CHAPTER - INTRODUCTORY Quarrel between Henry VIII. and the Pope — Henry assumes the Supremacy of the Church of England — Overthrow of the Monastic System, and partial Reformation — Six Articles — Death of Henry — Accession of Edward VI. — Progress of Reformation — Homilies — Liturgy — Book of Ordination — Hooper’s Opposition to the Ceremonies — Articles — Death of Edward — Accession of Mary — Restoration of Popery — Persecution — Frankfort — Puritans — Death of Mary, and Accession of Elizabeth — Revived Supremacy — Check to Reformation — Ceremonies — Convocation of 1562, with which all Reformation ceased — General view of the Puritan Controversy — Harsh conduct of Parker — The Puritans begin to form a separate Body — Their Opinions — Imprisoned — Parliament attempt to interfere — The Puritans associate for mutual Instruction — Form a Presbytery — The Queen and Grindal — Rise of the Brownists — Whitgift — Increased Severity — Bancroft’s jure divino Prelacy — Martin Mar-Prelate Tracts — Sabbath Controversy — Death of Elizabeth, and Accession of James — Hampton Court Conference — Opinion of the Judges on the Power of the High Commission — Rise of the Independents — The Rook of Sports — Resistance to Political Tyranny — Combination — Death of James, and Accession of Charles — Contests with Parliament — Laud — Contest with Scotland — The Long Parliament — Impeachment of Strafford and Laud — Smectymnuus — The Army Plot — Incident — Irish Massacre — Remonstrance — Protestation of the Bishops — Abolition of the Hierarchy — Intercourse with Scotland — Ordinance calling an Assembly of Divines — Summary.

THE remark has frequently been made, accompanied with expressions of surprise and regret, that no separate historical account of the Westminster Assembly of Divines has yet been written. Every person who has directed his attention to the events of the seventeenth century, whether with regard to their civil or their religious aspect, has felt that it was impossible fully to understand either the one or the other line of study, without taking into view the character of the Westminster Assembly, the purpose for which it met, and the result of its deliberations. Yet, notwithstanding this universally felt necessity, the subject has never received an adequate investigation, and consequently still remains in such obscurity as renders it exposed to every hind of misrepresentation. Some have regarded it as comparatively an isolated event, not very influential on those around it, and serving chiefly to display, in a combined form, the characters of the men and measures of those times; others have viewed it as the abortive attempt of a parcel of narrow-minded and yet ambitious fanatics, serving to reveal their dangerous pretensions, and then, by its failure, exposing them to deserved ridicule. The mere student of civil history will doubtless see little in it to attract his notice, engrossed, as his attention will be, by the schemes of politicians and the din of arms; while, on the other hand, the mere theologian will generally be little disposed to regard any thing about it, except its productions. But the man who penetrates a little deeper into the nature of those unrevealed but powerful influences which move a nation’s mind, and mold its destinies, will be ready to direct his attention more profoundly to the objects and deliberations of an assembly which met at a moment so critical, and was composed of the great master-minds of the age; and the theologian who has learned to view religion as the vital principle of human nature, equally in nations and in the individual man, will not easily admit the weak idea, that such an assembly could have been an isolated event, but will be disposed earnestly to inquire what led to its meeting, and what important consequences followed. And although the subject has not hitherto been investigated with such a view, it may, we trust, be possible to prove, that it was the most important event in the century in which it occurred; and that it has exerted, and in. all probability will yet exert, a far more wide and permanent influence upon both the civil and the religious history of mankind than has generally been even imagined.

Intimately connected as the Westminster Assembly was both with the civil and the religious history of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, it will be absolutely necessary to give a preliminary outline of the leading events in both countries, from the time of the Reformation till the meeting of the Assembly, in order that a clear conception may be obtained of the cause of its meeting, the circumstances in which it met, and the object which it was intended to accomplish. We shall then be in a fit condition to investigate the proceedings of the Assembly itself, to understand their true character, to mark their direct bearing, and to trace their more remote results.

The circumstances that led to the disagreement between Henry VIII. and the pope are so well known, that it is unnecessary to do more than merely allude to them. Whether Henry actually began to entertain conscientious scruples respecting the lawfulness of his marriage with Katherine of Arragon, his brother Arthur’s widow, before he came enamored of Anne Boleyn, or whether his incipient affection for that lady induced him to devise a method of being released from his wife, is an inquiry of no great moment in itself, except as to its bearing on the character of the monarch.

Suffice it to state, that the king consulted the Archbishop of Canterbury, and required him to procure the opinions of the bishops of England on the subject. All, with the exception of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, declared that in their judgment it was an unlawful marriage. But as a dispensation had been obtained from the pope, before the marriage took place, it became necessary to procure a papal recognition of the intended divorce; which was a matter of no little difficulty, both because such a measure would seem to invalidate a previous papal bull, to the discredit of the doctrine of infallibility, and because there would arise a serious question respecting the legitimacy of the Princess Mary, and offense might be taken by the King of Spain. All these dangers were clearly seen by Cardinal Wolsey; who, accordingly, without venturing directly to oppose the king’s desires, contrived to cause delays, to procure evasive answers, and to protract the proceedings by every method which fear of the issue could prompt and deep craft could devise. At length Cranmer, till then a comparatively unknown man, suggested, that, instead of a long and fruitless negotiation at Rome, it would be better to consult all the learned men and universities of Christendom, to ascertain whether the marriage were unlawful in itself, by virtue of any divine precept; for if that were proved, then it would follow, that the pope’s dispensation could be of no force to make that lawful which God has declared unlawful. When the king heard of this suggestion, he immediately adopted it, sent for Cranmer, received him into favor, and placed such confidence in his honor, integrity, and judgment, that it was never afterwards thoroughly shaken, either by the artifices of enemies, or the varying moods of the capricious sovereign himself.

Cranmer prosecuted the scheme which he had suggested so successfully, that he procured, both from the English universities, and from nearly all the learned men in Europe, answers to the effect, that the king’s marriage was contrary to the law of God. These answers were laid before the Parliament, which met in January 1581, and assented to by both Houses, as also by the Convocation of the Clergy, which was met at the same time. Still the pope had not consented, and the hostility between him and Henry was necessarily increased. by what had taken place regarding the proposed divorce. Henry was not disposed to pause now, till he should. have secured his power over the clergy; and as they were all implicated in some of Wolsey’s proceedings, which had been declared to have involved him in a praemunire , they were held to be amenable to all its penalties. Their danger rendered them submissive, and in the convocation at Canterbury, a petition was agreed upon to be offered to the king, in which he was styled, “The Protector and Supreme Head of the Church and the Clergy of England.”

Gratified with this title, the king granted a pardon to the clergy; but did not, as they had probably expected, permit it to remain an empty title. In May 1582, he informed the House of Commons that he had learned that all the prelates, at their consecration, swore an oath quite contrary to that which they swore to the crown — so that it seemed they were the pope’s subjects rather than his; referring it to their care to take such order in it that the king might not be deluded. The prorogation of the Parliament prevented the immediate collision between the civil and the ecclesiastical powers, which the investigation of that point would have caused; but it was now abundantly evident on what the king had bent his mind. The question respecting the pope’s supremacy was now the subject of inquiry and discussion throughout the kingdom; and at length it was formally brought before Parliament, and on the 20th of March 1584-5, a bill was passed, abolishing papal supremacy in England, and declaring the king to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England; and in the following June, a circular letter was sent by the king, not only to all the bishops, but also to all the justices of the peace, requiring the universal promulgation of the decree respecting the abolition of the pope’s supremacy and the recognition of his own; and. empowering the civil functionaries to ascertain whether the clergy did their duty sincerely. So delighted was King Henry with his title of Supreme Head of the Church, that he caused it to be enacted that it should be for ever joined to the other titles of the crown, and be reckoned one of them; and even caused a seal to be cut for public use in his new ecclesiastical once; and when directing a visitation of the whole clergy of England, dated the 18th of September 1585, added these words — “Under our seal, that we use in ecclesiastical matters, which we have ordered to be hereunto appended.” It will be at once seen, that the title of Supreme Head of the Church, and the power in ecclesiastical matters which arose from it, were claimed by Henry, not as the necessary means for promoting reformation, nor from any religious conviction that the pope’s assumption of it was in itself sinful; but solely from the desire of rescuing himself from any control, and for the purpose of possessing, in his own person, the most full and absolute power that could be imagined. And it rendered it at once a matter of utter impossibility for the Church of England to prosecute its own reformation according to the deliberate judgment of its most enlightened members, whatever might be their opinion of the requirements of the Word of God.

To this fatal dogma of the king’s supremacy and headship of the Church of England may be directly traced nearly all the corruptions of that Church, and nearly all the subsequent civil calamities of the British Isles. For it would not be difficult to prove, that there can be no security for either civil or religious liberty in any country where the supreme civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions are both possessed by the same ruling power. It matters little whether the ruling power be ecclesiastical, holding the civil subordinate to it, as does the Papacy; or civil, holding the ecclesiastical subordinate, as in the case of Henry and his successors; for in either case the result is despotism, under which the people must sink into utter degradation, or against which they are provoked, from time to time, to rise in all the dangerous fierceness of revolutionary convulsion. Rut it is enough merely to suggest this view at present; it will demand more particular examination in future stages of our inquiries.

Almost the first public use made by the king of his acknowledged supremacy in religion, was to send Cranmer, now Archbishop of Canterbury, on a visitation of the monasteries throughout the kingdom. It was no difficult matter to convict these popish institutions of such crimes and abominations as are not fit to be mentioned, “equal,” says Burnet, “to any that were in Sodom;” so that their suppression was but the sweeping away of a great moral nuisance, too loathsome any longer to be endured. It served, at the same time, as a measure by which the king’s coffers were replenished, some of his favorites enriched, and the better part of the nation gratified by the removal of a system of enormities which had been long regarded with extreme detestation. About the same time, it was resolved that the Bible should be translated into English, and published for the instruction of the community; though this was strenuously resisted by a large proportion of the clergy, and carried only by the influence of Cranmer and the queen. The fall of the queen, which took place soon after, threatened to retard the progress of reformation, and the pope attempted a reconciliation with the king. But Henry had no inclination to subject himself again to papal control; and, following Cranmer’s advice, he proceeded to make further changes. In the year 1586, the Convocation were induced to agree to certain articles of religion, which were accordingly promulgated on the royal authority. In these articles, the standards of faith were declared to be, — the Bible, the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, and the decrees of the first four general Councils, without regard to tradition or the decrees of the Church; and the doctrine of justification was declared to “signify remission of sins, and acceptation into the favor of God, that is to say, a perfect renovation in Christ;” but auricular confession was held to be, necessary, the corporal presence of Christ in the sacrament was maintained, doing reverence to images and praying to saints were approved of, and various other corruptions and mere ceremonial observances were left untouched. This limited reformation gave little satisfaction to any, one party thinking it too much, and the other too little; yet it tended to encourage those who wished reform, with the hope that what was thus begun would be gradually and thoroughly accomplished. In the year 1588, the English translation of the Bible was published, and injunctions were given to all the clergy to procure these Bibles, one for each church, and to encourage all persons to peruse them; condemning, at the same time, the worship of images, and permitting the prayers to saints to be omitted. But while the Reformers were rejoicing in this apparently rapid progress of the good work, their hopes were suddenly cast to the ground and their prospects darkened. The very next year, the king, on the pretext of putting an end to controversies in religion, required a committee to be appointed for the purpose of drawing up articles of agreement, to which all might consent. The committee could not agree, and the subject was brought before the House of Lords by the Duke of Norfolk, who named six articles for discussion. Notwithstanding the opposition of Cranmer, these articles were passed, and all the kingdom commanded to receive them, the penalty of opposition being imprisonment, forfeiture of property, or death as heretics. They contained the following tenets: — The real presence in the sacrament, communion in one kind only, the celibacy of the priesthood, that vows of chastity made by either sex should be observed, that private masses should be continued, and that auricular confession was necessary, and should be retained in the Church. By this act it was rendered abundantly evident, that little of Popery had been removed. but the name; or rather, that England had obtained, instead of an ecclesiastical, a royal pope. Yet, with remarkable inconsistency, or at least want of penetration, the king very soon after consented to an act permitting private persons to purchase Bibles, and keep them in their own possession. The short-sighted despot did not perceive that the private use of the Scriptures would soon teach his people the right of private judgment also in matters of religion, which all his boasted supremacy would not long be able to control.

The fall of Cromwell, caused in a great measure by the intrigues of the popish party, allowed them to regain considerable ascendancy, and retarded the progress of reformation, though it still continued slowly to gain ground. An attempt was made by the popish bishops to procure the suppression of the Bible, on the ostensible ground of its being an inaccurate translation. This, however, they did not obtain; but an act was made “about religion,” the effect of which was to empower the king to confirm, rescind, or change any act, or any provision in any act, that treated of religion. A more complete and arbitrary supremacy in all matters of religion, than was now possessed by Henry, it is almost impossible to imagine. And the effect was correspondent to the cause; for the king, guided alone by his own fierce and capricious will, was almost equally hostile to both parties, popish and reforming, indicting the extreme penalty of death upon either with indiscriminate severity. But the death of the king rescued the nation from intolerable oppression, and gave opportunity for the more earnest and successful prosecution of the great work of reformation under his young and amiable successor. No sooner had a suitable arrangement of civil affairs been effected by the regency, than Cranmer, supported by the Protector Somerset, and countenanced by the young king, Edward VI., resumed the important duty of prosecuting the reformation of the Church. By an act of the preceding reign, the proclamation of the king, or of his counselors if under age, was of sufficient authority to enable them to proceed, as if by act of Parliament, in cases not otherwise provided for, so as not to encroach on the just liberties of the subject, or to interfere with other acts or proclamations.

They accordingly sent out visitors over England, which was for that purpose divided into six circuits. The duty of those visitors was to inquire into all Church matters, to redress all wrongs, and remove all abuses, and particularly to ascertain the sufficiency or insufficiency of the clergy throughout the country. Along with these visitors, they sent the most eminent preachers that could be found, to communicate sound and full instruction in the true principles of religion to both clergy and people. And to remedy the deplorable ignorance which everywhere prevailed among the clergy, some were appointed to compile homilies, explanatory of the most important doctrines and duties of Christianity. Several of these homilies contain very clear and forcible statements and, elucidations of sacred truth, others are less valuable, and some are, not a little erroneous in several respects. They were, however, well fitted to meet the necessities of an ignorant clergy and an uninstructed people; but it could scarcely have been dreamed by Cranmer, that the method devised by him for the remedy of a disease would be retained for its perpetuation, — that because he provided sermons and prayers for those who could neither preach nor pray, that would come to be regarded as a precedent of force enough to prevent learned and pious men from preparing sermons and prayers for themselves. The next reforming step was an act permitting the communion to be received in both kinds. Then followed another, prohibiting private masses.

A catechism was soon afterwards prepared by Cranmer. And proceeding to investigate the offices, or ritual of the Church, it was at length determined that a new Liturgy should be prepared, as the best method of getting quit of the superstitions by which that in present use was disfigured. This Liturgy was con-armed by act of Parliament, in the year 1548-49, and its use commanded on the ultimate penalty of imprisonment for life. About the same time, there were several severe proceedings against Anabaptists and other sectaries, one of whom, Joan of Kent, was condemned to the stake; but the mild and gentle young king could not be induced to sign the warrant for her execution without the urgent persuasions of Cranmer himself, who, in this instance, as also in those of Lambert, and Anne Askew, in the preceding reign, forgot the spirit of that gentle and gracious religion of which he was so eminent a teacher and reformer. 1550-51 The Book of Ordinations was next made and ratified, which had a strong tendency to give a character of axed rigidity to the Church of England. The evil consequence of undue strictness in matters of mere form and ceremony was soon apparent, when Hooper refused to be consecrated as a bishop in the episcopal vestments. This simpleminded and sincere Reformer condemned these vestments as human inventions, brought in by tradition or custom, and not suitable to the simplicity of the Christian religion. Few impartial persons will doubt that he was perfectly in the right, both in point of fact and in propriety of feeling; for no one can deny the human origin of such matters, and few will regard them as conferring dignity on the gospel, so glorious in its divine simplicity. Rut he was to learn one direct consequence of the sovereign’s supremacy, namely, that there was to be an order of the clergy decked, with courtly adornments, and in that respect at least “conformed to the world,” contrary to the apostolic precept. A great and wide-spread controversy arose on this subject. Correspondence was held with foreign churches and divines, with the view of ascertaining their opinion respecting the lawfulness of obeying the civil magistrate’s order to use such vestments in the worship of God. Various opinions were given, many of the best and wisest men being extremely grieved that dangerous disputes should arise about matters not in their own nature of vital importance. Bucer recommended compliance; but wished these vestments disused, as connected with superstition, and a more complete reformation established. At length a compromise was effected. Hooper was required to wear the episcopal vestments when he was consecrated, and when he preached before the king, or in a cathedral; but was permitted to lay them aside on other occasions. This slight matter was a sufficient indication, that the reformation was to be stopped whenever it had reached as far as the king and court thought proper; and that those who wished for further reformation, and aimed at again realizing primitive simplicity and purity, would be constrained to pause, and painfully to submit to what they could not remedy. It might have been regarded. as of little consequence what vestments were worn in public worship; but it was a matter of grave and serious import to find, that conscientious feelings in affairs of religion were to be overborne by the dictate of the civil magistrate. From this time forward there began to be a party in England who longed for a more complete reformation than had been or could be obtained, although it was not till a considerably later period that this party attracted public attention under a distinctive name. In the year 1552, the alterations which had been made in the Book of Common Prayer by the reformers during the course of the preceding year, were ratified by act of Parliament, and ordered to be universally employed, under the penalties by which the previous Liturgy had been enforced. In the same year the Articles of Religion were prepared, chiefly by Cranmer and Ridley, and published by the king’s authority, a short time before his lamented death. A book was also drawn up for giving rules to the ecclesiastical courts in all matters of government and discipline; but this was never ratified, as the king’s decease took place before it was fully prepared. This was, perhaps, the greatest misfortune that befell the Church of England in consequence of the premature death of Edward, as it was thereby left totally without government or discipline, such as, though limited by the acknowledged regal supremacy, might yet have been, in the first instance, administered by its own courts. Hence it became impossible for the Church of England to exercise any direct influence in checking immorality, reforming abuses, or even in preserving its own most sacred ordinances from profanation. Even Burnet laments its want of the power to exercise discipline, and suggests the desirableness that the power of excommunication might yet be brought into the Church. Such, however, was the inevitable consequence of making the king the Supreme Head of the Church, rendering it necessarily impossible for the Church to reform itself beyond what he or his state advisers might choose to permit. The truth of this was immediately made apparent on the accession of queen Mary, in the year 1553. An early act of her sovereignty was the issuing of a proclamation, in which she declared her adherence to the religion that she had professed from her infancy, disclaiming the intention of compelling her subjects, till public order should be taken in the matter by common consent; and, in the meantime, straitly charging that none should preach, or expound Scripture, or print any books or plays, without her special license.

The deprived popish bishops were speedily restored to their sees, and the reformed bishops, some sent to prison at once, and others thrust out of the House of Lords, because they refused to reverence the mass at its opening.

The laws passed by King Edward concerning religion were repealed; and a negotiation commenced for procuring a reconciliation with the pope. The mass was everywhere resumed, the laws against heresy revived, and every step taken for bringing the nation once more under the degrading thralldom of Popery, with all possible expedition. All this was done directly by the authority of the Queen, as Supreme Head of the Church of England; for this title she took care to retain and enforce at the commencement of her reign, though it was afterwards disused. Indeed, she could not so readily have accomplished her purpose without the power which this title was admitted to confer; so fatally was it productive of evil, so soon had it ceased to be available for good, even when held by the pious Edward.

But it is quite unnecessary to relate the events that successively followed, and to sketch even the outlines of the fierce persecution which characterized the reign of a queen so well known by the fearfully emphatic title of “The Bloody Mary.” Life alone was wanting to her to have completely overthrown the Reformation in England, and to have placed again the kingdom beneath the Romish yoke. And it deserves to be carefully remarked, that this dread consummation was so nearly accomplished almost entirely by two conjunct influences — by the queen’s ecclesiastical supremacy, and by the wealth and consequent power of the prelates. The tendency of the latter element had been foreseen by some, as appears from a letter written to the Protector Somerset by Sir Philip Hobby; in which, after suggesting the wisdom of appointing the godly bishops an honest and competent living, and taking from them the rest of those worldly possessions and dignities which tend to prevent the right discharge of their office, he adds, “The Papists say, They doubt not but my lords the bishops, being a great number of stout and well learned men, will well enough weigh against their adversaries, and maintain still their whole estate; which coming to pass, they have good hope that in time these princely pillars will well enough resist this fury, and bring all things again into the old. order.” This shrewd prediction was well-nigh fulfilled in “Bloody Mary’s” days; an approximation was made towards it again under the management of Laud; and it is possible that a similar peril may once more arise.

Reference has been already made to the opposition which Hooper offered to the episcopal vestments, and other unimportant and superstitious ceremonies, as probably exhibiting the very origin of what afterwards became the great Puritan party in England. Another event must also be mentioned, which certainly very much increased, and has by many been thought to have first caused, that unpropitious schism. During the persecution in the reign of Mary, many Protestants, both lay and clerical, sought safety by right to the Continent. Of these a considerable body took up their residence at Frankfort, while others went to Strasburg, Zurich, and Basle. The Frankfort exiles at first entered into communion with a congregation of French Protestants, on the agreement that they should subscribe the French Confession of Faith, and not insist upon retaining the forms and ceremonies of the English Liturgy. For a time all went on in peace and harmony, under three pastors, chosen by the congregation, of whom John Knox was one; but the English having invited some of their countrymen at Strasburg and Zurich to come and join them, they replied, that they could not do so unless they would conform strictly and entirely to the religious service appointed by King Edward. The Frankfort congregation refused to do so; stating, that if the Strasburgh divines had no other views but to reduce the congregation to King Edward’s form, and to establish Popish ceremonies, they had better stay away. The Frankfort brethren consulted Calvin, and other leading continental reformers, who all censured the English Liturgy, thought it more becoming godly ministers of Christ to aim at something better and purer, and expressed surprise that they were so fond of “Popish dregs.” The controversy might probably have gone no further, but for the inopportune arrival at Frankfort of Dr. Cox, who had been tutor to King Edward, and possessed great influence among his countrymen. He at once broke through the whole previous agreement, interrupted the usual service, by answering aloud after the minister, and, by private intriguing, got the majority to consent to his aggressive innovations. The injured party applied to the magistrates, who gave order that the original agreement should be observed, threatening to shut up the place of worship if this command were disobeyed. With a baseness which has few equals, Cox and his party went privately to the magistrates, and accused Knox of treason against the Emperor of Germany, his son Philip, and queen Mary of England; founding this charge on some expressions in his small treatise, entitled “Admonition to England.” The magistrates were in great perplexity; for though they utterly disapproved of the conduct of Cox and the informers, they were afraid to offend the emperor’s council. In this dilemma they advised John Knox to withdraw from Frankfort, for his own safety, and for the sake of peace. He consented, and withdrew amidst the complaints and tears of his attached friends. Following up his disgraceful victory, Cox falsely represented to the magistrates that the English Liturgy was now universally acceptable to the congregation, and procured an order for its unlimited use. He then abrogated the code of discipline, procured the appointment of a bishop, and rejoiced in having now “the face of an English Church.” Thus, by intolerance, treachery, and despotism, they succeeded in overthrowing a Church whose scriptural simplicity and purity they might have rejoiced to imitate, and in setting up human inventions, in which pride and selfishness might glory; giving, likewise, an ominous intimation of the spirit likely to prevail in such a Church as theirs, should, it regain the ascendancy, and become established in England. For in this instance they had not to plead, as in the case of Hooper, respect for the civil authority by which vestments and ceremonies were enjoined, the Frankfort magistrates having actually discountenanced them; but it was with them as it ever is when man mingles his own devices with God’s appointments, — to his own vain fancies he clings with desperate and fierce tenacity, while he lays hold weakly and loosely on the unchanging laws and principles of divine revelation. Elizabeth, upon her accession to the throne, found herself in a situation of considerable difficulty, — threatened, with foreign wars, and her subjects divided, anxious, and alarmed on the all-important subject of religion. Her wisest counselors advised her first to settle the relations of the country with foreign states, and then to proceed with what religious reformation might be necessary. There was also another reason for this course: Elizabeth, on her accession to the throne, sent intimation of that event to the pope, and waited an answer from Rome before declaring her purposes with regard to religion. That answer declared her illegitimate, and commanded her to abandon the throne, and submit to the will of the Roman pontiff. This insolence determined her to the support of the Protestant cause. To prevent disputes in the meantime, a proclamation was issued, prohibiting all preaching, and requiring that nothing should be done in public worship but the reading of the Gospel and Epistle for the day, the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and. the Ten Commandments, till proper arrangements should be made and further instructions given. Parliament met in January 1559 and proceeded with alacrity to the discharge of its duties. The Act of Supremacy, which had fallen into abeyance during the latter period of Mary’s reign, was re-enacted, restoring to the Crown complete supremacy in all causes, civil and ecclesiastical, as it had been in the times of Henry VIII and Edward VI. To this bill several others were annexed, reviving various acts of the reign of Henry, and repealing those of Mary; so that, by this one enactment, the external policy of the Church was restored to almost the very same condition in which it had been at the death of King Edward. One proviso in this act, added for the purpose of enabling the queen to execute her supremacy, empowered such persons as should be commissioned by her majesty to reform and order ecclesiastical matters.

This gave rise to the Court of High Commission, by which afterwards so many acts of cruelty and despotism were perpetrated, both in England and in Scotland; especially in the latter country, when Prelacy was forced upon it by the treacherous tyranny of King James.

Some of the reformed divines were next appointed to revise King Edward’s Liturgy, and to see whether any such changes could be made in it as would tend to render it more likely to include some whose opinions were yet short of a thorough reformation. In particular, it was proposed to have the language of the communion service so modified that it might not necessarily exclude the belief of the corporal presence. After several alterations, all leaning rather to Popery than to Protestantism, had been made, the revised Book of Common Prayer was ratified by act of Parliament, and uniformity in worship according to it enjoined. The Popish bishops refused to take the oath of supremacy, and were, in consequence, deprived of their offices and powers. This enabled the queen to supply their places with men better affected to reformation; which was accordingly done, though not without difficulty, the very best men being reluctant to undertake situations of such responsibility, and many being decidedly opposed to the ceremonies, rites, and vestments which were required, and which they regarded as remnants of superstition, and inconsistent with Christian simplicity.

The reforming divines soon became aware that in these points they had to encounter her majesty’s opposition. The queen was naturally vain, and therefore fond of pomp and magnificence in every thing; nor did her reverence for religion teach her to abstain from presuming to seek the gratification of her personal tastes and prejudices in matters too sacred for mortal creature to tamper with. It was with great difficulty that they prevailed with her to insert in her injunctions a command for the removal of all images out of churches; but they could not induce her to abandon the use of a crucifix in her own chapel.

