The Rise of the Presbyterians in the Reformed Church of England (Continued). PERIOD OF THE PRESBYTERIAN ASCENDENCY, 1643-1649. I. PARLIAMENT CALLS THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY, AND WITH IT, SWEARS TO THE COVENANT, 1642-1643. THE ordinance dissolving Prelacy in the Church passed the Houses of Parliament between 10 September and 26 January, 1642-1643, and was to come into force on 5th November of 1643. Something behoved to be done to supply the place of the abolished hierarchy. As a temporary arrangement for ordaining suitable ministers, a large central committee of the Presbyterially-disposed London clergy was appointed. So early as 19th April, 1642, the Commons had agreed that the Knights of the Shire should nominate two divines for each county (subject to approval and addition by the House), to be a consulting body under Parliament, and to suggest a new arrangement of Church government and discipline. A provisional list of clergy and lay-members was speedily adopted, and an executive committee was appointed to carry out arrangements. Three times over in the course of 1642 did both Lords and Commons pass a Bill to constitute the proposed great Ecclesiastical Assembly; but as the King would not assent, and the war had now begun, the Houses, on 12th June, 1643, issued their final ordinance,1 appointing it to meet on 1st July. From that date till 22 February, 1649, the WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY continued to exert a powerful influence on the country, as well as on London, for 1 Given in Rushworth's Hist. Coll., vol. v. pp. 337-339. the next five-and-a-half years, being in constant communication with both Houses of Parliament, and meeting close beside them. For a time they held their sittings in Henry the Seventh's Chapel; but as winter approached, they found more comfortable quarters in the JERUSALEM CHAMBER. CONSTITUTION OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY. There had been summoned to the Assembly at first 121 divines, with ten peers, and twenty members of the House of Commons. Many alterations afterwards took place, as the Royalist episcopal members either did not attend or withdrew when the King issued his denunciatory proclamation from Oxford, and other names were added from time to time.1 The opening scene in THE ABBEY was solemn and impressive, service being conducted by DR. TWISSE, before an immense audience. On adjourning to their first meeting in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, it was found that sixty-nine of the clerical members were present; and the average attendance afterwards was from sixty to eighty. They proceeded according to the directions and regulations received from Parliament, who had convoked them as an advisory body, and who, in doing so, had acted in the spirit of the Constitution, and according to the 21st Article of the Church, which recognises that without civil authority, "General Councils may not be gathered together." As in other ordinances, however, without the King's sanction, Parliament in this case also assumed to itself the special right and prerogative of the Crown. The very learned DR. WILLIAM TWISSE, Rector of Newbury, who had been appointed PROLOCUTOR, was in the chair; a venerable and admired theologian, nearly seventy years of age, but perhaps too silent and bookish for so uneasy a position. Before him sit his two assessors, Dr. Cornelius BURGESS, "very active and sharp;" and the genial 1 For carefully compiled lists and biographic notices, see the treatises of Hether ington, but especially of Mitchell, on THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY. 2 Twisse died in July, 1646, exclaiming, amid the distractions of the time, "Now, at last, I shall have leisure to pursue my studies." He was buried in the Abbey ; but his body was dug up and dishonoured like many others at the Restoration. He was succeeded as Prolocutor of Assembly by Charles Herle. yet dignified Rev. John WHITE, the Patriarch of Dorchester, who was brother-in-law of his fellow-assessor, and an ancestor of the Wesleys. The clerks at the table are Henry Roborough and Adoniram Byfield, with Dr. John Wallis. Besides the celebrated London preachers to be afterwards noticed, there are, of those present, men of mark like Drs. John Arrowsmith, Anthony Tuckney, Edmund Staunton, Lazarus Seaman, Edward Reynolds, Joshua Hoyle, William Spurstowe, and Daniel Featley. Two prominent and active members were Thomas (Rabbi) Coleman and Dr. John Lightfoot, Oriental linguists and heads of the ERASTIAN party, who were ably supported by the great scholar John Selden. Five others, who came to be called "the Dissenting Brethren," were the INDEPENDENTS, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sydrach Simpson, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William Bridge, with other two or three afterwards added of the same persuasion. The Scottish Commissioners had no place in the Assembly till somewhat later.1 THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT AGREED UPON. 2 In the earlier campaigns, it will