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faith—the jus divinum of kings, and the passive obedience of the people, were no longer acknowledged. A spirit of religious enthusiasm, which ultimately led to confusion and intolerance, was engendered in the country: the wildest doctrines with regard to religion and civil polity, were promulgated; and it would almost appear, that in the 'new order of things,' the more absurd such doctrines were, the more readily were they received by the people.

During the Commonwealth, the military sway of Cromwell gave no satisfaction to the clergy of Scotland. Though Presbytery was considered as the established religion, its General Assemblies were abolished, and, among other causes of complaint, its ministers were restrained from that free discussion in pulpit, upon civil as well as religious topics, which the spirit of the times inculcated.

The Restoration of Charles II, was, therefore, hailed as the harbinger of freedom to the Kirk. But Charles, goaded on by the English bishops, and, perhaps, offended with the republican spirit of Presbytery, and the austerity of its professors, established Episcopacy as the national religion in Scotland. This unwise step, added to the vain attempts which he made to recover those prerogatives, of which the late civil war had deprived the crown, alienated the hearts of his Presbyterian subjects, who looked upon him as a perjured monarch, who had broken the solemn oath which he had pledged to uphold presbytery as the established religion in Scotland.

But presbytery found a greater and more dangerous enemy in the succeeding monarch, whose power was openly exerted to overthrow the protestant church, and to restore