While the preceding events were happening in England, other events of great importance took place in Scotland. There Episcopacy was abolished, being a great and insupportable grievance to the nation, and contrary to the inclinations of the generality of the people. An act was also passed, in 1690, ordaining that all Presbyterian ministers yet alive, who had been thrust from their charges since 1661, or banished for not conforming to Prelacy, should forthwith be restored to their churches, their manses, and their glebes; and, by another act passed on the 7th of June, in the same year, parliament ratified and established the Westminster Confession of Faith, as the public and avowed confession of the Scottish Church; and restored the government of the Church by kirk-sessions, presbyteries, provincial synods, and general assemblies. Such were the opposite effects of the Revolution upon the National Church in the two ends of the island,—in England consolidating and confirming the established Episcopacy,—in Scotland sweeping it utterly away, and in its place re-erecting the old abolished edifice of presbytery on broader and deeper foundations than ever. The position in which the Revolution placed the generality of Protestant Dissenters has been explained in the account given of the Toleration Act, which was the only measure passed in their favour. From the benefits of this act the Roman Catholics and the Socinians were excluded; and, in 1699, the former were placed under greater restrictions than ever. It was then enacted by parliament,—1. That a reward of a hundred pounds should be paid to every person who should apprehend any Popish bishop, priest, or Jesuit, and prosecute him to conviction, for saying mass, or exercising any other part of his office, within these realms. 2. That the priest so convicted should be adjudged to perpetual imprisonment. 3. That the keeping of a school by any Papist should be punished by the same penalty. 4. That every person, educated in the Popish religion, or professing the same, who, within six months after attaining the age of eighteen, should not take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and also subscribe the declaration against transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the sacrifice of the mass, should be incapable of inheriting, or taking by descent, any lands, tenements, or hereditaments; and that the next of kin, being a Protestant, should inherit the estates of which the Roman Catholic was thus deprived. 5. That all Papists should be incapable of purchasing any lands, either in their own names or in those of any other persons.[91] ----- Footnote 91: Knight’s _History of England_. -----