BX 9053 .M5 1883 c.l Mitchell, Alexander Ferrier, 1822-1899. The Westminster Assembly i THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY ITS HISTORY AND STANDARDS BEING ^ije BaicU ^lecture for 1882 BY V ALEXANDER F. MITCHELL, D.D. PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, ST. MARV'S COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS JOINT EDITOR OF ' MINUTES OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY,' ETC. LONDON JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET MDCCCLXXXIII [A /I rights reserved. J 404 PREFATORY NOTE. -. When appointed Baird Lecturer for 1882, the Author chose as the subject of his Lectures, ' Epochs in the History of the Reformed Church of Scotland.' But the state of his health during 1 88 1, and his desire to complete without delay his researches on the Westminster Assembly — a subject which had engaged his attention for some years, and on which he had previously given lectures on both sides of the Atlantic — led him to ask that he might be allowed to substitute that subject for the one first chosen, and to write additional lectures on it. To this the Trustees most kindly consented, and seven additional lectures were prepared, which with those pre- viously written make up the present volume. His best thanks are due to the Trustees, as well for the indulgence they have shown him as for the kind aid they have promised to help forward the publication of the remainder of the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly. His thanks are also due to old friends at Cambridge, Oxford, and the British Museum for much kind aid in the pro- vi Prefatory Note. secution of his researches, as well as to a young friend in St. Andrews for revising the proof-sheets of this volume. In the first three lectures the author has given a succinct account of English Puritanism from its origin to the meeting of the Westminster Assembly, and in the tenth lecture he has given a similar account of the history of doctrine in the British Churches during the same period. But through- out he has endeavoured to give prominence to aspects of the history which have hitherto been generally overlooked, and to treat more briefly of those which have been previously dwelt on. It goes without saying that while thankfully owning the good that has been done by the great men of other schools, he has strong sympathies with the worthies of the Puritan or Low Church School, which in the i6th and 17th centuries did so much for the revival of earnest religious life and the maintenance of evangelical doctrine, and which, notwithstanding later reverses, has continued to exercise a benign influence and to permeate with * its own seriousness and purity ' English society, literature, and politics.^ * ' The history of English progress since the Restoration, on its moral and spiritual sides, has been the history of Puritanism.' — Green. Excerpt from Deed of Trust by James Baird, Esq., in favour of the Trustees of the ' Baird Trust.' 'Whereas, at the Meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, held in May 1872, I declared my intention to found a Lectureship, to be called " The Baird Lecture," for the illustration and the defence of the vital truths hereinbefore referred to, as well as for the promotion of Christian knowledge and Christian work generally, and for the exposure and refutation of all error and unbelief, under which foundation the Very Reverend Robert Jamieson, D.D., lately Moderator of the General Assembly, was to be the first Lecturer, and that for the spring of the year 1873 5 Therefore, and for the endowment of the said Lectureship, I appoint my said Trustees to hold an annual sum of £210 out of the revenue of the funds under their charge for the purposes of said Lectureship ; and I direct that the following shall be the conditions and terms on which my said Trustees shall carry out my foundation of said Lectureship : — ' I. The Lecturer shall be a minister of the foresaid Church of Scotland who shall have served the cure of a parish for not less than five years, or a minister of any other of the Scottish Presbyterian Churches who shall have served as pastor of a congregation for a similar period in his own Church ; and in making the appointment, care shall be taken by the Trustees to choose a man of piety, ability, and learning, and who is approved and reputed sound in all the essentials of Christian truth, as set forth in the statement hereinbefore written of what is meant by sound religious principles. ' 2. The Lecturer shall be appointed annually in the viii Deed of Trtist by James Baird. month of April by my said Trustees, and the appointment shall be made at a meeting of the Trustees to be called for the purpose, and held in Glasgow. ' 3. The Lecturer shall deliver a course of not less than Six Lectures on any subject of Theology, Christian Evidences, Christian Work, Christian Missions, Church Government, and Church Organisations, or on such subject relative thereto as the Trustees shall from year to year fix in concert with the Lecturer. '4. The Lectures shall be duly advertised to the satis- faction of the Trustees, at the cost of the Lecturer, and shall be delivered publicly at any times during the months of January and February in each year, in Glasgow, and also, if required, in such other one of the Scottish University towns as may from time to time be appointed by the Trustees. ' 5. The Lectures of each year shall be published, if possible, before the meeting of the next General Assembly, or at latest within six months of the date when the last of the course shall have been delivered. Such publication to be carried out at the sight and to the satisfaction of the Trustees, but by the Lecturer at his own cost and risk, and to the extent of not less than 750 copies, of which there shall be deposited, free, two copies in the Library of each of the Universities of Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews, two copies in the Library of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and one copy in each of the Theological Libraries connected with the said Universities, and twenty copies shall be put at the disposal of the Trustees. The price of publication to be regulated by the Trustees in concert with the Lecturer.' Ordinance calling Westminster Assembly, ix An Ordinance OF the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, for the calling of an Asseinbly 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 Eftgla/id, and for vindicating and clearing of t lie doctrine of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations {Ya.ssQi\ ]un& 12, 1643). 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 as 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, com- missaries, 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, who, together with some members of both the Houses of Parliament, are 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, and to give their advice and counsel therein to both or either of the said Houses, when, and as often as they shall be there- b X Ordinance of Parliament unto required : Be it therefore ordained, by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, That all and every the persons hereafter in this present Ordinance named, that is to say, — [Here are inserted the iiaines of the members, which are given on p. xii. et seq^^ And such other person and persons as shall be nominated and appointed by both Houses of Parliament, or so many of them as shall not be letted by sickness, or other necessary uiipediment, 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 themselves at Westminster, in the Chapel called King Henry the vii.'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 unto 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 other- wise, 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 calling Westminster Assembly. xi iic 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 Parlia- ment : And in case any difference of opinion shall happen amongst the said persons so assembled, touching any 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 i-espectively, 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 expenses 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, during the time of their said attendance, and for ten days before and ten days after, 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 offence, forfeiture, penalty, loss, or damage, which shall or may arise or grow by reason of any non-' residence 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 their said attendance upon the said service ; any law or statute of non-residence, 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 be- fore 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 and 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 is by xu List of Members of 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 juris- diction, power, or authority ecclesiastical whatsoever, or any other power than is herein particularly expressed. LIST OF MEMBERS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY.' In the order hi which their names appear in the Ordinance calling the Assembly, or were subsequently added by the two Houses. PEERS. *Algernon, Earl of North- umberland. William, Earl of Bedford. ^Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. *William, Earl of Salisbury. Henry, Earl of Holland. *Edward, Earl of Manches- ter. *William, Lord Viscount Say and Seale. Edward, Lord Viscount Conway. *Philip, Lord Wharton. *Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick. Basil, Earl of Denbigh J Oliver, Earl of Bolingbroke j William, Lord Grey of Warke ; vice Bedford, Hollattd, and Conway. * Robert, Earl of Essex, Lord General. ^Robert, Earl of Warwick, Lord High Admiral. 1 An asterisk has been placed before the name of every one who has been found at any time to have attended the meetings, and of every one who is reported to have signed the protestation required to be taken by every member admitted to sit in the Assembly. The names of members added subsequently to the meeting of the Assembly are printed in italics, as are also the particulars about the original members which are not taken from the Ordinance. For convenience of reference I prefix a number to the name of each divine, and I append the same number to the name of each divine in the general Index to this volume, after the Roman numerals indicating the page of this list on which it is found. the Westminster Assembly xiu -MEMBERS OF HOUSE OF COMMONS. *John Selden, Esq. *Francis Rous, Esq. *Edmund Prideaux, Esq. *Sir Henry Vane, Knt., senior. *John Glynn, Esq., Recorder of London. *John White, Esq. *BouldstrodeWhitlocke, Esq. *Humphrey Salloway, Esq. Mr. Serjeant Wild. *01iver St. John, Esq., His Majesty's Solicitor. *Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Knt. *John Pym, Esq. *Sir John Clotvvorthy, Knt. *John Maynard, Esq. *Sir Henry Vane, Knt., junior. William Pierpoint, Esq. *William Wheeler, Esq. *Sir Thomas Harrington, Knt. Walter Young, Esq. *Sir John Evelyn, Knt. *Sir Robert Harley, v. Pym, deceased. *S/r IVi/liain Massain, or Massoft, \. Barritigton, deceased. * William Stroud, v. White, deceased. *Sir Arthur \ , , , , TT J • I added alont; Haselrisr, f . , „ , * 7) / ., r> } with Earl of Robert Rey- 1 ■' nolds, Esq., ) ^Zoiich Tate, Esq. *Sir Gilbert Gerard (?). *Sir Robert Pye {?}. *Sir Joh7t Cooke. Nathaniel Fieniies (?). DIVINES. *Herbert Palmer, B.D., of Ashwell, Herts, Assessor a/ter\\h\te, and Master oj (Jueen's College, Cambridge. *01i\er Bowles, B.D., of Sutton, Bedford. *Henry Wilkinson, sen., 15. D., of Waddesdon, Bucks, and St. Dunstan's in East. *Thomas Valentine, B.D., of Chalfont, St. Giles, Bucks, aft. of Londo7i. *William Twisse, D.D., of Newbury, /y't'r^j-. Prolocutor. *\Villiam Raynor, B.D., of Egham, Surrey, aft. of St. John Baptist, London. *Hannibal Gammon, M.A., of Mawgan, Cornwall. *Jasperor Gaspar Hickes, M.A., of Lanrake, Cornwall. *Joshua Hoyle, D.D., of Dublin, afterwards of Stepney, then Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. xiv List of Members of 10. *WilIiam Bridge, A/. A., of Yarmouth. 11. Thomas Wincop, D.D., of Ellesworth, Cambridge. 12. *Thomas Goodwin, B.D., of London, aft. of Magdalen College, Oxford. 13. *John Ley, M.A., of Budworth, Cheshire. 14. ^Thomas Case, M.A., of St. Mary Magdalette, Milk Street, London. 15. John Pyne, of Bereferrers, Devon. 16. Francis Whidden, M.A., of 'Morelon-Hampstead, Devon. 17. Richard Love, D.D., of Ekington, and of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 18. *William Gouge, D.D.,of Blackfriars, London, Assessor after Palmer. 19. Ralph Brownerigg, D.D., Bishop of Exeter, sent excuse for non-attendance. 20. Samuel Ward, D.D., Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. 21. *John White, M.A., of Dorchester, Assessor. 22. *Edward Peale, of Compton, Dorset. 23. ^Stephen Marshall, B.D., of Finchingfield, Essex. 24.* Obadiah Sedgewick, B.D., of Coggeshall, or of Farn- ham, Essex. 25. [John] Carter, IVLA., of York, after of Camberwell, or of St. Peter's, Norwich. 26. *Peter Clerk, AT. A., of Carnaby, afterwards of Kirkby^ York. 27. *William Mew, B.D., of Easington, Gloucester. 28. Richard Capell, M.A., Pitchcombe, Gloucester. 29. *Theophilus Bathurst, or Theodore Backhurst, of Overton Watervile, Wilts. 30. *Philip Nye, M.A., of Kimbolton, Htmts. 31. ^Brocket (or Peter) Smith, D.D., of Barkway, Herts. 32. ^Cornelius Burges, D.D., of Watford, Herts, Assessor., aft. of St. Andrew'' s, Wells, y:). *John Green, of Pencombe, Hereford. 34. *Stanley Gower, of Brampton Bryan, Hereford, and St. Martiris, Ludgate. 35. ^Francis Taylor, B.D., of Yalding, Kent. the Westminster Assembly. xv 36. *Thomas Wilson, A/. A., of Otham, Keni. ^j. *Antony Tuckney, B.D., of Boston, and SL Michael Quern, aft. Master successively of Emmanuel atid St. fohn's, Cambridge, and Professor of Divinity after Arrow smith. 38. *Thomas Coleman, M.A., of Blyton, Lincoln, aft. of St. Peters, Cornhill. 39. *Charles Herle, M.A., of Winwick, Lancashire, Prolo- cutor after Dr. Twisse. 40. *Richard Herrick, orHeyrick, M.A., Warden of Christ'' s College, Manchester, conformed at Restoration. 41. Richard Cleyton, M.A., of Shawell, Leicester, aft. Easton Magna, Essex. 42. *George Gibbs, or Gippes, of Ayleston, Leicester. 43. Calibute Downing, LL.D., of Hackney, Middlesex. 44. *Jeremy Biirroughes, ALA., '• Mor7iing Star^ of Stepney. 45. *Edmund Calamy, B.U., of St. Mary's, Aldermanbury, London. 46. *George Walker, B.D., of St. John's Evangelist, Watling Street, London. 47. *Joseph Carrill, M.A., Pi'eacher at Lincoln's Inn, aft. of St. Magnus, London. 48. *Lazarus Seaman, B.D., of All Hallows, Bread Street, London, afterwards of Peter House, Cambridge. 49. *John Harris, D.D., Warden of Winchester College, ' took Covejiant and other oaths,' but retired. 50. George Morley, D.D.,o{ Mildenhall, Wilts, aft. Bishop of Winchester. 51. *Ed\vard Reynolds, M.A., of Braunston, Northampton, aft. D.D., Dean of Christ Church, Oxf, and Bishop of Norwich. 52. *Thomas Hill, B.D., of Titchmarsh, Northampton, aft. D.D. and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. 53. Robert Sanderson, D.D., of Boothby Pannell or Pagnell, Lincoln, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. 54. *John Foxcroft, M.A., of Gotham, Notts. 55. *John Jackson, M.A., of Marske, Yorkshire, also preacher at Gray's Inn. xvi List of Members of 56. *WilHam Carter, of London. 57. *Thomas Thoroughgood, of Massingham, iVi^r/i?/,^. 58. *John Arrowsmith, B.D., of King's Lynne, Norfolk, afterwards Master successively of St. fohi^s and Trinity, Cambridge, a7id Professor of Diviiiity. 59. *Robert Harris, B.D., of Hanwell, Oxford, aft. of Trinity College there. 60. *Robert Crosse, B.D., of Lincoln College, Oxfot-d. 61. James [Ussher], Archbishop of Armagh. 62. ^Matthias Styles, D.D., of St. George's, Eastcheap, London. 63. *Samuel Gibson, of Burleigh, Rutland. 64. *Jeremiah Whitaker, M.A., of Stretton, Rutland, after- wards of Bermondsey. 65. *Edmund Stanton, D.D., of Kingston-on-Thames, aft. President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 66. *Daniel Featley, D.D., of Lambeth, '■ Thi7-d and last Provost of Chelsea College.'' 67. Francis Coke, or Cooke, of Yoxhall, Staffordshire. 68. *John Lightfoot, M.A., of Ashley, Staffordshire, after D.D. ajid Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge. 69. *Edward Corbet, M.A., of Merton College, Oxford, a?td Rector of Chartham, Kent, succeeded Dr. Hammoftd as University Orator and Canon of Christ's Church, Oxon. 70. Samuel Hildersham, B.D., of West Felton, Shropshire. 71. *John Langley, M.A., of West Tuderley, or Tytherley, Hampshire. 72. ^Christopher Tisdale, or Tesdale, M.A., of Uphurst- borne, or Hurstborne-Tarrant, Hainpshire. "j^,. ^Thomas Young, M.A., St. And., of Stowmarket, Suffolk, aft. D.D., and Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. 74. *John Phillips, of Wrentham, Suffolk, brother-in-law of Dr. Ames. 75. *Humphrey Chambers, B.D., of Claverton, Somerset, aft. of Pewsey, Wilts. 76. *John Conant, B.D., of Lymington, Somerset, aft. of St. Stephen's, Walbrook. the IV estminster Assembly. xvii -]•]. *Henry Hall, B.D., of Norwich. 78. Henry Hutton, A/. A., of Caldbeck, Cumberland, and Prebendary of Carlisle. 79. *Henry Scudder, of Collingborne, Wilts. 80. *Thomas Baylie, B.D., of Manningford-Bruce, Wilts. 81. *Benjamin Pickering, of East Hoateley, or of Btick- stead, Sussex. 82. Henry Nye, of Clapham. 83. *Arthur Sallaway, or Salze/ay, AI.A., of Seavern Stoke, Worcester. 84. *Sydrach Simpson, of London, afterwards succeeded Vines in Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. 85. *Antony Burgesse, or Purges, M.A., of Sutton Cold- field, War., and St Lawrence, Jewry, London. 86. *Richard Vines, M.A., of Calcot, or Weddington War., Master of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, aft. a minister in London. 87. *William Greenhill, /l/.y^., ' £"'6/6';««^ ^/(^r,' of Stepney. 88. William Moreton, of Newcastle. 89. Richard Buckley, or Bulkley, B.D. 90. *Thomas Temple, D.D., of Battersea, Surrey. 91. *Simeon Ashe, of St. Bride's, afterwards of St. MichaeVs, Basingshaw, appointed in room of Josiah Shute, who died before Assembly met. 92. William Nicholson, ALA., Archdeacon of Brecknock. 93. *Thomas Gattaker, B.D., of Rotherhithe, Surrey, ^vir stupendce lectionis tnagnique judicii.' 94. *James Weldy, or Welby, of Selattyn, Shropshire. 95. Christopher Pashley, D.D., of Hawarden, Flintshire. 96. *Henry Tozer, B.D., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 97. *William Spurstow, D.D., of Hampden, Bucks, then of Catharine Hall, Cambridge, afterwards of Hackney. 98. *Francis Cheynell, or Channell, of Oxford, aft. Master of St. John's, D.D., and Margaret Professor of Divinity. 99. Edward Ellis, B.D., of Guilsfield, Montgomery. 100. John Hacket, D.D., of St. Andrew's, Holborne, aft. Bishop of Lichfield. xvlii List of Aleinbers of loi. *Samuel De la Place, ) of French Ch., 1 02. *John De la March, ) London. 103. *Matthew Newcomen, M.A., of Dedham, Essex. 104. William Lyford, B.D., of Sherborne, Dorset. 105. *[Thomas] Carter, M.A., of Dynton, Bucks, aft. of St. Olave's, Hart Street. 106. *Winiam Lance, of Harrow, Middlesex. 107. *Thomas Hodges, B.D.., of Kensington, afterwards Dean of Hereford. 108. *Andreas Perne, M.A.., of Wilby, Northampton. 109. *Thomas Westfield, D.D., of St. Bartholomew the Great, Bishop of Bristol, attended the first meeting. no. Henry Hammond, D.D., of Penshurst, Kent, and Canoti of Chrisfs Chtirch. 111. ^Nicholas Prophet, or Proffet., of Marlborough, Wilts, aft. of Edmonton. 112. *Peter Sterry, B.D.., of London. 113. John Erie, D.D., of Bishopton, Wilts, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, then of Salisbury. 114. *John Gibbon, or Guibon, M.A., of Waltham. 115. *Henry Painter, B.D., of Exeter. 116. *Thomas Micklethwaite, M.A., of Cherry- Burton, Yorkshire. 117. *John Wincop, D.D., of St. Martin's in the Fields, and C/ot/ia/i, Herts. 118. *William Price, B.D., St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and of Waltham Abbiy. 119. Henry Wilkinson, jun., B.D., Epping, Essex, after- wards D.D., and of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. 120. Richard Holdsworth, or Oldsworth, D.D., Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 121. William Dunning, M.A., of Cold Aston, Gloiic, or Godalston, Notts. 122. '*■ Francis Woodcock, B.A., of St. Lawrence, Jewry, v. More ton, of Newcastle, deceased. \i'^.*John Maynard, ALA., of Mayfield, Surrey, v. H. Nye, deceased. 124. Thomas Clendon, of All Hallows, Barking, v. Nicholson, who failed to attend. the Westminster" Assembly. xix 125. *Daniel Cawdrey, M.A., S/. Martin's in Fields, v. Dr. Harris, of Winchester, excused attending. 126.* William Rathbone, or Rathband, of Highgate, v. Morley, who failed to attend. 127. *Joh7i Strickland, of Neiu Sartini, v. Dr. Wardy deceased, 14 Sept. 1643. 128. * William Good, B.D., of Denton, Norfolk. 1 29. John Bond, D. C.L., Master of the Savoy, v. Archbishop Ussher, who, however, was restored in i^/i^y. 130. * Humphrey Hardwick, of Hadham Magna, Herts. 131. *John Ward, of Ipswich and of Brampton,\. Painter, deceased. 132. * Edward Corbet, of Norfolk, or North Reppis, Norfolk^ V. H. Hall, of No?'wich. 133. *Philip Delme, or Dehny, of French Church, Catiter- bury, V. Rathbotie, deceased. 1 34. *Thotnas Ford, M.A., of St. Faith'' s, Londo}i, v. Bowles, deceased. 1 35.* Richard Byfield, of Long Diiton, Surrey, v. Dr. Featley, deceased. 136, *John Dury, or Durie, v. Dr. Downing, deceased, probably because of his well-known efforts to promote tcnion among Protestants. \y].* William Strong, preacher in Westminster Abbey, v. Peale, deceased. 138, * Robert fohnstofi, of York, v. Carter, deceased. 139. Samuel Boulton, of St. Saviour'' s, Southwark, after- wards D.D., and Master of Christ's College, Cam- bridge, V. Burroughes, deceased. SCRIBES OR CLERKS OF THE ASSEMBLY. Henry Roborough, of St. Leonard's, Eastcheap, London. Adoniram Byfield, M.A., afterwards of Fulham. Amanuensis or Assistant. John Wallis, M.A., Fellow of Queen's Coll., Cam., afte?-- wards D.D., Savilian Professor of Geometry, Oxford. XX List of Members of the Assembly, Scottish Commissioners. MINISTERS. Alexander Henderson, of ! Robert Baillie, of Glas- Edinburgh. gow. Robert Douglas, of Edinr. George Gillespie, of Edin- \tiever sat\ Samuel Rutherfurd, of St. Andrews. burgh. Robert Blair, of St. Andrews [see p. 442]. ELDERS. John, Earl of Cassilis {never sat\ John, Lord Maitland, after Earl of Lauderdale. Sir Archibald Johnston, of Warriston. Robert Meldnetn, in absence of Johtiston. John, Earl of Loudon. Sir Charles Erskifie. John, Lord Balmerino, v. Loudon. Archibald, Marquis of Argyll. George IVinrhatn, of Libber- ton, V. Argyll. Admitted to sit and hear in October 1644, the Prince Elector Palatine, and on one occasion permitted to speak.^ ^ I have found no positive evidence that Messrs. C. Love, Moore, and Newscore should be included among the superadded divines. Nor, though I have allowed Dr. Manton's name to stand on p. 124, have I found evidence that he should be included among them ; but I find that he was named along with Calamy and Marshall in 1659-60 to advise with the Committee of the House of Commons respecting the Confession, and that he wrote a prefatory epistle to it. TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE I. Origin of Puritanism, its Development and History under the earlier Tudor Sovereigns, i LECTURE IL Development and History of Puritanism under Queen Elizabeth, 31 LECTURE in. History of Puritanism under the earlier Stuart Kings, 60 LECTURE IV. Preparation for and summoning of thk West- minster Assembly, 96 LECTURE V. Opening of the Assembly ; its Proceedings and Debates while engaged in revising the thirty- nine Articles, and the Solemn League and Covenant, 12S xxii Table of Contents. LECTURE VI. Arrival of the Scottish Commissioners, Taking OF THE Solemn League and Covenant, Con- sequent Extension of the Commission of the Assembly, Debates on the Office-bearers and Courts of the Church, LECTURE VIL The Directory for the Public Worship of God, and Proceedings of the Assembly and Parlia- ment thereupon, 212 LECTURE VI IL Treatises on Church Government, Church Censures, and Ordination of Ministers, . . 246 LECTURE IX. Debates on the Autonomy of the Church, the sole supremacy of its Divine Head, and the right of its Office-bearers under Him to GUARD its Purity and administer its Dis- cipline : Queries on jus divimun of Church Government, 269 LECTURE X. The Assembly's Confession of Faith or Articles of Christian Religion : Part I. Introductory History of Doctrine, and detailed account of the preparation of the Confession, . . 325 Table of Contents. xxiu LFXTURE XI. I' AGE The Assembly's Confession of Faith or Articles OF Christian Religion : Tart II. Its Sources AND Type of Doctrine: Answers to objections BROUGHT against IT, 370 LECTURE XII. The Assembly's Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, 407 LECTURE XIII. Conclusion and Results of the Assembly. 442 APPENDIX. Note A, Plrhans and Puritanism, .... 477 Note B, Trayers and Hooker, 479 Note C, Millenary Petition and Conference on it, 48 i Note D, The Pilgrim Fathers, 483 Note E, Laud and the Scots, 484 Note F, The Irish Massacres, 485 Note Additional, Description of Assembly, . . 486 Note G, Presbyter Theory of Eldership, . . 487 Note H, Power of Magistrate circa sacra, . . 490 Note I, Liberty of Conscience and Toleration, . 491 Note K, Acts of Assembly, 1645 and 1647, . . 496 Note M (i), Calvin and the English Reformers, . 497 Note M (2), Edwardian Articles on Sacraments, . 503 Note Additional, Verses on Members of Assembly, 505 Note N, Ball on the Covenants, .... 506 Note Additional, Milton's Relation to Calvinism, 507 Do., Early Editions of the Confession, 508 Do., Subscription of the Confession, 511 CORRIGENDA. P, 27, note ' 1551 ' ; perhaps ' 1555.' P. 52, 1. 2, delete ' secretly.' P. 95, 1. 16, delete the inverted commas. P. 124, 11. I, 2, 3, see p. XX., footnote. P. 142, 1. 8 of note, for ' two ' read ' three.' P. 236, 1. 15, for 'a year' read 'six years.' P. 275, 1. 2, for 'they' read 'some.' P. 286, 1. 3 of note, for 'censura' read 'censuroe.' P. 324, 1. 14, for ' did ' read ' had done.' P- 335> 1- 1° from foot, for ' Wiirtemberg Confessions,' read ' other German Confessions.' P. 412, 1. 8, for 'on' read 'in.' P. 424, 11. 19, 20, for 'given answers' read 'answers given.' P. 456, 1. 20, after ' was ' insert ' . . . ' N.B. — Many of the quotations from the 'King's Pamphlets' in the British Museum are accompanied by the press-mark of the volume quoted, as E 56, E 61, and often also the place of a par- ticular pamphlet in a volume is indicated by a second number, as E. 85, No. 20. THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY ITS HISTORY AND STANDARDS. LECTURE I. ORIGIN OF PURITANISM, ITS DEVELOPMENT AND HISTORY UNDER THE EARLIER TUDOR SOVEREIGNS. The Westminster Assembly, if it does not form a landmark in the history of our common Protest- antism, must at least be admitted to constitute an epoch, and a notable one, in the history of Brit- ish Puritanism. There, for the first time, its long pent-up forces had something like free play given to them, and there were framed those standards, the influence of which in the development of Pres- byterianism, in the New World as in the Old, has been no less potent than permanent. This Puri- tanism was no mere excrescence on the fair form of the Church of England, which might be re- moved without hazard of marring her symmetry, or lowering her vitality ; far less was it any fungus A 2 Origin of Puritanism growth, endangering life or indicating decay. Neither was it, as it was at one time the fashion to assert, a mere over-sea fancy which had taken captive a few grateful exiles when abroad, and was spread among not a few restless adventurers and brain-sick enthusiasts at home. It was in the English movement for the Reformation of the Mediaeval Church from its very origin. It was the spring of many of its holiest activities, quickening earnest thought and life, sustaining in Christian enterprise, and nerving for stern self- sacrifice ; and ' for more than a century it exercised an influence such as no other party, civil or reli- gious, has obtained at any period of our history.' - It finds unmistakeable expression in the writings of Tyndale, who first in the sixteenth century gave to British Christians the New Testament in their native tongue. Nay, its root ideas may be traced back to a greater than Tyndale, — to England's one Reformer before the Reformation,^ — the great and dauntless Wyclif, of whom it has been truly ^ Marsden's Early Puritans, p. 3. See Appendix, Note A. * ' The former (Puritanism) may be fairly dated as a system from the days of Wyclif. ' — Thorold Rogers in Princeton Review. ' If the Reformation of our Church had been conducted by Wy- clif, his work, in all probability, would nearly have anticipated the labours of Calvin ; and the Protestantism of England might have pretty closely resembled the Protestantism of Geneva. There is a marvellous resemblance between the Reformer with his poor itinerant priests and at least the better part of the Puritans.' — Le Bas' Life of Wyclif, pp. 365, 366. Its Development and History. 