Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/124

of men Dr. Petty belonged by training and by temperament. They were Protestants, but rather by political opinion than through theological conviction, and more by reason of what they denied than of what they affirmed. The prospect to them of the supremacy of the Puritans was as distasteful as that of the supremacy of Laud. In the new reign that was opening many deceptions no doubt awaited them. The forces of intolerance were not yet spent; and religious hatred, after a short interval, was again to furnish the keynote to the history of the century in Europe. The final battle was only adjourned. Another change of dynasty was to be necessary in order to convince the forces of militant Roman Catholicism that the verdict of the reign of Elizabeth was not to be reversed; to compel the Church of England to see that passive obedience and the divine right of kings were doctrines invented by and for the benefit of civil rulers and not of Churches; and to make the Puritans acknowledge that they were not the majority of the nation, and must consent to eschew any claim to domination over the intellectual freedom of their countrymen. Meanwhile the mass of the people, never disposed at any time to take long views of public affairs, and always inclined to deal with the immediate question of the hour without looking much beyond it, eagerly welcomed the restored King, and attributing to him qualities which he neither possessed nor claimed to possess, shut their eyes, in the intoxication of the hour, to whatever dangers might lie beyond, in what they deemed a dim and distant future.