accomplish by his journey to
Scotland, were the enlarging of episcopal authority, the establishing of
a few ceremonies in public worship, and the fixing of a superiority in
the civil above the ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

But it is an observation suggested by all history, and by none more than
by that of James and his successor, that the religious spirit, when
it mingles with faction, contains in it something supernatural and
unaccountable; and that, in its operations upon society, effects
correspond less to their known causes than is found in any other
circumstance of government; a reflection which may at once afford
a source of blame against such sovereigns as lightly innovate in so
dangerous an article, and of apology for such as, being engaged in an
enterprise of that nature, are disappointed of the expected event, and
fail in their undertakings.

When the Scottish nation was first seized with that zeal for
reformation, which, though it caused such disturbance during the time,
has proved so salutary in the consequences, the preachers, assuming a
character little inferior to the prophetic or apostolical, disdained
all subjection to the spiritual rulers of the church, by whom their
innovations were punished and opposed. The revenues of the dignified
clergy, no longer considered as sacred, were either appropriated by
the present possessors, or seized by the more powerful barons; and what
remained, after mighty dilapidations, was, by act of parliament, annexed
to the crown. The prelates, however, and abbots, maintained their
temporal jurisdictions and their seats in parliament; and though
laymen were sometimes endowed with ecclesiastical titles, the church,
notwithstanding its frequent protestations to the contrary, was still
supposed to be represented by those spiritual lords in the states of the
kingdom. After many struggles, the king, even before his accession
to the throne of England, had acquired sufficient influence over
the Scottish clergy, to extort from them an acknowledgment of the
parliamentary jurisdiction of bishops; though attended with many
precautions, in order to secure themselves against the spiritual
encroachments of that order.[*] When king of England, he engaged them,
though still with great reluctance on their part, to advance a
step further, and to receive the bishops as perpetual presidents
or moderators in their ecclesiastical synods; reiterating their
protestations against all spiritual jur