3 said, his country could produce no Luther in the sixteenth century, simply because it had had its Luther already in the fourteenth. In other words, the thing is older than the name. The names Puritan and Precisian are supposed to have been originally nicknames, applied by way of reproach to those they were used to designate, because they claimed to adhere more purely and precisely than their neighbours to the Word of God as the only authoritative and sufficient rule in matters of doctrine, worship, church polity, and Christian life. This was no empty claim on their part, but one which, not- withstanding many shortcomings and much re- maining narrowness, they honestly and earnestly endeavoured to make good. They were not ashamed of the names imposed on them. They took them meekly, and bore them worthily, and I trust their descendants will never feel ashamed either of the names or of the men who did so much to make them honourable. The points of difference between the Puritans and those who fall to be distinguished from them in the Reformed Church of England seem at first to have been few in number, and of minor importance, partly, perhaps, because the full significance of the principle on which these depended was not yet clearly apprehended by themselves ; but much more because, to a certain extent, that principle 4 Origin of Puritanism was then accepted by almost all leal-hearted supporters of the Reformation. So far as concerned doctrine, the principle in fact may be said to have been embodied in the Sixth Article of the English Church : ' Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein^ nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation! They and their oppo- nents at that time were at one as to the suffi- ciency and supremacy of Holy Scripture in matters of faith, and even as to the general import of its doctrinal teaching. Almost all who really valued the Reformation in England held as yet by the evangelical system taught in early times by Augustine, and in later by Anselm, Bradwardine, and Wyclif. It was the Anglo- Catholic party which, as it developed, first broke up the doctrinal harmony of the Reformed Church, and drifted farther and farther from the stand- point of its early leaders, till the Supralapsarianism of Whitgift passed into the minimised Augustinian- ism of Hooker, and that into the Arminianism of Laud, and the semi-Pelagianism of Jeremy Taylor. So far again as concerned matters of worship and church polity, the only expression at variance with the principle of Puritanism in the Articles of the Church was the first clause of the xxth Its Development and History. 5 Article, asserting the power of the Church to decree rites and ceremonies. Tliis clause was not contained in the corresponding Article as framed in the time of Edward VI. ; and they strenuously- contended it had been foisted in somewhat in- considerately in the time of Queen Elizabeth.^ They further contended that, when viewed in connection with the limiting clause that followed, it was insufficient to justify what they condemned and renounced. The rites and ceremonies at which they scrupled were not, they held, things purely indifferent, which the Church, under such a clause, might claim to enjoin, but things unlawful as having been abused to purposes of idolatry and superstition, and therefore to be laid aside as contrary to the spirit if not to the letter of Holy Writ. In this respect too the agreement between them and those who stood aloof from them, was greater in early than in later times. Many of the first Elizabethan bishops agreed with them, and would willingly have abandoned the obnoxious ceremonies if the queen would have consented.^ ^ Some of them attributed it to Laud, but wrongly, as he did its omission to them. It is found in the Latin edition of 1563, but not in that of 1571, nor in the first English edition of 1563, nor in that of 1571. Lamb, Cardwell, and Hallam doubt if it was authorised by Convocation or by Parliament. ^ Zurich Letters, passim. In the doctrinal declaration issued by them in 1559, the subscriber is required to disallow all 'vain worshipping of God devised by man's phantasy, besides or contrary to the Scriptures.' 6 Origin of Puritanism Indeed, for more than a century there were not wanting great and good men, free from all taint of Puritanism, who contended that, if only the authorities in Church and State could be persuaded to consent; all that the Puritans desired in regard to worship might be conceded without injury to religion or danger to the Church.^ Their assertion of the essential identity of bishops and presbyters in the apostolic church was also to a certain extent allowed ; and while some contended for the reduction of the hierarchy to more primitive dimensions, others who defended it as lawful did so not on the ground of any supposed Divine sanction, but on the ground of antiquity, expediency, or the propriety of the Church adapting her external framework to the state of monarchies as well as of republics. It was not till the very close of the sixteenth century that higher ground was taken by the opponents of Puritanism on this point, and at first it was taken only by a few of them. But it must never be forgotten that Puritanism was something more than a system of doctrine ^ The celebrated John Hales of Eton, though neither Calvinist nor Precisian, did not hesitate to say ' prayer, confession, thanks- giving, reading of the Scriptures, and administration of the Sacra- ments in the plainest and simplest manner, were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient liturgy, though nothing either of [private opinion or of Church pomp, of garments . . . or of many super- fluities which creep into the Church under the name of order and decency did interpose itself ' — Tt-act on Schism, p. 5. Its Developme7it and History. 7 however scriptural, or a form of worship and church polity however primitive. It was above all, as Hcppe has recently so well shown,^ a life, a real, earnest, practical life, — a stream welling forth pure and copious from the deepest depths of their spiritual natures, and by its unfailing supplies stimulating and sustaining many forms of Christian activity and loving self-sacrifice — a fire kindled and kept alive from above, to purge, re-mould, and transform the soul, and so the whole man. It was ^ Geschichte dcs Piedsmus, etc., pp. 20, 21. Their idea was, ' Dass das Christenthum nothwendig Leben, und zwar ein ernstes, ganz und gar vom Worte Gottes beherrschtes und streng geregeltes Leben sein niusse, in welchem der Christ sich nicht gehen zu lassen sondern sich unabliissig zu iiben, sich in Zucht zu nehmen, sich selbst in Angesichte des Wortes Gottes zu priifen und durch anhaltendes Gebet, durch Meditation, durch Fasten, iiberhaupt durch methodische und ascetische Uebung in der Gottseligkeit einer immer voUkommeneren Heiligung nachzustreben habe. ' ' The distinctive feature of Puritanism was not to be found in its logical severity of doctrine or in its peculiar forms of worship, but in its clear conception of the immediate relation existing between every individual soul and its God, and in its firm persuasion that every man was intrusted with a work which he was bound to carry out for the benefit of his fellow-creatures. Under both these aspects it was pre-eminently the religion of men who were struggling for liberty. The Puritan was not his own. lie belonged to God and to his country. The motives which urged other men to give way before the corruptions of despotism had no weight with him. The temptations which drew other men aside to make their liberty a cloak for licentiousness had no attractions for him. Under the watchwords of faith and duty our English liberties were won ; and however much the outward forms of Puritanism may have fallen into decay, it is certain it is under the same watchwords alone that they will be preserved as a heritage to our children.' — History vf England from the Accession of James I., by S. R. Gardiner, vol. ii. pp. 487, 489. See also Appendix, Note A. 8 Origin of Puritanism not till this wellspring of higher life was dried up, — not till the glowing fire within which the Spirit of God had kindled had died out, or died down, that Puritanism became rigid and repulsive, and lost its real power both over its own adherents and over the outside world. Let me enter a little more, though it can only be a little more, into details as to its origin and development. / I have told you that the principle of Puritanism I — the principle which, in fully developed form, was to be enshrined in the xxth chapter of our Confession of Faith^ — may be traced, at least in germ, in the writings of the noble man who, in the sixteenth century, followed most closely in the footsteps of Wyclif, and is now regarded by many as the true Reformer of his country. More sweetly persuasive, more powerfully constraining, than all the fitful edicts and articles of Henry Vlll., and all the timid concessions of the cautious Cranmer, were the silent, gentle, holy influences proceeding from the lives, labours, and sufferings, from the teachings, oral and written, of the un- official men who had given up all for Christ, and, notwithstanding the hazards they incurred, shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God. They strove to set it forth purely and fully by first of all \ * ' God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free j from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in any- thing contrary to His Word or beside it in matters of faith and worship. ' Its Development and History. g translating into their native tongue the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Foremost among these worthies stands William Tyndale, ' an apostle of our England/ as Foxe has termed him, and beyond question the chief instrument used by God in preparing for the Anglo-Saxon race that best of His gifts to it, our time-honoured English Bible, with its simple, racy yet majestic, and now venerable forms of speech. Tyndale was born in Gloucestershire about 1484, was early sent to Oxford, where he distinguished himself in several liberal studies. He then re- moved to Cambridge, where he prosecuted the study of Greek under Erasmus. Soon after, he formed the resolution which it may be said to have been the one object of his life to carry out, viz., that if God should spare him he would cause the boy that driveth the plough to have more know- ledge of the Scriptures than the priests of the Church then had.^ At first he thought to attain his object through the aid and patronage of Tunstal, Bishop of London, whose learning and liberality Erasmus had so generously lauded. He found, however, by sad experience not only that there was no room for the translator of the New Testament ' in my Lord of London's palace,' but ^ Dema.us^ s Lt/e 0/ William Tyndale; also Biographical Notice prefixed to Parker Society's edition of his Doctrinal Treatises, by Professor Walter, pp. Ixi, Ixxiii, Ixxv. lo Origin of Puritanism also that there was no safe retreat for him in all England. Even in his exile but little peace and safety fell to his lot. His steps were dogged by the emissaries of the king and the prelates, as well as by their foreign sycophants. The reformer's noble work was retarded and his life embittered by their hostile efforts. But in exile and poverty he laboured on even as he had done in England, ' studying most part of the day and night at his book, eating but sodden meat if he might have his will, and drinking small single beer;' largely dependent on the charities of Christian friends for the supply of his wants, yet reserving most of what they bestowed on him for the sick and poor, and commending himself to the English merchants at Antwerp, as to Scottish students at Marburg, by his singularly gentle and attractive life. Not- withstanding all difficulties and privations he faltered not in his sacred purpose till he had brought out several editions of his New Testament, had introduced it into Scotland as well as into England, and had got ready for the press a large portion of the Old Testament. In the weary months which he spent in the prison at Vilvorde, just before his trial and martyrdom, it has been supposed that, literally to carry out his cherished purpose, he prepared for the press an edition of the New Testament in the vulgar dialect, and with its spelling conformed to the rude pronunciation Its Development and History. i r of the ploughboys of his native district.^ He perished at the stake on the 6th of October 1536, with the prayer on his h'ps, 'Lord, open the king of England's eyes.' And before another year had begun its course * his prayer may be said to have been answered, for the first vokime of Holy Scripture ever printed on English soil came forth from the press of the king's own printer — a folio Testament, of Tyndale's version, with his long- proscribed name on its title-page.' In the prefaces and prologues prefixed to his translation of the several books of the New Testament, as well as in the didactic and controversial treatises which he published separately, Tyndale maintained the sufficiency and authority of Holy Scripture in thorough Protestant and Puritan style, and de- fended the doctrines of grace against the semi- Pelagianism of Erasmus and Sir Thomas More, ere Calvin had yet entered the lists as the champion of the old Augustinianism. He asserted the Scriptural identity of presbyters and bishops, and the propriety of a simple Scriptural form of worship, and especially of that form of observing the Lord's Supper, which came to be identified with the Puritan name and with our Scottish Reformer.- 1 So Professor Walter (p. Ixxv. ) ; but Demaus gives (p. 411) a different explanation of the peculiar spelling of that edition. * Tyndale's treatise Of the Supper of the Lord; vol. iii. pp. 265, 266 of Parker Society's edition of his works: 'Come forth 12 Origin of Puritanism \ Next to Tyndale falls to be placed Miles Coverdale, who followed so closely in his footsteps, labouring in the same great work, and sharing many of the same great trials and privations. Co- verdale is supposed to have been a native of the North Riding of Yorkshire, and to have been born in 1488. He was educated at Cambridge, and formed one of the band of youthful reformers trained by Dr. Barnes, Prior of the Augustine Friars there. ' Nothing in the world,' he says in the first letter he wrote to Cromwell, ' I desire but books; these once had, I do not doubt but Almighty God shall perform that in me which he hath begun.' The books were got and God blessed the study of them, so that he became one of the earliest preachers of the new faith in Essex and Suffolk. In October 1535, he published the first edition of his translation of the whole Bible. It appears to have been printed abroad, probably at Zurich ; but in 1537 it was republished in London. Though occasionally favoured by Cranmer and Cromwell, Coverdale had to hurry into exile when the bloody statute of the Six Articles was passed. He spent some time at Tubingen, and for several years he had to content himself with a very humble post in the Palatinate, and to endure pinching poverty, while by his writings he was making reverently unto the Lord's table, the congregation now set round about it and in their other convenient seats.' Its Development and History. 1 3 many rich. He was raised from the post of pastor and teacher at Bergzabern to the bishopric of Exeter by the good king Edward, and contributed largely to the progress of the Reformation in his brief reign. . But he had to leave again on the accession of Mary, being rescued from prison and death only by the persistent intercession of the king of Denmark, to whom his brother-in-law — a Scot by name M'Alpin or Machabeus — was chaplain.^ He did not disdain when again in exile to act as a humble elder in Knox's congregation' at Geneva ; - nor, though himself the author of an English version of the Scriptures, did he refuse to take a principal part in preparing and carrying through the press the well-known Genevan version of the Bible, which became so soon and remained so long the favourite one among the Puritans. On his return to his native country after the death of Mary he consented to take part in the con- secration of the first Elizabethan archbishop of Canterbury, and was permitted to do so, without rochet or surplice, and in his plain black gown.^ Yet for his nonconformity in regard to the habits, as they were termed, or for his connection with the Genevan exiles, he was left for four years ' Biographical Notice of Coverdalc, prefixed to Parker Society's edition of his Remains, pp. vii.-xiv. * Livre des Auglois, printed by J. S. Burn in 1831. * See documents as to Parker's consecration in Burnet's History of the Reformation ; No. 9: 'Toga lanca talari utebatur.' 14 Origin of Puritanism without preferment, and within two years after- wards he had to give up the only preferment allotted to him — the humble benefice of St. Mag- nus, London Bridge. Thus the man who after Tyndale did most to perfect our Anglo-Saxon version of the Scriptures, when on the verge of eighty years of age, was consigned to neglect and penury — in such circumstances not less hard to bear than the prison and the stake at Vilvorde. Hugh Latimer^ and John Hooper were hardly less notable characters and bold confessors of the truth in days when it was dangerous to be so, than the two I have mentioned ; and though they were both ultimately placed in high official sta- tions, their influence tended decidedly in the same direction as that of Tyndale and Coverdale. No ^ The following account of him by Alexander Alesius, wntten just after his cruel martyrdom, cannot fail even yet to interest us in him : — 'He who has made the acquaintance of Dr. Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, has seen Polycarp — a venerable old man, gentle, grave, affable, learned, eloquent, the friend of the poor, dear to all the pious and learned, revered by myself. How often have I seen and heard him teaching the gospel before Henry viii., the King of England, in the royal palaces at Westminster, Greenwich, and Hampton Court, with the greatest commendation and applause of the king, of the nobles of the realm, and of all ranks of the community. Who at that time was dearer to the king — and to all the nobility ? Who then was not proud to shake hands with him ? Who did not esteem it a great privilege to converse with him ? And yet such was his humility and kindliness that at court, and in the streets of London, he would take me, an exile, by the arm and converse with me right pleasantly. I remember yet the things he then foretold me, and which events have since verified.' Psalm xxxvii. verses i and 2, in his Primus Liber Psalmorum. Its Development and History. 1 5 one who reads the homely, racy, yet earnest ser- mons of the former, or the record of the theolo- gical discussion in which he took part at Oxford, will venture to identify him with Anglo-Catholic- ism in any shape or form. No one who studies the story of the latter can fail to own that if he was not, as Heylin affirms, the first Nonconformist in England, he was at least, as Principal Lorimer has recently shown, the father of that school of Moderate Puritans, who whether, as at first, under that name, or as in later times, under the name of Evangelicals or Low Churchmen, have clung to the Church of their fathers and made good their right to a place within her pale, emphasising her Protestant teaching, — striving in every possible way to foster her inner life, and her eflriciency in every department of Christian work, — at times sympathising with the efforts made for further re- form, and longing to draw closer the bonds between their own Church and the other churches of the Reformation. Early imbibing the prin- ciples of the Reformers, and obliged in con- sequence to flee from his native land. Hooper, after passing through many privations, found a refuge at Ziirich. There he studied under Henry BuUinger, — Zwingli's successor, — who was hon- oured through him, and others, as well as more directly by his own writings, largely to aid the progress and determine the character of the 1 6 Origin of Puritanis7Jt Reformation in England. He brought back with him to his native country, much of the earnest faith and Hberal thought of his teacher. Imme- diate scope was found for his great powers as a preacher, and notwithstanding his advanced opinions, he was speedily promoted to high office, being installed in one bishopric, and appointed administrator of another. It ought to be more generally known than it yet is, that long before proscribed Papist or contemned Baptist had ven- tured to put in a plea for toleration, this noble- hearted Puritan Bishop had fully grasped its prin- ciple. In one of his earliest treatises he says : * As touching the superior powers of the earth, it is well known to all them that have readen and marked the Scripture that it appertaineth no- thing unto their office to make any law to govern the conscience of their subjects in religion.'^ In one of the last letters written in the prison from which he passed to his martyrdom, and addressed to the Convocation then sitting, he gave still bold- er utterance to his sentiments : ' Cogitate apud vos ipsos, an hoc sit piorum ministrorum ecclesiae officium, vi, metu et pavore corda hominum in vestras partes compellere. Profecto CJiristus non ignem, non gladinm, non carceres, non vincnla, non violentiam, non bonornni confiscationem, non reginecs majestatis terroreni media organa constitnit quibus ^ Early Writings of Bp, Hooper, p. 2S0. Its Development and History. 1 7 Veritas verbi siii mundo promidgaretur ; sed miti ac diligenti praedicatione evangelii sui mundum ab errore et idololatria converti prscepit.'^ More- over, he firmly asserted that in matters of faith no authority of princes or bishops was to be acknow- ledged ' citra verbum Dei,' and that ' ipsa univer- salis ecclesiae auctoritas nulla est nisi quatenns a vei'bo Dei pendeat! In several other respects Hooper was in advance of his time. In opposing the Bishop of Winchester's book on the Sacrament of the Altar, he maintained that ' it is ill done to condemn the infants of the Christians that die without baptism of whose sal- vation by the Scriptures we be assured ; ' and said he 'would likewise judge well of the infants of the infidels who have none other sin in them but original ... It is not against the faith of a Chris- tian man to say that Christ's death and passion extendeth as far for the salvation of innocents, as Adam's sin made all his posterity liable to con- demnation.' The following gems, selected almost at random from his earlier treatises, have all, more or less, a Puritan tinge. ' Men,' he says, ' may have the gift of God to interpret the Scripture unto other, but never authority to interpret it otherwise than it interpretcth itself ' ' The Scrip- tures solely and the Apostles' Church are to be followed, and no man's authority, be he Augustine, * Later Writings of Bp. Hooper, p. 386. B 1 8 Origin of Puritanism TertuUian, or other, Cherubim or Seraphim. ' * Christ and his Apostles be grandfathers in age to the doctors and masters in learning. Repose thyself only upon the Church that they have taught thee by the Scripture. Fear neither of the ordinary power nor succession of Bishops, nor of the major part. ' ' God hath bound his Church and all men that be of his Church unto the Word of God. It is bound unto no title or name of men, nor unto any ordinary succession of Bishops or Priests ; longer than they teach the doctrine contained in Scripture no man should give hearing unto them.' ' There is no church can be governed without this discipline, for where it is not there see we no god- liness at all, but carnal liberty and vicious life.' Perhaps however the most noteworthy of his early writings is his exposition of the ten com- mandments, and particularly his exposition of the fourth, where he explains that the rest of the Sabbath was necessary : firsts to secure both to man and beast that periodic repose without which they could never endure ' the travail of earth ; ' second, not that men might give themselves to idleness and pastime such as was then used among Christian peoples, but that, being free from the travail of the world, they might give themselves to meditation on the works and benefits of God, the hearing of his Holy Word, and the care of the sick and poor; and third, that it might be to Its Development and History. 1 9 them a standing type and figure of the everlasting rest that remaineth for the people of God. 'This Sunday,' he continues, ' that we observe, is not the commandment of men, as many say, that would, under the pretence of this one law, bind the Church of Christ to all other laws that they have ungodly prescribed unto the Church ; but it is by express words commanded that we should observe this day (Smtday)for our Sabbath.''^ The Puritans therefore of a later time, in contending against the Book of Sports and the pastimes by which the Lord's Day continued to be profaned in many parts of England, only resumed the contest which Hooper had begun — and revived the teaching he had learned from Bullinger, the most conservative in this respect perhaps of all the Reformers. He also favoured a more simple way of observing the Lord's Supper than was then in use," wore only on certain occasions the episcopal habits, and associated with himself in the administration of his extensive dioceses several superintendents, to whom he gave special charge of matters of dis- cipline, as well as of the meetings of the clergy for studying the Word of God, and the simpler elements of religious truth.^ * Early IVritings of Bp. Hooper, p. 342. ' Ibid. pp. 536, 537. ' Biographical Notice prefixed to Parker Society's edition of his works, pp. xvii, xix. ' No father in his household, no gardener in his garden, nor husbandman in his vineyard was more or better occupied than he in his diocese ... in teaching and preaching to the people there.' 20 Origin of Puritanism Farrar, Bishop of St. David's, who 'suffered martyrdom about the same time, seems to have belonged to the same school as Hooper. So also did Ponet or Poynet, Bishop of Winchester, who drew up one of the earliest English Protestant Catechisms, befriended Knox at Frankfort, and was a member of his congregation at Geneva. Even Ridley, who at one time had contended so bitterly with Hooper, seems to have relented in his last days, and not only exchanged friendly greetings with his former antagonist, but ex- pressed a hope that they might be one in red though they had been two in white. He had been zealous in removing from the churches throughout his diocese altars and images, and providing tables for the administration of the Lord's Supper. He disputed ably at Oxford against transubstantiation, and he declared of the priestly robes thrust on him before his degrada- tion that they were more ludicrous than an actor's in a play. Like Hooper and Latimer, he sealed his testimony with his blood rather than give place to Romish error and will-worship. I do not venture to include among these pioneers and earliest representatives of Puritanism the name of the amiable, thoughtful, cautious but somewhat timid Cranmer. No doubt Dr. Hook and other High Churchmen of the present day are right in refusing to accept him as a representative Its Development and History. 