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2.1.4. Moral authority is Parental authority 2.1.4.1. God as a father God’s authority means that we must obey God, this relation of obedience between men and God has been traditionally conceptualised in the old Christian tradition as follows: God is a strict father , the father, God, has the responsibility to protect their children, the father has authority to set the rules, the children must follow those rules, if they do it, they will get a reward, if not they will be punished 13 . This system of reward and punishment is taken from the moral accounting system. Following God will be rewarded and in that way the Army will get moral credit; not following God means to be punished, so the members of the Army will be in debt. At the same time, it can also be set the correspondences between parental authority and moral authority 14 , an authority figure is the father, God; a moral agent is the child, the Army; morality is obedience to the father, to God. The moral authority sets the moral bounds, those acting out of those bounds are immoral people, these are Cromwell’s enemies. Following God’s commandments also requires building up moral strength, self-discipline, that is morality is strength , being good means being up , being bad is down ; Cromwell and the Army are up; the enemies are down. The Army builds its moral strength facing the enemies, fighting external evils and following God’s rules, that is to say hardships and punishment are good to build moral strength and in that way they will get moral credit. Example: «We shall find he will be as a wall of brass round about us till we have finished that work...» (the father protects us) (23 March 1648). Example: «God might raise up a poor and contemptible company of men...even through the owning of a principle of godliness, of Religion...» (4 July 1653). 558 ARACELI BALLESTEROS GARCÍA 13 Cf. G. L AKOFF , Moral Politics. What Conservatives Know that Liberals Don’t (Chicago 1996a). 14 Cf. G. L AKOFF , «The metaphor system for Morality», in A.E. GOLDBERG, Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language (Standford 1996b) 249-266.