The controversy concerning vestments, and rites, and ceremonies continued, with increased asperity, on both sides. All the court divines, as they may be termed, headed by Archbishop Parker, supported the queen’s desire for retaining as much show and pomp in religious matters as might be possible; while Jewell, Grindal, Sampson, Fox the martyrologist, and all the most distinguished for piety and liberal-mindedness, did their utmost to procure a more complete reformation; and for this purpose maintained a close correspondence with the most eminent of the continental reformers. Jewell, in particular, exerted himself to the utmost against these vain frivolities. “Some,” said he, “were so much set on the matter of the habits, as if the Christian religion consisted in garments; but we,” added he, “are not called to the consultations concerning that scenical apparel; he could set no value on these fopperies. Some were crying up a golden mediocrity; he was afraid it would prove a leaden one.” In short, it is not too much to say, that all the best, wisest, and most pious and learned. divines of the Church of England — all the true reformers — longed and strove for a more complete reformation, lamented that it continued but a half-reformed Church, and were the real forefathers of the Puritans. In the beginning of the year 1502, a meeting of the Convocation was held, in which the subject of further reformation was vigorously discussed on both sides. Some alterations were made in the articles of religion, originally drawn up in King Edward’s reign. These were at first forty-two in number; but by remitting some and combining others, they were reduced to the thirty-nine which have ever since formed the standard of faith in the Church of England. It cannot be said that they were in all respects improved by these alterations, as any one may see by comparing them. But when it was proposed that there should be some alterations in the Prayer-Book, a very warm debate ensued. Six alterations were proposed, to the following purport: — The abrogation of all holidays, except Sabbaths, and those relating to Christ, — that in prayer the minister should turn his face to the people, so that they might hear and be edified, — that the ceremony of the cross in baptism might be omitted, — that the sick and aged might not be compelled to kneel at the communion, — that the partial use of the surplice might be sufficient, — and that the use of organs be laid aside. The main argument used against these proposed improvements was, that they were contrary to the Rook of Common Prayer, which was ratified by act of Parliament, so that no alteration of any thing contained in that book could be permitted. When the vote came to be taken on these propositions, fortythree voted for them, and. thirty-five against; but when the proxies were counted, the balance was turned; the final state of the vote being fifty-eight for, and fifty-nine against. Thus it was determined, by the majority of a single vote, and that the proxy of an absent person, who did. not hear the reasoning, that the Prayer-Book should remain unimproved, that there should be no further reformation, that there should be no relief granted to those whose conscience felt aggrieved by the admixture of human inventions in the worship of God, so that the Church of England was thenceforth to remain, like one of her own grand cathedrals, a stately mass of petrified religion.

A Book of Discipline was also prepared by the same Convocation.

Whether it was the reformation of the ecclesiastical laws proposed formerly by Cranmer, does not appear; but it did not receive the approbation of the House of Lords, and sunk into complete oblivion. Perhaps the reason why it received so little countenance in high quarters, is explained in a letter from Cox, now Bishop of Ely, to Gualter of Zurich: “When I consider the sins that do everywhere abound, and the neglect and contempt of the Word of God, I am struck with horror, and. tremble to think what God, will do with us. We have some discipline among us with relation to men’s lives, such as it is; but if any man would, go about to persuade our nobility to submit their necks to that yoke, he may as well venture to pull the hair out of a lion’s beard.” Several other points tending towards reformation were also proposed, but in vain; nothing more could be accomplished; so that it may be fairly said, that with the Convocation of 1562 ended the reformation of the Church of England, before much more than half its work had been done. And it will be admitted by all who are sufficiently acquainted with the condition of the people throughout the country districts of the kingdom, that the reformation proper of the English nation is yet to begin.

From the time of the Convocation in 1502, the disagreement between the court divines and those who wished for further reformation, became gradually more and more decided. It may be expedient briefly to examine the views entertained by these two great opposing parties. The main question on which they were divided may be thus stated: Whether it were lawful and expedient to retain in the external aspect of religion a close resemblance to what had prevailed in the times of Popery, or not? The court divines argued, that this process would lead the people more easily to the reception of the real doctrinal changes, when they saw outward appearances so little altered, so that this method seemed to be recommended by expediency. The reformers replied, that this tended to perpetuate in the people their inclination to their former superstitions, led them to think there was, after all, little difference between the reformed and the papal Churches, and consequently, that if it made them quit Popery the more readily at present, it would leave them at least equally ready to return to it should an opportunity offer; and for this reason they thought it best to leave as few traces of Popery remaining as possible. It was urged, by the court party, that every sovereign had authority to correct all abuses of doctrine and worship within his own dominions: this, they asserted, was the true meaning of the Act of Supremacy, and consequently the source of the reformation in England. The true reformers admitted the Act of Supremacy, in the sense of the queen’s explanation given in the injunctions; but could not admit that the conscience and the religion of the whole nation were subject to the arbitrary disposal of the sovereign. The court party recognized the Church of Rome as a true Church, though corrupt in some points of doctrine and government; and this view it was thought necessary to maintain, for without this the English bishops could not trace their succession from the apostles. But the decided reformers affirmed the pope to be antichrist, and. the Church of Rome to be no true Church; nor would they risk the validity of their ordinations on the idea of a succession through such a channel. Neither party denied that the Rible was a perfect rule of faith; but the court party did not admit it to be a standard of Church government and discipline, asserting that it had been left to the judgment of the civil magistrate in Christian countries, to accommodate the government of the Church to the policy of the state. The reformers maintained the Scriptures to be the standard of Church government and discipline, as well as doctrine; to the extent, at the very least, that nothing should be imposed. as necessary which was not expressly contained in, or derived from, them by necessary consequence; adding, that if any discretionary power in minor matters were necessary, it must be vested, not in the civil magistrate, but in the spiritual office bearers of the Church itself. The court reformers held that the practice of the primitive Church for the four or five earliest centuries was a proper standard of Church government and discipline, even better suited to the dignity of a national establishment than the times of the apostles; and, that, therefore, nothing more was needed than merely to remove the more modern innovations of Popery. The true reformers wished to keep close to the Scripture model, and to admit neither office bearers, ceremonies, nor ordinances, but such as were therein appointed or sanctioned. The court party affirmed, that things in their own nature indifferent, such as rites, ceremonies, and vestments, might be appointed and made necessary by the command of the civil magistrate; and that then it was the bounden duty of all subjects to obey. But the reformers maintained, that what Christ had left indifferent no human laws ought to make necessary; and besides, that such rites and ceremonies as had been abused. to idolatry, and tended to lead men back to Popery and superstition, were no longer indifferent, but were to be rejected as unlawful. Finally, the court party held that there must be a standard of uniformity, which standard was the queen’s supremacy, and the laws of the land. The reformers regarded the Bible as the only standard, but thought compliance was due to the decrees of provincial and national synods, which might be approved and enforced by civil authority. In this point, the view entertained by the reformers might have been carried to the extent of oppression; but it never could have been very direct and immediate, and was subject to so many checks, that it amounted to little more than a remote possibility. At the same time, it is perfectly evident that the true principles of religious liberty and toleration were not understood by either party; and it may be fairly questioned, whether, even in the present day, these principles are rightly understood.

Such is a brief outline of the direct cause of the conflict between the court party of the English reformers, and their brethren who desired a more complete reformation, and of the leading arguments used on both sides. It cannot fail to strike every attentive reader, that precisely the same conflict is again renewed, both in England and Scotland, and in all its leading principles. So close indeed is the resemblance, that it is difficult to peruse the writings of those times without insensibly beginning to think we are reading some of the controversial works of the present day. And, perhaps, in order to arrive at a full understanding of the real nature and bearing of the present controversies, no better plan could. be devised than to prosecute a careful study of the writings of the court divines, and the Puritans of the Elizabethan age.

But to resume. It seems to have been expected by the court party that the proceedings of the Convocation, and the acts of Parliament, injunctions, and proclamations, would, speedily produce an entire conformity. In this expectation they were disappointed. The regular parochial clergy, both in town and country, not only disliked. the vestments themselves, but perceived that, in general, the people bore towards these relics of a persecuting and oppressive system at least an equal aversion. Some, indeed, wore them occasionally, in obedience to the law, but more frequently officiated without them; and although the bishops, most of whom, though at first opposed, had become reconciled to the “scenic apparel,” cited such persons into their courts, and admonished them, yet this had little effect, as they had not yet proceeded to suspension and deprivation. At length, information of these irregularities was given to the queen. Her majesty was highly displeased, especially on the ground that so little regard was paid to her laws, and gave strict command to the Archbishop of Canterbury, “to take effectual methods that an exact order and uniformity be maintained in all external rites and ceremonies, as by law and good usages are provided for.” This severe and peremptory command immediately roused the bishops to activity, and, in particular, stimulated Archbishop Parker to such a degree of fierce and unrelenting sternness, as seemed completely contrary to all his former life and character. He did his utmost to urge forward Grindal, Bishop of London, to compel the ministers within his diocese to conform, though he well knew that the opinions of that pious prelate were not only averse from every thing like oppression, but were opposed, in particular, to the sacerdotal vestments. Parker framed some articles to enforce the habits, and requested the queen to give them the authority of her sanction. But the pride of Elizabeth could not endure that a subject should frame articles to enforce her decrees, and, instead of ratifying them, she issued a proclamation, requiring immediate uniformity in the habits, on pain of prohibition from preaching, and. deprivation from office.

And now the storm burst forth in earnest. The whole ministers of London were summoned to Lambeth, and the question put to them, Whether they would conform to the apparel established by law, and subscribe their admission on the spot? Those who should refuse were to be suspended immediately, and after three months deprived of their livings. Threats, persuasions, and the dread of poverty, induced sixty-one out of one hundred to subscribe; thirty-seven absolutely refused, and were immediately suspended, — and those thirty-seven, as their oppressor admitted, were the best and ablest preachers in the city. Many churches were at once shut up, the ruling party disregarding the loss of religious privileges to the congregations, in their zeal to enforce conformity in matters which they themselves admitted to be in their own nature indifferent. After a short interval, many of the most pious and able men were ejected from the churches, and cast upon the world in a state of utter destitution, even forbid to preach to others that Gospel which had been to their own souls glad tidings of great joy. Surely it had been a strange and a portentous thing to see such men as Miles Coverdale, the translator of the Bible, in his feeble but most venerable age, and Fox, the martyrologist, whose writings had done so much for the overthrow of Popery, and, the support of the reformed faith, driven from their homes and weeping rocks, and exposed to reproach and poverty, because they would not consent to disfigure their persons with the gaudy vestments characteristic of Romish superstition. In vain did the oppressed Puritans, — for we may now fairly use that distinctive appellation, — apply to the Earl of Leicester, the Earl of Bedford, and such other noblemen as were known to be favorable to them, imploring these distinguished men to do their utmost to procure some mitigation of such oppressive measures. No mitigation could be obtained. To conform or to suffer were the only alternatives; and they nobly chose the latter rather than violate conscience.

These severe measures adopted by the court party, and prosecuted with such unrelenting rigor against their better brethren, attracted the attention of the reformed churches in other countries. The continental divines wrote frequently to England on the subject, but without effect. The Church of Scotland, which had. been reformed. and re-organized on a truly scriptural model, by the blessing of God on the strenuous exertions of John Knox, also addressed an earnest and, affectionate remonstrance to the English prelates, imploring them to treat their faithful and suffering brethren with greater tenderness, disapproving, at the same time, of their preposterous attachment to the superstitious trappings of Rome. But all was in vain: brotherly kindness and Christian charity must equally be sacrificed to gratify the queen’s taste for idle pageantry, and to cover the mean and selfcondemned compliance of her courtly prelates. The ejected Puritan ministers found extreme difficulty in obtaining opportunities for preaching; and some remained entirely silent. Many pamphlets, were, however, written by them, which tended to keep alive and spread their opinions, and which were eagerly read by the people. This drew from the Star Chamber a decree, strictly prohibiting the publication of all such writings, under heavy penalties. Thus, commanded to conform even against the dictates of conscience, ejected from their churches and forbidden to preach anywhere else, and deprived of the liberty of the press, the Puritans were driven to that extreme point where endurance ceases and active resistance begins.

Accordingly, they met, and gravely and solemnly deliberated, Whether it were not now both lawful and necessary to separate from the Established Church? After much earnest consultation, they came to the solemn and important conclusion, That since they could not have the word of God preached, nor the sacraments administered, without “idolatrous gear,” as they termed the vestments and ceremonies, and since there had been a separate congregation in London, and another in Geneva, in Queen Mary’s time, in which there was a book and order of preaching, administration of sacraments and discipline, free from the superstitions of the English service, it was their duty, in the present circumstances, to separate from the public churches, and to assemble, as they had opportunity, in private houses or elsewhere, to worship God in a manner that might not offend. against the light of their consciences. This most important event took place in the summer of the year 1500, and from that time onward the Puritan party may be regarded as forming a body distinct from the Church of England, although they were the true successors of the first and greatest reforming fathers of that Church.

It would be a great mistake to suppose, that the only subject in dispute between the Puritans and their antagonists was that respecting clerical vestments. That formed, indeed, a very prominent point in the controversy, because it was so apparent, and so easily brought under the terms of a royal proclamation. But there were many, and these still more important matters, which they wished to have reformed. Of these, the most prominent were the following. They regarded the assumed superiority of bishops over presbyters, as a higher order, and the claim, on their part, of the sole right of ordination, discipline, and government, as unscriptural in itself, and tending both to secularize them, and to produce an intolerable despotism.

Along with this, they complained of the whole array of cathedral practices as of the same character, and equally unwarranted. They lamented the want of discipline, in consequence of which it was impossible to maintain the purity of the most sacred. ordinances. Regarding set forms of prayer as properly intended to meet the necessities of a time of ignorance, they did not dispute their lawfulness, while they wished a greater liberty in prayer, where such help was not required; and. they disapproved also of too many repetitions, of responses, and of several exceptionable expressions, particularly in the marriage and funeral services. They disapproved of the reading of the apocryphal books in the church; and while they regarded the homilies as in themselves valuable, they held that no man should be ordained to the ministry who was not himself able to preach, and to expound the Scriptures. While they complained of pluralities, nonresidence, and an unpreaching clergy, they viewed these as caused chief by patronage exercised by the queen, bishops, and. lay-patrons, and held that it ought to be abolished, and ministers to be appointed by the election of the people. They condemned, on the one hand, the keeping of churchfestivals and saints’ days, and on the other, the open and vagrant violation of the Lord’s day, as equally contrary to Scripture. Cathedral worship, chanted prayers, and instrumental music, they also condemned, as tending rather to amuse than to edify. And they declared their great reluctance to comply with certain rites and ceremonies which were strictly enjoined, and which they regarded as superstitious or unmeaning, such as the sign of the cross in baptism, baptism by midwives, the exclusion of parents and the employment of godfathers and godmothers, the rite of confirmation, kneeling at the communion, as implying transubstantiation, bowing at the name of Jesus, the ring in marriage, and certain foolish words used in the ceremony, and the wearing of the surplice and other ceremonies used in divine service.

When so many, and such important topics were all equally in dispute, and not the slightest redress could be obtained, but conformity in every particular was enforced with the most oppressive and unrelaxing rigor, it was not strange that the persecuted Puritans should determine to separate themselves from a Church which they regarded as but half reformed, and which sternly refused to advance to a more pure and perfect reformation, according, not to the will of princes, but to the Word of God. And the time may come, when the Church of England will bitterly bewail the insane conduct of those who, in that reforming period, took up and pursued a course which crushed the life-spring out of its heart, and swathed up the cold and paralyzed remains, to lie in state, a decent but a dead formality. The chief leaders of the separation, according to Fuller, were the Rev.

Messrs Colman, Button, Halingham, Benson, White, Rowland, and Hawkins, all of whom held benefices within the diocese of London. No sooner was the queen informed that the Puritans had begun to form separate assemblies for worship, than she commanded her commissioners to take effectual measures to keep the laity to their parish churches; and to let them know, that if they frequented conventicles, or broke the ecclesiastical laws, they should, for the first offense, be deprived of the freedom of the city, and then abide what further punishment she would direct. But the requirements of conscience are stronger than a sovereign’s threats. They continued to hold their private meetings; and, on the 10th of June 1507, they agreed to have a sermon preached and the communion dispensed at Plumbers’ Hall, which they engaged for that day. The day came, and they assembled to worship the God of peace, but their peaceful worship was rudely interrupted by the entrance of the armed officers of the civil power, who seized upon the chief, dispersed the rest, and dragged their victims to prison. Next day they were brought before the Bishop of London, and the chief magistrate of the city, charged with the heinous offense of forsaking the Church which persecuted them, and setting up separate assemblies for worship. They defended their conduct ably; but because they would not yield, they were, to the number of twenty-four men and seven women, sent to Bridewell, where they endured the hardships of more than a year’s imprisonment. A parliament was held in 1571, in which there were some attempts made to procure a further reformation. One member, Mr. Strickland, proposed to bring in a bill for that purpose, asserting that the Prayer-Book, with some superstitious remains of Popery in the Church, might be altered without any danger to religion. Her majesty was so displeased, that she sent for him to the council, reproved him sharply, and forbade his attendance in Parliament; but this caused such an alarm in the House of Commons, as a dangerous invasion of their privileges, that she found it convenient to remove her prohibition. An act was passed, ratifying the Thirty-nine Articles, which had been framed by the Convocation of 1562; and one clause in that act admitted the validity of ordination by presbyters alone, without a bishop. This clause was greatly disliked by the bishops, and has been repeatedly condemned by their successors, but remains still unrepealed. The House of Commons were desirous also that articles of discipline should be framed and enacted; but when this was discountenanced by the bishops, they presented an address to the queen, representing the grievous injuries sustained by the Church and kingdom for want of true and efficient discipline, supplicating her majesty that proper laws might be provided and enacted for the reformation of these abuses.

But the queen dissolved the Parliament without answering this supplication.

Although little was done in the Parliament to relieve the oppressed Puritans, some steps were taken by the Convocation which tended to increase their oppression. A canon of discipline was framed, empowering the bishops to call in all their licenses for preaching, and to issue new licenses to those only whose qualifications gained their approbation; and among the qualifications specified, subscription to all the points of which the Puritans complained was particularly mentioned. These canons were not sanctioned by royal authority; but the bishops, knowing well the queen’s inclinations, did not hesitate to enforce them with great rigor.

Numbers of the Puritan divines were immediately deprived of their licenses to preach, because they refused to subscribe canons not yet legalized; and it became apparent that a formidable crisis was at hand.

At the very time that the bishops were thus silencing the persons whom they themselves admitted to be the best preachers in the kingdom, the state of religion throughout the country was truly deplorable. Of this Strype, no Puritan, presents the following outline: — “The churchmen heaped up many benefices upon themselves, and resided upon none, neglecting their cures; many of them alienated their lands, made unreasonable leases, and wastes of their woods; granted reversions and advowsons to their wives and children, or to others for their use. Churches ran greatly into dilapidations and decays; and were kept nasty and filthy, and indecent for God’s worship. Among the laity there was little devotion. The Lord’s day greatly profaned, and little observed. The common prayers not frequented.

Some lived without any service of God at all. Many were mere heathens and atheists. The queen’s own court an harbor for epicures and atheists, and a kind of lawless place, because it stood in no parish. Which things made good men fear some sad judgments impending over the nation.” Perceiving that there was no prospect whatever of any further reformation in religious matters proceeding from either the sovereign or the convocation, and lamenting the wretched ignorance and immorality which prevailed in the kingdom, the Puritans now resolved to exert themselves to the utmost of their means and opportunities for their own instruction, and that of their perishing countrymen. And as Dr. Scambler, Bishop of Peterborough, was less intolerant than many of his order, the ministers within his diocese, particularly those of Northampton, with his approbation and that of the mayor of the town, formed an association for promoting the purity of worship and the maintenance of discipline. The regulations of this association were very temperate, involving no departure from any of the established modes of worship, nor any rigid disciplinary arrangements. And as they were aware of the extreme inability to preach instructively, which characterized very many of the clergy, they endeavored also to provide a remedy for this evil. For this purpose they instituted what they termed “prophesyings,” taking the designation from 1Corinthians 14:31, “Ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.”

In these prophesyings one presided, and a text previously selected was explained by one of the ministers to whom it had been assigned. After his exposition, each in turn gave his view of the passage; and the whole exercise was summed up by the president or moderator for the day, who concluded by exhorting all to persevere in the discharge of their sacred duties. This scheme, it is evident, was admirably calculated to increase the scriptural knowledge, and promote the usefulness of the clergymen who engaged in it; and it deserved the cordial approbation of all who were desirous to promote the religious welfare of the community. But it was regarded with jealousy by the bishops, and ere long encountered the keen hostility of Elizabeth herself. When the Parliament met in 1572, an attempt was made by the House of Commons to mitigate the sufferings of the Puritans, and they passed two bills for that purpose. This gave such offense to the queen, that she sharply reproved them for interfering in such matters, and commanded them to deliver up the bills. One of the members boldly complained of this conduct, as trenching upon the liberty of Parliament, and for his boldness was sent to the Tower. The Puritans, who had reason to expect some countenance from the Parliament, prepared a full statement of their grievances and. their desires, in a treatise entitled, “An Admonition to the Parliament.” But while the Parliament was not permitted to grant any redress, the authors of the Admonition were cast into prison, and treated with great severity. Whitgift was appointed to answer the Admonition, and Cartwright answered Whitgift, which led to a lengthened controversy between these learned and able men. Each, and still more eagerly the partisans of each, claimed the victory; but the controversy did not terminate with the writings of these antagonists, nor is it yet terminated. It is waged in the present day with equal keenness, and not inferior ability; it may be added, with no novelty in its leading principles, and very little in its arguments. Cartwright maintained, that the Scriptures were not only the sole standard of doctrine, but also of discipline and government, and that the Church of Christ in all ages was to be regulated by them. Whitgift held, that the Scriptures were a rule of faith; but not designed to be a standard of discipline and government, — that this was changeable, and might be adapted to the civil government of any country, — and that the times of the apostles could not be the best model, but rather the first four centuries of the Church, during which she had reached a matured development. In what do these views essentially differ from the advocates and opponents of Patristic theology in the present day? Till men agree in some leading principles by which any great controversy must be ruled, it is vain to expect that it can ever be brought to a satisfactory conclusion; yet those who appeal to Scripture authority alone, must surely be held to — be following the most proper and authoritative method in discussions of that nature.

All hope of legislative assistance in prosecuting further reformation being cut off by the queen’s arbitrary procedure, the Puritans resolved to take another step, still more daring and decisive than any on which they had previously ventured. Several of the ministers of London and its vicinity met together and determined to form themselves into a presbytery, to be held at Wandsworth, a village on the banks of the Thames, about five miles from the city. On the 20th of November 1572, about fifteen ministers met, eleven elders were chosen to form members of the body; their offices were described in a register, entitled, “The Orders of Wands-worth;” and this was the first fully constituted Presbyterian Church in England. The intelligence of this event soon reached the bishops; the Court of High Commission took alarm; the queen issued a proclamation for enforcing the Act of Uniformity; but the Presbytery of Wandsworth for a time eluded the fury of their enemies, and other presbyteries were formed in neighboring counties.

There was now little possibility of reconciliation between the High Church and the Puritan parties; for the unbending determination of the former not to grant the slightest relief to the sufferings of their brethren, nor the least accommodation to their aggrieved consciences, had driven them from mere nonconformity into the adoption of a different form of Church polity, possessing in itself the elements of perpetuity and growth. Puritanism had thenceforward not only a vital principle, but also systematic organization, enabling it to live on, and increase in spite of any amount of persecution; for a system dies not with the individuals that held it, but draws into itself the fresh life of succeeding generations.

Having thus traced the rise of Puritanism, and seen its systematic organization, it will not be necessary to follow its progress so minutely in what remains of this introductory outline. We shall content ourselves with touching briefly on the main events which mark the growing development of the leading principles characteristic of the two contending parties.

The sufferings of the Puritans continued unabated during the remainder of the life of Archbishop Parker; many of them being silenced, imprisoned, banished, and otherwise oppressed by that relentless prelate. In vain did the House of Commons, and several influential noblemen, repeatedly interpose in their behalf; they were detested by the queen, and Parker was ready to gratify her majesty without scruple, and to any extent. In particular, he strove to suppress the “prophesyings,” declaring that they were nests of Puritanism; and by his complaints he succeeded. in directing against them the vengeance of the despotic sovereign. He did not, however, live to direct the storm which he had raised, but died in May 1570, and was succeeded by Grindal.

Grindal, aware of the opposition to the exercises or prophesyings which had. been raised by his predecessor, attempted to regulate them so that no offense might be taken, or at least that they might be the more easily defended. But the queen had formed her resolution, from which she could not be moved by the most respectful and elaborate arguments, and the most humble entreaties of the afflicted archbishop. She “declared herself offended at the numbers of preachers, and also at the exercises, and warned him to redress both, urging that it was good for the Church to have few preachers , and that three or four might suffice for a county ; and that the reading of the homilies to the people was enough. In short, she required him to do these two things, — to abridge the number of preachers, and to put down the religious exercises.” This peremptory command both grieved and alarmed Grindal, who knew the excessive ignorance which prevailed both among the preachers and the people, and was anxious to promote whatever tended to the increase of religious knowledge and purity. He wrote to her majesty a long and earnest letter, entering fully into the subject, pleading the importance of preaching as the divinely appointed method of communicating religious instruction to the people, — showing how admirably these exercises were fitted to improve the ministers who joined in them, and consequently to qualify them for the discharge of their chief function; and after imploring her not to suppress so valuable an institution, and stating his readiness to resign his office if that were her pleasure, declared that he could not, without offense to the majesty of God, send out injunctions for suppressing the exercises. To this solemn appeal the queen’s answer was — an order for the imprisonment of Grindal in his house, and his suspension from his function for six months; and an immediate suppression of the prophesyings by the authority of a royal proclamation. Such were the fruits of the Crown’s ecclesiastical supremacy, when possessed by a despotic monarch. It may be added, that Grindal had the firmness to maintain his integrity for eight years, during which his suspension continued, and his archiepiscopal functions were generally performed by a commission; but at length he yielded so far as to suppress the exercises within his own jurisdiction, though he would not issue injunctions to that effect to the bishops. Unhappily it was not necessary; they were in general but too ready to obey the arbitrary commands of their haughty and despotic sovereign. A few years afterwards another development of regal and prelatic tyranny appeared, in an act passed by the Parliament of 1580, prohibiting the publication of books or pamphlets assailing the opinions of the Prelates, and defending those of the Puritans. In the same session of Parliament another act was passed, one portion of which empowered the infliction of heavy fines and imprisonment upon those who absented themselves from “church, chapel, or other place where common prayer is said, according to the Act of Uniformity.” The apparatus of persecution was now nearly complete; and the pernicious character of the Crown’s ecclesiastical supremacy was sufficiently evident in at least its main aspect, although it subsequently reached a far more terrible degree of persecuting intolerance.

These harsh and oppressive measures had, however, as might have been expected, an effect the very reverse of that which their authors intended.

Some of timid and wavering minds might be terrified and subdued; but the bolder and more high-principled men became only the more determined in proportion to the severity and intolerance of the treatment which they had to encounter. In their indignation they began to entertain feelings and opinions from which they would have shrunk, had they not been driven to extremities. Ceasing to complain of Popish vestments and ceremonies, and to supplicate a further reformation, some began to question whether the Church of England ought to be regarded as a true Church, and her ministers true Christian ministers. They not only renounced communion with her in her forms of prayer and her ceremonies, but also in the dispensation of word and ordinance.