2 1 of Anglo-Catholicism. His standpoint was more decidedly Protestant. Like several good men in the old church, he held, at least in his earlier days, that by God's law, a bishop and a priest were one, and in later life he defended with great ability and learning the Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper against Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. From first to last he was not ashamed to own the ministers of the Protestant churches on the Conti- nent as brethren in Christ, to encourage several of them to settle in England, and to provide for them while there. Once and again he invited the co- operation of their leaders in carrying out a scheme he had much at heart, for gathering in council their best men, and engaging them in preparing a common creed, the acceptance of which might bind them more firmly together, vindicate them from the reproaches of their adversaries, and supply an antidote to the creed then being framed at Trent. He drew largely on foreign sources for the Articles he ultimately prepared for the English Church, and still more largely for the materials of the Catechisms he translated or sanctioned. But his own leanings were not towards such a sweeping reformation as had else- where been carried out, perhaps not decidedly in favour of all that before the death of Edward VI. he had been prevailed on to concede. He cer- tainly laid it down in the preface to the English 2 2 Origin of Puritanism ordinal that ever since the Apostles' days there had been three orders of ministers in the church, and resolutely adhered far more closely to the ancient forms of devotion than was done in the liturgies of the Reformed churches abroad. He urged with much persistence the injunction of kneeling in the act of receiving the communion as well as of wearing the old clerical habits. Ac- cording to a Lasco, he seems to have suggested the enforcing of the former by civil penalties, just as he had by the same means compelled Bishop Hooper to accept consecration in the episcopal robes. He somewhat resented the deference of the Privy Council to Knox and the more thorough- going Reformers, and spoke of them as 'glorious and unquiet spirits which can like nothing but that is after their own fancy,' and denounced their principle (which however he somewhat misunderstands or misstates) ' that whatsoever is not commanded in Scripture is against Scripture' as 'the chief foundation of the Anabaptists and divers other sects.'^ He was, however, a true- hearted Protestant, and one for whom all true- hearted Protestants in the church he adorned have abundant cause to thank God, for the noble service he was honoured to do.^ ^ Lorimer's yohti Knox and the Church of England, p. 104. ^ Perhaps at a time when it has become a sort of fashion to dis- parage him, the following testimony to his worth by a grateful Scottish exile whom he had sheltered and befriended may not be Its Development and History. 23 It would be unpardonable for a Scotchman, in \ such a sketch as this, to omit all reference to John Knox. No doubt he was in one sense a foreigner in England, as were Bucer, Martyr, a Lasco, and others from the Continent, whose counsel and aid were welcomed by the young king and his advisers. But Knox was more closely allied to them in speech, and, from the first, could be utilised as a public preacher in the National Church. By the offices they conferred on or offered to him it is evident that they looked on him as more of kin than the others. By the course he followed it is evident that he acknowledged the kinship, and was not unprepared to sink the Scot in the Briton, and, that, so far as conscience suffered him, he was ready to aid the reforming party in England in the great work they had in hand. Freed from his deemed out of place. It is thus Alesius, then Professor of Divinity at Leipzig, in the epistle dedicatory to his Commentary on the Romans, addresses his former patron : 'Te enim tanquam parente istic usus sum, ad te in omnibus difficultatibus pro con- silio et auxilio tanquam ad sacram anchoram confugi. Tua opera et opes semper mihi expositce erant . , . Hunc [meum] amorem mirifice auget admiratio excellentis doctrine tuse et acerrimi judicii, magnre sapientire, gravitatis, moderationis, clementije in deliber- ationibus et judiciis, assiduum et indefessum studium in quaerenda et eruenda veritate . . . munificentia in conquerendis et alendis hominibus doctis ex omnibus nationibus. ' Finally, he testifies that in his lifelong wanderings, which had brought him into contact with men of many cities and nations, he had nowhere met a bishop more learned, more grave, prudent, pious, humane and liberal, and that he only refrains from saying more because he knows it would offend the Archbishop's modesty. 24 Origin of Puritanism captivity in the French galleys through English influence, he was first sent as special preacher to Berwick, then to Newcastle, and the neighbouring parts, disputing while there before Tunstal, Bishop of Durham and his doctors, against transubstan- tiation and the other errors connected with the Romish mass. He was next appointed to be one of the King's six chaplains, to whom, as Dr. Hook in his Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury^ informs us, very large powers were at that time conceded. In this office he had not only occasion- ally to preach before the king and court, but also to itinerate in various districts of England, and by preaching, conference, and disputation, endeavour to wean the people from their old superstitions, and win them over to the new faith. He was offered the bishopric of Rochester for the express purpose of securing that a man of energy and resolution should be near the cautious and some- what timid primate to encourage him, and also spur him' on when occasion called. This proffered honour he declined ; but as one of the royal chap- lains he zealously discharged the duties of his office, and helped in various ways the progress of the Reformation. He was consulted in regard to the Forty-two Articles and the second Prayer Book of King Edward, and from the documents recently recovered and printed by Principal Lori- * New Series, vol. v. p. 13. Its Development and History. 2 5 mer,^ it is evident that he took an active part in the revision of both. To the last he contended against kneeling in the act of receiving the Lord's Supper, and did this with such persistence and effect that, after the book was already printed off, an additional rubric was directed to be inserted on a fly-leaf, explaining that this posture was meant solely as a token of thankfulness for the benefits received through the ordinance, but in no sense as an act of homage to ' any real and essential presence there being of Christ's natural flesh and blood.' This has come to be known among High Churchmen as the black rubric, and was un- questionably one of the most Protestant things in this second Prayer Book of Edward Vl.^ John a Lasco, who, as superintendent of the foreign churches in England, occupied a position apart from the National Church, owed that position * yohn Knox and the CJun'ch of England, pp. 109, in, 267. He had administered the Lord's Supper in a simpler form at Berwick. ' Elizabeth, while professing to re-establish this very book of her brother, did so with a few changes which made it less accept- able to the Puritans. In particular she took care to expunge the above rubric, as well as to prefix to the sentences addressed by the minister to the communicants certain words from Edward's first Book which might, at least, leave room for the view which the rubric was intended to exclude. The restoration of this rubric was repeatedly desired by the Puritans in the time of Elizabeth's successor, but, so far as I know, in vain. It was certainly left out in the Prayer Books of Charles I. Its insertion was urged by Archbishop Ussher and other moderate men in 1640, but it was not till 1661 that it was authoritatively restored, and then only in a somewhat weakened form. 26 Origin of Puritanism to the high esteem in which he was held by Cranmer and the advisers of the king. He was often consulted by them on the affairs of the Church, and stood by Knox in his controversy about the mode of receiving the Lord's Supper, and with Hooper in his controversy about the vestments. In his congregations he generally followed simpler forms than were yet sanctioned for the National Church. In the epistle prefixed to his Forma ac Ratio Tota Ecclesiastici Ministerii in Peregrinorum Ecclesia Londiiii instituta he ex- pressly affirms that, as England was not then deemed ripe for the complete reformation which the king and his advisers desired it to attain, he had been authorised by the Privy Council and encouraged by the king to draw up for the churches of these Protestant refugees a constitution in strict accordance with Scripture precept and Apostolic practice, and without slavishly adhering to rites and ceremonies of human origin, in order that when the time should come when the laws could be more unreservedly amended, and the nation, as a whole, could bear a more thorough Reformation, it might have, in the practice of these friendly churches within its own borders, a model on which it could rely and to which it might be inclined to defer. The arrangements made in a Lasco's book in regard to worship and discipline resemble generally those of the Reformed churches Its Development and Histo7y. 2 7 on the Continent, save that the communicants neither stood nor knelt, but sat, when receiving the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper.^ To a large extent these arrangements were adopted by Knox among the English exiles at Geneva — probably just because they had virtually received the approval or toleration of Edward VI. and his Council. To the same extent and probably for the same reason they were in 1560 adopted also in Scotland. There was one material difference, however, which it is right I should mention, A Lasco, while holding with Jerome and even with Cranmer in his earlier daysT^that by the Divine law idc7n erat Presbyter qui Episcopus, held also that it was agreeable to Scripture that the presbyters or ministers should have a fixed presi- dent selected from among their own number and duly set over them. He did not, like Knox in the First Book of Discipline, represent such super- intendency as an extraordinary and temporary function in the church, but regarded it as an ordinary and permanent one ; though still the superintendent in his view was of the same order as the other ministers, and there was no duty devolved on him which in case of need an ordinary presbyter might not undertake. The English Reformation then, we are warranted ' loannis h Lasco Opera (Kuyper's edition), vol. ii. pp. lo, 163. This 'Forma' was used from 1550 and printed in 1551. 28 Origin of Puritanism to conclude, had not yet advanced so far as the king and his advisers desired it should. There was much they thought still remaining to be done, and which could not well be done, to insure its completeness as well as its more general acceptance till the king should attain ripe age — be able to bring his full influence to bear both on his nobility and his people, and along with his Parliament give final legal sanction to it. But already the move- ment had been pushed on beyond its native strength. Favoured by the king, and many of the educated classes, and the burgesses of the larger towns, it had penetrated but partially among the nobility, and the uneducated masses in the provinces. Notwithstanding the itinerant labours of the royal chaplains and other special preachers, the country had been but partially evangelised. The people, where not positively hostile, were largely indifferent, and unprepared to stand by the new faith when the countenance of authority was withdrawn. Thus a terrible reaction set in when his sister Mary ascended the throne, and the support of the authorities was transferred to the other side. No doubt the cruelties then perpetrated under colour of law burned deep into the heart of the nation that hatred of Rome which it has ever since retained, and prepared even many of the uninstructed masses in the provinces ultimately to welcome or to tolerate changes to which originally Its Development and History. 29 they were not inclined. This unfortunate queen has been known ever since as the Bloody Mary. Her brief reign might well be termed the ' killing time ' in England, as the reign of Charles il. was in Scotland, and however some in our day may palliate or minimise its excesses, enough by almost universal consent remains to brand with infamy the queen and her advisers. Five bishops, a considerable number of inferior clergy, and a goodly contingent of pious laymen, about 280 altogether, are said to have been burned at the stake or otherwise to have suffered for their faith.^ The homely narrative of Foxe, the great martyrologist, has made us all familiar with the sad story of the sufferings and heroism of these martyrs, and though in recent times it has been fiercely assailed it still deservedly retains not a little of its old popularity. While their leaders thus nobly bore witness at the stake to the truths which aforetime they had taught, many of the reforming clergy who had occupied less prominent positions deemed it their duty to act on the counsel of our Lord (Matt. x. 23), and for a time to leave their native land and ^ It is thus Alesius records the grief and horror which these cruelties aroused among Protestants at the time : ' Recens plaga recrudescere facit vetus vulnus, cui cicatrix obduci ccepit. De vivis episcopis crematis post Polycarpum vix scio extare exemplum etiam apud illos qui fuerunt Christiani nominis jurati hostes, et jam in Anglia vivi ad palum comburuntur episcopi quorum vita et doctrina vere Apostolica fuit ! ' 30 Origin of Puritanism. seek shelter where they would be free to worship God according to their consciences. Repelled by the stricter Lutherans of Germany, they were received with open heart and arms by the Re- formed or Calvinistic churches, both in Germany and Switzerland. At Frankfort, Emden, Stras- burg, Zurich, Basel, Aarau, and Geneva, hospitality was extended to them, places of worship were assigned to them, and opportunities for the prosecution of study, and the practice of various industries were afforded to them. If not without privations or occasional differences among them- selves, yet generally in quietness and with profit, they were enabled to pass these sad years, and by intercourse with the chiefs of the Reformation to realise more fully their oneness with them in sympathy and convictions, or by attendance on their academic lectures to add to their stores of knowledge and to get their ideas widened, their principles confirmed, and themselves prepared for further services in happier days, of which I propose to give you an account in my next Lecture. LECTURE II. DEVELOPMENT AND HISTORY OF PURITANISM UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH. In my last Lecture I carried down my historical sketch of the origin and development of Puritan- ism to the time of the Marian persecution and the dispersion of the English exiles among the Continental Protestants. These exiles did not need to go abroad to learn the rudiments of Puri- tanism, either of its doctrinal teaching, or of its forms of worship or of church order. These I told you they had already learned from honoured teachers in their own land, who had drawn their principles chiefly from their personal study of the Word of God. The thing, I told you, existed before the name, but soon after the time to which we have come the name appeared as well as the thing. The exiles were now brought into contact with men who by their own independent study had been led to similar conclusions, and there were circumstances in the recent history of Contin- ental Protestantism which naturally inclined them to attach special importance to these conclusions. 3 2 Development and History of Puritanism A few years before, the Emperor Charles v., in his anxiety to prevent a disruption of the church in Germany, had endeavoured at the moment of his political triumph over the Protestant Princes to impose on them and their subjects an Interim which, while allowing them, till a general Council should determine otherwise, to retain in a modified form some of the more important of their doctrinal convictions, required them to receive back the old ritual and ceremonies, including of course the old priestly dresses and ornaments. This was yield- ed to by many for a time from dire necessity, but resisted by the more resolute. Even the question whether the surplice might be worn was answered by these negatively.-^ The consequence was that when the temporary pressure was withdrawn and they recovered their liberty, they again discarded the old rites and dresses, and became more decided against them than before. They were symbols of their temporary enslavement as well as relics of Popery, not retained as in England to wean them from its more essential corruptions, but to draw them back to the Old Church more fully. While these feelings were yet fresh and strong the English exiles came among them. The magistrates of Frankfort accordingly, in grant- ing them an asylum and a church for their wor- * Antwort M. F. Illyrici auff den Brieff etlicher Prediger von der Frage, ob sie lieber weichen denn den Chorrock anziehen soUen. under Queen Elizabeth. 33 ship, made the condition that they should not dis- sent in doctrine or ceremonies from the French congregation, which also met in the same place. The more advanced of them were probably glad of such a good reason for moving in the direction in which they wished to move. They would not lack encouragement from a Lasco, who had stood by them in England and was then at Frankfort, worshipping with his Dutch congregation in the same church with the French and the English. At any rate they secured the harmonious consent of all the company to the conditions, and in testi- mony they appointed certain representatives to sign the Confession, which the minister, doctor, and elders of the French Church had already signed A form of service and of church discipline was also drawn up, and an invitation given to their countrymen dispersed in other cities to come and share their privileges. But their harmony was disturbed by the new arrivals, and their difficulties increased apace, till, after various attempts at compromise, the more advanced members of the company were outvoted, and sought another asylum where they might hope to enjoy the forms and discipline they valued. This they found at Geneva, through the special favour of Calvin. The congregation they had left behind, with con- sent of the syndics, put on somewhat more of the ' face of an English Church,' but not even so did c 34 Development and History of Pitritmiism it attain to peace, nor did it ever venture to intro- duce the surplice or the observance of kneeHngat the reception of the communion, of the sign of the cross in baptism, or the use of the ring in marriage '^ and when the happier days they sighed for came, most of them at first sided with those who pleaded for a continuance of liberty in such matters. These happier days were supposed to have dawned in November 1558, when Elizabeth succeeded to her sister's throne. Immediately, Protestants who had been living in retire- ment in their own country or in exile elsewhere hastened to London and paid their court to the new sovereign. All were received with more or less favour and encouraged to accept employment in the reconstituted Church, save some of those who came from Geneva. During the few bright years they had spent there, they had enjoyed the friendship and protection of Calvin, and as a con- gregation had been left in a great measure free to follow their own bent, and develop their own discipline and forms. They had thought of the needs of others besides themselves, and by the pre- paration of their metrical Psalter and new version of the Scriptures in their native tongue, to say no- thing of their Book of Common Order and trans- ^ Original Letters of English Reformation, p. 754: — 'We gave up private baptizing, confirmation of children, saints' days, kneel- ing at the holy communion, tlie linen surplices and crosses, and other things of like character.' — Cox and others to Calvin. under Queen Elizabeth. 35 lation of Calvin's Catechism, long used in Scot- land, and in part circulated in England too, they had done more real and permanent service to the cause of the Reformation in their native land than all the rest of the exiles then on the Contin- ent. Geneva was in their eyes ' such a school of Christ as the world for many ages had not seen, ' and they had striven by their lives and labours to make their own congregation worthy of this school. Their efforts had been appreciated and acknowledged. Their ministers Knox and Good- man, and some of their members, had had the freedom of the city conferred on them, and at their departure had intrusted to its custody that ' Livre des Anglois ' which is the earliest register of a Puritan church and is still preserved with care in the archives of the city, Knox however, while there, had had the misfortune to publish his treatise 'On the Monstrous Regiment of Women, ' and Goodman his treatise, ' How Superior Powers should be obeyed,' ^ offences which a Tudor queen could hardly be expected to overlook or forgive, and the offences of the ministers brought the flock also under suspicion. Knox in returning to Scotland was not allowed to set foot on English soil, and all his efforts to explain were 1 Possibly Poynet's treatise ' Of Politique power and of the tnie obedience which subjects owe to kings and other civil governors,' reprinted in 1642, and said in reprint (E 154, No. 36) to have been first published in 1556, may have been so at Geneva. 36 Development and History of Puritanism haughtily rejected. Goodman for a time was so repulsed that he deemed it best to yield to the request of his former colleague and aid him in his great work in Scotland ;i and other members of the congregation had difficulty in making their peace. Elizabeth, the new queen, was happily sur- rounded by wise and faithful counsellors who made her reign illustrious and prosperous, and con- trolled its policy in great crises ; yet, as one deter- mined to rule as well as reign, she insisted often on settling important matters according to her own arbitrary will and without regard to the wishes of her Council or her Parliament. In particular she took into her own hands from the first the reform- ation of the Church and the regulation of its wor- ship almost with as much imperiousness as her father had done. While scrupling to assume the title of ' Supreme Head on earth, under Christ, of ^ Goodman was a man of superior abilities and extensive learn- ing. His book was highly esteemed by Milton and other patriots in the following century, and will not be thought meanly of yet by any unprejudiced reader. Having been Divinity Reader at Oxford in 1553, Goodman was deemed the fittest person to be made minister at St. Andrews in 1560. But his predecessor, who had been vicar before the Reformation, and had acted as minister in 1559-60, was allowed to carry the emoluments of his vicarage with him to Aberdeen, and Goodman, after four or five years' faithful service, failing to secure an adequate maintenance, returned to Eng- land. There he was exposed to many hardships, and had to make a sort of recantation of his political sentiments. He survived till 1602, and was held in great esteem even outside the Puritan circle. Ussher long treasured and repeated the pious sayings he had heard from l\im on his deathbed. under Queen Elizabeth. 37 the Church of England,' she assumed, and exer- cised without scruple, all the power which the title was held to imply. While professedly adopting the second Prayer Book of her brother, she im- ported into it that Ornaments' rubric from his earlier Book, which was to work such woe in her day, and has caused such trouble even in ours. As already mentioned she prefixed words to those enjoined in it to be used at the distribution of the elements in the Lord's Supper which were meant to make it possible even for a Romanist to com- municate, and she excluded that rubric put in originally in deference to the scruples of Knox, which was the most Protestant thing in the book. She prevailed on Parliament when passing the Act of Uniformity, to recognise her right to add, to those already appointed, such further rites and ceremonies as she should judge to be for the glory of God and the honour of religion ; and had she found the old bishops as compliant as her father had done, she might have been led to use this right in such a way as might gratify them in minor things rather than their opponents. With all her good and noble qualities (and they were many) she was a Tudor every inch, and less disposed to yield one jot of her prerogative in matters ecclesiastical than in matters civil. She thought her subjects should loyally submit to the injunctions of their sovereign, in regard to the 38 Development and History of PiLritanis7n former as fully as to the latter. Even when the dangers which at first threatened her and might have palliated if they could not justify her early imperiousness were passed, she could still play the despot, and endeavour by sheer force to stamp out intensely earnest convictions, which, more gently dealt with and more lovingly guided, would have been a strength to her throne and to the institutions of the land. She had a natural pre- dilection for the mongrel faith and worship of her father's later years, a fondness for external pomp and symbolism which her most favoured prelates at times found it hard to wink at — impossible to justify, and but little sympathy with the practical side of Puritanism and with that inner experience and holy self-denying life which were its crown and glory. She looked with ill-concealed dislike on the marriage of the clergy, and never repealed her sister's Act against it. Her first purpose seems to have been to retain the Marian bishops in office (if they had consented to turn with the tide once more and take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy), and only to fill up the vacant sees with men of decided Protestant convictions. But by the refusal of these bishops to take the oath of supremacy and conform to the new order, she was obliged to fall back on the Protestant bishops who had been dispossessed in the begin- ning of her sister's reign, and the men who had under Queen Elizabeth. 39 identified themselves with the reforming party in her brother's time, and who had had their convic- tions matured in retirement or in exile. It is difficult to believe, notwithstanding assertions to the contrary by the High Church biographer of the Archbishops of Canterbury, that they had not ample assurance given them that the Church in which they were asked to serve was meant to be the restoration of that of King Edward's time,^ and some encouragement to hope that the things they would rather have had away were continued merely for reasons of state policy, and might (as was professed by him), if borne with for the time, be ultimately abandoned or modified. In fact, they had a right to regard the acceptance of Coverdale's services without the episcopal habits, at the consecration of Archbishop Parker, as a pledge not only that the same indulgence would be extended to him in the future but also that the practical toleration they had themselves enjoyed in King Edward's days would not be denied them 1 Lee in his recent work, The Chtcrch jtndcr Queen Elizabeth, admits this frankly : — 'Bishops Pilkington, Sandys, Grindal, Overton, Meyrick, Bale, BuUingham and Parkhurst were each and all thoroughly agreed in their principles and course of action ; and in substituting the new religion which had been set up for the old one, which had been deliberately and duly abolished by Par- liament, . . . they were only carrying out the obvious and avowed intentions of those state officials who had placed them in high ecclesiastical positions expressly to carry out the changes .... resolved upon.' — Vol. i. p. 272. 40 Development and History of PuritanisTn again. The great bulk of the Marian clergy- abandoned their former bishops and conformed externally to the new order of things, and if they, Romanist in all but the name, were to be con- tinued and borne with, that the nation might be kept united in one comprehensive Church, much more surely might they who were ministers in Edward's days, and were seeking only what was practically conceded then, — the men who were heartily attached to the new order of things, and had the learning, the zeal, the earnest Christian life, and the preaching abilities needed to insure among the masses an intelligent acceptance of this new order, — much more surely had they a right to expect that reasonable concessions should be made to them, and a modus vivendi be allowed them, even if, in the interest of union among Englishmen, the obnoxious ceremonies were not entirely to be removed. Various efforts were made in the first Convoca- tion that assembled after the reconstitution of the Church formally to secure this,^ and for a few years it seems at least to have been practically conceded. We cannot suppose that those bishops who had ^ It was only by a single vote, and that a proxy, that in 1562 the Lower House of Convocation rejected proposals which would probably have done this: — 'That in baptism the cross may be omitted, . • . that the order of kneeling (at the communion) may be left to the discretion of the ordinary, . . . that it be sufficient for the minister . . . (once) to wear a surplice . . . That the use of organs be removed.' — Strype's Ajinals, vol. i. pp. 336-339. tinder Queen Elizabeth. 