he had been able in Scotland to acquire only the affection of
the superior rank among the clergy. The ministers in general equalled,
if not exceeded, the nobility in their prejudices against the court,
against the prelates, and against episcopal authority.[***] Though the
establishment of the hierarchy might seem advantageous to the inferior
clergy, both as it erected dignities to which all of them might aspire,
and as it bestowed a lustre on the whole body, and allured men of family
into it, these views had no influence on the Scottish ecclesiastics. In
the present disposition of men's minds, there was another circumstance
which drew consideration, and counterbalanced power and riches, the
usual foundations of distinction among men; and that was the fervor of
piety, and the rhetoric, however barbarous, of religious lectures and
discourses. Checked by the prelates in the license of preaching,
the clergy regarded episcopal jurisdiction both as a tyranny and a
usurpation, and maintained a parity among ecclesiastics to be a divine
privilege, which no human law could alter or infringe. While such ideas
prevailed, the most moderate exercise of authority would have given
disgust; much more, that extensive power which the king's indulgence
encouraged the prelates to assume. The jurisdiction of presbyteries,
synods, and other democratical courts, was in a manner abolished by
the bishops; and the general assembly itself had not been summoned for
several years.[****] A new oath was arbitrarily imposed on intrants,
by which they swore to observe the articles of Perth, and submit to
the liturgy and canons. And in a word, the whole system of church
government, during a course of thirty years, had been changed by means
of the innovations introduced by James and Charles.

* King's Declaration, p. 7. Franklyn, p, 611.

** King's Declaration, p. 6.

*** Burnet's Mem., p. 29, 30.

**** May, p. 29.

The people, under the influence of the nobility and clergy, could not
fail to partake of the discontents which prevailed among these two
orders; and where real grounds of complaint were wanting, they greedily
laid hold of imaginary ones. The same horror against Popery with which
the English Puritans were possessed, was observable among the
populace in Scotland; and among these, as being more uncultivated
and uncivilized, seemed rather to be inflamed into a higher degree of
ferocity. The genius of religion which prevai