If persecution, it was asked, by a Protestant church could
be carried to such extremes, what might be dreaded from the prevalence
of Popery, which had ever, in all ages, made open profession of
exterminating by fire and sword every opposite sect or communion? And if
the first approaches towards unlimited authority were so tyrannical, how
dismal its final establishment; when all dread of opposition should at
last be removed by mercenary armies, and all sense of shame by long and
inveterate habit!
CHAPTER LXVII.
Charles II.
{1678.} THE English nation, ever since the fatal league with France,
had entertained violent jealousies against the court; and the subsequent
measures adopted by the king had tended more to increase than cure the
general prejudices. Some mysterious design was still suspected in every
enterprise and profession: arbitrary power and Popery were apprehended
as the scope of all projects: each breath or rumor made the people start
with anxiety: their enemies, they thought, were in their very bosom,
and had gotten possession of their sovereign's confidence. While in this
timorous, jealous disposition, the cry of a plot all on a sudden
struck their ears: they were wakened from their slumber: and like men
affrightened and in the dark, took every figure for a spectre.
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