41 pleaded so strongly as Grindal, Jewell, Horn, and Parkhurst had done to have these stumbling-blocks taken out of the way, would be at all disposed to press hardly on scrupling brethren, or that even the Archbishop, though not so kindly befriending them, would of his own accord have left his quiet anti- quarian researches and other much-loved studies to enter into conflict with them. We cannot suppose that Elizabeth's wise counsellors, who saw the ne- cessity of encouraging the Dutch and the Hugue- nots in their struggles, as well as of standing by the Protestants of Scotland though they would 'remit nothing of that they had received from Geneva,' could be so blind to their true interests at home, as for the sake of tippet or surplice, cross or ring, to cut off the right arm of their strength.^ But the queen either of her native wilfulness, or from jealousy of their increasing influence with the citizens of London and the tendency of their opinions in the political sphere, or at the insti- gation of some busybody who had a grudge ■* 'Tlie great object of Elizabeth's ministers . . was the preserva- tion of the Protestant religion, to which all ceremonies of theChurch and even its form of discipline were subordinate. An indifferent passiveness among the people, a humble trust in authority, how- ever desirable in the eyes of churchmen, was not Uie temper which would . . . have quelled the generous ardour of the Catholic gentry on the queen's decease ; . . . but every abhorrer of ceremonies, every rejector of prelatical authority might be trasted as Protestant to the heart's core, whose sword would be as ready as his tongue to withstand idolatry.' — Hallam's Constitutional History of England, vol. i. pp. 195, 196. 42 Development and History of Puritanism against them, or sought by unworthy means to gain her favour, was at length unfortunately per- suaded to put forth her authority against them and to enjoin the bishops to restrain or deprive them. She knew it was not a popular business, and she would rather the odium of it should light on them than on herself But in case of need she was always ready to give help, and, once com- mitted to a side, could never again be brought to treat them with kindness and forbearance, and frankly to utilise their acknowledged gifts for the preaching of the gospel and advancement of Christian knowledge and godly living among the uninstructed masses of her people. She became only the more peremptory, the more their influence became apparent, and the sympathies of others were drawn forth towards them, and a love for more popular control in affairs of government began to be developed, the more determined to uphold her prerogative and to humble and crush them, even if in so doing much of the earnest life of the Church had to be crushed out, many of the most effective preachers to be silenced, and many of the firmest supporters of her throne had to be maltreated or discredited. Your time will not admit of my entering much into details as to the melancholy blunders, merciless op- pression, and savage cruelties which characterised her ecclesiastical administration in its relation to the under Queen Elizabeth. 43 Puritans. That has been done pretty fully by Dr. Hetherington in the introductory chapters of his History of the Westminster Assejubly, and still more fully and impartially by Mr. Marsden in his History of the Early Puritans, and by some of our recent secular historians, as well as by Neale and other Puritan writers in earlier times. To certain prominent occurrences I must briefly refer, as the ultimate shape and direction of the Puritan struggle was largely determined by them. The returned exiles who accepted bishoprics and other high dignities, were, as already mentioned, almost all in favour of concessions being made to the scruples of the Puritans, if not even anxious for the entire removal of the rites and ornaments to which they objected ; and perhaps one of the greatest services rendered by the Parker Society in our own day has been the transcription and publication of their correspondence with Bullinger and other Continental reformers, in which these facts are so clearly brought out. But they hesitated to insist on obtaining such concessions before accepting office, when firmness on their part might possibly have secured them, and they never were in a condition to insist on them afterwards. Nay, against their own better judgment and wishes, some of them were forced on to deal harshly with brethren whom they loved, and on whom they knew they must chiefly rely to give life and vigour 44 Development and History of PuritaJiism to the new Church, and to defend and propagate among the ignorant and careless that reformed faith which they, not less than these brethren, y' held dear. 'Oxford had but three preachers in 1563, and they were chief men among the Puritans. The case of Cambridge was very similar ;'^ and in fact throughout the kingdom, generally it was the same. It was to them the queen and her coun- sellors must look for the earnest and resolute defence of their common faith, in the only way in which access could be got for it to the minds of the unreading masses. It was to them she must look for the vigorous defence of her own rights against Pope and Stuart and all opponents. It was not by homilies on the peril of idolatry or the sin of wilful rebellion, lifelessly drawled out by men who had changed from side to side and had no very deep convictions either way, that the crisis could be met, and the more intelligent of the people roused to the seriousness of the issue. What Froude has said of Knox^ may be said in a measure of his Puritan brethren in England : that they saved Elizabeth's throne and secured the triumph of Protestantism in Britain, in spite of herself, and all her caprice and cruelty towards them. The men who at first presented them- selves for ordination in the restored Church were generally men of mean condition and miserably ^ Marsden, pp. 100, loi. ' Short Studies, 1867, vol. i. p. 16S. under Queen Elizabeth. 45 qualified for the sacred offices to which they aspired, and so limited was the supply, even of such men, that many churches were left without ministers for a time, or consigned to the charge of men of doubtful ordination^ as well as deficient education. Ecclesiastical lands and revenues in several cases were appropriated by the queen, in several were made over to her courtiers; bishoprics were kept vacant — Ely and Oxford for about twenty years. Several of those in high ecclesiastical offices showed more concern to enrich themselves and their families, than to aid in supplementing confessedly inadequate livings or to guard against further alienation and abuse. The incumbents of Queen Mary's days, who to so large an extent had nominally submitted to the new regime, were too often either popishly affected or grossly ignorant — dead to the living meaning of the changes which had been made, or unable to preach, at times even to read, in an edifying and im- pressive manner — clinging, as has been said, to the old forms, which they could repeat by rote, rather than taking the trouble of making them- selves familiar with the new — in some cases using the breviary or the missal in private, and the Anglican liturgy in public — oft but able to read 1 Lee often refers to this, and holds that many of the monks and friars who conformed and got benefices, if in orders at all, were only in minor orders — Icctores, acolyti, etc. So probably were many of those admitted as Readers in Scotland. 46 Development and Histoiy of Pnritanism the prescribed English prayers and homilies, and keep up a certain routine of service, and seldom able to speak any 'word of exhortation' fitted to touch the hearts of their people, or to exercise a permanent influence for good among them. The returned exiles had in most cases a respectable amount of learning, and Christian experience, and the ability and will to put both to use in popular preaching and more didactic argument in defence of the Reformed faith ; and at first they had no great cause to complain that their claims were overlooked. Their metrical Psalter was allowed to be sung before and after prayers and sermons, and their translation of the Bible, without formal allowance, was largely circulated and often reprint- ed, and certain prayers and the Confession in their Book of Common Order were generally appended to the Psalter and possibly used in the pulpit though not in the reading-desk. Their earnest labours and solid learning, wisely and generously directed, and their scruples reasonably yielded to or winked at, would with God's blessing have sufficed in a single generation to change the face of England, and make the common people not less educated and zealously ' Protestant than the people of still ruder Scotland became. But those in power determined to put uniformity and submission to rigid law or to arbi- trary will in the forefront, and to exalt prerogative above all limitations of regulated freedom, and the tinder Queen Elizabeth. 47 benefits of a mechanical routine above the blessing of a living active ministry and a moral, intelligent, grave, and deeply earnest people. It was in the year 1564-5 that the first lament- able attempt was made to enforce a rigid uni- formity, and by prerogative royal exact subscrip- tion to it from the scrupling Puritans, till then generously treated or grumblingly tolerated. The peremptory mandate requiring them to give this subscription issued from the sovereign herself; but it was carried out, if with reluctance yet with submission, by several of the prelates, and especially by Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury,^ and Grin- dal. Bishop of London, in whose diocese many of the leading Puritans were settled, and by consistent Christian living, as well as by efficient pastoral ^ Historians are not agreed how far she, and how far Parker was, in the first instance, to blame for the earlier proceedings against them. I have no doubt the real explanation is that given above, that the queen wished and urged him to proceed, just as she encouraged Aylmer's action against Cartwright, but that (as in that case) she wished him to take the onus on himself. No doubt the bishops, as well as she, thought that firmness and a little severity was all that was needed to crush the party, and instead of retracing their steps when they found they were mistaken, they exaggerated the dangers of a policy of concession, and clamoured for one of repression. Thus, ere many years had passed, we find Sandys writing to the Privy Council in the following excited terms : 'The city will never be quiet till these authors of sedition, who are now esteemed as gods ... be far removed from the city. The people resort to them as in popery they were wont to run on pilgrimages. ... A sharp letter from her Majesty would cut the courage of these men. Good my Lords, for the love you bear to the Church of Christ, resist the tumultuous enterprises of these newfangled men.' 48 Development and Histoiy of Pu7'itanisni work, were commending themselves and their cause to the popular sympathy. Sampson, Hum- phreys, Lever, and many others — above thirty in all — several of the best, as the Archbishop himself acknowledged, appeared and consented to be suspended or deposed rather than subscribe to observe the proposed uniformity. Not a few sought to delay the evil day by not appearing. The noble-hearted Foxe, to whom Protestant England owes so much, is reported to have pulled out his Greek Testament and said, ' To this only will I subscribe. I have but a humble prebend in the Church, and if you take it from me, much good may it do you.' He seems to have been borne with ; but even good Father Coverdale w^ho, as Grindal before, when pleading for his promo- tion, had said, ' ante nos omnes in Christo fuit,' could not be spared, though the plague had just spared him. After little more than a year's enjoy- ment of his humble benefice of St. Magnus Rectory, he had to retire once more into obscurity and privation. He was reverenced and followed in London, and, by his influence, was putting the city out of sympathy with the Court, and must, to use the unfeeling words of her Majesty about another, be fitted for heaven, 'but walk thither without staff or mantle,' He was left in his extreme old age * without stay of living, " pauper et pere- grinus,'" in the land which gave him birth, and under Qtieen Elizabeth. 49 which he had laboured so hard to enrich with the true riches of God's Word in his native tongue. Such measures once taken, further trouble arose, first about private meetings for worship in London, at which Knox's Book of Common Order was used instead of the Liturgy, and then in connec- tion with the more public meetings known as ' the prophesyings.' These were gatherings of ministers and pious laymen for the study and exposition of the Scriptures, and in the great dearth there then was of qualified preachers they were of much service to many, both in stimulating them to the study of the Word of God, and in training them to expound it with readiness and accuracy. They had been held with profit in the Dutch and French churches in London when under the charge of a Lasco, and had probably been resumed by them on their return from the Continent. At the accession of Elizabeth they were a standing institution at Zurich as well as at Geneva, and were introduced with much benefit into Scotland by Knox, soon after 1560. By the commencement of the following decade they appear to have found their way into various parts of England. Several bishops who were earnest for the more thorough reformation of their dioceses,^ * The sad complaints of several of these bishops as to the state of their dioceses, from the ignorance of the people, and their dislike of the new regime, are given from State Papers and other con- temporary sources, by Lee, vol. i. ch. iv. D 50 Development and History of Puritanism finding them useful in quickening zeal for the reformed faith, and increasing the number of qualified preachers, gave them their countenance, and endeavoured, by prudent regulations, to avert or restrain any excesses to which, in incautious hands, they might be liable. They were especially dear to Grindal, who had by 1576 succeeded Parker in the primacy. He was a thorough Protestant himself and anxious for the continuance of a thoroughly Protestant ministry, and willing to employ any means which had been found useful in training men for it elsewhere. But the queen, either taking umbrage at the meetings having been set up without her sanction, or dreading the effect they might have in promoting discussion, encourag- ing greater liberty in the expression of opinion, and fostering a desire for a more popular organi- sation either in the church or state, determined rigorously to suppress them. She spoke slightingly of the need of preachers, affirming that two or three were enough for a whole county, and that the common people were far better not to have their stolid quiet disturbed by such over-zealous instructors. She peremptorily commanded him to issue formal orders for the suppression of the obnoxious meetings. The archbishop nobly re- monstrated against the suppression of an institu- tion which, he was satisfied, had done much good, and might easily be purged of any abuses which, under Queen Elizabeth. 5 1 through the infirmity of men, may have arisen to mar the good it did. But he remonstrated in vain. The queen not only disregarded his courageous and earnest pleading, but carried her displeasure so far as to suspend him from his high office, and confine him as a prisoner to his own house. It is said that, but for the unpopularity of the measure, she would have proceeded to deprive him altogether. He never fully regained the favour of his sovereign, with whom he had as boldly and faithfully remonstrated, as became the high office he held. But it is said that, when he was broken down by grief and the infirmities of old age, and bereft of sight, she relented somewhat and sent him a kindly message, and that he made such acknowledgment as a Christian bishop could honourably make. His virtues and misfortunes made him beloved and revered by his contem- poraries, caused his name to be embalmed in the verse of the immortal Spenser, and have secured for him a word of warm commendation from the High Church biographer of the Archbishops of Canterbury, who is never more sparing of his praise than to prelates of the Evangelical school, to which Grindal belonged. Soon after the commencement of the prophesy- ings, the more thorough-going Puritans who had been led on to substantially presbytcrian opinions, but discouraged by friends abroad and debarred 5 2 Development and History of Puritanism by the authorities at home from overtly seceding from the national church, began to hold secretly private meetings for mutual conference and prayer, and possibly also for the exercise of discipline over those who voluntarily joined their associations and submitted to their guidance. It is even said that a presbytery was formed at Wandsworth in Surrey, wherein eleven lay-elders were associated with the lecturer of that congregation and certain leading Puritan clergymen. But if this was really a formal presbytery, it is probable that it was what was then called the lesser presbytery or session, not the greater presbytery or classis to which the name is now usually restricted. It is more certain that when Cartwright, the redoubted leader of this school of Puritans, was arrested in 1585 and his study searched, a copy was found of a Directory for church-government, which made provision for synods, provincial and national, as well as for presbyteries, greater and lesser. This, according to some' authorities, had been subscribed by about 500 Puritans of this school, and, for some years, as I said, had, to a certain extent, been carried out, and a church within the church^ virtually formed. The book was republished in 1644, and so was known and consulted by the Westminster divines ; and it has been reprinted ^ Ecclesiola in ecclesia. Their synods are said to have met in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Northampton, etc. under Queen Elizabeth. 53 in our own day by Principal Lorimer. It bears considerable resemblance to the famous Ordinances of Calvin and the Second Book of Discipline of the Scottish church, but it is more explicit in its directions as to preaching, and the forms of worship. I must pass over with bare mention the harsh usage meted out to the great Puritan leader^ by Whitgift in his early days, and by Aylmer in his later, the ungenerous treatment of Travers, and the pitiless oppression of many ' godly ministers,' when, on Whitgift's accession to the primacy, the Court of High Commission was reconstituted, and more extensive powers were intrusted to it, and a series of interrogatories was devised for extorting a confession from the accused, which even Cecil pronounced to be Avorthy of the Inquisition itself I must pass over the harsh imprisonment of Brown * Thomas Cartwright, B.D., first Margaret Professor of Divinity, and one of the preachers in the University Church at Cambridge, where his influence and example probably led to that outbreak of Puritanism on the part of the young men, which some suppose first roused the queen against its advocates. He was harshly expelled the University, and had twice to seek shelter abroad from the cruel usage he experienced at home. In his old age he was allowed, though not without occasional restraint and even imprisonment, to hold the chaplaincy of the hospital at Warwick. He was an able disputant, an eloquent preacher, 'a pure Latinist, an accurate Grecian, an exact Hebrean, ' a scholar so learned that Beza said he did not think tlie sun shone on one more so, according to Marsden ' the Hooker of nonconformity, his equal in acutcncss thoughjnot in penetration ; in eloquence, though not in learning, his superior ; his inferior perhaps only in profound dexterity and skill in argument mingled with an awful reverence for truth.' See also Appendix, Note B. 54 Development and History of Puritanism and other extreme Puritans of the Independent school — the tyrannical proceedings of the Court of Star-Chamber against the supposed authors of the satirical Marprelate Tracts, and the cruel sentences on Penry and Udal. Neither can I dwell on the illegal restraint of the freedom of discussion on ecclesiastical affairs in the House of Commons, in various Parliaments, from 1571 downwards, and the noble stand made in behalf of forbearance and healing measures by Wentworth, Strickland, and other patriots in that House — the worthy pre- cursors of Pym and Hampden in the following century. Nor finally shall I advert to the doc- trinal disputes which began to be raised before the close of this reign till I come, in a subsequent lecture, to treat of the history and development of doctrine more expressly. It was indeed a policy of stamping out which was now initiated by the queen, with the aid of despotic Courts of Star-Chamber and High Commission ; and with singular disregard of the feelings and convictions of many true-hearted patriots and accomplished Christian scholars, it was attempted to be remorselessly carried out. But the attempt failed as disastrously as it has generally done where authority and prerogative have set themselves against deep and earnest convictions. Many who had not the courage at first openly to avow it, secretly sympathised with tinder Queen Elizabeth. 55 the patriots and the Puritans, and, in time, were emboldened to confess it. By their noble bearing under oppression and tyranny, ' men were led to examine the foundations of the power by Avhich they were so cruelly oppressed. The influence of education and early attachment was thus counter- acted, until at length a determination was avowed to overturn a system whose reformation only had previously been sought.' They were forced to seek outside the church what they were refused within, and, in the end, to let loose over the land as a devastating flood those waters which, had proper channels been opened for them, would have flowed on in them to revivify and transform the old church, and make its parched wastes 'rejoice and blossom as the rose.' ' Little as they thought what the consequences of their acts would be, Elizabeth and Whitgift, James and Bancroft,' as Rawson Gardiner says, ' by making a schism inevit- able, were the true fathers of Protestant dissent.' Occasionally guided by considerations of state policy and desire to avoid unpopularity, or yielding to the remonstrances of her patriotic councillors in favour of particular individuals belonging to the party who had been imprisoned or deprived, Elizabeth may have forborne to press hard on them. But ever and anon new occasion was found for restraining and gagging the more obnoxious, whether they sought shelter within or toleration 56 Development and History of Puritanism without the church, whether they sought minor changes or more important reforms in its con- stitution, whether they advocated these in their sermons, or through the press, or through the instrumentahty of friends in Parliament, Even the archbishop, less averse to the repulsive task than some of his brethren, failed at times to satisfy his sovereign gradually becoming more jealous of her prerogative, more harsh and despotic just in those matters of conscience and religion in which she should have been less so, more giddy and frivolous as she advanced to years when the follies of youth should have been laid aside, and the realities of the faith she professed to defend should have bulked larger in her view.^ She might on great occasions still come forward as the champion of Protestantism, and act with true dignity and spirit as she had done in 1572 when receiving in mourning and with expressions of deepest sorrow the ambassador of the French ^ ' Towards the conclusion of her reign, the example of the court of Elizabeth was decidedly irreligious, and the contagion spread rapidly among the common people. A preposterous extravagance in dress . . .' the prevalence of oaths (freely indulged in by the queen herself) and, to crown the whole, the studied desecration of the Sabbath, mark too plainly the hollo wness of that religious profession which even men of fashion were still constrained to make. . . . Social meetings for prayer and praise and for conference among the clergy are almost inseparable from a vigorous piety and an effective ministry, and these had been discouraged. They were chiefly to be met with in the chambers of the Puritans.' — Marsden's Early Puritans, p. 239. under Queen Elizabeth. 57 king after the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; and again in 1588, when, in prospect of the arrival of the Spanish Armada, she laid aside her usual hauteur, courageously cast herself on the sym- pathies and loyalty of her people, and placed her- self at their head. But that wealth of religious life and activity which the new faith so exuberantly called forth, and all the effects intellectual and industrial which it drew in its train, she failed to utilise or even to recognise as the true strength of her throne, and her best security against Popish reaction. That growing love of freedom and impatience of minute restraint which religious and intellectual activity necessarily fostered, she failed to satisfy or appreciate, or even generously bear with. She fell behind instead of continuing to keep in advance of her advancing people, and endeavouring to anticipate their just aspirations, and by kindly treatment retain their devoted affection. That alone could have made the con- tinuance of personal government still possible, and like several of her successors in similar crises of our history, Elizabeth failed to realise it, and at the proper time to act on it. She, who with due forethought and self-restraint might have permanently attached all hearts to her, and guided their progress, from imperiousness and arbitrary temper missed the possibility, threw away the splendid opportunities, and when at last she awoke 58 Development and History of Puritanism in some measure to the consciousness of what she had missed or thrown away, became peevish and irritable, and sank into deep and hopeless melancholy. ' That bright occidental star ' paled, and set in a gloomy and angry sky. The queen's popularity, I have said, had greatly waned during her later years. Even impartial secular historians, like Hallam, ascribe this not so much to weightier taxation, or to blunders and arbitrary proceedings in her civil government, as ' to her inflexible tenaciousness in every point of ecclesiastical discipline.' The ablest historian of the Puritans tells us that at one period of her reign, when Whitgift was allowed to have his way uncontrolled, nearly one-third of the beneficed clergy of England had incurred suspension, and that this to most of them involved destitution and penury, and to most of their flocks a total deprivation of the means of grace. Men could not fail to ask : ' Would it not be wiser to provide for the effervescence of a well-meaning zeal, however troublesome, within the bosom of the church, than to cast ofl" those fiery energies which might and probably would be arrayed against her .'' ' The numerous party among the laity who sympathised with them had begun to ask this, and others than they were beginning to do so. How anxious thoughtful men, altogether unconnected with the party, had by that time become that all this should be changed, and a more conciliatory under Qneen Elizabeth. 