Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

poison of moral death all over the kingdom. He
restored to England in the seventeenth century one
of those royal sties which had disgraced pagan
Rome in the first. His minister was Clarendon, on
whom, as Asiatic Sultan on vizier, Charles
devolved all the care and toil of government, that
he might pass his hours less interruptedly in his
seraglio.
The first measure after Charles's restoration
was an attempted union between the Anglican and
the Presbyterian parties, the latter being the chief
promoters of the project. Having as yet free access
to the king, the Presbyterians brought in their
proposals. The things of which they complained
were mainly these -- the great extent of the
dioceses, the performance of the bishop's duty by
deputy, his assuming the whole power of
ordination and jurisdiction, the imposition of new
ceremonies, and the arbitrary suspension of
ministers. For reforming these evils they proposed
that "Bishop Usher's reduction of episcopacy to the
form of synodical government, received in the
ancient Church, should be the ground-work of an
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