mplicity by which the reformation was distinguished. The finer
arts too, though still rude in these northern kingdoms, were employed
to adorn the churches; and the king's chapel, in which an organ was
erected, and some pictures and statues displayed, was proposed as a
model to the rest of the nation. But music was grating to the
prejudiced ears of the Scottish; clergy; sculpture and painting appeared
instruments of idolatry the surplice was a rag of Popery; and every
motion or gesture prescribed by the liturgy, was a step towards that
spiritual Babylon, so much the object of their horror and aversion.
Every thing was deemed impious but their own mystical comments on the
Scriptures, which they idolized, and whose Eastern prophetic style they
employed in every common occurrence.

It will not be necessary to give a particular account of the ceremonies
which the king was so intent to establish. Such institutions, for a
time, are esteemed either too divine to have proceeded from any other
being than the Supreme Creator of the universe, or too diabolical to
have been derived from any but an infernal demon. But no sooner is the
mode of the controversy past, than they are universally discovered to be
of so little importance, as scarcely to be mentioned with decency amidst
the ordinary course of human transactions. It suffices here to remark,
that the rites introduced by James regarded the kneeling at the
sacrament, private communion, private baptism, confirmation of children,
and the observance of Christmas and other festivals.[*]

* Franklyn, p. 25. Spotswood.

The acts establishing these ceremonies were afterwards known by the name
of the Articles of Perth, from the place where they were ratified by the
assembly.

A conformity of discipline and worship between the churches of England
and Scotland, which was James's aim, he never could hope to establish,
but by first procuring an acknowledgment of his own authority in all
spiritual causes; and nothing could be more contrary to the practice as
well as principles of the Presbyterian clergy. The ecclesiastical courts
possessed the power of pronouncing excommunication; and that sentence,
besides the spiritual consequences supposed to follow from it, was
attended with immediate effects of the most important nature. The person
excommunicated was shunned by every one as profane and impious; and his
whole estate, during his lifetime, and all his movables, forever, were
forfei