59 course be tried, appears notably from a tractate written by Francis Bacon, the accomplished philosopher and statesman, before the close of the year at which we have now arrived, and possibly drawn up for the guidance of Elizabeth's successor when assuming the government of the English state. In this tractate Bacon indorses their objection to the use of the words priest, absolu- tion, and confirmation, 'takes exception to the various matters of ceremony at which the Puritans scrupled, inveighs against the abuses of excom- munication, non-residence and plurality, the ex officio oath, and the excessive power of the bishops, against all which they protested ;' and in the spirit of a true patriot, he demands why the ecclesias- tical state should be put at greater disadvantage than the civil, and not as considerately adapted to the changing wants and desires of Christian men.^ * ' I would only ask why the civil state should be purged and restored by good and wholesome laws made every third or fourth year in Parliaments assembled, devising remedies as fast as time breedeth mischiefs, and contrariwise the ecclesiastical state should still continue upon the dregs of time, and receive no alteration now for these five-and-forty years and more. If it be said to me that there is a difference between civil causes and ecclesiastical, they may as well tell me that churches and chapels need no reparations though houses and castles do, whereas commonly, to speak the truth, dilapidations of the inward and spiritual edifica- tion of the church of God are in all times as great as the outward and material. Sure I am that the very word and style of reforma- tion used by our Saviour ab initio non ftiit ita was applied to Church matters, and those of the highest nature.' — Spedding's Bacon, vol. iii. p. 105. LECTURE III. HISTORY OF PURITANISM UNDER THE EARLIER STUART KINGS. In my last lecture I gave you an account of the history and development of English Puritanism during the reign of the last of the Tudor sovereigns. In the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, it may be said to have been still in its infancy : before her death it had almost attained its maturity. Under the unkindly treatment its advocates received, it tended more and more to develop in a polemical as well as a practical form. The defences em- ployed against it showed the same tendency to develop. First the ' nocent ceremonies ' formed the chief subject of attack ; then, when concessions as to these were refused or withdrawn, the attack was pushed further. The worship and government of the church were more generally assailed, and finally the war threatened to extend into the region of doctrine, in which chiefly they contended for more than mere toleration. The principle which lay at the root of all the contendings of its advocates, and to which most of their varied History of Puritanism. 6i assaults in matters of minor importance can be traced up, was the principle that the church has no right to burden the consciences of her members in matters of faith and worship with aught that is contrary to or beside {i.e. in addition to) the express or implied teaching of the Word of God. In other words they claimed to restrict the authority of the church within narrower limits than their opponents, and to reclaim for liberty a larger province than they were disposed to allow her. They did not as yet themselves perceive the full import of the principle for which they contended. They were reluctant to extend it rigidly to the constitution and government of the church as well as to her articles of faith and forms of worship. But as the contest proceeded, they could not fail to be led on more and more distinctly to assert it with a fuller consciousness of its far-reaching consequences, and a more earnest longing to bring back the church in constitution and government, as well as in faith and worship, to what they believed to be ' the pattern showed in the mount' Their opponents were also led by the necessities of the warfare to develop their defence. The first Elizabethan bishops accepted the ceremonies and habits, and reluctantly submitted to various restrictions, because the queen so ordered it, and they failed to bend her will in the direction they desired, and in the direction their Protestant brethren abroad had 62 History of Puritanism already led the way. Their successors, more wedded to that to which they had become accus- tomed, resolutely undertook its defence, asserting against the Puritan position the counter proposition that while Scripture supplied an absolute rule of faith, and no doctrine not drawn from it was to be imposed on the consciences of the members of the church, yet that it was not meant to be a complete or absolute rule in matters of worship and church constitution, but that much for which Scriptural precedent might be alleged might be now unnecessary or inexpedient, and much which Scripture had left undetermined might be neces- sary to be regulated, and that the church had authority to regulate all matters of this sort and to require obedience to her regulations, provided they were not positively contrary to Scripture. They asserted that the church had a right to retain her polity and forms if ancient and accordant with those of the state in which her lot was cast, and that agitation for a more popular form might be not only inexpedient and unseemly, but even un- lawful under a monarchy. This in brief was the position maintained with much logical dexterity and persistence by Whitgift and Cooper, and with certain modifications by the great and gifted Hooker in that treatise of Eccle- siastical Polity which still excites the admiration of men of so divergent sentiments for the candour and under the earlier Sttiart Kings. 63 acuteness of its reasoning, and the stately majesty of its diction. Finally, as the controversy became more embittered, some zealots in defence of the existing order of things advanced beyond the lines of Whitgift, or even of Hooker. They claimed for the constitution and government of the Anglican church a jus divitmvi, and maintained that the episcopate was by divine right above the pres- byterate, and that to assert the opposite was not merely an error but a ' heresy.' This position, first broached by Bancroft in the reign of Elizabeth, was to find many supporters in the period I am now to describe, and for a time almost to drive the more liberal and attractive theory of Hooker out of the field, even in the church he adorned. It was on the 24th of March 1602-3, that Elizabeth's long reign came to a close, and she was succeeded by James I. of England and VI. of Scotland. The character of James, while cal- culated favourably to impress on superficial observation, discloses after deeper study elements which could not fail to mar the success of his reign. There was, as has been said, a 'strange mixture in it of sagacity and folly.' Love of letters and learned men combined with a passion for low sports ; professions of religion and zeal for Protestantism discredited at times by mean truckling to 'catholic' powers, by shameful insincerity and vulgar profanity. ' His intellectual ^4 History of Puritanism powers were of no common order, his learning, especially on theological subjects, by no means contemptible.' His courtiers — even those of them who were ministers of the church — were wont to speak of him as the British Solomon. Some modern historians, on the other hand, affirm that, as Henry IV. of France said, he was only ' the wisest fool in Christendom,' He was good-natured, but he allowed his goodness to be abused by unworthy favourites. He was shrewd and cunning, and yet could so far conceal his artifice, that he imposed, for a time at least, on many good men in Scotland, and on many of the great statesmen and church- men of England.^ But he became, as Bishop Burnet has said, ' the scorn of his age,' and ' was despised by all abroad as a pedant without true judgment, courage, or steadiness, a slave to his favourites, and delivered up to the counsels or rather the corruption of Spain.' ^ He was fond of ^ ' Such a king as since Christ's time hath not been. ' — Bancroft. ' The learnedest king that ever sat upon this throne, or as I verily think since Solomon's time or any other.' — Bishop Hall. ' A king of incomparable clemency, and whose heart is inscrutable for virisdom and goodness.' — Lord Bacon. ^ His defects Mr. S. Rawson Gardiner is disposed to trace to 'that scene of terror which passed before his mother while he was yet unborn. He came into the world imperfect. His body, his mind, and his heart appear alike to have been wanting in that central force by which the human frame and the human intellect are at the same time invigorated and controlled. His ungainly figure was the type of his inner life. . . . No true and lofty faith ever warmed his heart. No pure reverence ever exalted his under- standing.'— History of England from 1 603 to 1616, vol. i. p. 56. See also Green's History, vol. iii. pp. 55, 56. nndei' the eajdin^ Sttiar^t Kings. 65 absolute power, and implacable against those who called in question any of his prerogatives, fond of theological discussion, especially when he could count on an opponent courtly enough not to press him too hard in argument, fond of talking and writing against Popery, yet often found really acting for it. Above all, he was fond of manage- ment and trickery, and vain of his ability and success in this, which he dignified with the name of kingcraft. But this craft in which he deemed himself a master failed to secure the subservience of his Parliaments, or to crush the aspirations of his people after greater liberty in church and state. His accession to the English throne could not fail to raise hopes of kindlier treatment in the minds of the Puritans. He had previously to some extent shown himself their friend, had invited more than one of their leaders, when harshly oppressed in England, to occupy a chair in a Scottish University,^ and had ventured to intercede with Queen Elizabeth on their behalf He had himself sanctioned and subscribed in 1581 what was termed the ' negative ' Confession of Faith, in which the ceremonies and the hierarchy appeared to be utterly condemned, and on one memorable occasion had spoken of the English Prayer-Book as ' an evil said mass in English, wanting nothing * Cartwright and Travers were invited to join Melville in the New College, St. Andrews. ^Vent's Life of Melville, p. 153. E 66 History of Pi^Htanism of the mass but the Hftings.' He had no pro- nounced rituaHstic procHvities, no impracticable jure divino notions as to the office of a bishop as he had of the ' divinity that doth hedge a king,* and he was too well read in theology not to know what was really Protestant doctrine and what was not. But unfortunately he had already come into collision with the leaders of the more decidedly Puritanic party in the Scottish church, both through his exercise of despotic power and through the coarser vices to which he or his courtiers were addicted, and had given more plain than pleasant evidence of his dislike to them in his Basilicon Doron. So plain and unmistakeable indeed was this that he had to make more than one attempt to explain his words away. But notwithstanding all his explanations, there was from his known peculiarities ground to fear that he might be tempted to avenge on their southern co-religionists the defeats and affronts he had received from their Scottish brethren, and might be induced to throw himself into the arms of the prelates, who were prepared to make common cause with him in the maintenance of prerogative, and sedulously to foster in his mind the idea that its maintenance was closely bound up with the preservation of their cherished hierarchy — in fact, to give all possible currency to his favourite maxim, ' No Bishop no King.' under the earlier Stnart Kings. 6 7 As he proceeded on his way to take possession of his new kingdom, petitions for reh"ef or in- dulgence were presented to him by the oppressed Puritans, showing how partial effect the harsh measures of Elizabeth and Whitgift had really had in checking the growth of this obnoxious school. Chief among these petitions was the Millenary Petition, — so designated either from its being signed or approved of ^ by nearly a thousand (in reality about 800) ministers, or from the assertion contained in it that it represented the views of more than a thousand of the ministers of the church. It was expressed in deferential and moderate language, and its prayer for relief might have been granted without the slightest danger to the church or injury to the cause of religion in the land. An opportunity of repairing the mistake Elizabeth had made in the early years of her reign, and had persisted in to the last, was now in God's good providence presented, and had the king been really touched by the grateful and graceful saluta- tion addressed to him by the old Puritan leader from his deathbed, and risen to the occasion, or had he followed the counsels tendered by states- men like Bacon, and acted with ordinary prudence ' Some say approbation, not subscription, was asked, and that the numbers so approving were 750. A pamphlet printed in 1606 gives the numbers in 25 English counties, the sum of which is 746. But no mention is made of the Welsh counties or of most within the province of York, from which returns may have been later. 68 History of Puritanism and moderation at this juncture, peace might have been restored to the distracted church on very favourable terms, and rehef granted to many earnest men warmly attached to the institutions of their country and desirous to aid in the more efficient maintenance of them. The king with great tact consented to hold a conference to con- sider the grievances of which the petitioners com- plained, and to learn in detail what the bishops had to say for themselves. To this conference, held on the 14th, i6th, and i8th January, 1603-4, he invited four of the ablest and most moderate of the Puritan ministers, viz., Dr. Reynolds of Oxford, Dr. Chaderton of Cam- bridge, Dr. Sparkes and Mr, Knewstub, along with Archbishop Whitgift, eight bishops and as many inferior dignitaries.^ Had he only held the balance evenly between the contending parties, allowed each fully and fairly to state its case, and endeavoured to decide between them as a calm judge rather than as a keen partisan, he could hardly have failed to conciliate the favour of the one without alienating the other. But he managed matters with such arro- gance and coarseness as brought him little thanks for the few concessions he ultimately made, and deeply wounded the feelings of the party he refused more fully to relieve. He knew that he had that ^ Patrick Galloway was also present and wrote an account of the Conference, to the presbytery of Edinburgh. under the earlier Stuart Kings. 69 party at his mercy and wished to make them feel that it was so. Their desire for a carefully revised translation of the Scriptures was approved of and in due time was carried out, and those who would give the credit of that great undertaking entirely to others need to be reminded that it was originally suggested and pressed by the more learned Puritans, and that no one while he lived took greater interest in helping it on than the old Oxford Puritan who had urged it at this conference. Some of the more objectionable chapters from the Apocrypha were agreed to be struck out of the Table of Lessons, and Archbishop Abbot held that the old injunctions of Queen Elizabeth left ministers the discretion of going further in that direction. Certain additions explaining the nature of the Sacraments were authorised to be made to the Church Catechism, and the rubric of the service for private baptism was so altered as to discourage lay-baptism. The Act of Edward VI. declaring the lawfulness of clerical marriages was promised to be revived. But there was no con- cession in regard to the three nocent ceremonies which Bacon then, and Ussher forty years later, would willingly have given up, nor in regard to the terms of subscription which have, with consent of all parties, in our own day, been changed into a form that would have almost met the scruples of the petitioners ere the church was yet rent and 70 History of Puritanism English Protestantism hopelessly divided. There was no attempt to provide a remedy for the scarcity of preachers and the redundance of non- preaching pluralists, — scandals from which the church continued to suffer for nearly half a century. ^With respect to those meetings of the clergy for prayer and religious conference which Grindal and other bishops had desired to tolerate in the previous reign, as also more formal meetings of the Presbyters in Synod with their Bishop, which no authority would now think of opposing, the king, coarsely interrupting their representative, said they were aiming at a Scottish Presbytery, which ' agreeth with a monarchy as well as God with the devil. There Jack, and Tom, and Will, and Dick, shall meet and at their pleasures censure me and my council.' The closing scene was even more coarse and offensive. ' Well, Doctor,' he said, addressing Dr. Reynolds, ' have you anything else to say .-• ' ' No more at present, please your majesty,' was the meek reply. ' If this,' rejoined the king, 'be all the party hath to say, I will make them conform, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse, hang them — that is all.' And this, according to Hallam, was addressed to a man who ' was nearly, if not altogether, the most learned man in England.'^ It was a gross violation of the assurance he had given in his writings that ^ Others suppose it was spoken aside to some of the opposite party. For further details as to this Conference, see App., Note C. under the earlier Stnart Kings. 7 1 learned and moderate Puritans of this stamp would be held by him in equal honour and love with their opponents.^ The same year which witnessed this memorable Conference witnessed also the summoning of the king's first Parliament and of the Convocation of the Church.^ The concessions agreed to at the conference were not submitted for the approval of Convocation, though that is maintained by Anglo- Catholics now, as well as by Puritans then, to be the course which in such a case ought to be followed. It was thought more for the honour of the king that they should be made simply by his prerogative royal, save the one relating to clerical marriages, which required to be submitted to Parliament. But while the House of Commons was discouraged from interfering on behalf of the Puritans,^ permission was given to the Con- vocation to prepare a series of constitutions and canons ecclesiastical which were duly sanctioned by royal authority, and which, so far as the clergy ^ ' The style of Puritans belongs properly to that vile sect of the Anabaptists only, called the family of love. It is only this sort of men that I wish my son to punish. . . . But I protest upon mine honour I mean it not generally of all preachers, and others that like better of the single form of policy in our Church of Scotland than of the many ceremonies in the Church of England. No, I am so far from being contentious in these things that I do equally love and honour the learned and grave of either opinion.' (E. 204, No. 2.) * It is called the Convocation of 1603, but though it began on 20th March 1603-4, most of its sittings fell within what even in the old style was the year 1604. ' Three parts of the House were said to be favourable to them. 72 History of Puritanism are concerned, and they have not been allowed to fall into desuetude, are held still to embody the law of the Church of England. They were 141 in number, and several of them were directed expressly against the Puritans, and seem to us sufficiently harsh. ' If cursing,' says Dr. Price,^ 'could have effected their destruction, it would have been now inevitable. The sentence of ex- communication ipso facto was now added to the other penalties of nonconformity.' They were anathematised if they remained in the church, holding any of its rites to be superstitious and repugnant to Scripture. They were anathematised if they seceded and ventured to affirm that their meetings or congregations apart were true and lawful churches. Even in the Convocation which passed these harsh canons one bishop was found bold enough to plead for concession or at least forbearance in regard \.q subscription and the nocent ceremonies, enlarging on the evils of a house divided against itself, and the mistake of silencing so many able preachers at a time when their services were so much needed, and warning his brethren of a day ' when for want of their joint-labours some such doleful complaint might arise as fell out upon an accident of another nature recorded in the Book of Judges, when it is said that for the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings 1 Hisiory of Protestant Nonco7iformity, vol. i. p. 476. under the earlier Sitcart Kings. 73 of heart.' One who bore a name long and honourably associated with moderate Puritanism made a more direct attempt to gain the sovereign's ear. Dr. John Burgess, afterwards of Sutton Coldficld, in his sermon before the king at Green- wich, on 19th July 1604, boldly warned him of the dangers of the course on which he had entered, and pleaded for indulgence to the many worthy men who were exposed to his displeasure. The reasons given for this bold step in the apology he made, were ' new and unwonted urging of the ceremonies and subscription beyond what law required (whereby six or seven hundred of the ablest ministers in the land are like to be put out), the general depraving of religious persons (if they be conscionable) under the scorn of Puritanism, as if, the body of religion standing upright, men would yet cut the throat of it . . . the withdraw- ing of ecclesiastical causes from Parliament, though in the present and in your majesty's days safe, yet in the precedent and sanction of doubtful consequence.' Not even Bacon could have put the matter more forcibly, nor followed this up more moderately and persuasively than he pro- ceeded to do. ' Things which I confess I hold not impious, but needless and scandalous, many hundred ministers think them unlawful and would surely die rather than use them. , . . What is yielded upon suit for peace's sake might go out 74 History of Puritanism with flying colours, one side satisfied with their justifying, and the other gratified with their removal, the form of the present government being still continued with good approbation, and con- firmed by our inward peace.' ^ Shortly after the adjournment of Parliament and Convocation a royal proclamation was issued, enjoining strict conformity to the established order of the church ; many Puritan clergy were silenced, some who ventured to petition for indulgence were imprisoned ; their flocks were irritated and the lawfulness of separating from the National Church began to be more openly discussed.^ The number of silenced and deprived ministers is variously estimated. Some place it as high as 1500, but this more probably represents the number of those who at first refused to subscribe to the three articles of the new Canon making the terms of conformity more stringent than Acts of Parlia- ment warranted. Others have reduced the number as low as fifty. Calderwood and Neale say it was above 300, Brooke makes it 400. Others were borne with by individual bishops, and through all this reign even kneeling at the Communion was not enforced in some places, and ' prophesyings ' were in one or two instances winked at. The Archbishop of York is said to have been more tolerant than his brother of Canterbury. Neale 1 Sermon, etc.(E. 145, No. 2.) " 'Mz.xsd^n'?, Early Puritans, p. 276. under the earlier Sttiart Kings. 75 gives various touching instances of the hardships to which several of the silenced ministers were subjected, but none of these is so touching as is the case of the Scottish ministers, who about the same time were decoyed from their distant homes, pro- fessedly to advise with the king as to the changes contemplated by him in the Scottish church, but really to deprive their brethren opposed to these changes of the benefit of their counsel and courageous example. Dr. Hook is pleased to make merry over their case as a very harmless piece of revenge for all the lectures they had inflicted on the king in former times. But the device of summoning from Scotland, into what was virtually a foreign land, men whose only offence was the influence their talents and character gave them, and the exercise of the liberty the laws of their country allowed them, was as illegal as it was harsh and spiteful. The long imprison- ment of Andrew Melville^ in the Tower of London, and the life-long detention of his nephew ^ No one who has read the sad story of his later years when a prisoner in the Tower of London, or an exile in a foreign land, can fail to commiserate the hard fate of this great scholar and patriot. One can read, if not without indignation yet without disgust, the passionate words of the youthful Mary, when she thought she had at last got Knox into her power; but one cannot think with- out indignation and disgust of her son, now in the maturity of his powers, listening behind the tapestry while his honest, if stern, reprover, at length entrapped into what was to him a foreign country, was being badgered and baited by the English Privy Council. "jd Histo7y of Puritanism James from his native land, on both of which the Doctor is judiciously silent, were among the most unjust and tyrannical actions of James's reign. They gave to his Puritan subjects in the south a practical exemplification of what he meant by the coarse threat of harrying them out of the land. That in fact was what it came to. A number of their leaders as well as Andrew Melville, Forbes, Dury, and Welsh from Scotland, had to seek abroad, in the Protestant Colleges of France, or among the merchant communities of their countrymen in the free cities of the Netherlands, the toleration which was denied to them at home. There, using in the service of ingenuous youth of other lands or of their countrymen settled in foreign cities, the stores of learning they had amassed in more favourable times, they were honoured to do good work for the Master they loved, and to train a seed to serve Him and to bear the banner of His crown and covenant when they should be called away. Soon after the close of the Hampton Court Conference the long life of Archbishop Whitgift came to an end. He was an acute disputant, a sound, well-read divine, a firm supporter of the Augustinian or Calvinistic theology, a zealous and courageous prelate, but a man of imperious and ' choleric temper,' harsh and cruel towards his opponents. He looked forward with apprehension under the earlier Stuart Kings. 77 to the approaching meeting of Parliament, and expressed a wish he might be summoned to give in his account in another world before it met. He may have had a dim presentiment of some of the sad consequences of the tacit alliance he and his fellows had formed with despotism in the state, and more than a dim presentiment of the conse- quences which must follow from the more than tacit alliance, which now could hardly fail to be struck between the more resolute of the Puritans and the patriots of the House of Commons. Whitgift was succeeded by Bancroft, Bishop of London, who had been the champion of the hier- archy at the Hampton Court Conference, was more blind to consequences, more decidedly High Church, and more hostile to the Puritans, — ' a sturdy piece,' according to Bishop Kennet, ' who proceeded with rigour, severity, and wrath ' against them. He was in many respects the true precursor of Laud, not only in asserting the jus divimim of episcopacy but also in attempting to revive disused ornaments and ceremonies. His primacy was short, and after seven years he was succeeded by George Abbot, a man naturally more tolerant and kindly to all who valued the principles of the Reformation, of more extensive erudition, more thoroughly Protestant, and the last Augustinian, I suppose, who sat on the throne of Canterbury. It is said to have been at his 78 History of Puritanism expense that the great work of his old Augustinian predecessor, Bradwardine — De causa Dei contra Pelagiimi — was finally given to the world. His former experiences at Oxford had made him fully alive to the dangers which nascent Anglo-Catholic- ism, and a more indulgently treated Romanism, might occasion to the church and nation, and it was no doubt the earnest and hearty services rendered by the moderate Puritans in the defence of the principles of the Reformation, which secured for them gentler usage at his hands. Under his regime their condition appears to have been con- siderably ameliorated. Those who still remained in benefices were not harshly prosecuted as they had been before ; while those who did not see their way so far to conform to the requirements of the Canons and Prayer-Book as to qualify themselves, for benefices were encouraged to use their gifts in the service of the church as lecturers and preachers. Those who scrupled to subscribe Whitgift's terms of conformity, might still obtain orders on more favourable conditions from Irish bishops, and not a few of them acted as chaplains in the families of the nobility and gentry, or earned a precarious subsistence by teaching. Through the liberality of many of the lay friends of the party, and the purchase of impropriated tithes, fixed salaries were provided, and the number of these lecturers was gradually increased. The cause of under the earlier Stttart Kings. 