The leader of these men of extreme views was Robert Brown, a person who held a charge in the diocese of Norwich, whose family connections gave him considerable influence, and procured him protection, he being nearly related to Lord Treasurer Cecil. Brown appears to have been a man of hot and impetuous temper; rash and variable, except when opposed, and then headstrong and overbearing. Throwing himself headlong into the Puritan controversy, he traversed the country from place to place, pouring out the most fierce and bitter invectives against the whole Prelatic party, and also against all who could not concur with him in the rude violence of his mode of warfare. After repeated imprisonments, and many attempts to form a new party, he at last partially succeeded in collecting a small body of like-minded adherents; but was soon afterwards compelled to leave the kingdom, and to withdraw to Holland with a portion of his followers.

There he formed a Church according to his own fancy; but it was soon torn to pieces with internal dissension, and Brown returned again to England, and exhibiting one of those recoils by no means rare with men of vehement temperament, he renounced his principles of separation, conformed to that worship which he had so violently assailed, and became rector of a parish in Northamptonshire. The remainder of his life was by no means distinguished by correctness of deportment, or purity of manners; and at length he terminated his unhonored days in the county jail, in the eightyfirst year of his age. From this person the first form of what has since been termed the Independent, or Congregational system of Church government, appears to have had its origin, the great majority of the Puritans either retaining their connection with the Church of England in a species of constrained half-conformity, or associating on the Presbyterian model. Brown not only renounced communion with the Church of England, but also with all others of the reformed Churches who would not adopt the model which he had constructed. The main principles of that model were, that every church ought to be confined within a single congregation; that its government should be the most complete democracy; and. that there was no distinction in point of order between the office bearers and the ordinary members, so that a vote of the congregation was enough to constitute any man an office-bearer, and to entitle him to preach and to administer the sacraments. Those who adopted these opinions, and formed Congregational Churches on the same model, were at first termed Brownists, and were regarded by the main body of the Puritans with nearly as much dislike as they were by the Prelatists.

In stating that the Independent, or Congregational system of Church government may be said to have originated with Robert Brown, it is not meant that those who at present adhere to that form of ecclesiastical polity are Brownists, as that term was applied at first; but merely that Brown appears to have been the first who actually, in the formation of a Church, embodied that idea, and that too in a much more rigid and repulsive form than it subsequently assumed, when again taken up and reconstructed by wiser and better men. Rut it is of importance to mark beginnings, especially when these teach lessons of great practical value. One of these may be here very easily learned. The extreme pertinacity with which the queen and her obsequious servants the bishops strove to enforce entire conformity, produced an antagonist principle, whose very essence was direct antipathy to their eager wish, rendering it for ever impossible that their purpose could be accomplished. Another remark may be made: the system devised by Brown was, in its first appearance, altogether as intolerant, both in principle and in practice, as that of its opponent, Prelacy; but in the stern strife which afterwards ensued between these equally intolerant antagonists, they so far neutralized each other, as to give occasion to the gradual, though even yet incomplete, development of the great principle of religious toleration, — a principle utterly unknown to any party at the time, even while its rainbow-form was beginning to bend its gentle radiance across the thunder-gloom of their contention. The death of Archbishop Grindal gave the queen an opportunity of promoting to that influential station which he had held, a person more according to her own mind, who would feel no compunction in proceeding to extremities against the Puritans. Her choice was easily made. Whitgift had already distinguished himself by his controversial writings against Cartwright, and was well prepared to enforce by power what he had failed to accomplish by argument. Scarcely was Whitgift placed in his seat of power, when he began to show how that power would be used. He drew up and published three articles, requiring that none be permitted to preach, or execute any part of the ecclesiastical function, unless he should subscribe them. These articles were to the following effect: — 1st , The queen’s supremacy over all persons, and in all causes, civil and ecclesiastical. 2d , That the Rook of Common Prayer and of Ordination contained nothing contrary to the Word of God; and that they will use it, and no other. 3d , Implicit subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles. The Puritans would readily have acknowledged the queen’s supremacy over all persons, and in all causes civil, but not in causes ecclesiastical; the second article they could not subscribe; the third they were ready to subscribe with little difficulty. But they were all rigidly enforced; and in a short time several hundred of the best ministers in England were suspended for not subscribing. Not thinking even this sufficient, Whitgift applied to the queen to institute a new High Commission, that he might be enabled to wield a direct and irresistible power. She readily consented, and even gave to it an additional element of despotism, empowering the commissioners to impose an oath ex officio , — by means of which persons accused were bound, on their oath, to answer questions against themselves, and thus become their own accusers, or to be punished, by fine or imprisonment, for refusing to take such an oath, or to criminate themselves. The prelatic inquisition was now complete in its apparatus, and Whitgift was well qualified to act as the grand inquisitor. The work of oppression went on now rapidly. Mercy to preachers or people there was none. Elizabeth’s wisest statesmen stood aghast, when they beheld the desolating effect of Whitgift’s measures; but they interposed in vain. Cecil, Burleigh, and Walsingham, had less influence with the queen than Whitgift; because their advice was but accordant with the dictates of prudence and Christianity, — his with those of vanity and despotism. When Parliament met, the House of Commons attempted to stem the tide of persecution; and having received several petitions from the Puritans, they prepared various bills to abridge the power of the bishops, to reform abuses, and to promote discipline. But, with considerable dexterity, Whitgift suggested to the queen, that if the Parliament were to pass any such measures, they could not be repealed by any other authority; whereas, whatsoever she should herself, or by the convocation, enact, her own authority could at any time repeal. Elizabeth welcomed the suggestion.

She reprimanded the Commons for interfering with ecclesiastical matters, which was touching her prerogative, and they were compelled, to yield. The Puritans, thus driven from all legislative remedy, yet regarded it as their duty, in their character of Christian teachers, to exert themselves to the utmost for their own improvement, and for the instruction and reformation of the ignorant and neglected people. They accordingly formed a Book of Discipline, for their own direction in the discharge of their ministerial and pastoral duties; and this book was subscribed by above five hundred of the most eminently pious and faithful ministers in the kingdom. This body was far too numerous and important to be easily or wantonly crushed; and yet, as Neal informs us, it constituted, in reality, but a small portion of those over whom the terrors of suspension at that period hung, amounting to not less than a third part of the ministers of England. A new principle was now promulgated, for the support of prelatic power, of a more formidable nature than any that had hitherto appeared, and destined to produce the most disastrous results. Dr. Bancroft, the archbishop’s chaplain, in a sermon which he preached at Paul’s Cross, January 12, 1588, maintained that bishops were a distinct order from priests or presbyters, and had authority over them jure divino , and directly from God. This bold assertion created an immense ferment throughout the kingdom. The Puritans saw well, that, if acted upon, this principle would increase their oppression to an incalculable degree, inasmuch as it must subject them to an accusation of heresy, in addition to that of resistance to the queen’s supremacy. The greater part of even the Prelatic party themselves were startled with the novelty of the doctrine; for none of the English reformers had ever regarded the order of bishops as any thing else but a human institution, appointed for the more orderly government of the Church, and they were not prepared at once to condemn as heretical all Churches where that institution did not exist. Whitgift himself, perceiving the use which might be made of such a tenet, said, that the Doctor’s sermon had, done much good, — though, for his own part, he rather wished, than believed it to be true. On the other hand, the legal assertors of the queen’s supremacy assailed this theory, as subversive of her majesty’s prerogative; for, as they reasoned, if the bishops are not undergovernors to her majesty of the clergy, but superior governors over their brethren, by God’s ordinance, it will then follow that her majesty is not supreme governor over her clergy. Bancroft answered, that this inference was not; a necessary consequence of his doctrine; because the sovereign’s authority may, and very often does, corroborate that which is primarily from the law of God. This evasive reply seems to have satisfied the queen, aided, perhaps, by her own knowledge of its direct purpose, and of the character of her bishops, who longed for the extirpation of Puritanism, but had no desire to encounter her leonine wrath. The terrific power of this despotic principle did not, indeed, appear till after the lapse of two generations, — when, wielded by Laud, it convulsed the kingdom, and overthrew the monarchy. Its portentous reappearance in modern times may well excite alarm; embodying, as it does, the very essence of despotism, civil and religious, and possessing an energy that nothing human can control without a struggle, wide, wasting, and deadly, — too fearful even to be imagined. The struggle assumed a less serious aspect for a short time, in consequence of the publication of the famous Martin Mar-Prelate Tracts. Some of the Puritan party had procured a printing-press, — the liberty of the press having been taken away previously, — and commenced a series of pamphlets, containing attacks of wit, ridicule, mockery, and keen vituperation, against the bishops and their supporters. Many of these tracts displayed very considerable power of sarcasm and invective; and as they were written intentionally for the mass of the nation, they were composed in a style not merely plain, but affectedly rude and vulgar. They were not, however, to be despised. Amidst much coarse vituperation, they contained statements of facts which could not be disputed, set forth with such homethrusting vigor, as caused every direct and strong-aimed blow to tell upon the assailed prelates. Great was the indignation and dismay of the bishops and their friends, and every exertion was made to detect and seize the hidden armory of this unseen assailant. For a considerable time these efforts were unsuccessful, and the Prelatic party were constrained to attempt their own defense in literary warfare. But although they displayed considerable talent and activity in this attempt, they were not able to match their unknown antagonists, whose writings produced a deep and widespread. impression on the public mind. At length the Martin Mar-Prelate press was seized, with several unfinished tracts, and that aspect of the struggle terminated, but not till the Prelatic cause had sustained very considerable injury.

In the year 1501 the Parliament again met, and the House of Commons once more attempted to rescue the suffering Puritans, by instituting an inquiry into the conduct of the High Commission, in imposing oaths and subscriptions not sanctioned by law. The queen was highly incensed, commanded them not to meddle with matters of state or causes ecclesiastical, and threw several of the members, and even the attorneygeneral, into prison. The Parliament, with a tameness unworthy of the spirit of free-born Englishmen, not merely yielded, but passed an act for the suppression of conventicles, by which was meant all religious meetings, except such as the queen and the bishops were pleased to permit, on pain of perpetual banishment. The principle of this act was of the most despotic nature, converting any difference from the religion of the sovereign into a crime against the State, and rendering the mere want of conformity equivalent to a proof of direct opposition. Great numbers were subjected to the most grievous sufferings through this enactment. Some went into voluntary exile, to escape the horrors of imprisonment; some endured a lengthened captivity, and then were banished; and some, chiefly of the Brownists, were condemned to death, and on the scaffold declared their loyalty to their sovereign, while they ceased not to testify against the tyranny of the prelates. The controversy between the High Churchmen and the Puritans obtained the full development of all its main principles in the year 1505. At this time Dr. Bound published a treatise on the Sabbath; in which he maintained its perpetual sanctity, as a day of rest equally from business and recreation, that it might be devoted wholly to the worship of God. All the Puritans assented to this doctrine, while the Prelatists accused it as both an undue restraint of Christian liberty and an improper exalting of the Sabbath above the other festivals appointed by the Church. About the same time, a controversy arose in Cambridge respecting those doctrinal points which form the leading distinctions between the Arminian and the Calvinistic systems of theology. Till this period there had existed no doubt in the minds of any of the English divines that the Thirty-nine Articles were decidedly and intentionally Calvinistic. Indeed they could have no other opinion; because they were perfectly aware how much influence the writings of Calvin exercised over the minds of those by whom these Articles were framed. After the controversy had prevailed in the university a short time, an appeal was made to Whitgift, who, with the aid of other learned divines, prepared nine propositions, commonly called the Lambeth Articles, to which all the scholars in the university were strictly enjoined to conform their judgments. These Lambeth Articles were more strictly Calvinistic than Calvin himself would have desired; and certainly prove that, in its early period, the Church of England was any thing but Arminian, whatever it may have since become. But though Whitgift was himself still a thorough Calvinist, considerable numbers of the Prelatic party were veering towards Arminianism; so that, partly on that account, and partly on account of their more strict observance of the Sabbath sanctity, the Puritans were now led to a more important field of conflict than that on which they had hitherto striven against their antagonists; and instead of contending about vestments and ceremonies, they now strove respecting great and important doctrines, and began to be termed Doctrinal Puritans.

This led to two directly opposite results. It caused the Prelatists to swerve more and more widely from those doctrines which the Puritans maintained; and it impelled the Puritans to prosecute a profound study of those points, which had thus become the elements of controversy. This may account for the remarkable power and accuracy with which the Puritan divines of that and the succeeding generation state and explain the most solemn and profound truths of the Christian revelation.

At length what may be termed a cessation of hostilities ensued. The queen was now evidently sinking under the infirmities of age, and both parties began to speculate upon the probable measures which might be adopted by her successor, James VI of Scotland. The Puritans hoped that his Presbyterian education might predispose him to be favorable to their views; and the Prelatic party were unwilling to exasperate, by continued severity, those who might possibly, ere long, be the ruling body in the Church. Both parties paused, at least in action; but there is no reason to suppose that their feelings of mutual jealousy and dislike were abated. Nor was it consistent with the usual policy, or king-craft of James, to declare his sentiments and intentions, but rather to hold out plausible grounds of expectation to both parties, — thereby to secure the support of both, or at least to disarm the direct hostility of either. Queen Elizabeth died on the 24th day of March 1608, in the seventieth year of her age, and forty-fifth of her reign. In the following month, James left his native land, commencing his journey to London to take possession of the English throne, to which he was now the direct heir. On his progress southward, the Puritan ministers availed themselves of the opportunity to lay before him what is commonly termed the Millenary Petition . This name it did not receive because it was signed by one thousand ministers, for the actual number was seven hundred and fifty; but because, in the preamble, it is said by the petitioners, “That they, to the number of more than a thousand ministers, groaned under the burden of human rites and ceremonies, and cast themselves at his majesty’s feet for relief.” That their number was not overstated is evident from the fact, that the petition was subscribed by the ministers of no more than twenty-five counties, chiefly those of the northern, westland, and midland parts of the kingdom; so that probably not more than one-half of the Puritan ministers had an opportunity of signing their millenary petition. On the other hand, the Prelatic party were at least equally strenuous in their endeavors to secure his majesty’s favor; and, as might be expected from their practiced courtier arts and ready obsequiousness, were more successful. But as James had given a friendly reception to both parties, and as he was vain of his own acquirements in theology, and of his skill in polemical discussions, which he wished to exhibit to his new subjects, he thought proper to appoint a conference between the two parties, to be conducted in his own presence, as anal judge in all such matters. This gave occasion to the famous Hampton Court Conference, an account of which was afterwards published by Dr. Barlow, dean of Chester, one of the disputants on the Prelatic side. The Puritans complained that Barlow gave a partial account of this conference, representing the Prelatic arguments in the best manner of which they could admit, and weakening and abridging those of the opposite party. Even from the outline given by Fuller and Collier this is evident; and yet so futile are the arguments of the king and the prelates, that one is ashamed to read them, as reproduced by their own historians. In Barlow’s own treatise, which is now lying before me, the mean and abject servility of manner, and the gross and fulsome flattery of language, employed by the prelates towards James, are such as to cause the cheek of every person of generous and manly nature to burn with indignant scorn. A very brief account of this conference is all that can be given here.

The place appointed for this conference was the drawing-room at Hampton Court. On the High Church side the disputants were — the Archbishop of Canterbury, Whitgift; bishops, — Bancroft of London, Matthew of Durham, Bilson of Winchester, Babington of Worcester, Rudd of St.

David’s, Watson of Chichester, Robinson of Carlisle, and Dove of Peterborough; deans, — Andrews of the Chapel, Overal of St. Paul’s, Barlow of Chester, and Bridges of Salisbury; and Dr. Field and Dr. King.

On the part of the Puritans there were only four ministers, — Dr. Reynolds and Dr. Sparks, professors of divinity in Oxford; and Mr. Chadderton and Mr. Knewstubbs of Cambridge. The first day was a conference between the king and the prelates, in which his majesty praised the Church of England, and expressed his wish for satisfaction on a few points in the Prayer-Book, respecting excommunication, and about providing ministers for Ireland. By this an opportunity was given to the king and the prelates to form a mutual understanding before they encountered their opponents. On the second day, Dr. Reynolds stated, in the name of the Puritans, and in the briefest possible form, the points on which the controversy chief turned, humbly requesting, — “1. That the doctrine of the Church might be preserved in purity, according to God’s Word. 2. That good pastors might be planted in all churches, to preach the same. 3. That the Church government might be sincerely ministered, according to God’s Word. 4. That the Book of Common Prayer might be fitted to more increase of piety.” Had these points been fairly discussed, the whole controversy might have been investigated, and some approximation might have been made towards an agreement, or at least a pacific arrangement, between the contending parties. But the king interrupted, reviled, and stormed; the courtiers laughed and mocked; and the prelates, by insinuations, interruptions, flatteries addressed to the king, and sneers directed against the Puritans, succeeded in preventing such a discussion as would have brought out the great principles of the controversy, and in assisting to overbear the Puritans with insult and ridicule. The king repeated his favorite maxim, — “No bishop, no king;” and, at the close of the day, asked Dr. Reynolds if he had any thing else to offer. He, perceiving the futility of continuing such a discussion, answered, “No more, please your majesty.” “Then,” said the king, “if this be all your party have to say, I will make them conform, or I will harrie(spoil)them out of the land, or else do worse.”

The greater part of the third day’s conference was occupied by the king and the prelates in matters relating to the High Commission, the oath ex officio , and the slight alterations proposed in the Prayer-Book. Of all these the king expressed his approbation; and then the Puritan divines were again called in to this mock conference. They now knew that no alterations such as they had desired would be obtained; and, therefore, they contented themselves with supplicating some concessions in point of conformity, in behalf of those ministers who could not in conscience submit to the rites and ceremonies of the Church. The king sternly declared that they must conform, and that quickly too, or they should hear of it. Thus ended the Hampton Court Conference, “which,” says Dr. Warner, “convinced the Puritans that they were mistaken in depending on the king’s protection; which convinced the king that they were not to be won by a few insignificant concessions; and which, if it did not convince the privy council and the bishops that they had got a Solomon for their king, yet they spoke of him as though it did.” Even this does not fully express the extravagant strain of adulation in which they spoke. The Archbishop of Canterbury(Whitgift)”said that undoubtedly his majesty spake by the special assistance of God’s Spirit.” Bancroft, Bishop of London, “upon his knee protested, that his heart melted within him with joy, and made haste to acknowledge to Almighty God the singular mercy we have received at his hands, in giving us such a king, as since Christ his time the like he thought hath not been.” Little wonder that the vain and pedantic monarch was delighted with his bishops. In the Convocation which met in 1604, Bancroft presided, Whitgift having died a short time previously. Soon after they met, Bancroft laid before them a Book of Canons, collected out of the articles, injunctions, and synodical acts passed in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth, to the number of one hundred and forty-one. To these canons both Houses of Convocation assented, and they were ratified by the king’s letters patent, but not confirmed by act of Parliament, so that, though binding on the clergy, they have not the force of statute laws. Of these canons, about three dozen are expressly directed against the Puritan opinions, rendering their junction with the Church impossible without sacrifice of conscience; and one of them requires that no person be ordained, or suffered to preach or catechize, unless he first subscribe willingly, and ex animo , the three articles already mentioned as Whitgift’s articles.

Bancroft was promoted to the archbishopric of Canterbury, vacant by Whitgift’s decease, and immediately proved how well qualified he was to discharge the function of grand inquisitor. He enforced subscription to canons and articles with the utmost rigor, silencing or deposing those Puritan ministers who refused to comply. Considerable numbers were thus reduced to the greatest distress, and some were driven into foreign countries to escape from persecution in their own. And that the archbishop’s persecuting zeal might obtain as full a sanction as could be given to it by a partial and one-sided process, the king summoned the twelve judges to the Star-Chamber, and, in answer to three interrogative propositions, obtained as their legal opinion, That the king, having the supreme ecclesiastical power, could, without Parliament, make orders and constitutions for Church government; that the High Commission might enforce them, ex officio , without libel; and that subjects might not frame petitions for relief without being guilty of an offense finable at discretion , and very near to treason and felony . This strange opinion ascribed to the king power in ecclesiastical matters of the most arbitrary and despotic kind, without limitation or redress; and as the enforcement of it necessarily required the exercise of civil power in the indiction of punishment, it deprived one large class of subjects of all liberty, civil and sacred, and if allowed in one class, might naturally introduce an equal exercise of despotism over every other. This may be regarded as perhaps the first distinct intimation to the kingdom at large of the peril in which civil liberty was placed by the arbitrary proceedings of the sovereign and the prelates in religious affairs; and it is not undeserving of notice, that it was founded on the opinion of civil judges, who, in their interpretation of law, were the subverters of the constitution, and the destroyers of both civil and religious liberty.

By means of the authority thus acquired, the prelates urged on their persecuting career with double eagerness and severity; and the Puritans became, in consequence, so much the more determined in their adherence to their principles. Not merely suffering, but calumny of the grossest kind, was their portion; and ambitious churchmen found that the readiest road to preferment in the Church was to pour forth violent invectives and dark aspersions against the detested Puritans. As an answer to these reproaches, and to vindicate their character, the Puritans published a treatise entitled “English Puritanism,” which Dr. Ames(better known by his Latinized name, Amesius)translated into Latin for the information of foreign Churches. It contains a very full and impartial statement of the peculiar opinions of the much calumniated Puritans; and ought to be enough to vindicate them in the judgment of every candid and intelligent person. The violent proceedings of the Prelatic party, and the dangerous nature of the principles avowed by them, began to arouse the kingdom to a sense of the danger to which all liberty was exposed; and the Parliament prepared to interpose, and to seek redress of grievances which were becoming intolerable. But the king met all their remonstrances and petitions for redress with the most lofty assertions of his royal prerogative, in the exercise of which he held himself to be accountable to God alone, affirming it to be sedition in a subject to dispute what a king might do in the height of his power. The Parliament repeated the assertion of their own rights, accused the High Commission of illegal and tyrannical conduct, and advocated a more mild and merciful course of procedure towards the Puritans. Offended with the awakening spirit of freedom thus displayed, the king, by the advice of Bancroft, dissolved the Parliament, resolving to govern, if possible, without Parliaments in future. This arbitrary conduct on the part of James aroused, in the mind of England, a deep and vigilant jealousy with regard to their sovereign’s intentions, which rested not till, in the reign of his son, it broke forth in its strength, and overthrew the monarchy. When the Puritans found, not only no hope of redress, but a constantly increasing severity of treatment, many of them, as has been stated, fled to the Continent, and there continued to discharge their sacred duties as they could find opportunity. Embittered somewhat by the persecution which they had suffered, and constrained to minister in congregations not united in any common body, several of them began to adopt the opinions at first taught by Brown, to the extent, at least, of regarding the Congregational or Independent as the best system of Church government, though not, like him, to the extent of denying the lawfulness of any other. Of these Mr.

Henry Jacob was one, who, having fled to Holland, became acquainted with Mr. Robinson, pastor of a Congregational church at Leyden, and embraced his system. Returning to England in the year 1616, Mr. Jacob imparted his views to several others of the suffering Puritans, who, considering that there was now no prospect of a thorough national reformation, resolved to separate themselves entirely from the Church of England, to unite in Church fellowship, and to maintain the ordinances of Christ in what they had come to regard as the purest form. They met, and in the most solemn manner declared their faith, pledged themselves in a mutual covenant to each other and to God, to walk together in all his ordinances, as he had already revealed, or should further reveal them, chose Mr. Jacob to be their pastor, elected deacons, and thus formed the first congregation of English Independents. Such and so small was the beginning of a body which afterwards became so powerful, and influenced so strongly the movements of the revolutionary period. The strongly contrasted tendencies of the two contending parties, Prelatists and Puritans, were rendered. very apparent in the year 1618, by the publication of the king’s Book of Sports. This book was drawn up by Bishop Moreton, at the king’s direction, and dated from Greenwich, May 24, 1618. The pretext for producing such a book was, that the strictness of the Puritans in keeping the Sabbath-day alienated the people, and left them exposed to the temptations of the Jesuits, who took occasion to seduce them back to Popery. To prevent this his majesty proposed, not that the people should be more carefully instructed in religion, but that, after divine service, they should be indulged in such recreations as dancing, archery, leaping, May-games, Whitsunales, morrice-dances, setting up of May-poles, and such like amusements. That the people should meditate on their religious duties, and prepare to practice the instructions given them in God’s Word, did not seem to his majesty at all a desirable matter, — it might have led them to favor Puritanism. Queen Elizabeth disapproved of preaching, lest it should teach the people to think, and perhaps to inquire into matters of State. King James aimed at the same result by making their only leisure day, when they might possibly attempt the dangerous practice of cultivating their minds, a day of mere recreation. The reason is obvious.

Thinking men cannot be slaves; and both these sovereigns were desirous of establishing a complete despotism. Religious men must think, and think solemnly and loftily; therefore, to prevent this, religion must give place to giddy mirth, and God’s hallowed day must be profaned by every kind of idle recreation. And what must be said of the High Church party, who lent their aid in this fearful desecration and despotic scheme? Were they the friends of pure and holy religion, of rational improvement, of public freedom?

This Book of Sports, however, was at first ordered to be read merely in the parish churches of Lancashire; but one author asserts that it would have been speedily extended over the kingdom, but for the decisive refusal of Abbot, who had recently succeeded. Bancroft in the archbishopric of Canterbury. But though a partial enforcement of this desecrating production was all that it could, at that time, obtain, its promulgation gave serious ground of dissatisfaction and dread to all the more decidedly pious persons in the kingdom, both Puritans and Churchmen, and tended not a little to confirm the growing jealousy of High Church measures.

The “king-craft,” of which James considered himself so great a master, was perpetually leading him astray, and involving him in dangerous political errors, which, blending with the religious struggles that had so long prevailed, both increased the numbers and gave intensity to the feelings of those who regarded with jealousy the arbitrary measures of the Court. In one of his wise speeches the king gave a large explanation of his views with regard to Puritanism; from which it appeared, that he considered all to be Puritans who dared to oppose his absolute prerogative, and to maintain the rights and liberties established by law. At the same time he discountenanced that system of theology generally termed. Calvinism, though he had previously professed to hold it, and had sent divines to the Synod of Dort, where the opposite system, Arminianism, was condemned.

But perceiving that the Puritans were Calvinists, he turned the sunshine of his favor towards those of the clergy who had begun to support Arminian tenets. In this manner he most unwisely brought about a combination of two false and dangerous principles on the one side, and of two true and salutary principles on the other; — the combination of despotism in the State and unsound theology in the Church, against the combination of political liberty and religious purity. The alliances formed on both sides were natural, for there is a strong and essential relationship between the component elements of each; and yet this very combination was the cause of many peculiarities in the struggle which afterwards arose, and of the various aspects which it wore, as the one or the other, political or religious, obtained the ascendancy.

The combination thus begun in theory was soon forced into actual existence, when, in 1620, the king, offended with the Parliament for mentioning the subject of grievances instead of bestowing money, commanded them to forbear intermeddling with his government; and upon their recording in their journals a remonstrance and protestation in defense of their ancient and undoubted rights and privileges, he, in a storm of fury, tore out the protestation with his own hand, dissolved the Parliament, and issued a proclamation forbidding his subjects to talk of State affairs. This was despotism undisguised, and the heart of England understood and felt it. The element of resistance to political tyranny began to work in the minds of men, many of whom had but little regarded the sufferings of the Puritans under an equal tyranny of an ecclesiastical kind. But the storm was delayed, partly by the natural timidity of James, who was incapable of boldly executing what he tyrannically conceived, and partly also in consequence of his death, and the pause which naturally ensued at the commencement of a new reign, till its principles should be ascertained. Charles I, at his ascension to the throne in 1623, found the kingdom in a truly deplorable condition, — on the point of being convulsed with internal dissension, despised by foreign countries, and its treasury totally exhausted.

