[The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. by David Hume]@TWC D-Link bookThe History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. CHAPTER LVI 75/92
275. ** Warwick, p.261.Walker, p.278.
laudable. While the military enterprises were carried on with vigor in England, and the event became every day more doubtful, both parties cast their eye towards the neighboring kingdoms, and sought assistance for the finishing of that enterprise in which their own forces experienced such furious opposition.
The parliament had recourse to Scotland; the king to Ireland. When the Scottish Covenanters obtained that end for which they so earnestly contended, the establishment of Presbyterian discipline in their own country, they were not satisfied, but indulged still in an ardent passion for propagating, by all methods, that mode of religion in the neighboring kingdoms.
Having flattered themselves, in the fervor of their zeal, that by supernatural assistances they should be enabled to carry their triumphant covenant to the gates of Rome itself, it behoved them first to render it prevalent in England, which already showed so great a disposition to receive it.
Even in the articles of pacification, they expressed a desire of uniformity in worship with England; and the king, employing general expressions, had approved of this inclination as pious and no sooner was there an appearance of a rupture, than the English parliament, in order to allure that nation into a close confederacy, openly declared their wishes of ecclesiastical reformation, and of imitating the example of their northern brethren.[*] When war was actually commenced, the same artifices were used, and the Scots beheld, with the utmost impatience, a scene of action of which they could not deem themselves indifferent spectators.
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