79 religion under their earnest lectures and catechis- ings prospered much in London and the provin- cial towns, and to their oral teaching was added a multitude of practical religious treatises, issued through the press, which extended their influence far and wide, and made this era one of the most memorable in this department of literature.^ If they had not theoretically abandoned the opinions of Cartwright, practically, like himself in his later days, they had ceased to contend for them, and devoted themselves to peaceful work. Abbot, while a courtier and a conscientious conformist, was like many of the bishops of king James an Augustinian, or Calvinist, in thorough sympathy with the reformed churches abroad, and with no hankering after that scheme which at times had attractions for James himself, and greater for his unfortunate successor, the endeavouring to bring about an understanding between the Papists and the Church of England. It was through his counsels that the king was persuaded in 161 5 to 1 What Heppe says of them at a somewhat later period was certainly true of them at this date also : Wirkten sie nicht nur als begeisterte Prediger, sondern audi als eifrige Xatecheten — indem sie die Katcchisation als ein besonders wirksames Mittel zur Ver- breilung des Evangelium's ansahen — sowie als die treuesten, ernsten Seclsorger, als Wohlergcben d(jr ihnen anvertrauten Gemeinden in allerlei Weisen zu fordern und zu heben suchten. Strenge Kirchenzucht, fleissig besuchte Katechisalionen, und hiiufig zu- sammentretende Conventikcl der Gemeindeglieder sah man iiberall wo pictistische Prediger wirkten, und eboiso sah man den Segcn Hirer Wirksatnkdt. — Geschichte des Fietismus, pp. 50, 51. 8o History of Puritanism authorise the Irish Articles, and so virtually to concede beyond the Irish Channel what had been refused on this side at the Hampton Court Con- ference, and also in 1618 to send deputies from the English church to the famous Synod of Dort in Holland, and so give practical countenance to the reformed churches on the Continent ; and on more than one occasion he sought to mediate in the doctrinal disputes of the Protestants in France. It is said to have been by his influence that the general reading of the Proclamation regarding sports lawful on the Lord's Day was not enforced. If at times in his last years James showed favour to the Arminians, yet in raising Ussher to the primacy of the Irish church he provided beforehand a friend to shelter the Puritans when their protector in England had passed away, a defender of Pro- testantism whose learning and competency none could question, an Augustinian whose varied gifts Laud and his followers might envy but could not outvie, and dared not contemn. The king's eldest son, Henry, Prince of Scot- land and Prince of Wales, a young man of high spirit and great promise, in sympathy with all that was earnest and good, the one real ornament of his father's court, was cut off by a mysterious illness in 161 1. Like that son of Jeroboam, in whose heart some good thing was found, he was taken away, to the grief of all good men, in those under the earlier Stuart Kings. 8 1 anxious times. His removal dashed their cher- ished hopes, that a happy sokition of questions pending in Church and State which it was evident could not now be long deferred might by his means have been attained and the hold of the Stuart dynasty on the affections of the English l)cople mightily strengthened. The marriage of his eldest sister to the Protestant Elector Palatine, the prospect of which had cheered him in his last hours, and the consequences of which were ulti- mately to be so much more blessed to the nation than even he could then anticipate, was celebrated soon after his death, and in some measure lightened the gloom of that event. It increased the interest of the people in the fortunes of the foreign Pro- testants, and had the king only shared their spirit its more immediate consequences to the Protestants at home and abroad, and to the Stuart dynasty, would have been more blessed still. The throne at the death of James passed to his younger son Charles, — a prince in character more noble, chivalrous, and high-minded than his father, but withal inheriting in aggravated form his despotic principles, favouritism, duplicity, and fondness for kingcraft. His father in his vanity would have him wedded to a Popish princess, whose unquiet, intriguing spirit wrought him only less harm with his people than her super- stitious religiosity was sure to do. F 82 History of Puritanism James had got on ill with his parliaments, Charles got on worse with his — the House of Commons being resolute for redress of grievances in Church and State. Determined to assert his prerogative and yield up nothing to the popular wishes, he in 1628 dissolved his parliament, and endeavoured for twelve years to govern without the advice of the Houses. To do this he had to arrogate increased power to his Privy Council, to resort to various questionable devices in order to raise supplies, and to surrender himself to the guidance of able but unscrupulous men, who thought to carry out in England the policy Riche- lieu had pursued with success in France, and make their master absolute. They w^ere unscrupulous, perhaps, rather than unprincipled, but their great principle was, that if the end of good government was attained, it mattered little what were the means used to attain it, — little how prerogative was stretched, or ancient liberties were invaded ; little how the spirit of the constitution was violated if any semblance of respect for the letter of it could be preserved. They were generally men of pure lives and by no means destitute of high purposes, generous impulses, or genial manners. But, like their master, they lived in isolation, and were un- conscious of the strength of the forces that were ranging themselves against them. They were committed to a dangerous game in which success 7indcr the earlier Stuart Kings. ^t, meant ruin to the liberties of their country, both civil and religious, — a despotism more abject than that of the most despotic of the Tudors, — while failure meant ruin to their master, to themselves, and all associated with them. To the gentle and tolerant, yet thoroughly Protestant Abbot succeeded in the see of Canterbury, the resolute, untiring, overbearing Anglo-Catholic Laud, who even as Bishop of London had been chief counsellor in Church affairs during Abbot's declining years. Laud was personally blameless in life, vigilant in the discharge of duty, earnestly religious according to his light, devoted to his sovereign, almost the only one of his trusted counsellors who was above taking a bribe or using his power for purposes of mere favouritism or self- aggrandisement ; but narrow-minded, unscrupu- lous, haughty, by no means free from irascibility and vindictiveness, blindly ritualistic, and cruelly despotic.^ For years he was the king's most con- fidential adviser in State as well as in Church affairs. He sought and found able and unscrupu- lous coadjutors in the work of 'harrying' Puritans out of the Church and constitutionalists out of the State, setting up, in lieu of their ideal of regulated freedom, the system to which he himself gave the name of THOROUGH, — thorough absolutism in the ' ' In the dull immobile face, the self-satisfied moutli, the rheumy obstinate eyes, can be read as in a book the explanation of his character and the tragedy of his end.' — Edinburgh Jirjicti.'. 84 History of P^iritanisvi State, thorough despotism in the Church. He virtually proscribed and stigmatised as Puritanism the old Augustinian doctrines which his pre- decessor not only tolerated, but approved, and for which the House of Commons so resolutely con- tended. He used the powers of his high office and of the Courts of Star-Chamber and High Commis- sion with a rigour and savagery unknown before, condemning to life-long imprisonment, or to cruel mutilations, or ruinous fines men whose offences did not justify such extreme proceedings, and metingout to grave divines, practised lawyers, physicians, and scholars, punishments till then reserv-ed for the lowest class of felons and sowers of sedition. The indignities perpetrated on Leighton, Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick are well known, and the liberation of these sufferers from their long im- prisonment, and the exhibition of their muti- lated faces raised to its height the popular in- dignation against Laud and his accomplices. Attempts have been made even in our own day to mitigate the disgust and indignation their treatment still awakens by questioning whether the sentence in its full extent was executed in each case, and whether it was not pronounced and the fines imposed^ rather in tcrrorcin, than with the 1 It has been concluded that the fines imposed were seldom exacted, as they are not entered in the Exchequer books as being paid. But considering how common it was to make gifts of such casualities to court favourites, it would require some further under the earlier Stziart Kings. 8 5 deliberate intention of being carried out to the letter. But it is a matter of comparatively minor importance whether Leighton lost one ear or both, whether he had to stand in the pillory and to endure branding and scourging on one occasion or two. The natural feeling will still be what was so well expressed in later years by that son whose boyish letters, found in his father's study, were by a refinement of cruelty used in evidence against him.^ The Archbishop's argument in vindication of the course he followed was ingenious, if not in- genuous : that harm — serious harm — was being done to religion by the differences so long toler- ated in regard to minuter matters of ritual and church arrangement, and still more by the em- bittered pamphlets against the hierarchical govern- ment of the Church, and the persistent obtruding evidence than the negative one that the fines are not entered in the Exchequer books to prove that they were not meant to be exacted from the unfortunate men, so far as the means they possessed could be got at. In fact, from what we know of the venahty of many of the privy councillors and the attempts made by Bishop Williams w hen in trouVjle to secure their favour, we seem rather warranted to conclude that it was only a less costly matter to get a tine remitted than to pay it. The argument for disbelief of facts authenticated by contemporary testimony on the ground of omis- sions in the official records of these times may easily be carried too far. The Journals of the House of Commons (vol. ii. \). 124) certainly mention Leighton's fine and 'the cutting off his cars.' * ' If that Persian prince could so prize his Zopyrus wlio was mangled in his service, how much more will this Lord esteem those who suffer so for him ?' — Sermon on 2 CoR. v. 20. 86 History of Pnritanisiu of those Augustinian or Calvinistic doctrines which erewhile had been generally received and freely taught in the universities and in the Church, and that there was no remedy for this but in absolute submission and unreserved obedience to the king, God's appointed vicegerent — and to the injunctions issued by him through his wise and trusty counsellors in regard to all these things. The course he fol- lowed, as Hallam so pertinently observes, ' could in nature have no other tendency than to give nourish- ment to the lurking seeds of disaffection in the English Church. Besides reviving the prosecutions for nonconformity in their utmost strictness . . . he most injudiciously, not to say wickedly, endea- voured by innovations of his own, and by exciting alarms in the susceptible consciences of pious men, to raise up new victims whom he might oppress. Those who made any difficulties about his novel ceremonies, or even who preached on the Calvin- istic side, were harassed by the High Commission Court as if they had been actual schismatics. The resolution so evidently taken by the court to admit of no half conformity in religion . . . convinced many that England could no longer afford them a safe asylum. The state of Europe was not such as to encourage them to attempt setthngon the Continent, though Holland received them kindly. But turning their eyes to the newly discovered regions beyond the Atlantic ocean, they under the earlier Stuart Kings. 87 saw there a secure place of refuge from present t}Tanny, and a boundless prospect for future hope. ' They obtained from the Crown the charter of Massachusetts Bay in 1629. About 350 persons,^ chiefly or wholly of the Independent sect, sailed with the first fleet. So many followed in the subsequent years that these New England settle- ments have been supposed to have drawn near half a million of money from the mother country before the civil wars. Men of higher rank than the first colonists . . . men of capacious and com- manding minds formed to be the legislators and generals of an infant republic, were preparing to embark for America, [among them John Hampden and Oliver Cromwell,] when Laud, for his own and his master's curse, procured an order of Council to stop their departure. So far were these men from entertaining schemes for overturning the govern- ment at home, that they looked only to escape from imminent tyranny. But this in his malignant humour the Archbishop would not allow. Nothing would satisfy him but that they should surrender at discretion, soul and conscience, to his direction.' That in fact was the issue now unmistake- ably presented by him, — surrender of soul and conscience to his direction, — in matters not of 1 .Such is the number given by Hallam, but this is rather the number of Robinson's congregation in Holland than of that portion (about 100) which actually went over with ' The Mayflower.' For further references to this important event sec Appcndi.x, Note D. S8 History of Pjiritanisin ritual and ceremony only, but of vital Protestant doctrine too, which they believed to be founded on the Word of God, and to have been acknowledged by his own predecessors to be so. That in fact was what Puritanism with all its tenacity was being led on to resist. Having after years of patient and untiring labour at last succeeded, outwardly at least, in moulding his own province and that of York substantially in accordance with his wishes, the Archbishop turned his thoughts to the other dominions of the King where Puritanism had been allowed freer scope or treated with greater indul- gence, as if, while refusing a Cardinal's hat from Rome, he wished to be indeed veliiti papa alterms orbis. By the aid of the talented but unscrupulous Wentworth, his trusted confidant and chosen instrument in the work of repression, he succeeded in 1634, in securing the adoption of a new and much more elaborate code of canons in Ireland, and in assimilating subscriptions there to those of the Church of England. By care in the appoint- ment of bishops for the future, he no doubt hoped gradually to accomplish his purpose, and to root out the Puritans from that old refuge where they had so long found shelter, and were admitted to have done good service in upholding the Reformed faith among the old English settlers, and the new Scottish colonists. This trusted agent reports with tinder the earlier Stuart Kings. 89 an apparent chuckle how adroitly he had managed to overreach the good Archbishop of Armagh, who wished to retain in their old honour the Irish Articles, while subscribing Jiic et nunc to the English, and who with all his learning and sound Protestantism was no match in diplomacy for either of these determined schemers. Having succeeded thus far in Ireland, Laud turned his thoughts all the more wistfully to Scotland — now the last refuge of those he had so persistently hunted down, and still a stronghold of Puritanism, notwithstanding the changes which James in the interest of absolutism in Church and State had endeavoured, though with but partial suc- cess, to introduce in the government and ritual of the Church. A series of letters, printed by the late Mr. David Laing in the Appendix to his invaluable edition of Baillie's Letters and Journals, show what pains the English Primate took to draw reluctant Scotch bishops on to the use of their 'whites,' and to countenance more ornate services than had been in favour in Scotland ever since the Reformation. At length he resolved the time was come to provide them with stronger meat, and he thought the train had been well laid for the changes he contemplated ; but as King James had said long before, 'he knew not the stomach of that people,' and perhaps he recked not what a great conflagration this train he had laid was to 90 History of Pttritajiism light up. Their Liturgy or Book of Common Order, as Knox left it, or even as King James would have altered it, was regarded by him as no meet form for worshipping the Lord in the beauty of Holiness ; their form of administering the holy communion, even if the act of kneeling were more generally enforced, was in the eyes of high churchmen sadly defective in important par- ticulars ; and their forms of conferring holy orders, even as revised under King James in 1620, were insufficient to convey a valid mission.^ The king, he said (and he was always careful to put him in the forefront when enjoining or advising what he knew would be distasteful), was much troubled to hear of these sad blemishes in the Church of his baptism. He might quite competently have pro- vided a remedy for them by his prerogative royal, i.e. of course, by the advice of Laud himself, who was really the keeper of his conscience and chief counsellor in affairs of State as well as of the Church, but he would rather that this were done with the concurrence of the bishops in Scotland. Thus partly by flattery, partly by threats, Spot- tiswoode, the wary primate of Scotland, and his ' ' In the admission to priesthood the very essential words of cunfening orders are left out. At which his majesty was much troubled, as he had great cause, and concerning which he hath commanded me to write, that either you do admit of our Book of Ordination, or else that you amend your own in these two gross oversights. ' — Laud to Weddcrl>iir)i. under the earlier Stuart Kings. 9 1 older colleagues among the bishops, were drawn or forced into courses of which their own de- liberate judgment did not approve, and of which they had a sad presentiment that they would put in peril all that b)' 'canny convoyance' they had gained during the previous thirty or forty years. No doubt Laud, when on his trial, insisted that all he aimed at was to insure uniformity with the Church of England, and the acceptance in their entirety of the English Prayer-book, Articles and Canons. But, even if it were literally so, he can- not be absolved from gravest responsibility. The men who urged a somewhat different course were the younger men, whom he had himself favoured and promoted, and who could have effected little with the king without his tacit or open acquies- cence. And if changes were to be pressed at all, there was a good deal to be said in favour of the course they proposed, namely, that there should be certain differences allowed between the Litur- gies of the two countries, and the Scots should not be asked ecclesiastically to bow their necks purely and simply to the yoke of L^ngland. There was a good deal to be said for it, that some of these differences should be concessions to their invincibly puritanic predilections, as the almost entire exclusion of the Apocrypha from the table of lessons, the uniform substitution of the word [)rcsbyter for priest, the adoption of the new 92 History of Puritanism (authorised) English version of the Bible in the epistles, gospels, occasional versicles, and even in the prose Psalms intended to be read or chanted, the more especially, if others of them should be concessions (no doubt as moderate and in appear- ance as harmless as possible) to the Anglo- Catholic, and Romanising parties of which these hot-headed young men were pronounced adherents, and to foster whose tendencies was the real, if not avowed, object of this policy.^ A book of canons, in several respects more severe than the English — especially in prohibiting extemporary prayers, under pain of deprivation — was also prepared, and was authorised by royal authority, even before the Liturgy which it en- joined was published. Thus the train was laid and fired, and in one rash hour all that King James and King Charles had succeeded in im- posing, all that Spottiswoode and his brethren had given their days to carry out, all that Laud and Wentworth had given their lives in pawn for, was put in jeopardy. Far different was the issue from that the reckless schemers had intended and expected. It was chiefly disastrous to their so- vereign and themselves, spreading dismay and destruction through their own ranks, not through the ranks of their opponents. The English patriots and Puritans, in appearance at least, had ' .See Appendix, Note E. 2Lndcr the earlier Stuart Kinos. ^ld not permanently bear. On this ground he ventured to advocate the continuance of a liturgy with some provision for free prayer, and of a moderate Episcopacy, in which the bishop should not be of a different order but only of a different degree from the presbyters, — should be their mouth or executive rather than their head or sovereign ruler, — and should neither ordain, nor depose, nor excommunicate without their assent. He did not favour the introduction of lay elders. More than one treatise advocating similar views was published soon after the Assembly had begun its sittings, notably one by Bishop Hall on a lower platform than that he assumed in the Smectym- nuan controversy. But whether for good or evil, the question of the continuance or discontinuance of Episcopacy may be said to have been virtually determined by the Parliament in the preamble of the Ordinance calling them together, and never of the JVcstniinstcr Assembly. 115 really to have been a subject of formal debate in the Assembly itself With all acknowledged limitations of its scope, however, the Westminster Assembly was in fact a great 'power or institution in the English realm in those unsettled times — existing side by side with the Long Parliament, in constant conference and co-operation ' ^ Avith its leaders, generally influencing or moulding ecclesiastical legislation, and treated with unusual deference even when its remonstrances were unacceptable — maintaining a good understanding between the Parliament and the earnest citizens of London, who were its real arm of strength, and gaining and retaining a moral influence over the pious part of the people, which neither Cromwell's temporary supremacy nor the more lasting persecutions of the second Charles should sufiice entirely to destroy. Taking it all in all, it was to leave its mark so deeply and permanently on a large portion of our Anglo- Saxon race, that, as Professor Masson has justly observed, it ' ought to be more interesting to them still than the history of the Councils of Constance, Basle, Trent, or any other of the great ecclesiastical Councils more ancient and oecumenical, about which we still hear so much.'- In one important respect, as I have said else- * Life 0/ Milton in connection x^'ith the history oj his time, vol. ii. p. 514- ■ li'ici. p. 515. 1 1 6 Preparation for and Summoning where,^ it resembled the celebrated council of Nicsea — the most ancient oecumenical of all. ' Not a few of its members had been honoured to suffer on account of the truths to which they clung, and many of them had the courage afterwards to brave suffering, ignominy, and penury rather than renounce their creed and their views of church polity and discipline. Nay, they may be said, by the very act of their meeting, to have put their livings, if not their lives, in jeopardy ;' and so to have given the strongest possible proof of their deep sense of the necessity of the work to which, notwithstanding the prohibition of the king, and his mutterings of treason, they addressed them- selves during these troubled years. The Assembly was designed to include among its members adherents of all the chief parties among English Protestants, with the exception of that of Archbishop Laud, whose innovations and despotic government had been one main cause of the troubles that had arisen, both in church and state. Almost all the clerical members named upon it were in Episcopalian orders, most of them were graduates in Arts, not a few of them graduates in Divinity, either of Oxford or Cam- bridge. Three or four were bishops, five after- wards rose to be so, and several others were known to be favourable to the continuance of Episcopacy 1 Introduction to Minnies of U'cstiiiinsier Assembly, p. xxxii. of the West minster Assembly. 117 and a liturgy, and some of them to side with the king rather than with the parliament. Many were known to favour Presbytery. A place was found among the members for some of the most pro- minent ministers of the French Church in England, for one of Dutch or German descent, for two or three Irishmen, and for some who, to avoid the persecutions of Laud, had left their native land for a time and acted as pastors to the congregations of English exiles and merchants in Holland. Invitations to send commissioners were addressed to the Church of Scotland, and, it is said also, to the congregational churches of New England. If few of the royalist divines ventured to appear in their places, yet Dr. Featley and one or two more did attend pretty regularly for a time, and the doctor took a prominent part in the debates on the revision of the Thirty-nine Articles — de- bates probably as important in a doctrinal point of view as any that occurred at a later stage. If Ussher, the greatest of these divines, was ' con- spicuous by his absence,' the Assembly at least gave the most unmistakeable proof of its high regard for him and of its earnest desire to compre- hend within the reconstituted church those who shared his doctrinal views, by drawing its state- ments on so many of the most important doctrines from the Articles prepared by him in 1615 for the Church of Ireland. 1 1 8 P reparation for and Summoning Yet most various estimates have been formed of the merits of the divines and of the value of their work. Clarendon and several of the satirists of the age have spoken of them with contempt and scorn, and others have accorded them only faint praise. But Bishop Hall was not ashamed to address them as his learned and reverend brethren, nor the five dissenting brethren frankly to acknowledge their worth. Richard Baxter, who was perhaps as competent as any of their con- temporaries to give an impartial verdict, does not hesitate to affirm that ' the divines there congre- gated were men of eminent learning and godliness, ministerial ability and fidelity ; and being not worthy,' he modestly adds, ' to be one of them myself, I may the more freely speak that truth which I know, even in the face of malice and envy, that so far as I am able to judge by the information of all history , . . the Christian world since the days of the apostles had never a Synod of more excellent divines.' This, it has been well said by Dr. Stoughton, ' is high praise, but it comes nearer the truth than the condemnatory verdicts pronounced by some others. The Westminster divines had learning, scriptural, patristic, scholas- tical and modern, enough and to spare, all solid, substantial, and ready for use. . . . They had a clear firm grasp of evangelical truths. The godliness of the men is proved by the spirit of their writings of the Westminster Assembly. 