It would have required a wise and prudent king, and sage and able counselors, to have rescued the nation from such imminent and formidable perils. Rut Charles was narrow-minded and obstinate, impatient of advice except when it coincided with his own notions, bigoted in religious matters, entertaining the most despotic ideas of his royal prerogative, and so full of dissimulation, that neither his word nor the most solemn treaties could bind him, as subsequent events amply proved; and his most trusted counselors were his father’s recent courtier-race of sycophants and oppressors. His marriage to Henrietta, daughter of the French king, and a zealous Papist, caused an additional ground of jealousy, lest persons of that religious persuasion should obtain undue and pernicious influence; and many events tended to strengthen that apprehension. Instead of relaxing the severe and persecuting measures under which the Puritans had so long groaned, Charles, instigated by Laud, Bishop of London, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, continued to oppress that body of excellent men with increasing severity.

A contest arose between Charles and his first Parliament, chiefly on account of their remonstrances respecting the dangerous increase of Popery, and their determination to proceed with the impeachment of his favorite, the profligate Duke of Buckingham. To stop these measures, the king suddenly dissolved the Parliament; and as he had not obtained the supplies which he desired, he proceeded to raise money by forced loans, ship-money, and other arbitrary and illegal exactions. These violent encroachments upon liberty and property increased the spirit of disaffection which was already strong, compelling all who valued freedom to perceive that some decided stud must be made, unless they were prepared to sink into the degradation of utter slavery. During the interval which elapsed before the calling of the next Parliament, the clergy were employed to inculcate with all possible earnestness the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, and to prove that the absolute submission of subjects to the royal will and, pleasure, was authoritatively taught in the Holy Scriptures. Eagerly did the courtly divines comply with these directions, vieing with each other who should most strenuously promote the cause of despotism. In this glorious strife Sibthorp and Manwaring were peculiarly distinguished, broadly asserting that the king is not bound to observe the laws of the realm, — that the authority of Parliament is not necessary for the imposing of taxes, — and that those who refuse obedience transgress the laws of God, insult the king’s supreme authority, and are guilty of impiety, disloyalty, and rebellion. When the Parliament again met in 1628, they proceeded against Manwaring for inculcating tenets destructive of the laws and liberties of the kingdom, and sentenced him to fine and imprisonment till he should make his submission. He submitted accordingly; but the king soon afterwards rewarded his services in the cause of tyranny, by raising him first to a deanery, and subsequently to the bishopric of St. David’s. The other advocates of passive obedience also received promotion; and the nation was constrained to perceive what were the principles by which the king intended to govern. The controversy between High Churchmen and Puritans, which had so long divided the kingdom, was thus forced to assume the character of one in defense of civil liberty. For it was clearly seen, that the High Church party, who had all along enjoyed exclusively the favor of the reigning monarch, were willing to procure and perpetuate that favor by supporting the royal prerogative in its most arbitrary pretensions, sacrificing without scruple equally the rights of conscience and the civil liberties of the kingdom.

The contest continued in both its converging lines. On the one hand, the king strove to obtain supplies without redressing grievances, employing already that dissimulation which afterwards caused his ruin, and assenting to a bill, or petition of right, the provisions of which he never fulfilled. On the other, Laud, who, on the death of Buckingham, obtained an undivided ascendancy over Charles, prohibited doctrinal controversy respecting the Arminian tenets, and commanded the suppression of afternoon lectures, which were generally conducted by those Puritan divines who could not conform to the reading of the Liturgy in the forenoon service. This cunning prelate was well aware, that controversy on important doctrinal subjects cultivates the power of thought, and that lecturing cultivates knowledge; he knew also, that men who have been trained to think, and whose minds have acquired a store of sound religious knowledge, are incapable of becoming the slaves of either tyranny or superstition. And as the full development of his measures required the people of England to become superstitious slaves, it was necessary to suppress every thing which had a counteracting tendency. The same sort of instinctive perception of the readiest method of promoting mental and moral degradation led Laud to persuade the king to revive the Book of Sports. This was accordingly done in the year 1083, in the name of that sovereign whom the Church of England still delights to style “The Martyr,” though it would not be easy to tell of what cause he was the martyr, unless it were of prelatic profanity, superstition, and despotism. It was not over one county that the Book of Sports was now to be set up, in opposition to the Word of God; the bishops were directed to enforce the publication of it from the pulpit through all the parish churches of their respective dioceses. This caused great distress of mind to all the pious clergymen. Some refused to read it, and were suspended in consequence; others read it, and immediately after having done so, read also the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy;” adding, “This is the law of God, the other is the, injunction of man.”

And notwithstanding the employment of both power and guile, the people generally refused to turn God’s appointed times of holy rest into periods of heathen saturnalia.

In the meantime, the tide of political conflict was advancing broad. and deep. And as it had been caused at first by the course of persecution on account of religion, when the Parliament sought from time to time to interpose in behalf of the suffering Puritans, it continued to retain its religious character. Very strong and earnest language was used by several of the leading members of the House of Commons, condemning equally the Arminian doctrines and the tyrannical proceedings of the Prelatic party; and with similar directness and energy did they assail the illegal methods adopted by the king to raise money, and the oppressive conduct of the persons employed in that service. The king finding the Commons determined to defend their religious and civil liberties, and to refuse subsidies till the grievances of which they complained should be redressed, sent them orders to adjourn. This arbitrary command they refused to obey, till they should have prepared a remonstrance against the levying of tonnage and poundage, and, accordingly, proceeded to frame their remonstrance and protestation. This document declared, in substance, that whosoever should introduce innovations in religion, or advise taking of tonnage and poundage not yet granted by Parliament, or submit to such illegal impositions, should be held as betrayers of, and enemies to, the liberties of England. The Speaker refused, to put these propositions to the vote, and attempted to leave the chair; but he was forced back to it, and held there till they were read and carried by acclamation. The Commons then adjourned; and four of the leading members, Eliot, Hollis, Valentine, and Cariton, were committed to the Tower, where Eliot was detained till he died, the others being released upon payment of heavy fines. Charles having now learned that the Parliament would not submit to be made a passive instrument in his hands to accomplish what he might please, determined to assume the whole powers of the Legislature, disregarding the form, as well as violating the spirit of the constitution, and realizing the absolute despotism so fervently advocated by his sycophantic clergy. He ventured even to avow his desperate intention by a proclamation, in which he forbade the very mention of another Parliament. He had yet to learn, that to shut up a strong feeling in the heart, is to increase its suppressed strength, and to give it entire possession of the inner being.

As if for the very purpose of imparting additional intensity to the growing indignation of the kingdom, Laud, now Archbishop of Canterbury, proceeded with equal eagerness in imposing fresh ceremonies of the most absurd character upon the Church, and in the indiction of excessive cruelties upon the Puritans. These Popish ceremonies drove numbers into nonconformity; and the barbarities perpetrated upon those who dared to complain or to refuse compliance, provoked the nation almost beyond endurance. Alexander Leighton was condemned to have his ears cut off, and his nose slit, to be branded on the cheek, to stand in that condition in the pillory, and then to be east into prison till he should pay a fine utterly beyond his means, — a sentence equivalent to perpetual imprisonment.

Burton, Bastwick, and Prynne suffered similar cruelties. And great numbers were reduced to entire destitution, because they dared to write or speak against Laud’s popish ceremonies, or against the prelatic system of Church government. Numbers forsook the country, and retired some to the Netherlands, others to the settlements recently formed in America. Never, probably, was there a period in which the principles of religious and civil liberty, and the feelings of human nature, were more shocked and outraged.

But a course of crime is also a course of infatuation. At the very time when the cruel tortures of these wronged and oppressed sufferers were awakening the most intense sympathy in the nation, the king adopted a measure which roused a corresponding degree of political indignation.

Finding it difficult to procure supplies as readily as his necessities required, he devised the plan of assessing not only the maritime, but also the inland counties for sums of money, for the ostensible purpose of building ships of war. This tax, as even Clarendon admits, was intended not only for the support of the navy, but “for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply for all occasions.” This was clearly perceived, and immediately opposed by the bold and wise assertors of national liberty. The celebrated Hampden refused to pay his share of the tax, and determined to bring the legality of levying such an impost to a public trial. About the close of the year 1639, the cause was tried before the twelve judges in the Exchequer Chamber. The judges hesitated. They perceived clearly that the law was in favor of Hampden; but they held their situations during the royal pleasure, and seven decided that the tax was legal, while one doubted, and four condemned it. His majesty gained the decision; but Hampden and freedom gained the cause, in the strong feeling which was roused throughout the entire kingdom.

Another act of infatuation speedily followed. For a time the suffering Puritans alone had sought refuge from oppression in a voluntary exile; but now the defenders of civil liberty began to adopt the same course. At length even Hampden, and his cousin, Oliver Cromwell, discouraged with their long and hitherto fruitless struggle, resolved also to seek in the New World that liberty which seemed to have forsaken its ancient English home. But an order was published, forbidding any to leave the kingdom without permission from the privy council. They remained, returned to the field of danger and of duty, and resumed a contest which: presented now no medium between complete freedom and absolute slavery, — no retreat, no cessation, no alternative but victory or death. Thus, by this act of despotic infatuation, Charles gave to his most formidable antagonists the terrible energies of desperate necessity, and sealed his own dark and, hapless doom.

There was still another element introduced about this time, as if to render the dreadful combination perfect for evil. Although Laud did not attempt to deny the king’s supremacy in all matters ecclesiastical, yet the principle first promulgated by Bancroft — the divine authority of the episcopal order — had, taken possession of his narrow and restless mind, and impelled him to endeavor partially to realize it, though its full and ultimate bearing lay far beyond his reach even to imagine. He not only drew the half of the chancery business into the hands of persons nominated to their offices by the prelates, but also prevailed upon the king to allow the bishops to hold their ecclesiastical courts in their own names, and by their own seals, without the king’s letters patent under the Great Seal. This was a direct infringement of the royal prerogative; and to this he succeeded in adding another as glaring, namely, the power of the bishops to frame new articles of visitation, without the king’s authority, and to administer an oath of inquiry concerning them. In this manner the prelates became possessed of extensive jurisdiction, both civil and ecclesiastical, not only independent of Crown and Parliament, but based upon the assumption of a divine right, which rendered them entirely irresponsible, and beyond the control of human law. Had not the spirit of liberty, civil and religious, been at that time vigilant and strong, these prelatic usurpations must have soon reduced England to a state of the most abject slavery. And although the fearful recoil caused the death of both the wily prelate and the misled king, it is greatly to be feared that the Laudean principle is not yet dead, though it has long been dormant, — that it may yet awake in portentous strength, — and that it may put forth a power, and give rise to a struggle, of tremendous magnitude, before it be itself destroyed.

At length the king reached the turning point of his will and reckless course.

Instigated by his evil genius, Laud, he strove to impose upon the Presbyterian Church and people of Scotland the whole mass of prelatic rites and ceremonies, for the sake of which he had already driven England to the extreme point of endurance. But that point had been long previously reached in Scotland, and the attempt provoked an instantaneous and determined resistance. A large portion of the nobility, nearly all the middle classes, the whole of the ministers, and almost the entire body of the people, united in a solemn national covenant in defense of their religious liberties, resolved to peril life, and all that life holds dearest, rather than submit to the threatened violation of conscience. The king raised an army to subdue them by force, but shrunk from the perilous encounter, and framed an evasive truce. This abortive attempt exhausted his treasury, and compelled, him reluctantly to call a Parliament, from which he hoped to procure supplies. The Parliament met on the 13th of April 1640, after an interval of twelve years; but the spirit of liberty was now stronger in the bosom of its members than it had formerly been, and still less disposed to prostrate itself before the royal prerogative. His majesty demanded supplies, and promised then to grant time to take their grievances into consideration. The Commons began with applying for the redress of grievances, and. refused to proceed with the grant of a subsidy till these should be redressed. Disappointed and enraged, the king dissolved the Parliament, and threw the leading members into prison. But as his need of money was urgent, he commenced exacting it more oppressively than ever, by forced loans, by ship-money, by granting monopolies, and by every artifice which want could suggest and tyranny employ. And, as if conscious that Episcopacy was the cause of the sovereign’s distress, the Convocation which met at the same time, continued sitting after the dissolution of the Parliament, contrary to law and custom, and granted a considerable sum of money to his majesty, to enable him to prosecute the “Episcopal war.” This appeared a dangerous precedent, fraught with peril to the liberties of the kingdom, since, on the one hand, the king could augment the revenues of the clergy, and on the other, they could replenish his coffers, be his purposes what they might, without legislative authority, and thereby give him the means of completing his despotic encroachments. Seventeen canons were also published by this Convocation, in the sixth of which all clergymen are required to take an oath, expressing approbation of the doctrine, discipline, and government of the Church of England, one clause of which says, “Nor will I ever give my consent to alter the government of this Church, by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, etc., as it stands now established.” From this clause it obtained the name of “the et cetera oath ,” and became an additional element of strife between the Prelatists and the Puritans, driving many ministers into the latter body, because they could not consent to swear adherence to they knew not what.

Charles having again obtained a sufficient sum of money to enable him to maintain an army, broke off all pacific relations with his Scottish subjects, and marched northwards to subdue them by force. Rut they were not unprepared for such an event. The long course of intriguing dissimulation which they had detected and baffled, during the previous stages of their transactions with his majesty, had led them to the conclusion, that he would observe the terms of the most solemn treaty no longer than till he could violate them with safety. They had therefore retained their military officers in pay, and were in a condition to raise an army at a moment’s notice. There had been also begun a private correspondence between them and the leading English patriots; and they had received assurance, that if they should advance into England itself, they would be welcomed as deliverers. They accordingly crossed the border, defeated a strong party which opposed their passage of the Tyne at Newburn, took possession of Newcastle, and advanced into England. Alarmed with their progress, and finding it impossible to raise and maintain a sufficient force to resist them, in the disaffected state of his English subjects, the king appointed commissioners to treat with the Scots at Ripon. This led to a cessation of hostilities for two months, commencing October the 26th, during which the Scottish army were to be maintained at his majesty’s expense; the remaining negotiations for peace were transferred from Ripon to London.

It had again become necessary to call a Parliament, for the adjustment of the important matters in dispute; and great exertions were made on both sides in the election of members. But the heart of England was now fairly warmed, and its strong spirit roused. By far the majority of the elections were decided in favor of the defenders of liberty; and as all knew that the crisis had come, all were thoroughly prepared for the struggle. In that Parliament was collected not only the flower of living Englishmen, but it may be fearlessly said, that no age or nation has ever produced men of greater eminence, in abilities and character, than were the leaders of that celebrated assembly. To mention the names of Pym, Hampden, Cromwell, Selden, is to mention men of almost unequaled. distinction, in sagacity, patriotism, strength of mind, and extent of learning; and those who held but a secondary position, were, nevertheless, men who were possessed of talents and energy enough to have earned high renown in any period less prodigal of human power. Such was that House of Commons, afterwards so famous under the name of the Long Parliament.

Scarcely had this Parliament met, on the 3d of November 1640, when ample proof was given that its members were fully aware of the great task they had to perform. They appointed four committees to conduct with rapidity the important matters before them: for religious grievances, — for the affairs of Scotland and Ireland, — for civil grievances, — concerning Popery and Popish plots. In these committees affairs were prepared for full discussion in the House, so that there might be neither loss of time nor mismanagement. And as religious grievances had long been felt, and had led to the greater part of the civil oppression which had roused the kingdom, the Parliament took these immediately into consideration. The canons of the late Convocation were declared to be illegal, and not binding; and sharp animadversions were made respecting Laud, as their chief author. This led to the framing of an impeachment against him, as engaged in the treasonable design of subverting the religion and laws of his country.

The complaint of the Scottish commissioners against Laud, as the real author of all the commotions which had taken place in Scotland, formed a large and heavy portion of the charge which led to the impeachment of the unfortunate archbishop. An accusation, consisting of fourteen articles, was drawn up, presented to the House of Lords, and. the charge being sustained, he was committed to the Tower.

About the same time, or rather a few days before it, the Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was also impeached, and committed to the Tower. The letters and dispatches which passed between Laud and Strafford clearly prove that they were the prime instigators of all the tyrannical measures which had characterized the government of Charles for the preceding twelve years, — at which time Strafford (then Mr.

Wentworth)deserted the patriotic party, and, like all apostates, became the most bitter enemy of the cause which he had forsaken. The very term employed by Laud, as distinctive of himself and his measures — “Thorough — shows clearly the character of the keen, relentless spirit and despotic temper which filled his narrow mind. And the haughty, dark, and arrogant nature of Strafford, — conscious of great abilities, full of ambitious designs, and utterly unscrupulous with regard to the measures by which they should be carried into effect, — rendered him in every respect a dangerous man, particularly as the confidential adviser and favorite minister of a monarch who himself aimed at despotism. It was not strange that the Commons of England thought it necessary to remove such men from his majesty’s councils, as a preliminary step towards the recovery of the nation’s liberties. The result of these impeachments is well known; but as several important transactions intervened, these must first be narrated.

Redress was granted to several of those who had suffered, under prelatic tyranny. Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick were released from their imprisonment in the Channel Islands, and conducted through London in a sort of triumphal procession. Alexander Leighton was also released from prison, and appointed keeper of Lambeth Palace. Several bishops and other clerical dignitaries were accused of illegal and oppressive conduct, and felt some portion of the weight of retributive justice. And so strong was the indignation which, long suppressed, now burst forth with proportionally greater vehemence, that some difficulty was experienced in restraining the people from inflicting upon their oppressors what Bacon terms “wild justice.”

The flood-gates were now opened, the popular mind began to rush forth, and it required both great strength and great dexterity to guide it into a safe channel. It had been part of the Laudean policy to prevent all public discussion respecting the high pretensions of Prelacy; but freedom of discussion was now procured, and the press began to pour forth treatises of every kind and size, in which not only were the abuses of Prelacy fully stated, but also the Prelatic form of Church government itself was strenuously assailed. Bishop Hall wrote in defense of Episcopacy, and was answered by a celebrated treatise, under the title of “Smectymnuus,” a word formed from the initial letters of the names of its authors, – Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstowe. Even the mighty Milton employed his pen in this keen literary warfare; and it is no rash matter to assert, that in learning, talent, genius, and strength of argument, the Puritan writers immeasurably surpassed their antagonists, and produced an impression on the public mind so deep and strong that it decided the controversy, so far as Prelatic Church government was concerned, even at its beginning.

Along with the literary warfare, another method of assault, not less formidable, was employed. Petitions were poured into the House of Commons from every part of the country, signed by almost incredible numbers, against the hierarchy; some desiring its reformation, others praying that the whole system might be destroyed. Of the latter kind, that which attracted chief attention was one from the city of London, signed by about fifteen thousand persons, and generally termed “The Root and Branch Petition,” on account of an expression which occurs in its prayer, viz., “That the said government, with all its dependencies, roots and branches, may be abolished.” Counter-petitions were also brought forward in defense of the hierarchy, scarcely, if at all, less numerous. Debates arose in consequence, and very strong language was employed by several members, condemnatory of the oppressive conduct of the hierarchy. Bills were also introduced, chiefly with the view of taking away legislative authority from the bishops, by relieving them from the discharge of civil duties in the Upper House; but the House of Lords rejected these measures, and, after a protracted struggle, there seemed to be no prospect of getting that grievance remedied.

A difficulty of a legal nature occurred in the trial of Strafford. Although his accusation specified matters of the most arbitrary and oppressive character, yet it was not clear that they fell within the express terms of statutedefinition of high treason. The charge was therefore so altered as to enable the Commons to proceed with a bill of attainder, which passed that House, and was brought before the Lords. There seemed to be great probability that it would be lost in that House, when an event occurred which changed the whole aspect of affairs, so far as that was pacific. A plot was formed by some leading officers in the army and the courtiers, to bring the army to London, in order to overawe the Parliament, rescue Strafford, and take possession of the metropolis. This plot was discovered, traced out, publicly stated to Parliament by Mr. Pym, on the 2d May 1641, and immediately the conspirators absconded, — some even seeking safety by fleeing to France. The effect was like a lightning-Hash, — sudden and fatal. It revealed to the community their own peril, and the nature of the measures which the king was capable of pursuing; and thus it drove them to the conclusion that his word or treaty could not be trusted, and that the only method of securing their own safety consisted in depriving him of all power to injure them. Numerous and tumultuary mobs assembled around the Houses of Parliament, rending the air with cries of “Justice! Justice!” In this state of public agitation the peers passed the bill of attainder.

Another important measure passed at the same perilous moment. The king was anxious that the Scottish army should return to Scotland, being well aware that its presence in England was a source of great strength to the patriots, paralyzing, at the same time, his own military preparations. He repeatedly urged Parliament to relieve the country from the oppressive burden of maintaining these two armies, the Scottish and his own. The House of Commons had already borrowed large sums for the payment of the current expenses; and a still larger sum would be required for the completion of the transaction. But when the plot against the Parliament was detected, the citizens of London, who had hitherto advanced the necessary supplies on Parliamentary security, refused to contribute any more on a security which appeared to be so precarious. Public credit being thus overthrown, the only expedient for its recovery which presented itself was, to secure the continuation of the Parliament till these troubles should terminate. A bill was framed for this purpose, enacting, “That this present Parliament shall not be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved, without their own consent.” This bill passed both Houses with very slight opposition, and received. the royal assent by commission, along with the bill of attainder against the Earl of Strafford. It would seem that the detection of the plot against the Parliament had completely stunned the king and his advisers, so that, in their guilty confusion, they were incapable of perceiving the vast import of such a concession, which rendered the Parliament completely independent of, and coordinate with, the king during its own pleasure.

Yet another step was taken, of scarcely less importance. Mr. Pym moved, that both Houses might join in some bond of defense, for the security of their liberties and of the Protestant religion. A protestation was accordingly framed, almost identical in principle with the National Covenant of Scotland, though somewhat different in form, and less minute in detail. The protestation was as follows: — “I, A. B., do, in the presence of Almighty God, promise, vow, and protest to maintain and defend, as far as lawfully I may, with my life, power, and estate, the true Reformed Protestant Religion, expressed in the doctrine of the Church of England, against all Popery and Popish innovation within this realm, contrary to the said doctrine; and according to the duty of my allegiance, I will maintain and defend his majesty’s royal person, honor, and estate: Also the power and privileges of Parliament, the lawful rights and liberties of the subjects, and every person that shall make this protestation, in whatsoever he shall do in the lawful pursuance of the same; and to my power, as far as lawfully I may, I will oppose, and by all good ways and means endeavor to bring condign punishment on all such as shall by force, practice, counsels, plots, conspiracies, or otherwise, do any thing to the contrary in the present protestation contained: And further, that I shall, in all just and honorable ways, endeavor to preserve the union and peace betwixt the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland; and neither for hope, fear, or any other respects, shall relinquish this promise, vow, and protestation.”

This protestation was subscribed by the whole House of Commons on the 3d of May, and next day by all the Peers present in Parliament, except two; it was then printed, and sent to every part of the kingdom, to be taken by the whole nation; and when it was opposed, the Commons passed a resolution, declaring, “That whosoever would not take the protestation was unfit to bear once in the Church or Commonwealth.” To this course of procedure the king offered no opposition; and let it be observed, that the English House of Commons acted a much more arbitrary part, in the enforcing of this protestation, than had been done in Scotland with regard to the National Covenant: and as this took place more than two full years before the Solemn League and Covenant between the two kingdoms was even thought of, and was done by a House of Commons all nominally Episcopalians, it proves that it is directly contrary to fact and truth, to ascribe the severe measures of the Long Parliament to Presbyterian intolerance.

Events of great moment now followed each other with startling rapidity. A bill was passed abolishing the Court of High Commission; and another, putting an end to the Star-Chamber. Both these bills were signed by the king; and thus the main engines of oppression were destroyed. Acquiring fresh confidence by success, the House of Commons resumed their proceedings against the bishops, and actually prepared articles of impeachment. The king, perceiving that he was waging an unsuccessful warfare, changed his course, and suddenly intimated to the Parliament that he intended to pay a visit to Scotland, to complete the pacification with that country. The long-pending treaty was concluded and ratified, and his majesty journeyed to his native country with such expedition as to show that some important measures were in his mind. The leading Parliamentary politicians penetrated his design, — which indeed was sufficiently apparent.

He had felt the strength of that support which the presence in England of the Scottish army gave to the patriotic party; and he justly imagined, that if he could not only detach the Scots from the English Parliament, but gain them to himself, he would then be able to reduce his refractory subjects to his own terms. The king’s absence necessarily led to the adjournment of the Parliament; but its chief committees continued to meet, and a small committee was formed. to accompany his majesty to Scotland. The secret purpose of this committee was, to give to the leading Scottish statesmen such private information as should put them on their guard against the arts of royal dissimulation which might be practiced. For this the Scottish leaders were already prepared by their own painful experience, and although the king exerted himself to the utmost to give satisfaction to them, and bestowed honors on the chief of the Covenanters, yet he could not remove their suspicions, — still less induce them to pledge themselves for the support of his intentions.

Not only were his majesty’s expectations disappointed, but additional cause was given to his people to watch all his movements with increasing jealousy. Before the king’s arrival in Scotland, the Earl of Montrose had been detected forming a conspiracy to betray the Covenanters, even while acting as one of their commissioners at Ripon. For this, and other similar matters, he had been imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Even in his confinement he found means of corresponding with his associates, and, through them, with the king; and a plot was formed, of which there is strong reason to believe the king to have been aware, to seize Argyle and Hamilton, and either put them to death, or hurry them on board a frigate which lay in Leith roads, and having thus struck terror into the Covenanters, to put the army into the hands of the king, at the head of which his majesty might return and overpower his refractory Parliament in England. The discovery of this plot excited a sudden and strong commotion; but the king endeavored to cause it to be regarded as entirely a groundless alarm, and redoubled his efforts to give all possible satisfaction to the Covenanters. This event, known by the name of “The Incident,” sunk deep into men’s minds, and led them to entertain the belief, that the king was capable of conniving at any measure, however dark and bloody, provided that it could promote his progress towards absolute despotism.

The fearful outburst of Popish fury, termed the Irish Massacre, taking place at the same time, gave to all these suspicions the most dark and dreadful aspect, and filled the heart of both England and Scotland with intense horror and alarm. And although it may be difficult to prove that Charles directly instigated the Irish Papists to this insurrection, or anticipated the terrific deeds that were done, yet it would be still more difficult to acquit him of knowing that it was intended, and of conniving at it, with the expectation of turning it to his own advantage, by means of the armed forces which would be placed under his command. Such was the state of matters, and such the agitated temper of the kingdom, when Charles returned to London, again to resume his contest with the Parliament, now roused to a pitch of almost desperate determination. A committee had been appointed, a considerable time before, “to draw out of all the grievances of the nation such a remonstrance as might be a faithful and lively representation to his majesty of the deplorable state of the kingdom.” This remonstrance, consisting of two hundred and six articles, was read in the House of Commons on the 22d of November 1641. It had to encounter a very strong opposition; and after a debate which lasted from three in the afternoon till three in the morning, it was carried by a majority of 11, the votes being 159 to 148. Within a few days after the remonstrance had, been presented to his majesty, and before he had returned an answer, it was printed and dispersed all over the kingdom. By this step, certainly defective in courtesy, the Parliament fairly took their ground, threw themselves and their cause upon the principle and intelligence of the kingdom, and thenceforward the struggle was one between the sovereign and the nation.

