[88] Kirkton’s _True and Secret History of the Church of Scotland_ (edited from the original MS. by Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, 1817), pp. 64, 65. In Law’s _Memorialls_ (edited from the MS. by Mr. Sharpe in 1818) there is a passage which, if it is to be relied on, shows that during this period the course of religion had been advanced by the policy of preventing the clergy interfering so constantly in politics. “It is not to be forgotten,” Law says, “that, from the year 1652 to the year 1660, there was great good done by the preaching of the gospell in the West of Scotland, more than was observed to have been for twenty or thirty yeirs before; a great many being brought in to Christ Jesus by a saving work of conversion, which was occasioned through ministers preaching nothing all that tyme but the gospell, and had left off to preach up parliaments, armies, leagues, resolutions, and remonstrances, which was much in use before, from the year 1638 till that time 52, which occasioned a great number of hypocrytes in the Church, who, out of hope of preferment, honour, riches, and worldly credit, took on the form of godliness, but wanted the power of it.” [89] _History of the Union_, section ii. p. 10, first edition, published in 1709. Defoe’s _History of the Union_ was reprinted in 1712 and 1786, and again in 1787 “with an introduction, in which the consequences and probability of a like union with Ireland are considered.” [90] January 1658, Carlyle’s _Cromwell_, Speech XVII. CHAPTER IV FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION At the Restoration the advisability of continuing the Union was discussed. In England it was maintained that the smaller country must give up its Parliament and its separate system of laws, or that it must, at all events, make the first advance, and say definitely on what terms it would unite. In Scotland it was foreseen that not only would the native Parliament and the native laws be destroyed in the event of a union, but that also, in all probability, the Church would be sacrificed. But the prosperity which the country was beginning to enjoy might have reconciled many of the people to these changes.[91]