The Canons were first compiled and confirmed by the Royal Supremacy. They comprehended whatever the Kings of Israel or the Emperors of the Primitive Church had arrogated; secured from challenge the consecration of the bishops; and added terror to excommunication, by annexing confiscation and outlawry as the penalties of incurring it. The Liturgy was sanctioned before it was actually framed. By it the clergy were forbidden to deviate from its forms, or to pray extemporaneously; the demeanour of the people in public worship was rigorously prescribed; kirk-sessions and presbyteries, as these were established by the act 1592, were abolished, under the new designation of “conventicles;” the powers of these were transferred to the bishops, and lay elders entirely superseded; and the whole texture and spirit of it was manifestly Popish, embodying, in almost undisguised terms, the form of the missals, and introducing every particular, both of doctrine and ceremonial, that was most obnoxious to the whole population, except the prelates, nine of whom, out of fourteen, had been introduced into the Privy Council, while Archbishop Spottiswood was created Chancellor, and Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, aspired to the office of Lord Treasurer—thus combining the highest spiritual with the highest political functions, and forming a conclave of despotism entirely subservient to the King. The new order of things, therefore, was not a mere institution of Episcopacy, in which only spiritual jurisdiction was conferred, and different orders of clergy were established, as in England; but it was palpably a political engine, incompatible with the existence of civil liberty or freedom of conscience in matters of religion; and this innovation became universally obnoxious to the whole nation, by reason of its manifest revival of the practices and ritual of the Catholics. A font was appointed to be placed in the entrance of the church, the cross was enjoined in baptism, and the water was changed and consecrated in the font twice a month; an altar was appointed for the chancel; the communion table, decorated, was placed in the east, and the consecration of the elements was a prayer expressive of the Real Presence, and their elevation deemed an actual oblation. The confessions of the penitent were to be concealed by the clergy; and the whole contexture of this novel Liturgy was such, in conjunction with the Canons, as to effect a total subversion of all the principles cherished by the bulk of the nation from the date of the Reformation, and to overthrow the entire system of Presbyterian doctrine and discipline that had previously prevailed in the usages of the Church, and the law of the land.