The trial of the bishops, who had been impeached as authors of the nation’s grievances, came next. The bishops attempted to stay the proceedings by entering a demurrer. Great and dangerous tumults arose in consequence of the position taken by the prelates; and they, alarmed, and considering themselves exposed to personal danger, determined to abstain from going to the House of Lords, and drew up a protestation against whatsoever should be done by Parliament in their absence, as null, and of no effect. Their greatest enemies could not have suggested to them a more self- destructive course. They were immediately accused of acting in a manner destructive of Parliaments, and assuming a negative voice in the Legislature, possessed by the king alone; and a new impeachment being framed on this ground, ten of them were sent to the Tower. These proceedings exasperated the king to such a degree, that he immediately resolved to retaliate; and sent the attorney-general to the House of Commons to impeach of high treason five of the leading members, namely, Lord Kimbolton, Sir Arthur Hazelrigge, Denzill Hollis, John Pym, John Hampden, and William Stroud. The Commons not having ordered them into custody, the king himself went to the House next day(January 4th)to seize them, attended by a crowd of armed men. They had received notice of his intention and withdrawn, so that when he placed himself in the Speaker’s chair, and looked around him he perceived that this violent and unconstitutional attempt was abortive. The most intense excitement arose, Parliament adjourned for a week, the citizens of London protected the five members, and offered to raise the trained bands for the protection of Parliament itself. In vain did the king attempt to overawe them by fortifying Whitehall, and placing artillerymen in the Tower. They were equally resolute, and prepared to bear back force by force if necessary. In this great moment, when every measure was surcharged with peril, the king’s infatuation again prevailed; and instead of remaining either to amend his error, or to confront the danger, he forsook Whitehall on the 10th of January, removing first to Hampton Court, then to Windsor, and soon afterwards to York, leaving all the elements of strife, which his despotic proceedings had aroused, to combine and rush onward in a torrent of irresistible might.

Very soon after his majesty’s departure from London, the bill to remove the bishops from the House of Lords, that they might not “be entangled with secular jurisdiction,” was again brought forward, passed by a large majority on the 6th of February, and on the 14th of the same month obtained the royal signature by commission.

But the intentions of the king soon began to display their hostile aspect too evidently to be any longer misunderstood. From York he made a rapid movement upon Hull, at the head of a considerable body of cavalry, on the 23d of April, for the purpose of seizing upon that important town, and taking possession of its magazines. Sir John Hotham refused to admit him with more than twelve attendants, having been appointed to his situation as governor by the Parliament, to whom he was responsible for its custody; and the king, in his disappointment and anger, declared him a traitor. Several manifestoes passed between the king and the Parliament, both on account of this event, and with regard to the command of the militia; but the progress of negotiation, instead of producing an agreement rendered the breach wider and wider, preparatory for an entire disruption.

Considerable numbers of both Houses forsook the Parliament and joined the king; an army was formed, and Hull was invested in regular form. To meet this hostile movement, the two Houses, on the 12th of July, resolved that an army should be raised for the defense of the king and Parliament, and gave the command to the Earl of Essex. On the 9th of August, the king proclaimed Essex and his adherents traitors; and also declared both Houses guilty of high treason, forbidding all his subjects to yield obedience to them. The Parliament, on the other hand, proclaimed all who should join the king’s army traitors against the Parliament and the kingdom. In another proclamation, the king summoned all his faithful subjects to repair to him at Nottingham, where, on the 22d day of August 1642, he caused his standard to be erected in a field adjoining the castle wall. Few complied with this warlike summons; but the standard was erected amid the gathering gloom and the rising gusts of a commencing tempest, which, ere evening, increased to a perfect hurricane, and dashed to the earth the royal banner, as if ominous of the fierce storm of civil war then bursting on the land, and the disgrace and ruin that awaited the royal cause.

It had for some time been clearly perceived by the Parliament that war was inevitable, especially after the king’s attempt upon Hull; and they accordingly began to make all necessary preparations. The friendly countenance and support of Scotland was of the utmost importance, and this, therefore, they resolved to secure. Twice had the Council of Scotland attempted to mediate between the king and the Parliament, first in the beginning of the year, and again in May; but though the Parliament accepted their mediation, it was rejected by the king in a peremptory tone, commanding them to be content with their own settlement, and not to intermeddle with the affairs of another nation. The English Parliament, understanding that the General Assembly was to meet in Edinburgh about the end of July, addressed a letter to that body, stating the perilous aspect of affairs, and expressing their desire to avoid a civil war, and yet to promote reformation in both Church and State. The assembly’s answer, dated 3d August, expresses sympathy with the sufferings and dangers of England, recommends unity of religion, “That in all his majesty’s dominions there might be one Confession of Faith, one Directory of Worship, one public Catechism, and one form of Church government,” accusing the prelatical hierarchy of being the great impediment against obtaining that desirable result. A letter from a number of English divines was addressed to the same Assembly, in which, after expressing gratitude for previous advices, they state, “That the desire of the most godly and considerable part amongst us is, that the Presbyterian government, which hath just and evident foundation, both in the Word of God and religious reason, may be established amongst us, and that(according to your intimation)we may agree in one Confession of Faith, one Directory of Worship, one public Catechism and form of government.” From these expressions it is evident that both the English Parliament and the Puritan divines were perfectly aware of the views entertained by the Scottish Parliament and Assembly; and yet did not hesitate to seek assistance, and to assent to the idea of a uniformity in religious worship, which Scotland regarded as an indispensable condition.

Nor does it appear that the English Parliament entertained any reluctance to procure Scottish aid on such terms. For, in the month of September, a bill was passed through the House of Commons, and on the 10th of that month through the House of Lords, entitled “An Act for the utter abolishing and taking away of all archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries,” etc., — ordaining, that after the 5th of November 1648, there shall be no archbishop, etc., including the whole array of dignitaries and cathedral functionaries, and that all their titles, jurisdictions, and offices, “shall cease, determine, and become absolutely void;” that their possessions should return to the king; that the property of cathedrals should be vested in trustees, who should give a stipend to their late possessors, and out of the remainder support preaching ministers, both in towns, and through the country where required.” Thus was the English hierarchy overthrown by a Parliament which even Clarendon admits to have been composed of men favorably disposed to Episcopacy; and this overthrow took place at a time when the Parliament had not resolved to what form of Church government a legal ratification should be given, a whole year being allowed to elapse before the act of abolition should take effect, to allow ample time for the deliberations of an assembly of divines which they intended to call together for that purpose. And so far was the Scottish General Assembly from attempting to force England to adopt the Presbyterian form of Church government, that they abstained from framing a Confession of Faith and Directory for themselves, till it should be seen what England would do, that the matter might not be foreclosed, but the Church of Scotland left at liberty to adopt the same general system, if it should prove such as to gain their approbation. Even at an earlier period, in the very commencement of the negotiations between the English Parliament and the Scottish Church and people, the latter had strongly advocated a uniformity of religious worship in the three kingdoms, and at the same time had as strongly disclaimed the idea of presuming to dictate to England in so grave and important a matter. Yet this accusation is constantly urged against the Church of Scotland by her adversaries, in ignorance, it may be hoped, of the real facts of the case; although it is not denied that the Scottish Church naturally cherished the expectation that any thorough religious reform in England would produce a Church more resembling the other Protestant Churches than it had been under its wealthy and political hierarchy.

The sword was now unsheathed; and for a period the more harmless war of negotiations and manifestoes was abandoned, and a sterner conflict waged.

Several battles were fought, some with doubtful success, and in others to the disadvantage of the Parliament. When the approach of winter led to a partial cessation of hostilities, proposals were again made for peace, and commissioners were sent from the Parliament to Oxford to endeavor to frame a treaty. The Scottish Council sent commissioners also. And hopes were for some time entertained, that the king would consent to such terms as might restore peace to the kingdom without the absolute surrender of its liberties. But it was discovered that his majesty was busily engaged in framing a double plot; — one part of which had for its object the seizure of London; the other, that Montrose should raise the Highlands of Scotland, while the Irish army should invade the western parts of that kingdom, and, having subdued the Covenanters, march to the assistance of the king against his English Parliament. The discovery of these plots, the contumelious treatment sustained by the Scottish commissioners, and the manifest duplicity of the king himself, caused the treaty to be broken off, and both parties prepared to resume the conflict in the field. Again the king’s troops were repeatedly successful, and the Parliament were constrained to make redoubled exertions to maintain their ground. For the same reason, they were the more anxious to enter into a close treaty with Scotland, and appointed commissioners to attend the Scottish Convention of Estates, and General Assembly, which were to meet in the beginning of August 1648.

Before that period the Parliament had been endeavoring to advance in what they felt to be of primary importance, — the reformation of religion. By the act of September 10, 1642, it had been ordained that the prelatic form of Church government should be abolished from and after the 5th of November 1643; and it had also been determined that an assembly of divines should be held, to complete the necessary reformation. In the meantime, enactments were passed for the better observance of the Lord’s Day, — the suppression of the “Book of Sports,” — the keeping of monthly fasts and lectures, — the removal of all superstitious monuments and ornaments out of churches, — and for the trial of scandalous and inefficient ministers, as well as for granting some support to those of the Puritan ministers who had been ejected in former times for nonconformity, or had recently suffered from the ravages of the king’s army. One of the articles in the grand remonstrance of December 1641, had expressed the desire of the Parliament that there might be “a general synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this island, assisted with some from foreign parts professing the same religion with us, who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good government of the Church; and to represent the result of their consultations, to be allowed and confirmed, and to receive the stamp of authority.” During the treaty of Oxford, a bill of the same purport was presented, and rejected by his majesty. And when at length convinced that the king would make no concessions in behalf of civil and religious liberty, the Parliament resolved that they would delay no longer, but turn the bill into an Ordinance, and convene the Assembly by their own authority. This important Ordinance is dated June 12, 1648, and is as follows: — “An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, for the calling of an Assembly of learned and godly Divines, and others, to be consulted with by the Parliament, for the settling of the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing of the Doctrine of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations.” “Whereas, amongst the infinite blessings of Almighty God upon this nation, none is, or can be, more dear unto us than the purity of our religion; and for that, as yet many things remain, in the Liturgy, discipline, and government of the Church, which do necessarily require a further and more perfect reformation than yet hath been attained: And whereas it hath been declared and resolved by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, that the present Church government, by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers, depending upon the hierarchy, is evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom; and that therefore they are resolved that the same shall be taken away, and that such a government shall be settled in the Church as may be most agreeable to God’s Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and other reformed Churches abroad:

And for the better effecting hereof, and for the vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the Church of England from all false calumnies and aspersions, it is thought fit and necessary to call an Assembly of learned, godly, and judicious divines, to consul” and advise of such matters and things, touching the premises, as shall be proposed unto them by both or either of the Houses of Parliament, and to give their advice and counsel therein to both or either of the said Houses, when, and as often as, they shall be thereunto required: “Be it therefore ordained, by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, that all and every the persons hereafter in this ordinance named, that is to say,” [Here follow the names] “and such other persons as shall be nominated and appointed by both Houses of Parliament, or as many of them as shall not be letted by sickness, or other necessary impediment, shall meet and assemble, and are hereby required and enjoined, upon summons signed by the clerks of both Houses of Parliament, left at their several respective dwellings, to meet and assemble at Westminster, in the chapel called King Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, on the first day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and forty-three; and after the first meeting, being at least of the number of forty; shall from time to time sit, and be removed from place to place; and also, that the said Assembly shall be dissolved in such manner as by both Houses of Parliament shall be directed. And the said persons, or so many of them as shall be so assembled or sit, shall have power and authority, and are hereby likewise enjoined, from time to time during this present Parliament, or until further order be taken by both the said Houses, to confer and treat among themselves of such matters and things, touching and concerning the Liturgy, discipline, and government of the Church of England, or the vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the same from all false aspersions and misconstructions, as shall be proposed to them by both or either of the said Houses of Parliament, and no other; and to deliver their opinions and advices of or touching the matters aforesaid, as shall be most agreeable to the Word of God, to both or either of the said Houses, from time to time, in such manner and sort as by both or either of the said Houses of Parliament shall be required, and the same not to divulge, by printing, writing, or otherwise, without the consent of both or either House of Parliament. “And be it further ordained, by the authority aforesaid, that William Twisse, Doctor in Divinity, shall sit in the chair, as prolocutor of the said Assembly; and if he happen to die, or be letted by sickness, or other necessary impediment, then such other person to be appointed in his place as shall be agreed on by both the said Houses of Parliament. And in case any difference of opinion shall happen amongst any of the said persons so assembled, touching any of the matters that shall be proposed to them, as aforesaid, that then they shall represent the same, together with the reasons thereof, to both or either the said Houses respectively, to the end such further direction may be given therein as shall be requisite in that behalf.

And be it further ordained, by the authority aforesaid, that for the charges and expense of the said divines, and every of them, in attending the said service, there shall be allowed unto every of them that shall so attend the sum of four shillings for every day, at the charges of the Commonwealth, at such time, and in such manner, as by both Houses of Parliament shall be appointed. And be it further ordained, that all and every the said divines, so as aforesaid required and enjoined to meet and assemble, shall be freed and acquitted of and from every offense, forfeiture, penalty, loss, or damage, which shall or may arise or grow by reason of any nonresidence or absence of them, or any of them, from his or their, or any of their, church, churches, or cures, for or in respect of the said attendance upon the said service, any law or statute of nonresidence, or other law or statute enjoining their attendance upon their respective ministries or charges, to the contrary thereof notwithstanding. And if any of the persons before named shall happen to die before the said Assembly shall be dissolved by order of both Houses of Parliament, then such other person or persons shall be nominated and placed in the room and stead of such person or persons so dying, as by both the said Houses shall be thought fit and agreed upon: And every such person or persons so to be named, shall have the like power and authority, freedom and acquittal, to all intents and purposes, and also all such wages and allowances for the said service, during the time of his or their attendance, as to any other of the said persons in this ordinance named is by this ordinance limited and appointed. Provided always, that this ordinance, or any thing therein contained, shall not give unto the persons aforesaid, or any of them, nor shall they in this Assembly assume to exercise, any jurisdiction, power, or authority ecclesiastical whatsoever, or any other power than is herein particularly expressed.” Such was the Ordinance calling together the famous Westminster Assembly of Divines; and while that Ordinance is immediately before the reader, it may be expedient to direct his attention to some of its peculiarities. About nine months had elapsed since the passing of the bill for abolishing the hierarchical form of Church government, during all which period there was no form of Church government in England at all. It was impossible, therefore, that the Assembly could meet in any ordinary form, either as a Convocation, according to the Prelatic system; or by the votes of the ministers, according to the Presbyterian system; but it was of necessity called by the Parliament, who nominated all the members themselves, for the purpose of obtaining their advice respecting the further reformation which should take place, and the organized form which should be assumed by the Church of England. For though the Prelatic system had been abolished, yet the Parliament did not imagine that the Church had therefore ceased to exist, as the language of the Ordinance proves. Let it be observed also, that one object in view by the Parliament in calling this Assembly, was for the express purpose of procuring a “nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformed Churches abroad;” so that, as there were no other kinds of national Churches but the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian, it must have been the intention of the English Parliament to bring their Church nearer to the Presbyterian system, if not to adopt that system entirely. It is therefore equally calumnious and absurd to accuse the Church of Scotland of attempting to constrain the English Parliament in its intended ecclesiastical reform, for the purpose of getting the Presbyterian polity introduced. The Parliament had to choose, — to retain the Prelatic system, with all the tyranny and oppression which had become absolutely intolerable, — to adopt the Presbyterian, to which the Puritan ministers were already predisposed, — or to have no national Church at all, with the imminent peril of national anarchy. And let this also be observed, that the long intermixture of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions in England, while it had given to the Parliament a very just dread of permitting ecclesiastical persons to possess civil jurisdiction, had both familiarized them with the idea, contained in the sovereign’s ecclesiastical supremacy, of a blended jurisdiction, and had driven them to entertain the conviction that civil rulers ought to rule in ecclesiastical causes equally as in their own peculiar province. Even the fact that there was at the time no legal form of Church government in the kingdom, and that consequently there could be no assembly of divines without being called by Parliament, led to the infusion of an Erastian taint into the very calling together of that Assembly, and the framing of the regulations limiting and directing its deliberations.

Having now arrived at the actual calling of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, it may be expedient, before proceeding to relate its deliberations, to give a very brief outline of the leading topics contained in the history and character of the Church of Scotland, so far as it is necessary that these should be known, in order to obtain a full understanding of the subject.

The Reformation in Scotland began and was carried on in a manner the direct reverse of that which took place in England. In the latter country it began in royal caprice or passion, — was at the first rendered subservient to the arbitrary will of a despotic monarch, through the pernicious element of his ecclesiastical supremacy, — was checked and turned awry by that element, and in the struggle between those who wished a further and more complete reformation and the courtly and prelatic rulers of the Church, it ended in a civil and religious despotism too heavy and cruel to be any longer endured. In Scotland it was entirely an ecclesiastical movement from the very beginning. Patrick Hamilton, the noble and youthful friend of Luther and Melancthon, learned the doctrines of the reformed faith, and taught them to his countrymen, till his testimony was sealed with the blood of martyrdom. Wishart gave an additional impulse to the sacred. cause, equally by his teaching and his death. Several of the Popish priesthood were converted, and aided in converting others. John Knox caught up the same testimony; and though, by the commanding power of his genius, and the unconquerable energy of his character, he caused the voice of religious reformation to be heard throughout the kingdom equally by prince and peasant, in the palace and the cottage, still it was simply and essentially a religious reformation, taking its form and impress directly from the Word of God alone, and encountering at every step the formidable opposition of civil powers and political intrigues, instead of receiving from them its bias and its external aspect. Relieving that God’s Word contained the only authoritative direction for doing God’s work, the Scottish reformers made their sole appeal “to the law and to the testimony;” and though they respected the great continental reformers, they sought the principles of doctrine, discipline, and Church government, from no foreign model, but from the Holy Scriptures alone. Thus it was that the Church of Scotland framed its Confession of Faith and its First Book of Discipline, and met in its first General Assembly for its own government, seven years before it had even received the sanction of the Legislature. Its first General Assembly was held in 1560, — the first act of Parliament recognizing it as the National Church was passed in 1567. From its origin it had to encounter the world’s opposition; in its growth it received little or nothing of a worldly intermixture; and when it reached somewhat of matured form, it still stood opposed to the world’s corrupting influence.

But a few years elapsed till the rapacity and the overbearing force of the nobility began to pillage and assail the Scottish Church; and where direct power could not prevail, fraud and dissimulation were employed. The first attempt against the free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, was that of Regent Morton, who devised the well known scheme of tulchan bishops, that by their instrumentality he might at once seize its revenues and corrupt its courts. When King James assumed the reins of government he followed a similar course, with less energy, but greater cunning, and with unwearied pertinacity. His theory of government was absolute despotism; and he had sagacity enough to perceive, that where the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions were distinct, his theory could not possibly be realized. And as the Church of Scotland was equally opposed to either aspect of his theory, refusing to intermeddle with civil affairs herself, and refusing to permit civil rulers to intermeddle with matters of a spiritual character, the wily tyrant saw the necessity of subverting the Presbyterian form of Church government, and establishing Prelacy in its stead; well aware that he would easily acquire an influence over titled and wealthy clergy at Court, which he could never obtain over a free General Assembly. But neither force nor treachery could succeed till after he ascended the English throne; when, by means of the combined power of English wealth and English influence, he so far changed the government of the Scottish Church as to procure the appointment of bishops, the half submission to certain rites and ceremonies, and the partial suppression of General Assemblies. Still a considerable portion of the nobility, the greater part of the ministers, and by far the majority of the people, remained Presbyterians in principle, and bore an insurmountable dislike to Prelacy. James had foresight enough to see that it would be hazardous to proceed farther; and refused to comply with the solicitations of Laud, who was eager to impose the whole of his beloved Episcopalian forms on the Church of Scotland.

When Charles I ascended the throne, he found England in a state of discontent swelling towards insurrection, in consequence of the long course of tyranny, civil and religious, which it had uneasily endured.

Unfortunately for him and for the kingdom, he had imbibed all his father’s despotic notions of the absolute and irresponsible nature of the royal prerogative; and to little less than his father’s dissimulation and insincerity, he added far greater strength of mind, and strength, or rather obstinacy of purpose. Yielding himself entirely to the counsels of Laud, and of his beautiful but imperious and relentless queen, he not only refused to mitigate the sufferings of the English Puritans, but resolved to complete what his father had begun, and to bring the Scottish Church into an entire conformity with that of England. A Book of Canons, and a Liturgy, were framed by the Scottish bishops, chiefly by Maxwell, bishop of Ross, revised by Laud, and sent to Scotland to be at once adopted and used, without even the formality of having them laid before any Scottish civil or ecclesiastical court. The free spirit of Scotland was roused by this mingled insult and tyranny. At first a sudden tumult broke out, and rendered the scheme abortive; and then followed a wide, deep, and steady determination to wrench asunder the despotic yoke of Prelacy, and to restore to Scotland, in all its original purity and freedom, her own dearly purchased and beloved Presbyterian Church. Pledging themselves in a sacred National Covenant, the noblest, the wisest, and the best of Scotland’s sons and daughters prepared to encounter every peril, and to sacrifice all that life holds dear, rather than yield up their most precious birthright and inheritance, — their religious liberty. Provoked to see so bold and firm a front of resistance shown to his despotic designs in the poorest and least populous part of his dominions, Charles raised an army and marched against his hitherto unconquered Scottish subjects. He was met on the border by an equal array of that high-hearted and intelligent class of men, the Scottish peasantry, who have no parallel in any land, trained as they are from infancy to know, to love, and to fear God, and fearing Him, to have no other fear. The king could, in bitterness, mock their poverty, but he shrunk from the encounter with men who knew better how to die in what they believed to be the cause of sacred truth and liberty, than how to yield. He framed an evasive peace, and returned to England, purposing to conciliate the Parliament so far that he might obtain the means of overwhelming Scotland by a new army too mighty for that small kingdom to resist.

But the English Parliament had, with deep interest, marked the power of high principles in the triumph of the Scottish people; and refused to gratify their despotic sovereign, perceiving well that the overthrow of that free country would be speedily followed by the loss of their own remaining liberties. A secret, but a constant intercourse, was begun and carried on between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters, for their mutual support in defending their civil and religious liberties against the aggressions of the king. And when Charles again raised an army for the prosecution of the bellum Episcopale , the “Episcopal war,” the Scottish Covenanters no longer acted only on the defensive, but boldly entered England, declaring, at the same time, their pacific intentions, their friendship towards England, their loyalty to the king, and their desire only to procure the removal from his majesty’s councils of those persons who were plotting the overthrow of religious and civil liberty in both countries.

Charles again was constrained to recoil from their firm front, and to recommence a treaty of pacification, first at Ripon, and then at London.

The Scottish commissioners experienced the most friendly treatment in London; and the preaching of the ministers, who were empowered to treat for the Church, while in the metropolis, attracted crowds, and appears to have produced a deep and favorable impression respecting both themselves and their cause, as even the bitter and contumelious language of Clarendon sufficiently proves.

The king perceiving that the presence of the Scottish commissioners in London tended to confirm their intimacy and influence with the Parliament, at length hastily concluded the treaty of pacification, and set out for Scotland, with the avowed intention of completely terminating all the necessary transactions with the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of that kingdom; but, as afterwards appeared, with the deep design of maturing the embryo plots of Scottish conspirators, and the intended insurrection of the Irish Papists. The intrigues of Montrose, the dark event termed “The Incident,” the sudden outburst of the Irish Massacre, and the king’s attempt, after his return, to seize the five members of the English Parliament, have all been already related briefly, and need not be here retraced. Suffice it to say, that, while considered separately, they were sufficiently startling, when viewed in the light of the king’s previous conduct, and as they occurred in the order of time, they gave to all who valued religious and civil liberty in both England and Scotland a fearful impression of the terrible deeds which the king could do or sanction for the recovery of his shaken power, and the establishing of his desired absolute despotism. They saw with deep regret, that they had to deal with a sovereign who regarded treaties but as a species of diplomatic warfare, in which parties strive to overreach each other, and by whom the most solemn stipulations would be observed no longer than till his safety would permit, or his interest induce, him to break them. It became, therefore, imperatively necessary for the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters, that is, the Scottish nation, to enter into some common bond of union, by means of which they might prevent the danger of being deceived, divided, and overpowered by their unscrupulous antagonist, and both countries reduced to slavery and degradation.

In devising this common bond, there was some difference of opinion between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters, though a difference rather of accident than of essence, arising out of the different points of view from which they contemplated the common object. In England, the long course of oppression pursued by Elizabeth, James, and Charles, fell chiefly on the Puritans, who never, at any time, had formed a majority in the nation; and it was not till spiritual despotism began to produce civil tyranny, as it always does, that England fairly awoke. For that reason the main aspect of the struggle in England was one in behalf of civil liberty; and, consequently, what they chiefly wished to form with Scotland was a civil league. On the other hand, the contest had from the first, in Scotland, been of a religious character, the king attempting to overthrow the religious liberties of the vast majority, and to place a religious despotism in the hands of a very small minority. And although civil liberty was also assailed inevitably, yet the primary and main object of attack was religion; so that when the people of Scotland united to defend their sacred rights and privileges, their bond was almost entirely of a religious character, as is proved from the tenor of the National Covenant. And as it had been by means of English influence that the Church of Scotland had been overpowered, the statesmen and divines of Scotland were fully convinced that they could not safely enter into any close alliance with England, unless their great enemy Prelacy were first abolished, and that no secure and lasting intimacy could be maintained between the two countries if there were not at least a close approximation towards uniformity in religious worship, discipline, and government. This idea the Scottish commissioners strenuously, yet most delicately, pressed upon the notice of the English Parliament so early as the beginning of the year 1641; and in this they were supported by nearly all the Puritan ministers, those only excepted who had adopted the Congregational system. What Scotland chiefly wished, therefore, was to enter into a religious covenant with the English Parliament. This, then, was the difference produced by these different circumstances. England wished for a civil league with Scotland for the preservation of their mutual civil liberties, but was willing that it should have also a religious aspect and influence. Scotland desired a religious covenant for the preservation of their mutual religious liberties, but was willing that it should have also a civil aspect and influence. And neither country wished to dictate to the other in either subject, but to leave national inclinations and peculiarities untouched. It is evident, that in these circumstances a union could be formed; but it is as evident, that in directness and sacredness of purpose, the superiority was on the side of Scotland; and also, that hers must be the greatest danger, from the certainty that thus leagued together she must share the fortunes of her mightier neighbor.

If the reader has at all attended to the facts stated, and the principles evolved in the preceding introductory pages, he must have perceived their extreme importance in themselves, and also the light which they throw on the subject to which he is now to direct his concentrated attention. In the earliest ages of Christianity, the civil power everywhere was hostile, because it was pagan, that is, idolatrous. When the civil power became avowedly Christian, it did so at a time when all the principles of Popery were already in existence, and wanted but a favorable opportunity for obtaining ascendancy. This opportunity was furnished by the ignorance of the barbarian overthrowers of the Roman empire; and thus Popery arose into full power. One of its distinctive features was its assumption of supremacy in all matters, both civil and ecclesiastical. The fatal effect of this blending of jurisdictions was not at once apparent; but it led to absolute despotism and its counterpart, absolute slavery. At the Reformation, an attempt was generally made to separate the two jurisdictions, the civil and the ecclesiastical; but the importance of the idea was not fully appreciated, and the attempt was but partially successful.

