of justice and humanity.

A considerable party declaimed against tithes and hireling priests, and were resolved that the magistrate should not by power or revenue any ecclesiastical establishment.

Another party inveiged against the law and its professors; and on pretense rendering more simple the distribution of justice, were desirous of dismantling the entire system of English jurisprudence, which seemed interwoven with monarchic government.

Even among those republicans, who adopted no such extravagances, were so intoxicated with their saintly character, that they supposed themselves possessed of peculiar privledges; and that all professions, oaths, laws, and engagements, had, in great measure, lost their influence over them.

The bands of society were everywhere loosened; and the irregular passions of men were encouraged by speculative principles, still more unsocial and irregular.


David Hume : HISTORY OF ENGLAND VOL VI