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22 days of Charles I., monarchy and episcopacy both fell together, and a solemn league and covenant was entered into for effecting the entire extirpation of prelacy in the Scottish church. At the Restoration, episcopacy was again restored; but the clergy being attached to the Stuarts, and refusing the oath of allegiance to King William, they obtained the name of Nonjurors, and were deprived of all their worldly dignities and emoluments. The last claimant to the throne, commonly called the Pretender, having died in 1788, they acknowledged the title of the reigning monarch; the penal laws were soon afterwards repealed, and a union formed between the Scottish and English clergy.

The Scottish Episcopalians maintain the divine right of Episcopacy, and the independency of the church on the state, but admit the propriety of a national establishment. Contrary to the opinion of the Presbyterians, that all ministers are co-equal, they believe that ever since the days of the apostles there has existed another and higher class, to which the presbyters have always been indebted for their authority, and responsible for their conduct; and that the priesthood of the New Testament, as well as of the Old, is by succession.

This church has adopted the Thirty-nine Articles, generally in an anti-calvinistic sense, and also the Liturgy of the English church, with some trifling variations; but is governed by its own clergy under a distinct form of discipline, instituted in 1743. There are seven bishops, who are usually elected by the whole body of the clergy; but who