In England, in particular, the sovereign, seizing upon the power formerly possessed by the pope, assumed both jurisdictions, and became head of the Church as well as head of the State. The pernicious consequences were soon apparent, — in the unsteady and fluctuating progress of religious reformation, — in the new forms of persecution, — in the complete stop put to further advancement in purity and truth, — and in the rapid growth of despotism, civil and religious.

These consequences advanced steadily, though with varying rapidity, during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I, till they produced the absolute necessity of resistance, unless men were willing to submit to the entire loss of natural, national, and religious liberty. For though we have but touched the main points of the events of those reigns, it must be evident to every intelligent person, that there was not a single thing in which a human being could claim liberty to act, as a man, as a responsible and free agent, and as a member of the Christian Church, which was not directly and violently assailed by the prelates, under the authority of the sovereign’s ecclesiastical supremacy. And as man can never be entitled to denude himself, or to suffer others to wrest from him his essential characteristics of a responsible and religious being, it had become a sacred duty to assert and defend his natural, national, and religious rights and responsibilities.

Further, when Prelacy, at first avowedly a human invention, arrogated a divine right, it assumed an aspect that could no longer be endured. Men may, in certain circumstances, abstain from asserting their natural rights; but when an attempt is made to abolish these rights even in God’s name, it becomes a duty which they owe to God himself, to prevent the perpetration of a grievous wrong, so wrought as to involve a violation of His glorious and holy character and attributes. It was, therefore, a holy deed, to resist that form of prelatic tyranny; for it was a vindication of the King Eternal from a despotism usurped as if by his authority.

And let it be well observed, that the awfully pernicious character here ascribed to the assumed divine right of Prelacy, cannot be charged against Presbytery, when it, too, claims to be of divine right. Because, while it asserts that Christ, the only supreme Head and King of the Church, has appointed a government and office bearers in his spiritual kingdom, it recognizes equally the religious rights and responsibilities of the people, the free subjects of that kingdom, whose right to liberty of conscience is also a divine right. Nor can it ever become a Popery, by usurping civil authority, and exercising a spiritual and civil despotism; because it owns and teaches the divine right of the civil magistrate in his own department as also and equally an ordinance of God. But upon this subject it is needless to dwell at present; it will come more fully before us as we proceed in tracing the discussions of the Westminster Assembly.

CHAPTER -First Meeting of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster — List of Names — Regulations — Order of Procedure — A Fast — The Thirty-Nine Articles Revised — Commissioners sent to the Scottish Convention of Estates and General Assembly — Discussions concerning a Treaty between the Kingdoms — The SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT prepared and assented to — Taken in England and in Scotland — Remarks — Parties composing the Westminster Assembly — Episcopalians — Puritans or English Presbyterians — Independents or Congregationalists — Characters of the Leaders of that Party — Erastians — The leading supporters of that Party — The Scottish Commissioners — Their Characters — Sectarians throughout the Country — Cause of so many Sects — Prelatic Tyranny and Neglect of Instruction — Connection and intercourse between the Sectarians and the Independents in the Assembly — The misapplication of the term Toleration — Remarks. THE ordinance of the Parliament calling the Assembly of Divines to meet at Westminster, on the 1st day of July 1643, was issued, as has been stated, on the 12th of June, in the same year. On the 22d of June, his majesty, by a proclamation, forbade their meeting for the purposes mentioned in the parliamentary ordinance; declared that no acts done by them ought to be received by his subjects; and threatened, that if they should meet, he would proceed against them with the utmost severity of the law. This was so far unpropitious, even to his own cause, as it tended to prevent the greater part of the Episcopalian divines who had been summoned, from attending.

The Scottish Convention of Estates met in June, but came to no definite resolution; and public matters were postponed till it should be more clearly known what terms would be proposed by the King and the Parliament, the Covenanters being unwilling directly to interpose, if that could be avoided.

The following is the list of names contained in the ordinance by which the Assembly was called; amounting to one hundred and fifty-one in all, namely, ten Lords and twenty Commoners, as lay assessors, and one hundred and twenty-one Divines: — LORDS.

Algernon, Earl of Northumberland.

William, Earl of Bedford.

Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery.

William, Earl of Salisbury.

Henry, Earl of Holland Edward, Earl of Manchester.

William, Viscount Say and Sele.

Edward, Viscount Conway.

Philip, Lord Wharton.

Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick.

COMMONERS.

John Selden, Esq.

Francis Rouse, Esq.

Edmund Prideaux, Esq.

Sir Henry Vane, Senior.

John Glynn, Esq., Recorder of London.

John Whyte, Esq.

Bulstrode Whitelocke, Esq.

Humphry Salloway, Esq.

Mr. Serjeant Wild.

Oliver St. John, Esq., Solicitor.

Sir Benjamin Rudyard.

John Pym, Esq.

Sir John Clotworthy.

John Maynard, Esq.

Sir Henry Vane, Junior.

William Pierpoint, Esq.

William Wheeler, Esq.

Sir Thomas Barrington.

Sir John Evelyn.

Walter Young, Esq.

DIVINES.

Herbert Palmer, B.D., of Ashwell.

Oliver Bowles, B.D., of Sutton.

Henry Wilkinson, B.D., of Maddesden.

Thomas Valentine, B.D., of Chalfent Giles.

William Twisse, D.D., of Newbury.

William Reyner, of Egham.

Hannibal Gammon, of Maugan.

Jasper Hicks, of Lawrick.

Joshua Hoyle, D.D., of Dublin.

William Bridge, of Yarmouth.

Thomas Wincop, D.D. of Elesworth.

Thomas Goodwin, D.D., of London.

John Ley, of Budworth.

Thomas Case, of London.

John Pyne, of Bereferrars.

Francis Whidden, of Moreton.

Richard Love, D.D., of Ekington.

William Gouge, D.D., of Blackfriars, Ralph Brownrigg, D.D., Bishop of Exeter.

Samuel Ward, D.D., Master of Sydney College, Cambridge.

John White, of Dorchester.

Edward Peale, of Compton.

Stephen Marshall, B.D., of Finchingfield.

Lazarus Seaman, B.D., of London.

John Harris, D.D., Warden of Winchester College.

George Morley, D.D., of Minden Hall.

Edward Reynolds, D.D., of Brampton.

Thomas Hill, B.D., of Tickmarsh.

Robert Saunderson, D.D., of Boothby-Parnell.

John Foxcroft, of Gotham.

John Jackson, of Marsac.

William Carter, of London.

Thomas Thoroughgood, of Massingham.

John Arrowsmith, D.D., of Lynn.

Robert Harris, B.D., of Hanwell.

Robert Cross, B.D., of Lincoln College.

James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh.

Matthias Styles, D.D., of Eastcheap, London.

Samuel Gibson, of Burleigh.

Jeremiah Whittaker, of Stretton.

Edmund Staunton, D.D., of Kingston.

Daniel Featly, D.D., of Lambeth.

Francis Coke, of Yoxhall.

John Lightfoot, D.D., of Ashley.

Edward Corbet,of Merton College, Oxford.

Samuel Hildersham, of Fetton.

John Langley, of West-Tuderly, Gloucester.

Christopher Tisdale, of Uphurstbourne.

Thomas Young, of Stowmarket.

John Philips, of Wrentham.

Humphrey Chambers, B.D., of Claverton.

John Conant, B.D., of Lymington.

Henry Hall, B.D., of Norwich.

Henry Hatton.

Henry Scudder, of Colingbourne.

Thomas Bayley, B.D., of Manningford-Bruce.

Benjamin Pickering, of East Hoatly.

Henry Nye, of Clapham.

Arthur Sallaway, of Severn Stoake.

Obadiah Sedgewick, B.D., of Coggeshall.

Thomas Carter, of Oxford.

Peter Clarke, of Carnaby or Kirby.

William Mew, B.D., of Essington.

Richard Capel, of Pitchcombe.

Theodore Backhurst, of Overton Wetsville.

Philip Nye, of Kimbolton.

Brocket Smith, D.D., of Barkway.

Cornelius Burgess, D.D., of Watford.

John Green, of Pencombe.

Stanley Gower, of Brampton.

Francis Taylor, of Yalding.

Thomas Wilson, of Otham.

Anthony Tuckney, D.D., of Boston.

Thomas Coleman, of Bliton.

Charles Herle, of Winwick.

Richard Herrick, of Manchester.

Richard Clayton, of Showell.

George Gipps, of Ayleston.

Calibute Downing, D.D., of Hackney.

Jeremiah Burroughs, of Stepney.

Edmund Calamy, B.D., of Aldermanbury.

George Walker, B.D., of London.

Joseph Caryl, of Lincoln’s Inn, London Sidrach Simpson, of London, Anthony Burgess, of Sutton-Coldfield.

Richard Vines, of Calcot.

William Greenhill, of Stepney.

William Moreton, of Newcastle.

Richard Buckley.

Thomas Temple, B.D., of Battersey.

Josias Shute, B.D., Lombard Street.

William Nicholson, D.D., afterwards Bishop of Cloucester.

Thomas Gataker, B.D., of Rotherhithe.

James Welby, of Sylatten.

Christopher Pashly, D.D., of Hawarden.

Henry Tozer, B.D., of Oxford.

William Spurstow, D.D., of Hampden.

Francis Cheynel, D.D., of Petworth.

Edward Ellis, B.D., of Gilsfield.

John Hacket, D.D., of St. Andrew’s London.

Samuel de la Place, — French Congregations.

John de la March, — French Congregations.

Matthew Newcomen, of Dedham.

William Lyford, of Sherbourne.

William Carter, of Dynton.

William Lance, of Harrow.

Thomas Hodges, of Kensington.

Andrew Perne, of Wisby.

Thomas Westfield, D.D., Bishop of Bristol.

Henry Hammond, D.D., of Penshurst.

Nicholas Proffit, of Marlborough.

Peter Sterry, of London.

John Erle, of Bishopston.

John Gibbon of Waltham.

Henry Painter, B.D., of Exeter.

Thomas Micklethwait, of Cherryburton.

John Wincop, D.D., of St. Martin’s in the Fields.

William Price, of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden.

Henry Wilkinson, R.D., of St. Dunstan’s.

Richard Holdsworth, D.D., of Cambridge.

William Dunning, of Godalston.

SCOTTISH MEMBERS. Lay Assessors or Elders .

John, Lord Maitland.

Sir Archibald Johnston, of Warriston. Ministers .

Alexander Henderson, of Edinburgh.

George Gillespie, of Edinburgh.

Samuel Rutherford, of St. Andrews.

Robert Baillie, of Glasgow.

SCRIBES OR CLERKS.

Henry Roborough.

Adoniram Byfield.

John Wallis.

Of this list, about twenty-five never appeared at the Assembly, one or two having died about the time of the meeting of the Assembly, and others fearing the displeasure of the king, or having a preference for the prelatic system. In order to supply the deficiency thus caused, and also occasional diminution caused by death during the protracted sittings of the Assembly, the Parliament summoned about twenty-one additional members, who were termed the superadded divines. The following is a list of their names, as far as is known: — Mr. John Bond.

Mr. Boutlton.

Richard Byfield.

Philip Delme.

William Goad.

Humphrey Hardwick.

Christopher Love.

William Massam.

Daniel Cawdrey, of Great Billing.

Mr. Johnson.

Thos. Dillingham, of Dean.

John Maynard.

William Newscore.

John Strickland, B.D. of New Sarum.

Mr. Strong, of Westminster.

John Ward.

Thomas Ford.

John Drury.

William Rathband, of Highgate.

Simeon Ashe, of St. Bride’s.

Mr. Moore.

There were thus in whole, thirty-two lay assessors, including those from Scotland; and one hundred and forty-two divines, including the four Scottish commissioners. But of these only sixty-nine were present the first day; and, generally, the attendance appears to have ranged between sixty and eighty. There are one hundred and two divines named in the common editions of the Confession of Faith; but several of those there named were not regular in their attendance. Not more than from a dozen to a score spoke frequently; many very learned and able men being contented to listen, to think, and to vote. The three scribes had no votes, being sufficiently employed in recording the propositions brought forward, the progress of the discussion, and the state of the vote when taken. Dr.

Twisse, of Newbury, was appointed prolocutor; and after his death he was succeeded by Mr. Herle. Dr. Burgess of Watford, and Mr. White of Dorchester, were assessors to the prolocutor, to take the chair during his occasional absence.

It may serve to show the wish of the Parliament to act with fairness and impartiality, to state, that they named men of all shades of opinion in matters of Church government, in order that the whole subject might be fully discussed. In the original ordinance, four bishops were named, one of whom actually attended on the first day, and another excused his absence on the ground of necessary duty; of the others called, five became bishops afterwards; and about twenty-five declined attending, partly because it was not a regular convocation called by the king, and partly because the Solemn League and Covenant was expressly condemned by his majesty.

At length the appointed day came; and on Saturday, the 1st of July, the members of the two Houses of Parliament named in the ordinance, and many of the divines therein mentioned, and a vast congregation, met in the Abbey Church, Westminster. Dr. Twisse, the appointed prolocutor of the Assembly, preached an elaborate sermon from the text, John 14:18: “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you.” After sermon all the members present adjourned to Henry VII’s Chapel; and the roll of members being called, it appeared that there were sixty-nine clerical members present on that the first day of the Westminster Assembly. But as there had been no specific instructions given, nor any subject prepared for their immediate discussion, the Assembly adjourned till the following Thursday.

This very fact points out one peculiarity of the Westminster Assembly, to which allusion has been made. It was neither a Convocation, nor a Presbyterian Synod or General Assembly; and it could not be either the one or the other, for the prelatic form of Church government had been abolished, and there was no other yet in existence. The true theory of the Westminster Assembly comprises two main elements; — there was a Christian Church in England, but not organized; and the civil power, avowing Christianity, had called an Assembly of Divines, for the purpose of consulting together respecting those points of government and discipline which require the sanction of civil authority for their full efficiency. Such an Assembly could have been called only by a Christian civil magistrate; and only in a transition state of the Church, when disorganized, or not yet duly constituted. In such a state of matters, the problem to be solved was this: On what terms could a National Church be constituted, so as neither to encroach upon civil liberty, as the Papal and Prelatic Churches had done, nor to yield up those inherent spiritual rights, privileges, and liberties, which are essential to a Church of Christ? And, for that purpose. it was almost indifferent, whether the State should first mention the terms on which it would establish a National Church, or the Church specify the terms on which it would consent to be established; only, that the latter would have been the simpler and the purer method of making the arrangement. The former, however, was the plan adopted; and, for that reason, the statement of the propositions came from Parliament.

When the Assembly again met on the Thursday, the following instructions were laid before them, as general regulations, directed by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled: — 1. That two assessors be joined to the prolocutor, to supply his place in case of absence or infirmity. 2. That scribes be appointed to set down all proceedings, and those to be divines, who are out of the Assembly, namely, Mr. Henry Roborough, and Mr. Adoniram Byfield. 3. Every member, at his first entry into the Assembly, shall make serious and solemn protestation, not to maintain any thing but what he believes to be truth and sincerity, when discovered to him. 4. No resolution to be given upon any question the same day wherein it is first propounded. 5. What any man undertakes to prove as necessary, he shall make good out of Scripture. 6. No man to proceed in any dispute after the prolocutor has enjoined him silence, unless the Assembly desire he may go on. 7. No man to be denied to enter his dissent from the Assembly, and his reasons for it, in any point, after it hath been first debated in the Assembly, and thence(if the dissenting party desire it)to be sent to the Houses of Parliament by the Assembly, not by any particular man or men, in a private way, when either House shall require. 8. All things agreed on, and prepared for the Parliament, to be openly read and allowed in the Assembly, and then offered as the judgment of the Assembly, if the major part assent; — provided that the opinion of any persons dissenting, and the reasons urged for it, be annexed thereunto, if the dissenters require it, together with the solutions, if any were given to the Assembly, to these reasons. To these general regulations the Assembly added some for their own guidance: — 1. That every session begin and end with prayer. 2. That after the first prayer the names of the Assembly be called over, and those that are absent marked; but if any member comes in afterwards, he shall have liberty to give in his name to the scribes. 3. That the appointed hour of meeting be ten in the morning; the afternoon to be reserved for committees. 4. That three of the members of the Assembly be appointed weekly as chaplains, one to the House of Lords, another to the House of Commons, and a third to the Committee of both kingdoms.

It was also resolved, that every member of the Assembly, both Lords and Commons, as well as Divines, before his admission to sit and vote, should take the following vow or protestation: “I, -----, do seriously promise and vow, in the presence of Almighty God, that in this Assembly, whereof I am a member, I will maintain nothing in point of doctrine but what I believe to be most agreeable to the Word of God; nor in point of discipline, but what I shall conceive to conduce most to the glory of God, and the good and peace of his Church.” This protestation was appointed to be read afresh every Monday morning, that its solemn influence might be constantly felt.

In order that business might proceed regularly and expeditiously, the whole Assembly was cast into three equal committees; the divines according to the order in which their names stood in the ordinance; and the Lords and Commons into three corresponding divisions, according to their order also.

Each committee chose for itself a chairman: the first chose Dr. Cornelius Burgess; the second, Dr. Staunton; and the third, Mr. Gibbon. The account of the Assembly’s order of procedure given by Baillie is at once so graphic and so complete, that we cannot do better than extract the entire passage, merely modernizing any peculiarities in spelling or obsolete expressions: — “The like of that Assembly I did never see; and as we hear say, the like was never in England, nor any where is shortly like to be. They did sit in Henry the VII’s Chapel, in the place of the Convocation; but since the weather grew cold, they did go to the Jerusalem Chamber, a fair room in the Abbey of Westminster, about the size of the College front-hall, but wider. At the one end, nearest the door, and along both sides, are stages of seats, as in the new Assembly House at Edinburgh, but not so high; for there will be room but for five or six score. At the uppermost end there is a chair set on a frame, a foot from the earth, for the Mr. Prolocutor, Dr.

Twisse. Before it, on the ground, stand two chairs for the two Mr.

Assessors, Dr. Burgess and Mr. White. Before these two chairs, through the length of the room, stands a table, at which sit the two scribes, Mr. Byfield and Mr. Roborough, The house is all well hung(with tapestry), and has a good fire, which is some dainties at London. Opposite the table, upon the prolocutor’s right hand, there are three or four ranks of benches. On the lowest we five do sit.

Upon the other, at our backs, the members of Parliament deputed to the Assembly. On the benches opposite us, on the prolocutor’s left hand, going from the upper end of the house to the chimney, and at the other end of the house and back of the table, till it come about to our seats, are four or five stages of benches, upon which their divines sit as they please; albeit commonly they keep the same place. From the chimney to the door there are no seats, but a void space for passage. The Lords of the Parliament used to sit on chairs, in that void, about the fire. We meet every day of the week but Saturday. We sit commonly from nine till one or two afternoon.

The prolocutor, at the beginning and end, has a short prayer. The man, as the world knows, is very learned in the questions he has studied, and very good, beloved of all, and highly esteemed; but merely bookish, not much, as it seems, acquainted with conceived prayer, and among the unfittest of all the company for any action; so after the prayer he sits mute. It was the canny conveyance(skillful management)of those who guide most matters for their own interest to plant such a man of purpose in the chair.

The one assessor, our good friend Mr. White, has keeped in of the gout since our coming; the other, Dr. Burgess, a very active and sharp man, supplies, so far as is decent, the prolocutor’s place.

Ordinarily there will be present above three score of their divines.

These are divided into three committees, in one of which every man is a member. No man is excluded who pleases to come to any of the three. Every committee, as the Parliament gives order in writing to take any purpose to consideration, takes a portion, and in their afternoon meeting prepares matters for the Assembly, sets down their minds in distinct propositions, backing their propositions with texts of Scripture. After the prayer, Mr. Byfield, the scribe, reads the proposition and scriptures; whereupon the Assembly debates in a most grave and orderly way. “No man is called up to speak; but whosoever stands up of his own accord, speaks so long as he will without interruption. If two or three stand up at once, then the divines confusedly call on his name whom they desire to hear first: on whom the loudest and maniest voices call, he speaks. No man speaks to any but to the prolocutor.

They harangue long and very learnedlie. They study the questions well beforehand, and prepare their speeches; but withal the men are exceeding prompt and well spoken. I do marvel at the very accurate and ex-temporal replies that many of them usually make. When, upon every proposition by itself, and on every text of Scripture that is brought to confirm it, every man who will has said his whole mind, and the replies, duplies, and triplies are heard, then the most part call, ‘To the question.’ Byfield, the scribe, rises from the table, and comes to the prolocutor’s chair, who, from the scribe’s book, reads the proposition, and says, ‘As many as are of opinion that the question is well stated in the proposition, let them say, Ay;’ when ay is heard, he says, ‘As many as think otherwise, say, No.’ If the difference of ‘Ayes’ and ‘Noes’ be clear, as usually it is, then the question is ordered by the scribes, and they go on to debate the first scripture alleged for proof of the proposition. If the sound of Ay and No be near equal, then says the prolocutor, ‘As many as say Ay, stand up,” while they stand, the scribe and others number them in their minds; when they sit down, the Noes are bidden stand, and they likewise are numbered. This way is clear enough, and saves a great deal of time, which we spend in reading our catalogue. When a question is once ordered, there is no more debate of that matter; but if a man will wander from the subject, he is quickly taken up by Mr. Assessor, or many others, confusedly crying, ‘Speak to order, to order.’ No man contradicts another expressly by name, but most discreetly speaks to the prolocutor, and at most holds to general terms: ‘The reverend brother who lately, or last, spoke, on this hand, on that side, above, or below.’ I thought meet once for all to give you a taste of the outward form of their Assembly. They follow the way of their Parliament. Much of their way is good, and worthy of our imitation; only their longsomeness is woeful at this time, when their Church and kingdom lie under a most lamentable anarchy and confusion. They see the hurt of their length, but cannot get it helped; for being to establish a new platform of worship and discipline to their nation for all time to come, they think they cannot be answerable, if solidly, and at leisure, they do not examine every point thereof.” Having made these preliminary arrangements, the Parliament sent the Assembly an order to revise the Thirty-nine Articles, for the purpose of simplifying, clearing, and vindicating the doctrines therein contained. The discharge of this task was begun in the committees, and reported from time to time in the Assembly. On the first of these meetings to receive and consider reports, July 12th, “A letter,” says Lightfoot, “came from Dr.

Brownrigge, Bishop of Exeter, to Dr. Featly, or, in his absence, to Dr.

Gouge, which was openly read, wherein he excuseth his non-appearance in the Assembly, from the tie of the vice-chancellorship in the university that lay upon him.” The tenor of his excuse shows that he at least did not condemn the calling of the Assembly, nor thought his episcopal function of divine institution. Indeed there were many Episcopalians who had not embraced the high theory of Bancroft and Laud, otherwise none could have appeared in the Assembly at all; and yet even Clarendon admits, that “about twenty of them were reverend and worthy persons, and episcopal in their judgments;” and Fuller says, that “Dr. Westfield(bishop of Bristol)and some few others seemed the only nonconformists among them for their conformity, whose gowns and canonical habits differed from all the rest.” From this it appears that at least one bishop gave his presence to the meeting of that Assembly, which so many of his prelatic brethren since have termed impious and rebellious.

A new disaster having befallen the arms of the Parliament, in the defeat of Waller, the Assembly petitioned the Houses to appoint a fast throughout London, Westminster, and the suburbs; requesting that measures might be speedily adopted for promoting reformation, so that the divine wrath might be averted, and the wounds and miseries of the kingdom healed. This petition was granted; the 21st of July was set apart as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Mr. Hill, Mr. Spurstow, and Mr. Vines, were appointed to preach before the Houses, and the day was observed with great solemnity within the specified boundaries. From this time forward, it was customary to appoint similar fasts, and public sermons before the Houses of Parliament; which sermons were printed by order of Parliament, frequently with prefaces before, or postscripts appended to them by their authors; and having been preserved, they form an admirable mass of information regarding the actual sentiments and state of feelings predominant in both the Parliament and Assembly, characterized by all the freshness and trembling earnestness, and intensity of hopes and fears, called forth by the varying vicissitudes of those eventful and fluctuating times. The same circumstance proves, that on the part of the Parliament, the struggle in which they were engaged was by themselves regarded as to the full as much of a religious as of a political character; and that they were not ashamed to acknowledge that they looked to the favor and the protection of God for ultimate success in the perilous and important contest. It may be added, that however vehemently the king and his adherents asserted the divine source of the royal prerogative, we do not find that they attempted to hallow their cause, or to seek divine aid, by solemn religious acts; but, on the contrary, that in order to draw the utmost possible breadth of distinction between themselves and the Puritans, they delighted to indulge to excess in every kind of licentiousness and immorality; so that they frequently alienated those counties which were otherwise friendly to the royal cause, and drove the oppressed people into the ranks of the parliamentary armies, as the only way to rescue themselves and their families from the vicious brutalities of the proud and tyrannical cavaliers.

The Assembly continued to discuss the Thirty-nine Articles, and expended ten weeks in debating upon the first fifteen. But upon the arrival of the Scottish commissioners, or rather, soon after the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, a new direction was given to the whole course of discussion; so that it is unnecessary to trace that part of the proceedings which led to no practical result, and which, terminating abruptly and unfinished, cannot properly be said to form any part of the Assembly’s actual proceedings. Let us rather direct attention to the formation of the Solemn League and Covenant itself.

When the English Parliament determined upon the abolition of the Prelatic hierarchy, they at the same time suggested the calling of an Assembly of Divines to deliberate respecting the new form to be established; and they also applied to the Church of Scotland to send commissioners to the intended Assembly. The Scottish Church nominated some ministers and elders to be in readiness; but the English Assembly not having been called till nearly a year had elapsed, serious doubts began to be entertained in Scotland respecting their sincerity, especially when no authorized person appeared at the Convention of Estates held on the 22d June, and prolonged during a fortnight. At length a messenger arrived, stating that the Assembly had met, and renewing their application for the presence of Scottish commissioners. As the General Assembly was to meet on the 2d of August, and the Convention of Estates at the same time, the matter was deferred till then, that it might be fully and authoritatively arranged.

After several days of anxious expectation by the Scottish General Assembly, the English commissioners arrived on the 7th of August, and were received by a deputation of the Assembly on the following day. The English commissioners were, from the Lords, the Earl of Rutland. and Lord Gray of Wark, the latter of whom declined the journey; from the Commons, Sir William Armyn, Sir Harry Vane the younger, Mr. Hatcher, and Mr. Darley; and from the Assembly of Divines, Mr. Marshall and Mr.

Nye. They presented their commission, giving them ample powers to treat with the Scottish Convention and. Assembly, — a Declaration of both the English Houses, — a letter from the Westminster Assembly, and a letter subscribed by above seventy of their divines, supplicating aid in their desperate condition. “This letter,” says Baillie, “was so lamentable that it drew tears from many.” The leading statesmen and divines in Scotland immediately took these matters into serious and most anxious deliberation.

All were of opinion that it was necessary to assist the English; but how that assistance should be given they could not so readily determine. At one time the prevalent idea was, that Scotland should interpose as a mediating power, without altogether taking part with the Parliament; but a more careful and full deliberation convinced them that this was impracticable.

They had learned by sad experience that the king’s most solemn treaties could not be depended on, when they had seen the treaty concluded at Dunse ordered to be burned by the hands of the hangman, and themselves denounced as rebels. And as the English Parliament had not hitherto exhibited any similar insincerity, there was no reason for equal distrust with regard to their declarations; while the Scottish statesmen and ministers could not but perceive, that if the king should succeed in subjugating his English Parliament, he would then be able to assail Scotland with an irresistible force.

