Clement Walker Quotes

Clement Walker was an English lawyer, official and politician. As a member of the Long Parliament, he became an outspoken critic of the conduct of its affairs, and allied himself to William Prynne. Author of the History of Independency, which as a project with several editions included also his Anarchia Anglicana, he was a strong opponent of religious factionalism, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died without being brought to trial. He used the pseudonym Theodorus Verax. Wikipedia

✵ 1595 – 1651

“THe engaged Party have laid the Axe to the very root of Monarchy and Parliaments; they have caſt all the Myſteries and ſecrets of Government, both by Kings and Parliaments, before the vulgar, (like Pearl before Swine) and have taught both the Souldiery and People to look ſo far into them as to ravel back all Governments, to the firſt principles of nature: He that ſhakes Fundamentals, means to take down the Fabrick. Nor have they been careful to ſave the materials for Poſterity. What theſe negative Statiſts will ſet up in the room of theſe ruined buildings, doth not appear, only I will ſay, They have made the People thereby ſo curious and ſo arrogant, that they will never find humility enough to ſubmit to a civil rule; their aim therefore from the beginning was to rule them by the power of the Sword, a military Ariſtocracy or Oligarchy, as now they do. Amongſt the ancient Romans, Tentare arcana Imperii, to prophane the Myſteries of State, was Treaſon; becauſe there can be no form of Government without its proper Myſteries, which are no longer Myſteries than while they are concealed. Ignorance, and Admiration ariſing from Ignorance are the Parents of civil devotion and obedience, though not of Theological.”

Clement Walker

[Walker, Clement, Relation and Observations, Historical and Politick, upon the Parliament Begun Anno Dom. 1640., 1648, 140–141, The Hiſtory of Independency, http://books.google.ca/books?id=Aes_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PP147]