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1642

learned divines." In June, parliament wrote to the assembly of Scotland, acquainting it with their affairs. A reply was received, in which the assembly offered their "prayers and endeavours" for furthering their great undertaking. Parliament wrote back again, promising to call "an assembly of godly and learned divines, so soon as the royal assent could be obtained.”* In November of the same year, the royal assent was sought. In its remonstrance to the king, parliament expressed its desire that "there may be a general synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this island, assisted with some from foreign parts, who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good government of the church, and represent the result of their consultations unto the parliament, to be there allowed of and confirmed, and receive the stamp of authority." This resolution was passed in a full house, by a majority of eleven only. The majority, however, carried their point. A bill embodying the resolution was proposed to his Majesty. His Majesty rejected it. Parliament, nothing daunted, resolved to proceed with it as one of its own ordinances, and to carry it into effect on its own authority. This ordinance was passed on June 12th, 1643, and W. A. on the 1st of July, the Westminster Assembly met for the first time in Henry the Seventh's Chapel.

Parliament thus committed itself to a line of policy from which there was no receding. They had now summoned into being an anomalous ecclesiastical court, whose deliberations could not fail to agitate, and whose decisions could not fail to divide the public mind; a court whose authority nominally subordinate to par

*Printed Acts of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland. Rushworth, v. 391.

liament, might nevertheless become virtually paramount, and the result of whose proceedings, none, however sagacious, could predict.

Modern apologists have been accustomed to lay much stress on the circumstance, that the assembly was summoned to advise, and not to legislate. A very little reflection, however, will serve to show the futility of the distinction thus made, as well as of the plea founded on it. It is admitted, that the assembly was not an ecclesiastical synod, in the proper sense of the term, but the creature of parliament, by whom its several members were appointed and paid, and its various functions and duties defined. Still, the right of parliament to call such a convention implied the right to determine that the nation should have a religion, what it should be, and how it should be maintained. This was the fundamental error of the whole proceeding, against which the character and abilities. of the divines composing the assembly, however high, cannot be set. Had parliament summoned a conclave of angels, the objection would have been equally strong. But it is also evident that the assembly was virtually called to the exercise of legislative functions; as much so, as if it had been a committee of both houses for taking the initiative in providing a religion for the nation. The incapacity of parliament, implied in the expedient of summoning a body of clergymen to perform this part of their supposed duties for them, shows only more clearly the real nature of the business devolved upon the assembly. The language already quoted from the original resolution of the House on

* In strict legal form, it was such a committee, the divines being paid agents of that committee, as lawyers might be in other

cases.

this subject is also explicit. The assembly were to deliberate on "all things" necessary for "the peace and good government of the church," and to "represent the result of their consultations to the parliament, to be there allowed of and confirmed, and receive the stamp of authority." Again, the ordinance appointing it declared it to be "for the settling of the government and liturgy of the Church of England;" while in the body of the bill we find the following terms— "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 thereof, 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 consult 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."*

*"An Ordinance, &c." 1648; Hanbury, ii. 199.

From this it is evident that parliament had determined upon two things: first, that a reformed religion should be established; and secondly, that the assembly's advice and counsel should be followed in the reformation to be made; reserving to itself the power of review and final authorisation. The last point was a matter of course. To have acted otherwise would have been constituting the assembly an arbitrary court, with powers greater than those of the abolished hierarchy. Yet on this very point the advocates, or rather apologists, of the assembly, from Baxter downwards, have mainly rested their defence. It cannot be questioned that, in so far as the calling of the assembly was a bona fide measure, it was the design of parliament to make its decisions theirs. Every member of that assembly entered upon his duties as a virtual legislator in matters ecclesiastical. Every member, moreover, was actuated by a conviction of this nature; and to suppose otherwise is to impute to the whole synod the most solemn trifling, and to characterise their labours as the most learned child's-play, the world has ever witnessed. If any thing further were needed upon this point, it might be asked, why were members of both houses added to the assembly, and the power of nominating its clerical members confined to knights of the shire? The presence of the thirteen peers and twenty commoners might have been dispensed with, if the opinion of the godly divines was all that was required. But the proceedings of the assembly, as they come under our notice, will show the real nature of the powers with which they were invested.

Various opinions have been entertained respecting the composition and merits of this celebrated body. Praise and blame have been administered with equal

lavishness. Some, with Clarendon, have decried it in the most unworthy invectives; others, following the judgment of the too latitudinarian Baxter, have become its warmest apologists;† while a third party, occupying the lofty position of John Milton, and impatient of every thing that might be regarded as redeeming merely, have considered exclusively the general character and tendency of its proceedings. Unquestionably, some few of the members of the assembly were men of genius, and a greater number men of learning; but as a body, they were not above the average character of the clergy of the day. Selected from various parts of the kingdom, on personal grounds quite as much as any other, it would have been impossible to pronounce a judgment beforehand on the kind of appearance they would make on their first gathering; and yet it would not have been difficult, could their protracted session also have been foreseen, to predict that five years incessant discussion on matters of a serious and pressing nature, would operate as a powerful if not healthy stimulus on the minds of all, and probably bring into notice some rarer spirits, whose energies might otherwise have slumbered amidst the quiet duties of parochial life. The last mentioned result was in fact realized.

Seldom has the world beheld a more animating scene than was to be witnessed every day of the week,

* Clarendon writes: "Some of them infamous in their lives and conversations, and most of them of very mean parts in learning, if not of scandalous ignorance." Hist. of Rebellion, i. 531.

† Baxter writes: "The divines there congregated were men of eminent learning, godliness, ministerial abilities, and fidelity, &c." Life, i. 93.

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