Still there was one difficult point. The English commissioners sought to enter into a civil league with Scotland, for the defense of the civil liberties of both countries. But as the entire spirit of the contest in which Scotland had been engaged was of a religious character, in defense of religious liberty, and had been conducted to a prosperous issue by the strength of a religious covenant into which the nation had entered, the Convention and Assembly insisted upon a religious covenant between the two kingdoms.

To this the English commissioners at length assented, on the suggestion of Sir Harry Vane, that the two ideas might very properly be combined; and hence the bond of union between the two countries was so framed as to embrace both subjects, and received the appropriate designation ofTHE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT.

This important document was framed by the celebrated Alexander Henderson, moderator of the Assembly, and laid, before the English commissioners. At first they startled somewhat at its terms, some of them wishing for a greater latitude of expression, to leave room for the introduction of the Independent or Congregational system. In this, too, a slight compromise was made, no specific plan for the reformation of religion in England and Ireland being stated, except that it should be “according to the Word of God, and the example of the best reformed Churches.” With this mode of expressing the general principle all were satisfied; and after receiving the approbation of the private committees, the Solemn League and Covenant was submitted to the General Assembly on the 17th of August 1643, passed unanimously, amidst the applause of some, and the bursting tears of a deep, full, and sacred joy of others; and in the afternoon, with the same cordial unanimity, passed the Convention of Estates. “This,” says Baillie, “seems to be a new period and crisis of the most great adair which these hundred years has exercised these dominions.” He was not mistaken; it was indeed the commencement of a new period in the history of the Christian Church, though that period has not yet run its full round, nor reached its crisis, — a crisis which will shake and new-mold the world.

It is customary for a certain class of writers to say, that in the discussion respecting the Solemn League and Covenant, there was a contest of cunning between the English commissioners and the Scottish Covenanters, and that the superior subtlety of Sir Harry Vane enabled him to beguile the Scottish negotiators, who, in their blind attachment to their own Presbyterian system, could not conceive that any thing else was meant by the expression, “The best reformed Churches.” This is but a weak invention of the enemy. In the beginning of the year 1641, the Scottish commissioners had both suggested the idea of a closer agreement between the Churches of England and Scotland, and disclaimed the presumption or urging their system upon the mightier kingdom. And in the ordinance summoning the Assembly, one object is said to be, to obtain “a nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformers Churches abroad.” Further, the Church of Scotland had delayed the framing of a Directory, very much that she might be the more at liberty to accommodate her procedure to what might be resolved upon by the English Assembly, when it should have accomplished its task. It would appear, therefore, that there was no craft nor overreaching on either side; and that, so far as there was a compromise, it was one of candor and frankness, well understood by both parties, for the purpose of leaving matters open to a full and fair discussion.

When the Solemn League and Covenant had thus received the assent of the Scottish Convention of Estates and General Assembly, a copy of it was sent to the English Parliament and the Westminster Divines, for their consideration. Commissioners were appointed to attend that Assembly, partly elders and. partly ministers. The elders were, the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Johnston of Warriston; the ministers were, Messrs Henderson, Baillie, Gillespie, Rutherford, and Douglas; but neither the Earl of Cassilis nor Mr. Robert Douglas ever attended, so that the Scottish commissioners were six in all. When the document reached Westminster, several days were spent by the English divines in considering its various propositions, and some slight verbal alterations were made, for the sake of explanation, — particularly the specific statement of what is meant by Prelacy; and at last it was agreed to by all except Dr. Burgess, who continued to resist it and to refuse his assent for several days, till he incurred the serious displeasure of both Assembly and Parliament, — which he at last averted by yielding. Immediately after the rising of their own General Assembly, three of the Scottish commissioners, Lord Maitland, Alexander Henderson, and George Gillespie, set off for London; the other three followed about a month afterwards. On the 15th of September the Scottish commissioners were received into the Westminster Assembly with great kindness and courtesy, and welcomed in three successive speeches, by the Prolocutor, by Dr.

Hoyle, and by Mr. Case. Mr. Henderson replied, expressing the deep sympathy felt by the kingdom and Church of Scotland for the sufferings of England, and the readiness with which they would to the utmost assist the good work of religious reformation thus begun. The Solemn League and Covenant was then read over clause by clause, and explanations given where it seemed of doubtful import, till the whole received the sanction of the Assembly. It was then appointed by the Parliament, and assented to by the Assembly, that the Covenant should be publicly taken by these bodies on the 25th of September. On that day, accordingly, the House of Commons, with the Assembly of Divines and the Scottish commissioners, met in the Church of St. Margaret, Westminster; and the Rev. Mr. White of Dorchester, one of the assessors, commenced the solemnity with prayer.

Mr. Nye then addressed the dignified and grave audience in a speech of an hour’s duration, pointing out the Scripture authority of such covenants, and the advantage of which they had been productive to the Church of God in all ages. Mr. Henderson followed in a speech considerably shorter, but of great dignity and power. Mr. Nye then read it from the pulpit, slowly aud aloud, pausing at the close of every article, while the whole audience of statesmen and divines arose, and, with their right hands held up to heaven, worshipped the great name of God, and gave their sacred pledge. Then the members of the House of Commons subscribed the Covenant on one roll of parchment, and the Assembly on another; and when this was done, the solemn scene was closed by prayer and praise to that omniscient God to whom they had lifted up their hands and made their vows.

To complete in one view the account of this matter, the Covenant was taken by the House of Lords on the 15th of October, after sermon by Dr.

Temple, and an exhortation by Mr. Coleman. It was taken also by the congregations in and around London on the following Lord’s day. On the 9th of October the king issued a proclamation from Oxford, denouncing this document as “in truth nothing else but a traitorous and seditious combination against us and the established religion of this kingdom;” straitly charging and commanding all his loving subjects, upon their allegiance, “that they presume not to take the said seditious and traitorous Covenant.” And at last an order was issued by the Parliament, in February 1644, commanding the Covenant to be taken throughout the kingdom of England by all persons above the age of eighteen years; which order was accompanied by an exhortation prepared by the Assembly of Divines. In Scotland, as soon as information was received of what had taken place in London, the Committee of Estates ordered the Covenant to be subscribed by all ranks and conditions of people, on penalty of the confiscation of property, or such other punishment as his Majesty and the Parliament might resolve to inflict. This harsh command was intended to bear against that faction of the nobility who were known to have entered into a secret confederacy with the king; and its effect was, to drive some into Right, and all into more desperate opposition. But this, it will be observed, was the act of the civil not the ecclesiastical, authorities in Scotland; and it proceeded mainly upon the principle, that the bond thus enforced was not only a religious covenant, but also a civil league. It was unfortunate that civil and religious matters should have been so blended, because whatever civil measures were adopted, or civil penalties were indicted, were sure to be unfairly charged against the religious element, instead of the civil, to which they truly owed their origin. But even this unpropitious circumstance was forced upon the Covenanters; partly by the fact that the proceedings of the king were equally hostile to civil and to religious liberty, and partly by their unavoidable union with the English Parliament, in which the struggle was even more directly for civil than for religious liberty.

The importance of the Solemn League and Covenant, thus agreed upon and subscribed by the ruling constitutional authorities, civil, and ecclesiastical, in both Scotland and England, renders it necessary that it should be presented to the reader in the body of the work, rather than in an appendix: — “The Solemn League and Covenant, for reformation and defense of religion, the honor and happiness of the King, and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland; agreed upon by Commissioners from the Parliament and Assembly of Divines in England, with Commissioners of the Convention of Estates and General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and by both Houses of Parliament, and the Assembly of Divines in England, and taken and subscribed by them anno 1643; and thereafter, by the said authority, taken and subscribed by all ranks in Scotland and England, the same year; and ratified by act of the Parliament of Scotland anno 1644.(And again renewed in Scotland, with an acknowledgment of sins and engagement to duties, by all ranks, anno 1648, and by Parliament, 1649; and taken and subscribed by King Charles II, at Spey, June 23, 1650; and at Scoon, January 1, 1651.) “We, noblemen, barons, knights, gentlemen, citizens, burgesses, ministers of the Gospel, and commons of all sorts, in the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland, by the providence ofGOD living under one king, and being of one reformed religion, having before our eyes the glory ofGOD, and the advancement of the kingdom of ourLORD and SaviorJESUS CHRIST, the honor and happiness of the king’s majesty and his posterity, and the true public liberty, safety, and peace of the kingdom, wherein every one’s private condition is included: and calling to mind the treacherous and bloody plots, conspiracies, attempts, and practices of the enemies ofGOD, against the true religion and professors thereof in all places, especially in these three kingdoms, ever since the reformation of religion; and how much their rage, power, and presumption, are of late, and at this time, increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable state of the Church and kingdom of Ireland, the distressed state of the Church and kingdom of England, and the dangerous state of the Church and kingdom of Scotland, are present and public testimonies: we have now at last(after other means of supplication, remonstrance, protestation, and sufferings), for the preservation of ourselves and our religion from utter ruin and destruction, according to the commendable practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the example ofGOD’s people in other nations, after mature deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a Mutual and Solemn League and Covenant, wherein we all subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our hands lifted up to the Most HighGOD, do swear, “1. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace ofGOD, endeavor, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word ofGOD, and the example of the best reformed Churches; and shall endeavor to bring the Churches of\parGOD in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, Confession of Faith, Form of Church Government, Directory for Worship and Catechizing; that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and theLORD may delight to dwell in the midst of us. “2. That we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavor the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy(that is, Church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound doctrine and the power ofGODliness; lest we partake in other men’s sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues; and that theLORD may be one, and his name one, in the three kingdoms. “3. We shall, with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our several vocations, endeavor, with our estates and lives, mutually to preserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties of the kingdoms; and to preserve and defend the king’s majesty’s person and authority, in the preservation and defense of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his majesty’s just power and greatness. “4. We shall also, with all faithfulness, endeavor the discovery of all such as have been or shall be incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments, by hindering the reformation of religion, dividing the king from his people, or one of the kingdoms from another, or making any faction or parties among the people, contrary to this League and Covenant; that they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment, as the degree of their ounces shall require or deserve, or the supreme judicatories of both kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall judge convenient. “5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed peace between these kingdoms, denied in former times to our progenitors, is, by the good providence ofGOD, granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both Parliaments; we shall, each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavor that they may remain conjoined in a firm peace and union to all posterity; and that justice may be done upon the willful opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent article. “6. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common cause of religion, liberty, and peace of the kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly, by whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided or withdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give ourselves to a detestable indifferency or neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the glory ofGOD, the good of the kingdom, and honor of the king; but shall, all the days of our lives, zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition, and promote the same, according to our power against all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able ourselves to suppress or overcome, we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: All which we shall do as in the sight ofGOD.” “And, because these kingdoms are guilty of many sins and provocations againstGOD, and his SonJESUS CHRIST, as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers, the fruits thereof; we profess and declare, beforeGOD and the world, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins, and for the sins of these kingdoms; especially that we have not, as we ought, valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel; that we have not labored for the purity and power thereof; and that we have not endeavored to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our lives; which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us: and our true and unfeigned purpose, desire, and endeavor, for ourselves, and all others under our power and charge, both in public and private, in all duties we owe toGOD and man, to amend our lives, and each one to go before another in the example of a real reformation; that theLORD may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation, and establish these Churches and kingdoms in truth and peace. And this Covenant we make in the presence ofALMIGHTY GOD, the Searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that great day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; most humbly beseeching theLORD to strengthen us by hisHOLY SPIRIT for this end, and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success, as may be deliverance and safety to his people, and encouragement to other Christian Churches, groaning under, or in danger of the yoke of antichristian tyranny, to join in the same or like association and covenant, to the glory ofGOD, the enlargement of the kingdom of\parJESUS CHRIST, and the peace and tranquillity of Christian kingdoms and commonwealths.”

It is difficult to conceive how any calm, unprejudiced, thoughtful, and religious man can peruse the preceding very solemn document, without feeling upon his mind an overawing sense of its sublimity and sacredness.

The most important of man’s interests for time and for eternity are included within its ample scope, and made the subjects of a Solemn League with each other, and a sacred Covenant with God. Religion, liberty, and peace, are the great elements of human welfare, to the preservation of which it bound the empire; and as those by whom it was framed knew well that there can be no safety for these in a land where the mind of the community is dark with ignorance, warped by superstition, misled by error, and degraded by tyranny, civil and ecclesiastical, they pledged themselves to seek the extirpation of these pernicious evils. Yet it was the evils themselves, and not the persons of those in whom those evils prevailed, that they sought to extirpate. Nor was there any inconsistency in declaring that they sought to promote the honor and happiness of the king, while thus uniting in a Covenant against that double despotism which he strove to exercise. For no intelligent person will deny, that it is immeasurably more glorious for a monarch to be the king of freemen, than a tyrant over slaves; and that whatsoever promotes the true mental, moral, and religious greatness of a kingdom, promotes also its civil welfare, and elevates the true dignity of its sovereign. This, the mind of Charles was not comprehensive enough to learn, nor wise enough to know, especially as he was misled by the prelatic faction, who, while seeking their own aggrandizement, led him to believe that they were zealous only for his glory, — a glory the very essence of which was the utter annihilation of all liberty, civil and religious. And as this desperate and fatal prelatic policy was well known to the patriotic framers of the Solemn League and Covenant, they attached no direct blame to the king himself, but sought to rescue him from the evil influence of those by whose pernicious counsels he was misled. Aware, also, how often the wisest and best schemes are perverted and destroyed by the base intrigues of selfish and designing men, the Covenanters solemnly pledged themselves to each other and to God, not to suffer themselves to be divided or withdrawn from the constant and persevering prosecution of their great and sacred cause, till its triumph should be secured, or their own lives terminate. In this strong resolution were involved, a lofty singleness of purpose, deliberate determination, and not only self-denial, but, if necessary, self-sacrifice, that to the world a great example might be given for better times to follow and to realize.

Such were the great principles of the Solemn League and Covenant; and, while it is easy, very easy, to frame captious objections against minor points and forms of expression, as is very often done, we do not hesitate to say , that in our opinion, no man who is able to understand its nature, and to feel and appreciate its spirit and its aim, will deny it to be the wisest, the sublimest, and the most sacred document ever framed by uninspired men.

But, as afterwards appeared, it was premature; it far outwent the spirit of the time; it was understood and valued but by few; and it was regarded by all who could not understand it with the most intense and bitter hatred, mingled and increased by fear. Let not, however, this admission be taken in its most unlimited sense. If the Solemn League and Covenant was premature, that detracts not from its real value; it only proves that it was promulgated in ignorant and “evil times, with darkness and with dangers compassed round.” And let these questions be asked and thoughtfully answered: — Has it perished amid the strife of tongues? Has it sunk into oblivion, and ceased to be a living element in the quick realms of thought?

Are there none by whom it is still regarded with sacred veneration? Is it not true, that, at this very moment, there are many minds of great power and energy, earnestly engaged in reviving its mighty principles, and fearlessly holding them forth before the world’s startled gaze? And if such be the case, may it not be, that what two hundred years ago was premature, has now nearly reached the period of a full maturity, and is on the point of raising up its sacred and majestic head, “strong in the Lord and in the power of his might?”

Before proceeding to relate the discussions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, thus anally constituted and prepared. for its duties, it may be expedient to give a brief view of the parties, by the combination of which it was from the first composed, by whose jarring contentions its progress was retarded, and by whose divisions and mutual hostilities its labors were at length frustrated and prevented from obtaining their due result.

When the Parliament issued the ordinance for calling together an Assembly of Divines for consultation and advice, there was, it will be remembered, actually no legalized form of Church government in England, so far as depended on the Legislature. Even Charles himself had consented to the bill removing the prelates from the House of Lords; and though the bill abolishing the hierarchy had not obtained the royal sanction, yet the greater part of the kingdom regarded it as conclusive on that point. The chief object of the Parliament, therefore, was to determine what form of Church government was to be established by law, in the room of that which had been abolished. And as their desire was to secure a form which should both be generally acceptable, and should also bear, at least, a close resemblance to the form most, prevalent in other reformed Churches, they attempted to act impartially, and, in their ordinance, they selected some of each denomination, appointing Bishops, untitled Episcopalians, Puritans, and Independents. Several Episcopalians, and at least one Bishop, were present in the first meeting of the Assembly. But when the Solemn League and Covenant was proposed and taken, and when the king issued his condemnation of it, all the decided Episcopalians left, with the exception of Dr. Featly. He remained a member of the Assembly for some time; till, being detected corresponding with Archbishop Ussher, and revealing the proceedings of the Assembly, he was cut off from that venerable body, and committed to prison. From that time forward there were no direct supporters of Prelacy in the Assembly, and the protracted controversial discussions which arose were on other subjects; on which account we have nothing to do with the Episcopalian controversy, beyond what has been already stated in our preliminary pages.

There can be no doubt that the close alliance which the English Parliament sought with Scotland, and the ground taken by the Scottish Convention of Estates and General Assembly, in requiring not only an international league, but also a religious covenant, tended greatly to direct the mind of the English statesmen and divines towards the Presbyterian form of Church government, and exercised a powerful influence in the deliberations of the Westminster Assembly. But let it be also remembered, that in every one of the reformed continental Churches, either the Presbyterian form, or one very closely resembling it, had been adopted; and that the Puritans had already formed themselves into presbyteries, held presbyterial meetings, and endeavored to exercise Presbyterian discipline, in the reception, suspension, and rejection of members. Both the example of other Churches, therefore, and their own already begun practice, had led them so far onward to the Presbyterian model, that they would almost inevitably have assumed it altogether apart from the influence of Scotland. In truth, that influence was exerted and felt almost solely in the way of instruction, from a Church already formed, to one in the process of formation; and none would have been more ready than the Scottish commissioners themselves to have repudiated the very idea of any other kind of influence.

It may be said, therefore, with the most strict propriety, that the native aim and tendency of the Westminster Assembly was to establish the Presbyterian form of Church government in England, the great body of English Puritans having gradually become Presbyterians. There is reason to believe that both Pym and Hampden favored the Presbyterian system; but their early and lamented death deprived that cause of their powerful support, and the House of Commons of their able and steady guidance.

The chief promoters of Presbytery in the House of Commons were, Sir William Waller, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir John Clotworthy, Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Colonel Massey, Colonel Harley, Sergeant Maynard, Denzil Hollis, John Glynn, and a few more of less influential character.

The Independents, or Congregationalists, formed another party, few in point of number, but men of considerable talent and learning, of undoubted piety, of great pertinacity in adhering to their own opinions, and, we are constrained to say, well skilled in the artifices of intriguing policy. The origin of the Independent system has been already stated briefly in our introductory remarks, and will require little further elucidation. It was, according to the statement of its adherents, a medium between the Brownist and the Presbyterian systems. They did not, with the Brownists, condemn every other Church as too corrupt and antichristian for intercommunion, — for they professed to agree in doctrine both with the Church of England in its Articles, and with the other reformed Churches; but they held the entire power of government to belong to each separate congregation; and they practically admitted no Church censure but admonition, — for that cannot properly be called excommunication which consisted not in expelling from their body an obstinate and impenitent offender, but in withdrawing themselves from him. With regard to their boast of being the first advocates of toleration and liberty of conscience, that will come to be examined hereafter: this only need be said at present, that toleration is naturally the plea of the weaker party; that the term was then, has been since, and still is, much misunderstood and misused; and that wherever the Independents possessed power, as in New England, they showed themselves to be as intolerant as any of their opponents.

The leading Independents in the Westminster Assembly were, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Jeremiah Burroughs, William Bridge, and Sidrach Simpson. These men had at first been silenced by the violent persecution of Laud and Wren, and had then retired to Holland, — where they continued exercising their ministry among their expatriated countrymen for several years. Goodwin and Nye resided at Arnheim, where they were highly esteemed for their piety and talents. Bridge went to Rotterdam, where he became pastor of an English congregation, previously formed by the notorious Hugh Peters. Burroughs went also to Rotterdam, and, became connected with the congregation then under the pastoral care of Bridge, in what was termed the different but coordinate office of teacher. Simpson subsequently joined himself to the two preceding brethren, having, according to their system, given an account of his faith. But though at first highly approving the order of the church under the care of Mr. Bridge, he subsequently proposed some alterations which would, as he thought, promote its welfare, — particularly the revival of the prophesyings used by the old Puritans. This Mr. Bridge opposed, and Mr. Simpson withdrew from communion with him, and formed a church for himself. The quarrel, however, did not so terminate. Mr. Ward, another ejected Puritan, having about the same time retired to Holland, came to Rotterdam, and having joined Mr. Bridge’s church, was appointed his colleague in the pastoral office. He, too, wished for additional improvements; and as he did not retire, like Simpson, but continued the struggle, Bridge thought it necessary to depose him from the ministry, — which his superior influence in the congregation enabled him to accomplish. To prevent the evil consequences which might have resulted from these unhappy divisions, Goodwin and Nye came from Arnheim, instituted an investigation of the whole matter, and induced the two contending brethren and their adherents to acknowledge their mutual faults, and to be reconciled. The reconciliation, however, appears to have been but superficial, and to have required the interposition of the magistracy ere it could be even plausibly effected. Such divisions might have caused these divines to entertain some suspicion that the model of Church government which they had adopted was not altogether so perfect as they wished it to be thought; but so far as their subsequent conduct, as members of the Westminster Assembly, is concerned, this does not seem to have been the case in even the slightest degree. When the contest between the King and the Parliament had become so extreme that the Parliament declared its own continuation as permanent as it might itself think necessary, and began to threaten the abolition of the whole prelatic hierarchy, the above-named five Independent divines returned to England, prepared to assist in the long-sought reformation of religion, and to avail themselves of every opportunity which might occur to promote their favorite system. And admitting them to be conscientiously convinced of its superior excellency, they deserve no censure for desiring to see it universally received. In every such case, all that can be wished is, that each party should prosecute its purpose honorably and openly, in the fair field of frank and manly argument, with Christian candor and integrity; and not by factious opposition, or with the dark and insidious craft too characteristic of worldly politicians.

Of these five leading Independents, often termed “The Five Dissenting Brethren,” Goodwin appears to have been the deepest theologian, and perhaps altogether the ablest man; Nye, the most acute and subtle, and the best skilled in holding intercourse with worldly politicians; Burroughs, the most gentle and pacific in temper and character; Bridge is said to have been a man of considerable attainments, and a very laborious student; and Simpson bears also a respectable character as a preacher, though not peculiarly distinguished in public debate. To these Baillie adds, as Independents, Joseph Caryl, William Carter(of London), John Philips, and Peter Sterry, — naming nine, but saying that there were “some ten or eleven.” Neal adds Anthony Burgess and William Greenhill. Some of the views of the Independents were occasionally supported by Herle, Marshall, and Vines, and some few others; but none of these men are to be included in the number of the decided Independents.

The third party in the Assembly were the Erastians; so called from Erastus, a physician at Heidelberg, who wrote on the subject of Church government, especially in respect of excommunication, in the year 1568.

His theory was, — That the pastoral once is only persuasive, like that of a professor over his students, without any direct power; that baptism, the Lord’s supper, and all other gospel ordinances, were free and open to all; and that the minister might state and explain what were the proper qualifications, and might dissuade the vicious and unqualified from the communion, but had no power to refuse it, or to indict any kind of censure.

The punishment of all offenses, whether of a civil or a religious nature, belonged, according to this theory, exclusively to the civil magistrate. The tendency of this theory was, to destroy entirely all ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction, to deprive the Church of all power of government, and to make it completely the mere “creature of the State.” The pretended advantage of this theory was, that it prevented the existence of an imperium in imperio , or one government within another, of a distinct and independent nature. But the real disadvantage, in the most mitigated view that can be taken, was, that it reproduced what may be termed a civil Popedom, by combining civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and giving both into the possession of one irresponsible power, — thereby destroying both civil and religious liberty, and subjecting men to an absolute and irremediable despotism. In another point of view, the Erastian theory assumes a still darker and more formidable aspect. It necessarily denies the mediatorial sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ over his Church, — takes the power of the keys from his once-bearers and gives them to the civil magistrate, — destroys liberty of conscience, by making spiritual matters subject to the same coercive power as temporal affairs naturally and properly are; and thus involves both State and Church in reciprocal and mutually destructive sin, — the State, in usurping a power which God has not given; and the Church, in yielding what she is not at liberty to yield — the sacred crown-rights of the divine Redeemer, her only Head and King.

But as the Erastian controversy will come fully before us in the debates of the Assembly, it is unnecessary to enter upon it here. There were only two divines in the assembly who advocated the Erastian theory; and of these, one alone was decidedly and thoroughly Erastian. The divine to whom this unenviable pre-eminence must be assigned, was Thomas Coleman, minister at Bliton in Lincolnshire. He was aided generally, but not always, by Lightfoot, in the various discussions that arose involving Erastian opinions.

Both of these divines were eminently distinguished by their attainments in Oriental literature, particularly in rabbinical lore; and their attachment to the study of Hebrew literature and customs led them to the conclusion, that the Christian Church was to be in every respect constituted according to the model of the Jewish Church: and having formed the opinion that there was but one jurisdiction in Israel, combining both civil and ecclesiastical, and that this was held by the Hebrew monarchs, they concluded that the same blended government ought to prevail under the Christian dispensation. Of the lay assessors in the Assembly the chief Erastians were, the learned Selden, Mr. Whitelocke, and Mr. St. John; but though Selden was the only one of them whose arguments were influential in the Assembly itself, yet nearly all the Parliament held sentiments decidedly Erastian, and having seized the power of Church government, were not disposed to yield it up, be the opinion of the assembled divines what it might. Hence, though the Erastian divines were only two, yet their opinions, supported by the whole civil authority in the kingdom, were almost sure to triumph in the end. This, in one point of view, was not strange. The kingdom had suffered so much severe and protracted injury from the usurped authority and power of the prelates, that the assertors of civil liberty almost instinctively shrunk from even the shadow of any kind of power in the hands of ecclesiastics. A little less passion and fear, and a little more judgment and discrimination, might have rescued them from this groundless apprehension; and they might have perceived that freedom, both civil and ecclesiastical, would be best secured by the full and authoritative recognition of their respective jurisdictions, separate and independent. But indeed this is a truth which has yet to be learned by civil governments, — a truth unknown to ancient times, in which religion was either an engine of the State or the object of persecution, — a truth unknown during the period of papal ascendancy, in which the Romish priesthood usurped dominion over civil governments, and exercised its tyranny alike over the persons and the conscience of mankind, — a truth first brought to light in the great religious reformation of the sixteenth century, — but not then, nor even yet, fully developed, rightly understood, and permitted to exercise its free and sacred supremacy. That it will finally assume its due dominion over the minds and actions of all bodies of men, both civil and ecclesiastical, we cannot doubt; and then, but not till then, will the two dread counterpart elements of human degradation, tyranny and slavery, become alike impossible.

Into these three great parties, Presbyterian, Independent, and Erastian, was the Westminster Assembly of Divines divided, even when first it met; and it was inevitable that a contest would be waged among them for the ascendancy, ending most probably either in increased hostility and absolute disruption, or in some mutual compromise, to which all might assent, though perhaps with the cordial approbation of none. The strength of these parties was more evenly balanced at first than might have been expected.

