uthority, had this bill passed, would have
been established in its full extent. Some of the clergy protested. They
apprehended, they said, that the purity of their church would, by means
of this new authority, be polluted with all the rites and liturgy of
the church of England. James, dreading clamor and opposition dropped the
bill, which had already passed the lords of articles; and asserted,
that the inherent prerogative of the crown contained more power than was
recognized by it. Some time after, he called, at St. Andrew's, a meeting
of the bishops and thirty-six of the most eminent clergy. He
there declared his resolution of exerting his prerogative, and of
establishing, by his own authority, the few ceremonies which he had
recommended to them. They entreated him rather to summon a general
assembly, and to gain their assent. An assembly was accordingly summoned
to meet on the twenty-fifth of November ensuing.

* 15th Feb. 1610.

** Spotswood. Franklyn, p. 29.

Yet this assembly, which met after the king's departure from Scotland,
eluded all his applications; and it was not till the subsequent year,
that he was able to procure a vote for receiving his ceremonies. And
through every step in this affair, in the parliament as well as in all
the general assemblies, the nation betrayed the utmost reluctance to all
these innovations, and nothing but James's importunity and authority had
extorted a seeming consent, which was belied by the inward sentiments
of all ranks of people. Even the few over whom religious prejudices were
not prevalent, thought national honor sacrificed by a servile imitation
of the modes worship practised in England. And every prudent man agreed
in condemning the measures of the king, who, by an ill-timed zeal for
insignificant ceremonies, had betrayed, though in an opposite manner,
equal narrowness of mind with the persons whom he treated with such
contempt. It was judged that, had not these dangerous humors been
irritated by opposition; had they been allowed peaceably to evaporate;
they would at last have subsided within the limits of law and civil
authority; and that, as all fanatical religions naturally circumscribe
to very narrow bounds the numbers and riches of the ecclesiastics, no
sooner is their first fire spent, than they lose their credit over the
people, and leave them under the natural and beneficent influence of
their civil and moral obligations.

At the same time that Jame