ad a right to resist,
by every expedient, these dangerous invaders, and that the same simple
principles of equity which justified a man in killing a pirate or
a robber, would acquit them for the execution of such heretics. A
toleration, though it is never acceptable to ecclesiastics, might,
they said, be admitted in other cases; but seemed an absurdity where
fundamentals were shaken, and where the possessions and even the
existence of the established clergy were brought in danger. But though
the church was thus carried by policy, as well as inclination, to kindle
the fires of persecution, they found the success of this remedy very
precarious; and observed, that the enthusiastic zeal of the reformers,
inflamed by punishment, was apt to prove contagious on the compassionate
minds of the spectators. The new doctrine, amidst all the dangers to
which it was exposed, secretly spread itself every where; and the minds
of men were gradually disposed to a revolution in religion.

But the most dangerous symptom for the clergy in Scotland was, that the
nobility, from the example of England, had cast a wishful eye on the
church revenues, and hoped, if a reformation took place, to enrich
themselves by the plunder of the ecclesiastics. James himself, who was
very poor, and was somewhat inclined to magnificence, particularly in
building, had been swayed by like motives; and began to threaten the
clergy with the same fate that had attended them in the neighboring
country. Henry also never ceased exhorting his nephew to imitate his
example; and being moved, both by the pride of making proselytes, and
the prospect of security, should Scotland embrace a close union with
him, he solicited the king of Scots to meet him at York; and he obtained
a promise to that purpose.

The ecclesiastics were alarmed at this resolution of James, and they
employed every expedient in order to prevent the execution of it. They
represented the danger of innovation; the pernicious consequences of
aggrandizing the nobility, already too powerful; the hazard of putting
himself into the hands of the English, his hereditary enemies; the
dependence on them which must ensue upon his losing the friendship of
France, and of all foreign powers. To those considerations they added
the prospect of immediate interest, by which they found the king to be
much governed: they offered him a present gratuity of fifty thousand
pounds: they promised him that the church should always