The Puritans, though all of them had received episcopal ordination, and had been exercising their ministry in the Church of England, under the hierarchy, were nearly all Presbyterians, or at least quite willing to adopt that form of church government, though many of them would have consented to a modified Episcopacy on the Usserian model. Their influence in the city of London was paramount, and throughout the country was very considerable; and as they formed the most natural connecting link with Scotland, they occupied a position of very great importance. Although the Independents were but a small minority in the Assembly, yet various circumstances combined to render them by no means a weak or insignificant party. They were supported in the House of Peers by Lord Say and Sele, and frequently also by Lords Brooke and Kimbolton, — the latter of whom is better known by his subsequent title of Lord Manchester. Philip Nye, one of the leading Independents, had been appointed to Kimbolton by the influence of Lord Kimbolton, and continued to maintain a constant intercourse with him, both while he was acting as a legislator, and when leading the armies of the Parliament. It is even asserted by Palmer, in his “Nonconformist’s Memorial,” that Nye’s advice was sought and followed in the nomination of the divines who were called to the Assembly. And when, further, it is borne in mind that Oliver Cromwell was an Independent, and acted as lieutenant-general under Lord Manchester, it will easily be perceived that Nye’s intercourse with the army was direct and influential, and that thus the Five Dissenting Brethren were able to employ a mighty political influence. Nor can the Erastian party be justly termed feeble, though formed by not more than two divines, and a few of the lay assessors, who were not always present; for both Coleman and Lightfoot were influential men, on account of their reputation for learning, in which they were scarcely inferior to Selden himself, in the department of Hebrew literature. So high was Selden’s fame, that any cause might be deemed strong which he supported; and Whitelocke and St. John possessed so much political influence in Parliament that they could not fail to exercise great power in every matter which they promoted. or opposed. But the main strength of the Erastian theory consisted in the combination of three potent elements; — the natural love of holding and. exercising power, which is common to all men and parties, tending to render the Parliament reluctant to relinquish that ecclesiastical supremacy which they had with such difficulty wrested from the sovereign; their want of acquaintance with the true nature of Presbyterian Church government, which led them to dread that if allowed free scope it might prove as oppressive as even the Prelatical, beneath whose weighty and galling yoke the nation was still downbent and bleeding; and the strong instinctive antipathy which fallen human nature feels against the spirituality and the power of vital godliness.

It is easy to perceive, that the theory which was supported by these three elements in thorough and vigorous, union, was one which it would be no easy matter to encounter and defeat; or rather, was one over which nothing but divine power could possibly gain the victory.

The Scottish commissioners cannot with propriety be regarded as forming a party in the Westminster Assembly, as they and, the English Presbyterians were in all important matters completely identified. Still it may be expedient to give a very brief account of men who occupied a position so important, and exercised. for a time so great an influence on the affairs of both kingdoms. Their names have been already mentioned; and it has also been stated, that neither the Earl of Cassilis nor the Rev. Robert Douglas ever attended the Westminster assembly. Lord Maitland and Archibald Johnston of Warriston gave regular attendance, and took deep interest in the proceedings. At that time Lord Maitland appeared to be very zealous in the cause of religious reformation, and a thorough Presbyterian; but, as afterwards appeared, his zeal was more of a political than of a religious character. After the restoration of Charles II, he conformed to Prelacy, became the chief adviser of that monarch in Scottish affairs, received the title of Duke of Lauderdale, and is too well known in Scottish history as a ruthless and bloody persecutor. Johnston of Warriston was in heart and soul a Covenanter on religious, not political principles; from which he never swerved. One only stain appears in his life, if stain it can be called, — his consenting to receive once under the government of Cromwell, after that remarkable man had reduced the three kingdoms to his sway, and when there was every reason to expect that his dominion would be lasting.

Such being the case, Warriston had but to choose to serve his country under Cromwell, or not to serve it at all. He chose the former alternative; and after the Restoration, was constrained to flee from Scotland to escape the mean vindictive hostility of the king. Having been at length seized by his pursuers, he was dragged back to his native country, that his enemies might satiate their malice by murdering the inch of life that existed in his aged and feeble form. He was a man of great strength and clearness of intellect, fervidly eloquent in speech, and of inflexible integrity.

The four Scottish divines were in every respect distinguished men, and would have been so regarded in any age or country. Alexander Henderson was, however, cheerfully admitted to be beyond comparison the most eminent. His learning was extensive rather than minute, corresponding to the character of his mind, of which the distinguishing elements were dignity and comprehensiveness. When called to quit the calm seclusion of the country parish where he had spent so many years, and to come to the rescue of the Church of Scotland in her hour of need, he at once proved himself able to conduct and control the complicated movements of an awakening empire. Statesmen sought his counsel; but with equal propriety and disinterestedness he refused to concern himself with anything beyond what belonged to the Church, — although the very reverse has often been asserted by his prelatic calumniators. Though long and incessantly engaged in the most stirring events of a remarkably momentous period, his actions, his writings, his speeches, are all characterized by calmness and ease, without the slightest appearance of heat or agitation; — resulting unquestionably from that aspect of character generally termed greatness of mind ; but which would in him be more properly characterized by describing it as a rare combination of intellectual power, moral dignity, and spiritual elevation. It was the condition of a mighty mind, enjoying the peace of God which passeth understanding, — a peace which the world had not given, and could not take away.

George Gillespie was one of that peculiar class of men who start like meteors into sudden splendor, shine with dazzling brilliancy, then suddenly set behind the tomb, leaving their compeers equally to admire and to deplore. When but in his twenty-fifth year, he published a book against what he termed, the “English Popish Ceremonies,” which Charles and Laud were attempting to force upon the Church of Scotland. This work, though the production of a youth, displayed an amount and accuracy of learning which would have done honor to any man of the most mature years and scholarship. In the Assembly of Divines, though much the youngest member there, he proved himself one of the most able and ready debaters, encountering, not only on equal terms, but often with triumphant success, each with his own weapons, the most learned, subtle, and profound of his antagonists, He must have been no common man who was ready on any emergency to meet, and frequently to foil, by their own acknowledgment, such men as Selden, Lightfoot, and Coleman, in the Erastian controversy; and Goodwin and Nye in their argument for Independency. But the excessive activity of his ardent and energetic mind wore out his frame; and he returned from his labors in the Westminster Assembly, to see once more the church and the land of his fathers, and to die.

Samuel Rutherford gained, and still holds, an extensive reputation by his religious works; but he was not less eminent in his own day as an acute and able controversialist. The characteristics of his mind were, clearness of intellect, warmth and earnestness of affection, and loftiness and spirituality of devotional feeling. He could and did write vigorously against the Independent system, and at the same time, love and esteem the men who held it. In his celebrated work, “Lex Rex,” he not only entered the regions of constitutional jurists, but even produced a treatise unrivaled yet as an exposition of the true principles of civil and religious liberty. His “Religious Letters” have been long admired by all who could understand and feel what true religion is; though groveling and impure minds have striven to blight their reputation by dwelling on occasional forms of expression, not necessarily unseemly in the homeliness of phrase used in familiar letters, and conveying nothing offensive according to the language of the times.

His powers of debate were very considerable, being characterized by clearness of distinction in stating his opinions, and a close syllogistic style of reasoning; both the result of his remarkable precision of thought.

Robert Baillie, so well known by his “Letters and Journals,” was a man of extensive and varied learning, both in languages and systematic theology.

He rarely mingled in debate; but his sagacity was valuable in deliberation, and his great acquirements, studious habits, and ready use of his pen, rendered him an important member of such an Assembly. The singular ease and readiness of Baillie in composition, enabled him to maintain what seems like a universal correspondence; and at the same time to present in a vivid, picturesque, and exquisitely natural style, the very form and impress of the period in which he lived, and the great events in which he bore a part. And when it was necessary to refute errors by exhibiting them in their real aspect, the vast reading and retentive memory of Baillie enabled him to produce what was needed with marvelous rapidity and correctness.

Scarcely ever was any man more qualified to “catch the manners living as they rise,” and at the same time to point out with instinctive sagacity what in them was wrong and dangerous.

Such were the Scottish commissioners; and it may easily be believed that they acted a very important and influential part in the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

But there was another party in England, though not represented in the Westminster Assembly, which exercised a commanding influence in the affairs of that momentous period. Perhaps it is not strictly correct to call that a party which was rather a vast mass of heterogeneous elements, without any principle of mutual coherence, except that of united resistance and hostility to every thing that possessed a previous and authorized existence. But the effect on the country was even more powerful for evil than it could, have been had the numerous sects to whom we are referring been organized into a party; for in that case their strength could have been estimated, their demands brought forward in a definite form, what was right and reasonable granted, and what was manifestly wrong and unreasonable detected and exposed. Even before the meeting of the Long Parliament, there had sprung up a great number of sects, holding all various shades of opinion in religious matters, from such as were simply absurd, down to those that were licentiously wild and daringly blasphemous. It is almost impossible even to enumerate the Sectarians that rushed prominently into public manifestation when the overthrow of the prelatic hierarchy and government rendered it safe for them to appear; and it would be wrong to pollute our pages with a statement of their pernicious and horrible tenets. These may be seen at large in Baillie’s “Dissuasive from the Errors of the Times,” “Edwards’s Gangraena,” “A Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ,” by the London Ministers, and other similar works by Prynne, Bastwick, and others.

The question may be fairly and properly asked, How it happened that so many strange and dangerous sects appeared at that peculiar juncture?

Prelatic writers have been in the habit of asserting that it was in consequence of the overthrow of the Prelatic Church government, when people were left to follow the vagaries of their own unguided imagination, by which they were led into all the errors of enthusiastic frenzy and fanatical darkness. But this solution does not touch the essence of the inquiry, How came men to be so prone to follow these insane and dangerous errors? In answer to this question there are at least two points to be carefully considered, — how had Prelacy governed , and how had Prelacy taught , the people of England? It has been already shown, that from the very commencement of the Reformation in England, the principle of the king’s supremacy in matters ecclesiastical — a principle essentially despotic, by its combination of civil and spiritual jurisdiction — had been the governing principle in the English Church. At first it showed its tyrannical tendency, by imposing ceremonies not warranted by the Word of God, and associated with Popery; and by enforcing these without the slightest regard to tenderness of feeling, or liberty of conscience.

Advancing on its despotic career, it interfered with the forms and the language of worship, prescribing to man after what manner, and in what terms, he was to address his Creator, without regard to that Creator’s own commands. At length it reached its extreme limits, and presumed to exercise absolute control over the doctrines which Christ’s ambassadors were to teach; thus rashly interfering not merely with man’s approach to God, but also with God’s message to man. This extreme point of spiritual despotism was reached, when the king and his prelates authoritatively commanded the Lord’s day to be violated, and forbade any other but the Arminian system of doctrine to be preached. Hence it appears that Prelatic Church government had proved itself to be a complete and oppressive despotism, increasing in severity as it increased in power. And let it be observed, that during its progress it had silenced. or ejected great numbers of the ablest and best ministers throughout the kingdom, without scruple and without mercy. Such a course of tyranny could not fail to produce a strong reaction in a high-minded people like the English, causing them, in the violence of the revulsion and recoil, to regard every form of ecclesiastical government as inevitably tyrannical; just as the extreme of civil despotism tends to throw a nation at one bound into the extreme of republicanism. In this manner Prelatic tyranny was the very cause why so many sects sprung up, repudiating every kind of ecclesiastical government.

Again, with regard to how Prelacy had taught the people of England, there needs but little to be said; for it is a melancholy truth, that teaching the people seems never to have been regarded by the Church of England as necessarily any part of its duty. In a Church where a despotic monarch exercises the supremacy, this is not surprising; for it requires no great degree of penetration to perceive that an intelligent and truly religious people cannot be enslaved. This Elizabeth well knew, and therefore she disapproved of preaching ministers. For the same reason, what were termed “prophesyings,” or meetings for mutual instruction, and also lecturings, were prohibited. And perhaps it would not be far from the truth were we to conjecture, that the reason why parochial schools were never instituted in England, is to be found in the same despotic principle which led the English kings and Church to wish the people to remain ignorant, that they might be the easier kept in a state of blind subjection. It will be remembered also, that whenever the Puritan ministers became what was thought troublesome, in their endeavors to teach their poor and ignorant countrymen, they were immediately silenced; and, as toleration was then unknown, they were compelled to desist from their hallowed labors, on pain of imprisonment, exile, or death. Taking this view, which is the true one, it is mere mockery to say that Prelacy had ever even attempted to teach the people of England at all, — unless, indeed, we were to say that it had striven earnestly to teach them, that external rites and ceremonies of man’s institution are more important than the Word of God, and that it was right to profane that day which God has commanded to be remembered and kept holy.

Such had been the governing , and such the teaching of Prelacy in England; and it was not strange that men, groaning under oppression, and kept in utter darkness, should wrench asunder their fetters furiously, and should be dazzled. when they rushed at once into unwonted light. It was not strange that they should, hastily conclude that whatever was remotest from such a system was best; and should therefore be eager to destroy that form of ecclesiastical government, and to resist the establishment of any other, lest it should prove equally despotic. Nor was it strange, that people strongly excited on the subject of religion, and uninstructed in its great leading truths and principles, should very readily adopt any and every theory which was boldly and plausibly promulgated. Thus it was easy for any man who possessed sufficient fluency of speech to impose upon an excited and ignorant people, to gain a number of adherents to his opinions, and to become the founder and leader of a sect. It has often been said by those who support Prelacy, not as of divine authority, but as a useful and suitable form of Church government, that it was devised for the purpose of producing and preserving uniformity in the Church. Unfortunate device! It never could have had a more full and authoritative sway than that which it enjoyed during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I; and it produced the most complete anarchy, and gave rise to Sectarianism to the greatest extent, and in the most repulsive forms, that ever shocked the Christian world. It at once kept men in ignorance, and drove them to madness; and ever since it has appealed to their frantic conduct as a proof of its own calm excellence.

The truth of this view may be shown by a parallel, but a strongly contrasted instance. After the restoration of Charles II, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was violently overthrown, and its adherents subjected to twentyeight years of terrific and relentless persecution. Did the people of Scotland split into innumerable and extravagant sects, when thus deprived of their religious teachers, and oppressed with the most remorseless cruelty? They did not. One sect alone appeared, after the persecution had lasted twenty years, and in a parish where there had been a Prelatic incumbent all that time; it never mustered more than four men, and twenty-five or twenty-six women, and it perished within a few months. What caused this remarkable difference? One answer only can be given — The superiority of the Presbyterian system, which had so thoroughly instructed the people, that they could and did retain their calm and regulated consistency of doctrine and character in the midst of every maddening and delusive element; while, on the other hand, when the Prelatic government of England was broken up, its oppressed. and ignorant people rushed headlong into the most wild, extravagant, and pernicious errors. This we believe to be the true explanation of the matter, though we are well aware that it will not be readily admitted by the admirers of Prelacy. But the truth must be stated, be offended who may; and it will be well for Britain, and for Christendom, if, should a period of similar breaking up and reconstruction arrive, men will learn by the sad experience of the past, and never more presume, either to supersede God’s institutions with man’s inventions, or, in their violent recoil, refuse to submit themselves to what God has appointed, and has so often and so manifestly honored and sanctioned with His blessing.

The pernicious effect of these multitudinous sects upon the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly, we shall have occasion hereafter to show. It will be enough here to suggest what will then be proved. Although the Independent party in the Assembly did not openly avow, or rather disclaimed, connection with the Sectarians that swarmed throughout the kingdom, yet they so far held intercourse with them, and occasionally defended them, as to secure their support, and thereby to render themselves in some measure the representatives of a large portion of the English community. For this purpose they strove to retard the progress of the Assembly, while they were mustering their adherents and concentrating their strength, — evidently expecting that they would eventually secure the establishment of their own system. In the Assembly and Parliament both, they had the aid of Sir Harry Vane the younger, one of the most subtle politicians of the age, — a man whose mind was full of theoretic and impracticable speculations, and whose restless activity of temperament kept him perpetually scheming or executing something new, — whose very constitution of mind was sectarian, because it was constructed in sections, without continuity or harmony. And in the Parliament and army they had the far more important support of Oliver Cromwell, with whom they held constant intercourse, and by whom there is every reason to believe they were employed and overreached. It is not meant, that the Independent members of Assembly were completely identified with the political Independents of the army; but there was so much of a community of feeling and interest between them, that it was not difficult for such a man as Cromwell to employ both of these parties in the promotion of his own designs.

What we have termed the political Independents of the army, were composed of sectarians of every possible shade of opinion; and from them, rather than from the religious Independents in the Assembly, arose the idea of toleration , of which so much use was subsequently made. As used by those military sectarians, the meaning of the term was, that any man might freely utter the ravings of his own heated fancy, and endeavor to proselytize others, be his opinions what they might, — even though manifestly subversive of all morality, all government, and all revelation.

Such a toleration, for instance, as would include alike Antinomians and Anabaptists, though teaching that they were set free from and above the rules of moral duty so completely, that to indulge in the grossest licentiousness was in them no sin; and Levelers and Fifth-Monarchy Men, whose tenets went directly to the subversion of every kind of constituted government, and all distinctions in rank and property. This was what they meant by toleration , — and this was what the Puritans and Presbyterians condemned and wrote against with startled vehemence. And it is neither to the credit of the Independent divines of that period, nor of their subsequent admirers and followers, that they seem to countenance such a toleration, the real meaning of which was, civil, moral, and religious anarchy. It is, however, true, that out of the discussions which this claim of unbounded and licentious toleration raised, there was at length evolved the idea of religious toleration, such as is demanded by man’s solemn and dread characteristic of personal responsibility, and consequent inalienable right to liberty of conscience. And let it be noted, that this great idea was fully admitted by those who reasoned and wrote most strongly against the “unbounded toleration” claimed by the Sectarians; although, in their opposition to that claim, they occasionally used language which might seem to condemn what in reality they both demanded for themselves and readily allowed to others. It is usual for a certain class of writers to accuse the Presbyterians of wishing to seize and wield, a tyranny as severe as that of Prelacy, against which they raised such loud complaints. Without undertaking to defend all that they said and did, this may be safely affirmed, that both the principles and the constitution of a rightly formed Presbyterian Church render the usurpation of power and the exercise of tyranny on its part wholly impossible. A Presbyterian Church in the process of formation, still trembling from the savage grasp of Prelacy, and surrounded by wild and fearful forms of sectarianism, as was its condition at the time of the Westminster Assembly, might act with some rashness and severity; a corrupt Presbyterian Church, such as was that of Scotland during the domination of Moderatism, might act despotically; but in its own nature, with its subordination of courts, and an equal or preponderating admixture of elders in them all, it can neither usurp clerical domination nor sink into jarring anarchy. In its purest state and its fullest exercise, it gives and preserves both civil and religious liberty, — both doctrinal truth and disciplinary purity, — both national instruction and national peace. On the other hand, Prelacy, in its most powerful and active state, has ever tended to destroy both civil and religious liberty; has checked doctrinal truth, and disregarded disciplinary purity; has never attempted to instruct the nation, but left it a prey to ignorance and error; and has, both in Scotland and England, inflicted the most cruel persecution, and given rise to bloody civil wars. This is a startling contrast, but not more startling than true. There is yet another point of contrast. During the past century Prelacy sunk into dormancy, and became mild and inoffensive:

Presbytery sunk into dormancy, and became cruel and oppressive, as if agitated by wild dreams under that fierce incubus, Moderatism. Prelacy has awoke, and begins to mutter words of fearful import, indicating the return of its oppressive spirit: Presbytery has awoke, and has begun her hallowed work of instructing her own people, while she offers her cordial fellowship to all who love her Divine and only Head. The inference is obvious, and may be thus stated: When the vital spirit of Prelacy is inert, it becomes comparatively harmless: when the vital spirit of Presbytery is inert, or repressed, it becomes oppressive. Again, when the vital spirit of Prelacy is active, it becomes despotic and persecuting, intolerant and illiberal: when the vital spirit of Presbytery is active, it becomes gracious and compassionate, tolerant of every thing but sin, and generous to all who believe the truth and love the Savior. Let the thoughtful reader say, which system is of human, and which of divine institution, — which shows a spirit of the earth, earthly, and which, of heavenly origin and character.

CHAPTER - THE INDEPENDENT CONTROVERSY, ANNO 1644. The Assembly directed to begin the Subjects of Discipline, Directory of Worship, and Government — The Subject of Churchofficers stated and Discussed — Pastor — Doctor — Ruling Elder — Deacon — Widow — Ordination of Ministers — Opposition of the Independents — Consent of the Congregation, or Election — Contest with the Parliament about Ordination — Directory for Public Worship — Propositions concerning Presbyterial Church Government — The Apologetical Narration by the Independents — Answers to it — The Antapologia — Views of the Independents — Keen and Protracted Debates — Excommunication — Selden and Gillespie — Nye — Attempt to Accommodate — The Power of Congregations — Suspension and Excommunication — Committee of Accommodation — Proceedings of that Committee — Suspended — Reasons of Dissent by the Independents — Answers by the Assembly — General Outline of these Reasons and Answers — The Independents Requested and Enjoined to State their own Model of Church Government — The Publication of a Copy of a Remonstrance — Assembly’s Answer to it — The Committee of Accommodation Revived — Additional Papers Prepared — Ends without Effecting an Accommodation — Brief Summary of the Points of Disagreement between the Presbyterians and Independents — Political Intrigues — Errors of both Parties. ABOUT a fortnight after the House of Commons had taken the Solemn League and Covenant, and while the Assembly of Divines were engaged in discussing the doctrinal tenets of the sixteenth of the Church of England’s Thirty-nine Articles, on the 12th of October 1643, they received an order from both Houses of Parliament, requiring them to direct their deliberations to the important topics of discipline, and a directory of worship and government. The order was as follows: — “Upon serious consideration of the present state and conjuncture of the affairs of this kingdom, the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament do order, that the Assembly of Divines and others do forthwith confer and treat among themselves, of such a discipline and government as may be most agreeable to God’s Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other Reformed Churches abroad, to be settled in this Church in stead and place of the present Church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical officers, depending upon the hierarchy, which is resolved to be taken away; and touching and concerning the Directory of Worship, or Liturgy, hereafter to be in the Church: and to deliver their opinions and advices of and touching the same to both or either House of Parliament with all the convenient speed they can.”

By this order the attention of the Assembly was turned from any further examination of the Thirty-nine Articles, and fairly directed to the important task for the accomplishment of which they had been called together. Baillie informs us that Henderson did not entertain any sanguine expectations of their conformity to the Church of Scotland, till they should have experienced the advantage of the Scottish army’s presence in England. This proves that he was not overreached by the English commissioners in the framing of the Solemn League and Covenant, but was quite aware of the views and feelings which they entertained, although he cherished the hope that circumstances might lead to a better result.

After having made some preliminary arrangements, and prepared their own minds by keeping a solemn fast, the Assembly read the order from Parliament, pointing out the new field of deliberative discussion on which they were to enter. The first question that arose regarded the order of procedure, whether they should begin with government or discipline, and it was agreed that they should begin with the subject of Church government.

This suggested another preliminary point, — whether the Scriptures contain a rule for government. Goodwin and the other Independents eagerly urged that this question should be first of all debated and decided, he expressing his conviction that the Word of God did contain a rule.

Lightfoot opposed this course, and wished the Assembly first of all to give a definition of the leading term of all their discussions, “a Church .” It is evident that this would have been the most logical course, first to define a Church, then to inquire into its government, and lastly to treat of discipline, which is government in operation. But it was felt that this course would bring forward first the very points on which the greatest differences of opinion were known to exist; and therefore it was judged prudent rather to adopt a less perfect order of procedure, for the purpose of ascertaining first how far all could agree, in the hope that then their differences would either disappear, or be capable of being brought into some general accommodation. It was accordingly resolved, that since all admitted the existence of a Church, and of Church government, however they might differ regarding their nature and extent, these subjects should be left for the present indefinite, and they should commence with the subject of office bearers in the Church, or, to use their own term, Church-officers. From this early, and comparatively slight discussion, it was evident that both parties in the Assembly were keenly vigilant lest any thing should be done which might in any degree prejudge their opinions; and consequently, that their debates would be eager, animated, and protracted, on every controverted topic. But as the very object for which the Assembly was called was to prepare a form of Church government, of discipline, and of worship for the nation, which was intended to be final and lasting, it was judged right to give to every portion of their great work the benefit of the most full and deliberate discussion, though at the expense of considerable delay.

Committees, according to the usual arrangement, had been appointed to prepare the subject of Church-officers for public discussion, and gave in their separate reports. That of the second committee began thus: — “In inquiring after the officers belonging to the Church of the New Testament, we first find that Christ, who is Priest, Prophet, King, and Head of the Church, hath fullness of power, and containeth all other offices, by way of eminency, in himself; and therefore hath many of their names attributed to him.” To this sacred and comprehensive proposition they appended a number of Scripture proofs, in six divisions. The following names of Church officers were mentioned as given in Scripture to Christ: — 1. Apostle; 2. Pastor; 3. Bishop; 4. Teacher; 5. Minister, or Dia>koonov but this last name was rejected by the Assembly, as not meaning a Church officer in the passage where it is used. The report of the third committee was similar in character, ascribing, in Scripture terms, the government to Jesus Christ, who, being ascended far above all heavens, “hath given all officers necessary for the edification of his Church; some whereof are extra-ordinary, some ordinary. Out of the scriptures referred to they found the following officers: — Apostles, Evangelists, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers, Bishops or Overseers, Presbyters or Elders, Deacons, and Widows. In the discussion which followed upon the reading of these reports, it is rather remarkable that the Erastians took no part; although the full meaning of the main proposition, — that Christ contains all offices, by way of eminency, in himself, and has given all officers necessary for the edification of his Church, — seems to contain enough to preclude the Erastian theory.

But we shall have occasion to show the reason why they allowed this proposition to pass unchallenged. It did not, however, escape the opposition of the Independents. Mr. Goodwin opposed it, as anticipating the Assembly’s work, and concluding that Christ’s influence into his Church is through his officers, whereas he questions whether it be conveyed that way or not. Again, when the kingly office of Christ was under discussion, Goodwin doubted whether the Scriptures prove that Christ is King, in regard of discipline in the Church. He questioned also whether the Headship of Christ should be specified, as being no office in the Church. All these objections were overruled, and the reports proved, as the basis of subsequent deliberations.

The four following questions were also reported by the third committee: — “ 1. What officers are mentioned in the New Testament? 2. What officers of these were pro tempore , and what permanent? 3. What names were common to divers officers, and what restrained? 4. What the office of those standing officers?”

The general names of officers having been already stated, the debate arose on the second question, — “What officers were perpetual?” The office of apostles was declared to be only pro tempore , and extraordinary, for the eight following reasons: — 1. They were immediately called by Christ; 2. They had seen Christ; 3. Their commission was through the whole world; 4. They were endued with the spirit of infallibility in delivering the truths of doctrine to the churches; 5. They only by special commission were set apart to be personal witnesses of Christ’s resurrection; 6. They had power to give the Holy Ghost; 7. They were appointed to go through the world to settle churches, in a new form appointed by Christ; 8. They had the inspection and care of all the churches.

Little opposition was made to these reasons, and that little was chiefly made by Mr. Goodwin, — particularly respecting the power the apostles to plant and settle churches; he being afraid, apparently, that if he admitted this power, even in apostles, it might so far condemn the practice of the Independents, where ordinary believers formed themselves into churches, and appointed their own officers totally without the intervention or aid of any other church, or of any person previously ordained. Not a single voice was raised in behalf of the theory first started by Bancroft, and carried to its height by Laud, — that prelates are the successors of the apostles, and possess their office