The preachers themselves returned in a little time to their former practices, by which they hoped to regain their former dominion over the minds of men.

The conventicles multiplied daily in the west; the clergy of the established church were insulted; the laws were neglected; the Covenanters even met daily in arms at their places of worship; and though they usually dispersed themselves after divine service, yet the government took a just alarm at seeing men, who were so entirely governed by their seditious teachers, dare to set authority at defiance, and during a time of full peace to put themselves in a military posture.
There was here, it is apparent, in the political body, a disease dangerous and inveterate; and the government had tried every remedy but the true one to allay and correct it.

An unlimited toleration, after sects have diffused themselves and are strongly rooted, is the only expedient which can allay their fervor, and make the civil union acquire a superiority above religious distinctions.

But as the operations of this regimen are commonly gradual, and at first imperceptible, vulgar politicians are apt, for that reason, to have recourse to more hasty and more dangerous remedies.

It is observable too, that these nonconformists in Scotland neither offered nor demanded toleration; but laid claim to an entire superiority, and to the exercise of extreme rigor against their adversaries.