We must now return to the affairs of Scotland, which we left in some disorder, after the suppression of the insurrection in 1666. The king, who at that time endeavored to render himself popular in England, adopted like measures in Scot-* land, and he intrusted the government into the hands chiefly of Tweddale and Sir Robert Murray, men of prudence and moderation. These ministers made it their principal object to compose the religious differences, which ran so high, and for which scarcely any modern nation but the Dutch had as yet found the proper remedy. As rigor and restraint had failed of success in Scotland, a scheme of comprehension was tried; by which it was intended to diminish greatly the authority of bishops, to abolish their negative voice in the ecclesiastical courts, and to leave them little more than the right of precedency among the Presbyters. But the Presbyterian zealots entertained great jealousy against this scheme. They remembered that, by such gradual steps, King James had endeavored to introduce Episcopacy. Should the ears and eyes of men be once reconciled to the name and habit of bishops, the whole power of the function, they dreaded, would soon follow: the least communication with unlawful and anti-Christian institutions they esteemed dangerous and criminal. “Touch not, taste not, handle not;” this cry went out amongst them: and the king’s ministers at last perceived, that they should prostitute the dignity of government, by making advances, to which the malecontents were determined not to correspond.