nant with the Scotch National Covenant of five years previous. Ecclesiastical jealousy and partisanship have been too willing to let it be thought a mere Scottish document, and to forget that it was a mutual civil treaty as well as a religious bond between England and Scotland. Prepared no doubt by Henderson, and suggested by Scotland, it was none the less revised and adjusted by the English Parliament, and freely adopted as an International League. How Cromwell and many others who signed it came to deal with its six articles afterwards, will always suggest some painful reflections. Meanwhile, the League bound the English Parliament to aim at a Presbyterian form of government in their Church Establishment; it created a Presbyterian political party, and put it in the ascendant; and while it brought 20,000 Scottish troops across the border on the Parliamentary side, to checkmate Charles's appeal to Ireland for help, it also brought a body of Scotch commissioners into the Westminster Assembly-four ministers and two lay-assessors-Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford, Robert Baillie, and George Gillespie, with Lord Maitland and Johnston of Warriston. It is important to bear in mind that these Scottish Commissioners, with liberty to speak, had no vote in the Assembly.

OUTSIDE THE ASSEMBLY AND PARLIAMENT.

The enthusiasm with which the Covenant was received in England was only partial and temporary, being confined to certain classes and districts. Much larger numbers than is usually supposed did, however, freely sign it; and copies of the Covenant having the names attached to them of all parishioners above eighteen years of age, are still extant among corporation and parochial records. An attestation also on the part of no fewer than 793 of the clergy, taken from only fourteen counties, has been handed down to us. Indeed, for two years

1 NEAL himself declares that, "most of the religious part of the nation who apprehended the Protestant religion to be in danger, and were desirous of reducing the hierarchy, were zealous for the Covenant."

2 By Zechariah Crofton, minister of St. Botolph's, Aldgate, London, p. 146 of his Fastening of St. Peter's Fetters, written in 1660, when he declares that most of

at least, it seemed as if a wave of Presbyterianism were to carry all before it. But when Parliament and Assembly, having themselves taken the Covenant, determined to impose and enforce it at large under the penalty of certain fines (a step resisted by Baxter and others of the less ultra party), the process evoked, as it proceeded, much bitterness and resentment, and produced, or at least aggravated, divisions destined never to be healed. London and Lancashire, however, took the matter up with enthusiasm, and held firmly to it, though not supported by any strong or general feeling in the country at large. For the Covenant was made to appear at last, in England, as the shibboleth of a party and its triumph, not, as in Scotland, the uprising of a whole nation of patriots and confessors. It was read aloud in every parish church, and all who refused to swear to or subscribe it, were to be duly reported. It was required of every Common Councilman, and all who would practise in the law courts; while officers in the army, magistrates, and governors of towns or garrisons were to subscribe to it themselves and serve it on all who were subject to them.

Of those who were Covenanted Presbyterians by personal conviction, who held high places of influence and trust, foremost mention must be made of the General-in-Chief of the Parliamentary forces, Sir Thomas Fairfax, afterwards the distinguished third Lord FAIRFAX (who resigned in favour of Cromwell, rather than engage against the Presbyterians in

them were still alive. He wrote also, St. Peter's Bonds abide; Berith Anti-Baal; and The Efficacy and Extent of the Solemn League and Covenant Asserted.

It is a mistake, however, to think that the idea of a National religious Covenant was a mere Scottish importation. There had been, apart from Scotland altogether, a similar spontaneous outburst and proposal in the Parliament of England, at the great crisis of May, 1641. The Commons, on the suggestion of Sir John Wray, member for Lincolnshire, then resolved on a "SOLEMN VOW AND PROTESTATION,' which was forthwith taken by all the members (to the number of 438), and being sent to the Lords, was accepted by them also, with only two dissentients. "It was then printed and sent to the magistrates throughout the kingdom, with an order that it should be solemnly adopted on the following Sunday by heads of families, and all of proper age." As Sir John Wray said in his speech, "they were to be loyal Covenanters with God and the King; binding themselves by a National Oath to preserve religion without mixture of superstition or idolatry, and to defend the Defender of the Faith, his person, crown, and dignity."-Parl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 776. See Stoughton's Religion in England, vol. i. pp. 130-133.

