The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury, Volume 06 (of 11)
Thomas Hobbes · en
_A._ By no means. There were yet many obstacles to be removed. He was
not general of the army. The army was still for a Parliament. The city
of London discontented about their militia. The Scots expected with an
army to rescue the King. His adjutators were levellers, and against
monarchy, who though they had helped him to bring under the Parliament,
yet, like dogs that are easily taught to fetch, and not easily taught to
render, would not make him king. So that Cromwell had these businesses
following to overcome, before he could formally make himself a sovereign
prince: 1. To be Generalissimo: 2. To remove the King: 3. To suppress
all insurrections here: 4. To oppose the Scots: and lastly, to dissolve
the present Parliament. Mighty businesses, which he could never promise
himself to overcome. Therefore I cannot believe he then thought to be
King; but only by well serving the strongest party, which was always his
main polity, to proceed as far as that and fortune would carry him.
_B._ The Parliament were certainly no less foolish than wicked, in
deserting thus the King, before they had the army at a better command
than they had.
_A._ In the beginning of 1648 the Parliament gave commission to Philip
Earl of Pembroke, then made Chancellor of Oxford, together with some of
the doctors there as good divines as he, to purge the University. By
virtue whereof they turned out all such as were not of their faction,
and all such as had approved the use of the Common-prayer-book; as also
divers scandalous ministers and scholars, that is, such as customarily
and without need took the name of God into their mouths, or used to
speak wantonly, or use the company of lewd women: and for this last I
cannot but commend them.
_B._ So shall not I; for it is just such another piece of piety, as to
turn men out of an hospital because they are lame. Where can a man
probably learn godliness, and how to correct his vices, better than in
the universities erected for that purpose?