274 HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

e h aixvl.

1678 .

they considered as the wages of a criminal silence.Even the former soon repented their compliance.The people, who had been accustomed to hearthem rail against their superiors, and preach tothe times, as they termed it, deemed their sermonslanguid and spiritless , when deprived of theseornaments. Their usual gists, they thought, hadleft them , on account os their submission , whichwas stigmatized as erastianism. They gave themthe appellation, not of ministers of Christ , butof the kimss curates ; as the clergy of the establishedchurch were commonly denominated the bishop’scurates. The preachers themselves returned in alittle time to their former practices, by whichthey hoped to regain their former dominion overthe minds of men. The conventicles multiplieddaily in the west: The clergy of the establissedchurch were insulted: The laws were neglected:The covenanters even met daily in arms at theirplaces of worship: And though they usually dis-persed themselves after divine service, yet thegovernment took a just alarm at seeing men , whowere so entirely governed by their seditiousteachers, dare to set authority at defiance, andduring a time of full peace , to put themselves ina military posture.

Theke was here, it is apparent, in the politicalbody, a disease dangerous and inveterate; andthe government had tried every remedy, but thetrue one, to allay and correct it. An unlimitedtoleration , after sects have diffused themselves andare strongly rooted, is the only^expedient, which