against that mode of election, and against the Presbyterian Clergy, who were settled upon it. It is likewise an incontestable fact, that from the date of these two Acts, the Church of Scotland has enjoyed a state of tranquillity to which she was an utter stranger before.[1]
An unfavourable picture of the Episcopal Clergy is given to Archbishop Wake, in 1710, by Nicolson, Bishop of Carlisle, who states, that the greatest number of the Episcopalians were under the Bishop of Edinburgh, "who is entirely in the interest of the Pretender;" that he would not permit his Clergy to pray for the Queen, so that the prayers, when they were used, "were mangled and curtailed." He affirms that these men were as great enemies to Greenshields, as the Assembly itself, adding, "they dread the ruin of their own party upon the prevalency of our Common Prayer." According to Nicolson, there were one hundred and thirteen Episcopal Clergymen in possession of parishes, whereof eleven only were Nonjurors. He mentions also the singular circumstance, that the number of the old covenanted Presbyterians was four times as great, "who, (though they never pray for the Queen, nor have ever taken the Oath of Allegiance to her) are overlooked, and winked at, by the General Assembly."[2] Bishop Nicolson, residing on the borders of Scotland, appears to have taken considerable interest in the affairs of the Episcopalians in that country, though it must be admitted that his judgment of their proceedings was unjust. It can scarcely be conceived, that any of the Clergy
