In the Lowlands, the Jacobites, now
the undermost party, had ceased to expect any immediate advantage by open
resistance, and were, in their turn, driven to hold private meetings, and
form associations for mutual defence, which the government termed
treason, while they cried out persecution.
The triumphant Whigs, while they re-established Presbytery as the
national religion, and assigned to the General Assemblies of the Kirk
their natural influence, were very far from going the lengths which the
Cameronians and more extravagant portion of the nonconformists under
Charles and James loudly demanded. They would listen to no proposal for
re-establishing the Solemn League and Covenant; and those who had
expected to find in King William a zealous Covenanted Monarch, were
grievously disappointed when he intimated, with the phlegm peculiar to
his country, his intention to tolerate all forms of religion which were
consistent with the safety of the State. The principles of indulgence
thus espoused and gloried in by the Government gave great offence to the
more violent party, who condemned them as diametrically contrary to
Scripture,--for which narrow-spirited doctrine they cited various texts,
all, as it may well be supposed, detached from their context, and most of
them derived from the charges given to the Jews in the Old Testament
dispensation to extirpate idolaters out of the Promised Land.
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