1 19 and by the history of their Hves. Their talents and attainments even Milton does not attempt to deny.' Hammond admits the learning of many. Hallam, no less competent a judge, admits that * they were perhaps equal in learning, good sense, and other merits to any Lower House of Convoca- tion that ever made a figure in England.' Indeed in two important respects we may say that they had the advantage of any Lower House. There were called in to the aid of the divines a number of the laymen distinguished among their fellows in Parliament as statesmen or scholars, and not unacquainted with Theology. And when under the Solemn League and Covenant the original purpose of the Assembly was extended there were associated with these English divines and laymen some of the most distinguished of the Scottish ministers and elders. Hence it is, I think, that their work has stood the test of time, and is still held in honour by the Presbyterian Churches. As I have said elsewhere,^ even the twenty names of special eminence with v/hich a recent critic has credited them constitute a larger pro- portion of the whole than may at first sight appear, for they are the names of men who were regular in their attendance, and prominent in the discus- sions, and they form at least a third of those who ^ Alinittes of IVeshiiinster Asseiit/>ly, p. xxxiii.. etc., article ' Westminster Assembly ' in Johnson's Universal Cyclopicdia. 1 20 Preparation for and Siumnoning were so. But more may fairly be claimed for them and several of their companions than that critic is disposed to concede. Dr. William Twisse, the Prolocutor, was a man not only of subtle and speculative genius, but also of profound and varied learning. He was one of the most influential theologians of his day, held in honour by the Reformed Churches on the Continent as well as by those in Britain. Sir John Savile, who had sought the assistance of the ever memorable John Hales for his edition of Chrysostom, did not disdain to call in the aid of Twisse in preparing for the press Bradwardine's great work, De Causa Dei contra Pelaginin. Bishop Hall — himself a royalist and resolute defender of the hierarchy — says of him, that he was 'a man so eminent in school divinity that the Jesuits have felt, and for aught I see, shrunk under his strength.' Yet with all his eminence he did not claim, nor, proud as his brethren were of him, did they consent to mould their Confession according to his peculiar views either as regards the order of the Divine decrees or the nature of justification, or as to the power of God to pardon sin without requiring any atonement for it. He had suffered greatly in the war from the royalist soldiers, and though Pro- locutor of the Assembly, and held in honour by the Parliament, he died ' in great straits.' ^ Dr. Edward ^ The satirists of the clay are never weary of bantering tlie of the Westminster Assembly. 121 Reynolds was a divine 'eloquent, learned, cautious,' and that may have been the reason why the Assembly devolved on a committee of which he was convener the adjusting of those much- maligned sentences in their Confession regarding predestination and preterition. He was one of the most active and influential members of the Assembly, and possibly we owe to him its direc- tory for Thanksgiving after Sermon, as well as the General Thanksgiving added to the Book of Com- mon Prayer after the Restoration. Dr. Edmund Calamy was a more liberal and cautious Calvinist still ; and no one can read the minutes of the Assembly's debates on the extent of redemption without acknowledging that he was a genuine dis- ciple of Ussher and Davenant, and feeling thankful that he and some others of the same school deemed it their duty to cast in their lot with their noncon- formist brethren in 1662 when Reynolds antl Wallis abandoned them. Lightfoot, Coleman, and Seaman were all distinguished oriental scholars, and Gataker was not only a distinguished Hebrew and Greek scholar, but also one of the first in Britain to write in defence of the opinion then divines about llieir four shillings hire. But up to the time of Twisse's death this had been very irregularly paid, as also were the emoluments of the sequestrations they held in towTi. When some partial payments were made to the Assembly, Dr. Burgess and sonie others declined their share that there might be a little more for those in greater need. 12 2 Preparation for and S^tmmoning much questioned, but now generally received, that the Greek of the New Testament was of a different character from that of the classical authors, and by its many Hebraisms, gave unmis- takeable evidence for the nationality and training of the writers. He was the friend of Ussher and Selden, and after them was accounted the most learned man then in England. He was dis- tinguished by the quaint richness of his style and the argumentative power of his controversial works. In the Antinomian Controversy, for his treatises on which he repeatedly received the thanks of the Assembly, Mr. Marsden says that he answered the leaders as Hooker answered his adversary, ' with the same profound love of truth, the same ponderous and varied learning, the same gentle spirit, . . . and the same devoted adher- ence to evangelical doctrine.' Arrowsmith, ' the man with the glass-eye,' and Tuckney, the kindly correspondent of Whichcot, Professors of Divinity at Cambridge, were not only clever college tutors, but, as several of their published works clearly indicate, men of high scholarship and considerable mental breadth, and force of character. With them must be conjoined Dr. Joshua Hoyle, the friend of Ussher, Professor of Divinity first at Dub- lin then at Oxford, admitted by Wood to have been ' profound in the faculty of divinity and in patristic learning,' and Dr. John Wallis, Savilian of the Westminster Assembly. 123 Professor of Geometry at Oxford, whose attain- ments as a theologian and metaphysician were only cast into the shade by his greater attainments as a mathematician. He was the friend of Boyle, Gregory, and Newton, the untiring opponent of Hobbcs and the Socinians, one of the authors as well as of the earliest expositors of the Shorter Catechism, and probably one of the last surviving officials of the great Assembly. The age was con- fessedly an age of great preachers. ' The pulpit of the metropolis,' as Marsdcn tells us, * displayed a galaxy of light and genius such as it had never before, and perhaps has never since, exhibited. The printed sermons of the great Puritan preachers . . . sufficiently vindicate their reputation. They were no adventurers. They had been brought up in the Church of England ; they were entitled to its best preferments ; and the}- might have had them in their youth from Laud, in their grey hairs from Charles II., had not their own consciences forbidden.' In the first rank of these there fall to be numbered the following members of the Assembly : — Dr. William Gouge, ' the father of the London Puritan ministers,' and the author of a laborious commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, who shunned promotion as eagerly as others seemed to court it, and yet on whose preaching Ussher and other scholars then con- gregated in the metropolis were pleased from 1 24 Prepai'ation for and Siuimioning time to time to attend ; Dr. Thomas Manton, the author of an equally laborious commentary on Psalm cxix., 'in whom clear judgment, rich fancy, and happy eloquence met;' Stephen Marshall, whose impressive eloquence is said to have secured him greater influence with the Long Parliament than ever Laud enjoyed with the Court of Charles ; Calamy, who 'delighted in that experimental strain of discourse which ever touches the hearts of men,' and was greatly beloved by the merchant princes of the city ; Palmer, 'gracious learned little Palmer,' as Baillie somewhat familiarly terms him, who could preach to purpose in French as well as in English, was the best catechist in England, and one of the most earnest and faith- ful of its college masters — to whom are now ascribed the ' Paradoxes ' long attributed to Lord Bacon ; Burroughes and Greenhill, ' the morning and the evening stars of Stepney ; ' Joseph Caryl, author of a great commentary on the book of Job, and long popular with the learned audience of Lincoln's Inn ; and Dr. Thomas Goodwin, eminent as a theological writer and one of the most suc- cessful expository preachers of the age. These are not more shadowy to the cultured even yet than those our critic names, and in those anxious times many earnest spirits rejoiced in their light, and extolled them among preachers ' as the apple tree among the trees of the wood,' under whose of the Westminster Assembly. 125 shadow they sat with great dch'ght, and whose fruit they found sweet and pleasant to their taste. ' I could name,' says one who pleaded earnestly for them, though he did not cast in his lot with them, ' the Paul and the Apollos and the Peter that preached to the heart ; the Barnabas and the Boanerges ; the friends of the bridegroom that wooed and besought us and would not be denied till our souls had received Christ Jesus the Lord. Some of them are at rest in the Lord, and let their names be blessed, and others are in the cloud and storm and warfare, and to add bonds to their many afflictions is no small unkindness to religion.' To these, when the Solemn League and Covenant was entered into, there were added, as I said, the very elite of the Scottish ministers and elders : — Alexander Henderson, whose statesman- like abilities, sagacity, and culture, even royalists admit; Samuel Rutherfurd, one of their most im- pressive preachers and most learned divines, who was twice invited to a theological chair in Hol- land ; George Gillespie, the prince of disputants, who, ' with the fire of youth, had the wisdom of age ;' and the consequential, but much esteemed Robert Baillie, who has embalmed in graphic nar- rative both their serious debates and their lighter gossip ; together with Johnstone of Warriston and the great Marquis of Argyll, who afterwards suf- fered on account of their principles ; Loudon, the 126 Preparation f 07^ and Stimmoning Chancellor of the kingdom, and Chancellor of its principal university, the soldierly Meldrum, and the engaging young Lord Maitland, afterwards the confidant both of Sharp and Leighton. Robert Douglas, the silent, sagacious, masterful man, who Avas joined with them in commission, could not be spared from the duties of leadership at home, but he assisted and cheered them by his letters, main- tained good understanding between them and the Church in Scotland, and in their absence came to occupy a place among his brethren almost as unique as that of Calvin among the presbyters of Geneva. It was then no commonplace Assembly which the Parliament of England had indicted to meet at Westminster on ist July 1643 — no gathering of ignorant or imperfectly educated divines, of narrow-minded fanatics or one-ideaed enthusiasts, but of men fully competent for the work intrusted to them, and worthy of all confidence therein. It included not a few who had already gained a name and fame for themselves, several who were yet to leave their impress on the age, or on posterity, and many who at least were to commend themselves and their work by holy, consistent, self- denying, laborious Christian lives. It was meant to be as comprehensive as the accepted theology of the Reformation would at all permit, as tolerant as the times would yet bear. If its members had of the Wcstuiinster Assembly. 127 one idea more dominant than another it was not, as they are sometimes still caricatured, that of setting forth with greater one-sidedness and exaggera- tion the doctrines of election and pretention (for they did little more as to these mysterious topics than repeat what Usshcr had already formulated), but that of setting forth the whole scheme of re- formed doctrine in harmonious development in a form of which their country should have no cause to be ashamed in presence of any of the sister churches of the Continent, and above all in a form which would conduce greatly to the fostering of Christian knowledge and Christian life. That in some measure this idea was realised, impartial historians are now beginning to admit,^ and we hope, in our remaining lectures, to show. ' ' It forms the most important chapter in the ecclesiastical history of England during the seventeenth century. Wliether we look at the extent or ability of its labours, or its influence upon future generations, it stands first among Protestant councils.' — Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, vol. i. p. 728. See also Masson as already quoted, j). 115. LECTURE V. THE OPENING OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY ; ITS PRO- CEEDINGS AND DEBATES WHILE ENGAGED IN REVISING THE ENGLISH ARTICLES OF RELIGION, AND THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT. In my last Lecture I continued my sketch of the history of English Puritanism from the meeting of the Long Parliament down to the meeting of the Westminster Assembly. I gave you a succinct account of the lengthened negotiations be- tween the king and the two Houses of Parliament about the calling of the Assembly. I told you that it was finally summoned by an ordinance of the two Houses passed on the I2th and printed on the 13th, and again on the 20th, of June 1643, and that it was appointed to meet on the ist of July ensuing. On the 24th of June two supplementary- ordinances^ were issued, the one appointing the ' ' It is this day ordered by the Lords and Commons in Parlia- ment assembled, that the meeting of the Assembly of Divines with some members of both Houses of Parliament shall be on Saturday, the first of July 1643, at nine of the clock in the morning, in the chapel commonly called King Henry the Seventh his chapel, in the city of Westminster. \Yhereof all parties concerned are to take notice, and to make their appearance accordingly.' ' It is this opening of the Westminster Assembly. 129 meeting to be at nine o'clock on the morning of the day named, the other ordering prayers to be offered in all churches for the blessing of God on the Assembly. Two days before this thfe meeting had been prohibited by a proclamation from the king at Oxford. It has not been my lot to meet with the proclamation itself, but I have seen the very full account given of it in Merciirms Aidicus — the Court paper of the day, and I subjoin the more important part of it. After a long and bitter pre- amble adverting to the many artifices which had been used by some factious persons to alter the whole frame and constitution of the Church, complaining of the unprecedented ordinance for calling an irregular Assembly of Divines, without his authority and against his liking, and speaking unworthily of those to whom a few years later he professed his willingness to submit, with a few additions, the decision of the question of church reform, he proceeds as follows: 'his Majesty con- sidering that according to the laws of this kingdom day ordered, etc., That all ministers in their several churches on Wednesday next at the public fast, and at all other times after- wards in their prayers before their sermons, shall earnestly and particularly pray for the special assistance and blessing of God upon the Assembly of Divines and others appointed to meet at West- minster on Saturday the first day of July next, to be consulted with by both Houses of Parliament on matters concerning religion. And that this order be forthwith printed and sent to all parish churches.' (E. 62, Nos. i and 2.) I 130 opening of the Westminster Assembly : no synod or convocation of the clergy ought to be called but by his authority, nor any canons or constitutions made or executed but by his Majesty's licence first obtained to the making of them, and his royal assent granted to put the same in exe- cution, on pain that every one of the clergy doing the contrary and thereof convicted suffer imprison- ment and make fine to the king's will, doth strictly inhibit and forbid all and every person named in that pretended Ordinance to assemble and meet together to the end and purpose there set down, declaring further the said Assembly (if they shall convene without his Majesty's authority) to be illegal, the acts thereof not to be binding on his subjects, and that he will proceed severely against all those who, after such a gracious warning, shall presume to meet tqfgether by colour of the said pretended Ordinancd' (E. 59, No. 24.) The pro- clamation was commanded to be published in all churches and chapels in England and Wales. It may be doubted if the command was extensively obeyed, but publicity was at once given to such a glaring breach of repeated professions and pro- mises by the parliamentary paper of the day in the following half regretful, half contemptuous terms : Friday, June 30th: 'The reports from Oxford are, that a proclamation hath been published there to prohibit the Assembly of Divines here upon the ist of next month, wherein, as it is said, they are Its Proceediiip's and Debates. i x i •^ vehemently threatened to have all their ecclesias- tical livings and promotions taken from them if they disobey these injunctions. Which if it be true we must not expect to have the Protestant religion either maintained or propagated from thence, since evil counsellors can so soon frustrate good promises for that purpose.' Thus the members named to be of the Assembly knew that it was at the risk of their liberty and livings, and under threat of that terrible penalty of pvemjuiire that they resolved to obey the Ordinance of the two Houses, Yet on July ist, the day appointed for their assembling, a goodly number had the courage to meet together in the appointed place. Conforming to the custom of the English Convocation, in whose room they were virtually surrogated, they first met for divine service in Westminster Abbey, and both Houses of Parliament adjourned early in the forenoon that their members also might be present on the occasion. The following is the quaint notice of this meeting given in No. 25 of the news- paper already referred to : ' On Saturday last the Assembly of Divines began at Westminster accord- ing to the Ordinance of both Houses of Parliament, when Dr. Twist of Newbery in the County of Berks, their Prolocutor, preached on John xiv. and 1 8th, " I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you," — a text pertinent to these times of sorrow, anguish, and misery, to raise up the droop- 132 Opening of the Westiniitster Assembly: ing spirits of the people of God who lie under the pressure of Popish wars and combustions.' (E. 59.) The chronicler forbears to relate any of the points of the said sermon, because he supposes it will be published in print for the satisfaction and comfort of all who may desire to read it, but to the annoyance and regret of posterity the sermon had either not been published or has now com- pletely disappeared.^ The writer then continues : ' The number that met this day were three score and nine, the total number being (including the members of both the Houses of Parliament, which are but thirty) one hundred and fifty-one, whereof if forty meet the first day, it maketh the Assembly valid according to the Ordinance.' Lightfoot, who ^ The very day the Assembly met, however, a pamphlet was published with the title The English Pope, etc., with an epistle to the reverend divines now convened by authority of Parliament, in which, after reference to the slanders of the royalists, they are addressed thus encouragingly : ' Be of good courage, ye that have the honour to be of this Assembly. Fear not the name of traitors while you give judgment for loyalty, nor the name of Anabaptists while you propugn piety, nor the name of schismatics while you settle unity. If they believed the calumnies they circulate against you, it would have been better they had forwarded your meeting than procured proclamation declaring it treason, but they do not but fear you will disappoint all. Be you therefore the more courageous for this, and if you cannot totally eradicate all those doctrines of division which the prelates have sowed among the good wheat, yet denounce against them and publish your detestation of them ; and if you cannot yet erect a perfect form of discipline by reason of the secret wars made upon you and the sinews of authority withheld from you, yet present us with some models of it, that the world may see how far you are from affecting anarchy and con- fusion.' (E. 53, No. 13.) Its Proceedings and Debates. 133 probably was present at the opening of the Assembly, supplies the additional information that, besides the members of the two Houses and the divines named in the Ordinance, there was also a great congregation in the Abbey Church, and that after the service there all the members of Assembly present went into the gorgeous chapel of Henry Vll. This place appointed for their meeting was the place where the Convocation of 1640, notorious for its forlorn attempt to carry out the policy of ' thorough ' despotism in Church and State, had met. There the Ordinance was read and the names were called over according to the custom long observed in our Assemblies, with the results already indicated. Lightfoot further tells of * divers speeches being made by divers ' — doubtless, inter alia, with the view of following up what the Prolocutor had done to encourage the members in the great work to which they had been called not- withstanding the opposition with which they were threatened ; and finally he adds that ' the Parlia- ment not having as yet framed or proposed any work for the Assembly suddenly to fall upon, it was adjourned till Thursday following.' To show how intently tlie movement was watched from Oxford, I may add the notice of this day's proceed- ings contained in the court new.spaper for Friday, July 7th : ' It was advertised this day that the Synod, which by the pretended Ordinance of the 1 3 4 Opening of the Westminster A ssembly : two Houses was to begin on the ist of July, was put off till the Thursday following, being the sixth of this present month, that matters might be pre- pared for them whereupon to treat, it being not yet revealed to my Lord Say, Master Pym, and others of their associates in the Committee for religion, what gospel 'tis that must be preached and settled by these new evangelists. Only it is reported that certain of the godly ministers did meet that day in the Abbey Church to a sermon, and had some doctrines and uses, but what else done, and to what purpose that was done, we may hear hereafter.' The day before this was published, the adjournment had been terminated. Certain carefully framed instructions and rules for regulating the procedure of the Assembly having, after consultation with some of the divines, been adopted by the Houses, were brought in and read. All of them indicate that serious business was meant, and freedom of discussion was to be pro- tected to the utmost. They provide, first : that two assessors shall be joined to the Prolocutor to supply his place in case of absence or infirmity ; second: that scribes shall be appointed to set down all proceedings, and these to be divines who are not of the Assembly, viz., Mr. Henry Roborough and Mr. Adoniram Byfield ; tJiird : that every member, at his first entry into the Assembly, shall make serious and solemn protesta- Its Proceedings and Debates. 1 3 5 tion not to maintain anything but what he believes to be truth in sincerity, when discovered unto him ; foiirtJi : that no resolution shall be given upon any question the same day wherein it is first pro- pounded ; Ji/t/i : that what any man undertakes to prove as necessary, he shall make good out of the Scriptures ; sixt/i : that no man proceed in any dispute, after the Prolocutor has enjoined him silence, unless the Assembly desire he may go on ; seventh : that no man shall be denied to enter his dissent from the Assembly and his reasons for it on any point after it has been first debated in the Assembly, and thence (if the dissenting party desire it) the same 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 ; eighth : that all things agreed on, and prepared for the Parliament, 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 opinions of any persons dissenting and the reasons urged for their doing so, be annexed thereunto if the dissenters require it, together with the solutions {i.e. answers, as we now designate them), if any were given to the Assembly, of these reasons.^ Possibly there may have been some talk also at this session of revising the Thirty- nine Articles. At least under date of July nth the ^ Journals of the House of Commons, vol. iii. p. 157. 1 3 6 Opening of the Westminster A ssembly : London correspondent oi Mercnriits Anliais reports this, though he mixes it up with the proceedings which took place on Saturday. ' It was this day certified that the ministers of their Assembly being met on Thursday, according to adjournment, fell pre- sently upon the altering of the Thirty-nine Articles so solemnly agreed upon in the beginning of the reformation of this Church. , . . Notice of this being brought to the Lower House, caused it to be diversely spoken of; some wiser than the rest de- clared that it was not within the power of their commission to alter either the doctrine or the discipline of the church which had been formerly established.' But he errs in supposing that the Assembly anticipated the action of the Parlia- ment. The Journals of the House of Commons distinctly show (vol. iii. p. 156) that directions had been issued by the Houses on Wednesday that it should begin consideration of the Articles. Lightfoot has no entry in his journal in regard to the work of Friday ; but from another source we learn that it was observed by the Assembly and the Houses as a fast — a season of humiliation, and prayer for Divine guidance and blessing on the work they were about to begin. As on the open- ing day there met in Westminster Abbey both Houses and the Assembly, and no doubt a large congregation. The preacher in the forenoon was Oliver Bowles, one of the oldest members of the Its Proceedings and Debates. 137 Assembly, and the author of a work De Pastore Evangelico, which was republished in Holland even after Baxter had put forth his famous treatise ' The Reformed Pastor,' to inflame his brethren in the ministry with something of his own consuming zeal. The sermon of Bowles was published under the title ' Zeal for God's House quickened,' and as a manifesto of the intentions and desires of the Houses and of the divines in their confidence, even its preface is noteworthy. ' Out of your vigilant care,' he says, addressing the members of the Houses, 'you have found out a way ... to convene an assembly of grave and learned divines with whom you might advise concerning the settle- ment of doctrine, worship, and church-government. You saw cause which might move you so to do in respect, ist, of those licentious spirits who took occasion as to vent their own fancies so to attempt anything in matter of doctrine and worship ; 2d, in that for want of an established church-govern- ment we were, and still are, in danger to fall from a tyranny to an anarchy ; 3d, in that evil-minded men, seeing no effectual means provided to suppress such variety of sects as did start up, were ready to censure you as the favourers of such opinions.' Then, after referring briefly and with approbation to their giving way for the admittance of divines of different judgments to be chosen as members of Assembly, and according liberty to them to ex- o 8 Opening of the Wcstviinster Assembly press their several views, he proceeds thus to give his estimate of the importance of the work assigned to them : ' Is not your work a counterwork to that great and long-plotted design whereby Popery should have been readvanced/ God's saving truth been suppressed, his worship substantially corrupted or utterly destroyed ? Is it not a work of the largest extent as that which concerns all other Reformed churches, whose happiness or misery will be involved in ours ? Yea, ages to come will either bless or curse you as you shall follow or neglect the opportunity.' His sermon pointed, as the Puritan leaders had done in 1560 and again in 1603, to an earnest preaching ministry as the great want of the times, and enlarged, as became the author of the De Pastore Evajigelico, on the manner in which such a ministry should strive to preach, almost as was done afterwards by the Assembly itself in its directory for preaching, 'zealously, compassion- * No one could be more persistent than Laud in disclaiming all inclination towards reunion with Rome till it was other than it then was. 