be remembered, the fortunes of the Civil War went sorely against the Parliament. Not only were their troops often defeated and cities captured, but serious losses had been incurred by the death of LORD BROOKE, at Lichfield, and, above all, of JOHN HAMPDEN, who was fatally wounded on Chalgrove field, though he lingered for six days afterwards in great pain. When the gloom was thus thickening over the Parliament's cause, proposals were made to secure the help of Scotland; and Commissioners, headed by Sir Harry Vane, and with Stephen Marshall the Presbyterian, and Philip Nye the Independent from the Assembly, were sent to Edinburgh, to negotiate a union in mutual defence. The result issued in the Six Articles of the Solemn League and Covenant, the first two 1 BAILLIE, as an eye-witness, has given the most graphic description of the Assembly. Letters and Journals, vol. ii. pp. 108, 109. He died declaring that, "though he could not away with the governance of the Church by Bishops, he thought its doctrine in the greater part primitive, and conformable to God's Word." Vide Nugent's Life of Hampden, p. 363. U dealing with Religious or Ecclesiastical Reformation, and the other four with the Civil Constitution. It was thus both a Civil League and a Religious Covenant, to suit the exigences of the situation-politicians having regard specially to its aspect as a League, and religious reformers to its aspect as a Covenant. The essential or Covenant clauses are these: "1. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of God, endeavour, 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 of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches; and shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship, and catechising; that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us. "2. That we shall, in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (i.e., Church government by Archbishops, Bishops, their chancellors and commissaries, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical officers depending on that Hierarchy), superstition, heresy, schism, profaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the power of godliness; lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues, and that the Lord may be one and His name one in the three kingdoms." And the substance of the others is conveyed in the next article or resolution. "3. We shall with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy in our several vocations endeavour 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 defence 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." THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT SWORN TO BY The crowning event, therefore, of 1643,-that which practically committed England to Presbyterianism, so far as it could be committed in a state of civil war, was enacted on the 15th of September, within St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. Standing then, as now, between Westminster Hall and the Abbey, there poured into it the members of Assembly from one side on that eventful morning, and the members of Parliament from the other, the House of Commons being in those days St. Stephen's Chapel, "a long narrow building of the fourteenth century, in a rich ecclesiastical style, at right angles to Westminster Hall, with its entrance at the west end, where it adjoined the Hall, and a large window at the other." The House of Lords stood at the south end of the Hall. In the midst of Divine worship, and after Nye and Henderson had addressed the audience, "THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT" was slowly read aloud, and the whole body of representatives in Church and State stood up, and with their right hands raised towards heaven, took an oath to receive and stand by this Covenant.1 A similar solemnity was witnessed some weeks later among the Lords, or such of them as continued in attendance; about thirty out of 124 lay peers having chosen the Parliamentary side. (The spiritual peerage was at an end on 13 February, 1641-2, when the Bishops Exclusion Bill obtained the Royal assent.) The Covenant was signed on the spot by 220 members of the Commons-some names of absentees being afterwards added-while the Assembly subscribed on a separate parchment. This was a large proportion of the House of Commons, for, while nominally comprising 500 members (ninety-one for counties, four for the Universities, 405 for boroughs, London having four representatives), it had been reduced by deaths and withdrawals to less than 300, and only a third of these were in effective attendance. To appreciate the significance of what was then done, we must be careful not to confound the Solemn League and Cove 1 The sermons, by Calamy, Case, Coleman, and the addresses on this occasion by Nye and Henderson, were afterwards published by authority. The largest collection of such Covenanting publications we have seen, is the volume of reprints edited by Ebenezer Erskine in 1741. For all the Historic Documents, and a full bibliography, see Treasury of the Covenant, by Rev. J. C. Johnston, 1887. |