Scotland), and not less of his wife, LADY FAIRFAX, who was the centre of an illustrious circle of Presbyterian relatives, like her mother, the LADY VERE, who, with her husband Horatio, Baron of Tilbury, had acquired strong Presbyterian proclivities in Holland, and her cousin, LADY BRILLIANA CONWAY, wife of Sir Robert Harley, the head of a large Presbyterian interest, who was born, like herself, in Holland; all of them distinguished heroines of the Covenant and the war.1

1 See their respective Lives in Anderson's Memorable Women of the Puritan Times, vol. i. pp. 31, 86, and 242; also LADY BRILLIANA'S Letters (Camden Society, 1854), and Markham's Life of Fairfax, and his Fairfax Correspondence.

II.

TRANSACTIONS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY, 1643-1649. THE main Transactions of the Westminster Assembly may be divided into four parts:

I. Debates issuing in the DIRECTORY FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP. II. The INDEPENDENT CONTROVERSY as to the Mode of Church Government, which issued in the carefully-drawn "FORM OF PRESBYTERIAL CHURCH GOVERNMENT, AGREED UPON BY THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES AT WESTMINSTER."

III. The ERASTIAN CONTROVERSY as to the AUTONOMY and disciplinary powers of the Church, and its relation to the State. IV. The Composition of the CONFESSION OF FAITH and the CATECHISMS.

These may, conveniently for our purpose, be taken separately, without violating historic accuracy, though not always in strict chronological sequence; the discussions being necessarily intermingled, and the several matters overlapping one another in the course of the various debates.

I. DEBATES ISSUING IN THE DIRECTORY FOR PUBLIC WORSHIP. It will be borne in mind that the Assembly of Divines was originally called together to revise and reform the disciplinary and doctrinal Articles, together with the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England; but on Thursday, 12 Oct., when engaged in revising the Thirty-nine Articles, it received

1 Besides the well-known books on "THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY," by Dr. Hetherington and Prof. A. F. Mitchell, there are valuable contemporary authorities. Foremost are the three folio MS. volumes of the ORIGINAL MINUTES, long thought to be lost, but preserved in the Williams Library; and now in part accessible in printed form, edited by Drs. Mitchell and Struthers, with historical and critical Introduction. In the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, are the two MS. volumes of NOTES on the Assembly from Feb. 2 to Oct. 25, 1644, by GEORGE GILLESPIE, now in his WORKS. Lightfoot's Journal of the Proceedings from 1 Jan., 1643, to 31 Dec., 1644," now constitutes the 13th vol. of his WORKS (8vo edition). But the book for detailed and graphic information here, as for the whole Covenant period, 1637 to 1662, is Dr. Laing's Edition of Principal ROBERT BAILLIE'S Letters and Journals, 3 vols. (Bannatyne Club, 1841-1842).

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an extended commission, through the prevalence of Scottish influence chiefly, after Parliament had adopted the Solemn League and Covenant. It was now required not only to prepare a Common Confession, a Catechism, and a revised form of public worship, but to construct directly from Scripture a scheme of Church Government for the three Kingdoms. Various committees were appointed, and much of the work was necessarily done through them. Very early it became manifest that the great struggles between parties would be developed over this Church question, the Assembly being singularly agreed upon matters of doctrine and worship. They therefore endeavoured to approach the more debatable subject by degrees and in a thoroughly methodical way; beginning with Christ, the Divine Head of the Church, as the fount of authority possessed of every office in His own Person; and then proceeding to the various kinds of Church officers set forth in the New Testament. Urgent as was the need of preparing some method of worship, to take the place of what had been virtually supplanted, it was impossible to avoid collision, or stave off entirely those matters of difference which occupied the first two years of the Assembly, and which issued at last in THE GRAND DEBATE. But it was from the midst of these preliminary yet protracted discussions respecting the offices of Apostles, Pastors, Doctors or Teachers, ruling Elders, and Deacons that the new DIRECTORY OF WORSHIP1 emerged, which all parties in Assembly and Parliament agreed to enforce in room of the Prayer Book. The Assembly began this work on 24 May, 1644, and finished it 27 Dec. of the same year, when they sent it to Parliament, who passed it, after final revision, on 13 March, 1645, and ordered it to be at once printed and brought into

1 A Directory for the Publique Worship of God throughout the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland: together with an Ordinance of Parliament for the taking away of the Book of Common Prayer and for Establishing and Observing of this present Directory throughout the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales. 2 At this very time (4 January, 1645), the Lords also passed the Bill of Attainder against Archbishop Laud, after the impeachment had broken down. His execution, which followed on 10th January (however it may be accounted for), will hardly now be justified by any one, nor regarded as other than a blunder and crime, which, next to the execution of Charles I. himself, helped to intensify and embitter the future reaction.