lodged with them: and they were impowered to take to their assistance, and to a share in the Church government, such as they should think fit." He then alludes to some furious men who had been secretly ordained by the Presbyterians, and who "were presently taken in. This was like to prove a fatal error at their first setting out. The old men, who by reason of their age or their experience of former mistakes, were disposed to more moderate counsels; but the taking in of such a number of violent men, put it out of their power to pursue them." These men, he remarks, were full of rage against such of the Episcopal Clergy "as had escaped the rage of the former year. Accusations were raised; but these were only thrown out to defame them: and when they looked for proof, it was in a way more becoming Inquisitors than Judges: so apt are all parties in their hours of power, to fall into these very excesses of which they did formerly make such tragical complaints."[1] These are the admissions of a man who was favourable to their claims.
No Liturgy was used in Scotland between the Restoration and the Revolution, though Episcopacy was the government established by law; but each Clergyman conducted public worship according to his own method. One gentleman was, therefore, charged in this Assembly with having said, on an occasion when some person had expressed his fears of the English Liturgy, "God send us no worse." He told the Assembly that he was indeed sorry, if any such expression had dropped from him, "because he was sensible it was too mean for so great and so glorious
- ↑ Tindal, i. 124.