'But facts were too strong for him. The revival of "Catholic" principles was the signal for fashionable conversions. The Jesuits smiled appi-oval, for they knew that their day was come. The queen's chapel and the chapels of foreign ambassadors were thronged with high-bom ladies, sighing for readmission into the true fold. The stern and sincere Protestant, to whom ritualism was never anything but Popery in disguise, saw the liberties which the Smithfield martyrs had won being silently filched from him. He knew'that there was another struggle before him, or the sticks were again growing which would form the fagots of new pyres.' — Edinlnirs.h Rcvinv for October 1882. Its P^^oceedings and Debates. 139 atcly, convincingly, feelingly, frequently, gravel)-.' (E. 6'^^^ The sermon, all in all, is a noble one. Matthew Nevvcomen, who preached in the after- noon of the same day, adverted, as became a Smectymnuan divine, to the preciousness of every grain of God's truth, every ' selvedge ' of Christ's seamless robe, and affirmed ' he must have a heart more ignorant and unbelieving than the apostle's I8i,ci)r7}(; (i Cor. xiv. 24) that should come in and be an ear-witness of your proceedings, and not worship God and report that God is in you of a truth. Verily I have often from my heart wished that your greatest adversaries and traducers might be witnesses of your learned, grave, and pious debates, which were able to silence, if not convert malignity itself (E. 63.) This day of prayer was but the first of many days similarly observed in these earnest anxious years. We may not venture to assert that, with all their care, no human infirmity was allowed to mingle with the simplicity of their waiting upon God to receive indications of His will. For in what crisis of the Church's fate dare we maintain that infirmity did not to some extent mingle with and mar many a holy sacrifice, many an act of true service to Christ ? Yet we may with- out misgiving indignantly repel the theory which would ascribe any part of their conduct to conscious hypocrisy or self-deception. They were true men of God, desiring from their ver)- hearts to do His 140 Openijig of the Westminster Assembly : work in their generation, and feeling deeply their need of His aid and blessing, that they might do it well. But they were men, after all, of like passions with ourselves, liable to err in judgment and in tem- per, compassed about with infirmities and having their mental vision obscured by not a few prejudices. To say that of them is to say no more than we should have to say of the best of their opponents. The same day Mr. Rouse and Mr. Salloway were deputed by the House of Commons 'to return thanks to Dr. Twisse, Mr. Bowles, and Mr. Newcomen, for the great pains they took in the several sermons they preached at the desire of both Houses in Westminster Abbey, before both Houses and Assembly, upon the day of the first meeting of the Assembly, and upon the fast-day for the Assembly,' and to desire them to print their sermons. On the following day when the Assembly met, the protestation or vow,^ which was framed accord- ing to the third of the regulations already quoted, ^ The suggestion of this seems to have come from one of the ablest and most active members of the Assembly. In a sermon preached by Palmer before the House of Commons he had said, ' I humbly wish a profession or promise or vow (call it what you will) to be made by all us ministers in the presence of God to this effect : That we shall propound nothing nor consent nor oppose, but what we are persuaded is most agreeable to the Word of God ; and will renounce any pre-conceived opinion if we shall be convinced that the Word of God is otherwise. So shall we all seek Christ and not ourselves nor sidings ; and God's truth and not victory or glory to ourselves.' (E. 60, No. 3.) Its Proceedings and Debates. 141 and is still inserted in the preface to most edi- tions of the Confession of Faith,^ — having been approved of by the Houses of Parliament — was taken by every member present — peers and com- moners as well as divines. The vow and the rules of procedure already given were subsequently appointed to be read in the beginning of each week or month, to remind the members of the very solemn obligations under which they acted in the great work they had undertaken. There was then, also, put into the hands of the divines what is termed the new Covenant or Oath, being the second of those vows by which, previous to their alliance with the Scots, the members of the English Parlia- ment, in presence of the dangers which threatened them, thought it incumbent to bind themselves to resist Popery and all innovations in religion. This, however, was soon to be superseded by a newer and more memorable covenant, and it does not appear to have been actually taken by the divines. At the same meeting Mr. White of Dorchester and Dr. Burgess of Watford were nominated assessors to supply the place of the Prolocutor in case of infirmity or absence. It was also arranged 1 ' I do seriously promise and vow in the presence of Almighty God, that in this Assembly, whereof I am a member, I will main- tain 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 may make most for God's glory and the peace and good of his church.' — Journals of House of Cotnmons, vol. iii. p. 157. 142 opening of the IV estminster Assembly : with consent of Parliament, that the Assembly should proceed at once to revise the first ten of the Thirty-nine articles of the Church of England, so as to clear them from the false glosses which of late had been put on them by Pelagianising and Romanising divines, and above all by that bold pervert-^ to Romanism, who in 1634 first propounded the theory revived in our own day in Tract No. 90, that subscription of them was not largely inconsis- tent with acceptance of the decrees of Trent. To prepare their work, and perhaps to conform to the precedent set by the Synod of Dort, the whole Assembly was ' cast into three equal committees,' according to the order in which the names of the divines stood in the Ordinance of the Houses. All these three, however, were open committees, to which any member interested in their business might come at pleasure. All three were to meet 1 Davenport or Francisctis a Sancta Clara by name. The title of his book was ' Deus, natura, gratia, sive Tractatus de prjedestina- tione, de meritis et peccatorum remissione, etc., ubi ad trutinam fidei Catholicffi examinatur confessio Anglicana et ad singula puncta quid teneat, qualiter differat, excutitur, doctrina etiani Doctoris subtilis . . . olim Oxoniae et Cantabridgiae et solenniter approbata et honorifice prcelecta exponitur et propugnatur: Lugd. 1634.' The fact that two editions of the book were issued in two successive years, that it was inscribed to the king, and urged him to complete the work his favourite divines had so well begun, is proof at once whom the Jesuits deemed their true allies, and how confident they were that these allies had prepared the way for them. Earnest Protestants might well feel that in such circumstances their very reverence for the Articles required that they should authorita- tively vindicate them from the false glosses put on them. Its Proceedings and Debates. 1 43 on Monday at one o'clock. The first was to meet in Henry VIl.'s Chapel, taking in hand the first, second, third, and fourth Articles. The second was to meet in the place used heretofore by the Lower House of Convocation (that is, as we are informed by Dean Stanley, St. John's and St. Andrew's Chapel on the north side of the Abbey — a little chapel below stairs). It was to proceed on the fifth, sixth, and seventh Articles. The third was to meet in the Jerusalem Chamber, long the usual meeting-place of the Upper House of Convocation, and was to take up Articles eighth, ninth, and tenth. A sub- committee of six or eight persons, partly divines, and partly members of the House of Commons, was appointed to seek for ancient copies of the Thirty- nine Articles, that the Assembly and its Com- mittees might found their proceedings on the most authentic. The learned Selden, who was prob- ably Convener, made report on 15th July of the proceedings of this sub-committee, and brought in many copies. No doubt one of these was that copy of the Latin Articles of 1563 still preserved in the Bodleian, and said to have been found by him in Archbishop Laud's library. It has been deemed of importance in our own day, from its bearing on the disputes which have been revived as to the authenticity of that clause of the twentieth Article, to which I referred in my first lecture as asserting the power of the Church to decree rites and 1 44 Opening of the Westminster Assembly : ceremonies, and claiming for it authority in con- troversies of faith. The Assembly, at the close of this long session, adjourned till Wednesday in the following week, and left Monday and Tuesday free for the import- ant work assigned to the Committees. Lightfoot tells us that at their first meeting Dr, Burgess was chosen chairman of the first Committee, Dr. Stanton of the second, and Mr. Gibbon of the third ; but neither he nor any other extant authority has supplied a list of the three Committees as they stood on that day. Three lists are found in the manuscript minutes preserved in Dr. Williams' library, which I take to be lists of these committees as theystood at certain dates. The first of them bears the date of 2d November 1643, and is given by Dr. Briggs in his recent interesting paper on the West- minster Assembly in the January number of the Presbyterian Review for 1880. The second bears the date of 15th February 1643-4. The third, of date I2th April 1644, is inserted at page Ixxxv of my Introduction to the published volume of the Minutes of the Assembly, and is here subjoined. By the date at which it was drawn up some of the original members had died. Dr. Fcatley and a few others had withdrawn, and most of the superadded divines had taken their seats in the Assembly. Possibly the last two names on the second Com- mittee should be removed to the third. At least Its Proceedings and Debates. 145 such a change is needed to make the numbers in each equal.^ When the Assembly met on Wednesday, and the report from the first Committee was given in by Dr. Burgess, great debate arose because they had not 1 [First Committee.'] \Second Committee.'] [ Third Committee.] Mr. Palmer. Mr. Clayton. Mr. Salloway. Mr. Bowles. Mr. Gipps. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Wilkinson, Sen''- Mr. Burroughs. INIr. Burgess. Mr. Valentine. Mr. Calamy. Mr. Vines. Mr. Raynor. Mr. Walker. Mr. Greenhill. Dr. Hoyle. Mr. Caryl. Dr. Temple. Mr. Bridge. Mr. Seaman. Mr. Ashe. Mr. Goodwin. Mr. Reynolds. Mr. Gataker. Mr. Ley. Mr. Hill. Mr. Spurstow. Mr. Case. Mr. Jackson. Mr. Cheynel. Dr. Gouge. Mr. Carter of L[ondon ]. Mr. De la March. Mr. White. Mr. Thorowgood. Mr. Newcomen. Mr. Marshall. Mr. Arrowsmith. Mr. Carter of D[ynton]. Mr. Sedgwick. Mr. Gibson. Mr. Hodges. Mr. Clark. Mr. Whitaker. Mr. Feme. Mr. Bathurst. Dr. Stanton [Conv""]. Mr. Prophet. Mr. Nye. Mr. Lightfoot. Mr. Sterry. Dr. Smith. Mr. Corbet. Mr. Guibon [Conv''- ]. Dr. Burgas [Convener, ,] Mr. Langley. Mr. IMichaelthwaite. Mr. Green. Mr. Tisdale. Dr. Wincop. Mr. Gower. Mr. Young. Mr. Price. Mr. Taylor. Mr. Philips. Mr. Wilkinson, Jun''- Mr. Wilson. Mr. Couant. Mr. Woodcock. Mr. Tuckney. Mr. Chambers. Mr. De la Place. Mr. Coleman. Mr. Hall. Mr. Maynard. Mr. Herle. Mr. Scudder. Mr. Paynter. Mr. Herrick. Mr. Bayley. Mr. Good. Mr. Mew. Mr. Pickering. Mr. Hardwick. Mr. Wrathband. Mr. Cawdry. Mr. Hickes. Mr. Strickland. Mr. Bond. Mr. Harris. 146 opening of the Westminster Assembly : adduced any passages of Scripture for the clearing and vindicating of the real sense of those Articles wherewith they were intrusted, and the question was raised whether, in proceeding upon all the Articles, Scripture should be adduced ' for the clearing of them ' and fixing of their meaning. This question after long debate was determined affirmatively. From this date onwards to the 12th of October the Assembly was mainly occupied with the revision of the Thirty-nine Articles. The keen and lengthened debates which occurred in the dis- cussions on these Articles could not fail to prepare the way for a more summary mode of procedure in connection with the Confession of Faith. The proceedings then were more summary, or at least more summarily recorded, just because the previous discussions on the more important doctrines of the Protestant system, and especially on that of Justi- fication by Faith, had been thorough and exhaustive, and pretty fully recorded. Lightfoot has preserved no detailed record of these discussions, but in part at least they are fully reported in the first volume of the MS. Minutes of the Assembly. Dr. Featley's two speeches in the debates on the eighth Article and his five speeches on those on the eleventh, as well as his speech in regard to the Solemn League and Covenant, were published shortly after his death. They are learned, acute, and forcible, and as they give more satisfactory insight into the matters Its Proceedings and Debates. 147 discussed than the desultory notes taken by the scribes, I subjoin a few extracts from them.^ In regard to the eighth Article on the three creeds to which a persistent party in the Assembly, as afterwards in the House of Commons, objected, it appears that the exceptions taken were partly against the titles of the creeds, and partly against their contents. ' It is objected,' the Doctor says, * by some of our learned brethren that the Nicene creed is in truth the Constantinopolitan, that the creed which goeth under the name of Athanasius was either made by Anastasius or Eusebius Vercel- Icnsis. Certainly Meletius, Patriarch of Constanti- nople, resolves it negatively, . . . and for that which is called the Apostles' Creed the father, who so christened it, is unknown. Hereunto I answer that though the entire creed which is read in our churches under the name of the Nicene be found totidan verbis in the Constantinopolitan, yet it may truly be called the Nicene, because the greatest part of it is taken out of that of Nice, and howso- ever some doubt whether Athanasius were the author of that creed which bears his name, yet the greater number of the learned of later ages entitle him to it ; and though peradventurc he framed it not himself, yet it is most agreeable to his doctrine, and seemeth to be drawn out of his works, and in that regard may be rightly termed HIS creed. For ' Speeches in the Assembly, generally bound with his Dippers Dipt. 1 48 opening of the Westminster Assembly : the third creed, although I believe not that the Apostles either jointly or severally dictated it, yet I subscribe to Calvin's judgment, who saith that it was a summary of the Christian faith extant in the Apostles' days, and approved of by them. Howsoever, according to the rule of Aristotle, we must use the language of the vulgar though we vote with wise men and think as they do.' The things in the contents of the creeds most objected to are, he then proceeds to say, (i) the too peremp- tory way in which the Athanasian affirms the damnation of those who do not believe its doctrine. To this he answers with Vossius that it is to be applied to such only as have capacity to under- stand it, and whose consciences are convinced of its truth ; (2) that in the Nicene creed Christ is spoken of as ' God of God ; ' to which he replies that ' though Christ is God of God it doth not therefore follow that the deity of the Son is from the deity of the Father, as it does not follow quia Dens pass2is est, ergo Deltas passa est or quia Maria est mater Dei, ergo est Maria mater deitatis ;' (3) that it is said in the Apostles' Creed Christ de- scended into hell ; to which objection he deems it sufficient to reply that all Christians acknowledge that Christ in some way descended into hell either locally, as many of the ancient fathers, and some of the moderns, or virtually, as Durandus, or meta- phorically as Calvin, or metonymically as Tilenus, Its Proceedings and Debates. 1 49 Perkins, and this Assembly, and therefore no man need to make scruple of subscribing to this Article as it stands in the Creed, seeing it is capable of so many orthodoxal explications.' Notwithstanding Dr. Featley's advice to them to be content to use the language of the vulgar, though thinking as wise men do, the Assembly deemed it better to alter the wording of Article VIII. so as to make it clear that they did not regard these ancient symbols as, strictly speaking, the work of the Apostles or of the Council of Nicea or of Athanasius, but only as being commonly so called, or going under their names, an instance of wondrous caution, which should be admired all the more by those who do not credit them with the highest scholarship or critical research, as some in our day still refuse to do. The main question on which the long debates on the Article of Justification turned was whether the merit of the obedience of Christ as well as the merit of his sufferings was imputed to the believer for his justification. Several of the most distin- guished members of the Assembly, including Twisse the Prolocutor, Mr. Gataker, and Mr. Vines, maintained, as had been formerly done by Rollock in Scotland, Piscator in Germany, and Tilenus in France, that it was the sufferings or the passive obedience only of Christ which was imputed to the believer. The Prolocutor spoke at least twice 1 50 Opening of the Westminster Assembly : in the course of the discussion ; Gataker oftener and at greater length, and with greater keenness. Dr. Featley, who was the chief disputant on the other side, and who was a thorough Protestant and Calvinist, though a decided royalist and Episco- palian, spoke at least five times, maintaining, as Ussher had formulated it in his Irish Articles, and the great majority of English Puritans had accepted it, that Christ's active obedience or fulfilling of the law, as well as his passive obedience or suffering of its penalty, was imputed to the believer, and was necessary to constitute him righteous in the sight of God and entitle him to eternal life. I can only find room for a few brief extracts from Dr. Featley 's fifth speech, which bears the title, ' Concerning the resolve of the Assembly that the whole obedience of Christ is imputed to every believer.' He first notices and states not unfairly the three objections taken to the proposition by Gataker that it was re- dundant, yet deficient, and novel; redundant in that the word zvJiole obedience of Christ must include his obedience to the ceremonial law as well as to the moral ; deficient in that the word obedience could not be held to include Christ's original righteousness ; novel in so far as the imputation of Christ's active as well as passive obedience was never defined for dogma before the French Pro- testant Synods of Gap and Privas.^ To the objec- * Quick's Synodicon, vol. i. pp. 227, 348. Its Proceedings and Debates. 151 tion of redundancy Featley replied that though ^ve were not bound by the ceremonial law, yet the J CIVS were, and that this was part of the meaning of the Apostle when, in Galatians iv. 4, he speaks of Christ as being made under the law to redeem them that were under the law. To the charge of deficiency he rejoins that though Christ's original righteousness was requisite in him both as high priest and sacrifice, yet it was not properly the work of Christ but of the Holy Ghost, and so not to be imputed to us as any act of our Mediator. To the objection of novelty he replied that the doctrine itself was much more ancient than the French Synods in question, adducing testimonies in its favour from Chrysostom, Augustine, Bernard, Luther, Calvin, Peter Martyr, and others. He then proceeds as follows : — ' Here methinks I hear those who are most active in the Assembly for the imputation of the mere passive obedience of Christ, like the tribunes among the Romans, obnunciare et intercedere, that they may hinder and stop the decree of the Assembly, allcdging that though some of the ancient fathers, and not a few of the reformed doctors, cast in their white stone among ours, yet that wc want the suffrage of Him who alone hath the turning voice in all debates of this kind, and that according to our protestation made at our first meeting we ought to resolve upon nothing in matter of faith, but what 152 opening of the Westminster Assembly: we are persuaded hath firm and sure ground in Scripture, and howsoever some texts have been alledged for the imputation of both active and passive obedience, yet that at our last sitting they were wrested from us, and all inferences from thence cut off; all the redoubts and forts built upon that holy ground were sleighted. It will import, therefore, very much those who stand for the affirmative to recruit the forces of truth and repair the breaches in our forts made by the adversaries' batteries.' He then takes up in detail the several texts which had been adduced, and replies with considerable pertinency to Gataker's arguments respecting each. The latter had said that by obedience in Rom. v. 18-19, the apostle meant the special obedience which Christ gave to His Father's commandment to lay down His life for the sheep, just as in Philippians he spake of Christ becoming obedient unto death. To this Dr. Featley replies that the word in the former passage was not viraKorj but hi,Kalwfia, which was never taken in Scripture for suffering or mere passive obedience ; further, that no man is said to have justification of life or abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness by suffering only ; and finally that the obedience here mentioned, being set in opposition to Adam's disobedience, must be active as Adam's was. From the life of Lightfoot prefixed to the Latin edition of his works Its Proceedings and Debates. 153 we learn that the same view was ably maintained by that eminent scholar, and extended to viraKoi] as well as SiKaicofjua} On the text I Cor. i. 30, Christ is made to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, etc., Gataker had argued that Christ is made to us righteousness as he is made wisdom, but he is not made to us wisdom by imputing his wisdom to us, but by instructing us ; so neither is he said to be made righteousness because his righteousness is imputed to us, but because by his grace he makes us actually righteous. To this Featley replies (i) that whatever Christ is made to us he is made perfectly, but he is not made perfectly wisdom or righteousness save by imput- ing his own righteousness and wisdom to us which are most perfect ; (2) Christ is made righteousness to us in the same sense as he is made redemption, but he is made redemption unto us by imputing his passive obedience ; therefore in like manner he is made righteousness to us by imputing his active obedience. In the same manner he replies to the arguments founded on 2 Cor. v. 21 and Col. ii. 10, and then concludes as follows : * No man who standeth rectus in curia as Adam did in his inno- cency or the angels before they were confirmed in grace, is bound both to fulfil the law, and to satisfy for the violation thereof; but to the one or to the other, to fulfil only the law primarily, and to satisfy * Lightfootii Opera, vol. i. Vila, § 3. 154 Opening of the Westm inster Assembly : for not fulfilling it in case he should transgress; but that is not our present case, for we are all born and conceived in sin, and by nature are the children of wrath, guilty as well of Adam's actual transgression as our own corruption of nature drawn from his loins. Therefore, first, we must satisfy for our sin and then by our obedience lay claim to life accord- ing as it is offered to us by God in his law.' ' We grant freely that Christ's death is sufficient for the satisfactory part, but unless his active obedience be imputed to us we have no plea or title at all to eternal life. I may illustrate this by a lively similitude such as that to which the apostle else- where alludes. In the Olympian games he that overcame received a crown of gold or silver, or a garland of flowers, or some other badge of honour ; but he that was overcome, besides the loss of the prize, forfeited something to the keeper of the games. Suppose some friend of his should pay his forfeit, would that entitle him to his garland .'* Certainly no ; unless , . . in another race he outstrip his adversary he must go away crownless. This is our case by Adam's transgression and our own ; we have incurred a forfeiture or penalty ; this is satisfied by the imputation of Christ's passive obedience ; but unless his active be also imputed to us we could have no plea or claim to our crown of glory, for we have not in our own persons so run that we mieht obtain.' Its Proceedings and Debates. 1 5 5 After this speech the divines called for a vote on the question, and though some of eminent parts in the Assembly dissented, yet far the major part voted for the affirmative, that Christ's zvko/e obedience was imputed to the believer. Before the close of the session, however, Dr. Featley seems himself to have been disposed to yield somewhat to the great divines opposed to him. Perhaps he had got a quiet hint from his correspondent at Oxford to do so. He produced a copy of the letter referred to by the Prolocutor in the course of the discussion, which had been written by King James to the Synod of the French Protestant Church which met at Privas in 161 2. In this letter the king counselled them to let this question and those depending on it ' be altogether buried and left in the grave with the napkin and linen clothes wherein the body of Christ was wrapped . . . lest peradventure by too much wrangling they seem to cut in two the living child which the tender-hearted mother would not endure, or divide the seamless coat of Christ which the cruel soldier would not suffer.' The reason he assigned for this counsel was that the question was altogether new, and not necessary to be determined, unheard of in former ages, not decided by any council, nor handled in the fathers, nor disputed by the school- men. Probably it was on this account that when the Assembly came to treat of the subject of 156 opening of the Westminster Assembly : Justification in their Confession of Faith they left out the word luJiole to which Gataker and his friends had most persistently objected, so that the clause, which in their revised version of Article XI, had stood in the form 'his ivJiole obedience and satisfaction being by God imputed to us,' was in the confession changed into ' imputing the obedi- ence and satisfaction of Christ,' which though it hardly seems to us to include, still less to favour their view, they were content to accept as less rigid than the other. At least on its being con- ceded Gataker and his friends agreed to drop further controversy on the question, as has been distinctly recorded by Simeon Ashe in his funeral sermon for his old friend Gataker. Before the 12th of October, the Assembly had revised fifteen of the Articles, and were proceeding with the sixteenth,^ when, by order of the Houses, they laid aside this work and proceeded to take in hand the government and liturgy of the Church. What they had accomplished previously they regarded as superseded by a later order to draw up a Confession of Faith. It was only after repeated peremptory messages from the House of Commons that they consented to send it up to them, and they accompanied it by an explanatory preface in which they stated that they regarded ^ They had resolved to change ' may depart from grace given ' into ' may fail of the grace of God attained.' Its Proceedings and Debates. 1 5 7 the work as in several ways imperfect, and as having relation only to the Church of England, and therefore as superseded by the more recent order sent to them to prepare a Confession of Faith for the churches of the three kingdoms. The Articles, as far as revised by the Assembly, have been often reprinted, not, however, in the exact form in which they were sent up by the Assembly to the Houses, but in the form in which they were passed by them, and were included among the documents submitted for the acceptance of the king in the negotiations of 1648. The full form, together with the preface of the Assembly, is to be found in a rare volume of tracts contained in the library of the British Museum (King's Pamphlets, E. 516). The only material difference between the two forms is that while Article VIII. is omitted from the former, it is retained in the latter, and in a revised version slightly different from that given in Lightfoot's Journal. ' The creeds that go under the name of the Nicene Creed, Athanasius* Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, are thoroughly to be received and believed, for that they may be proved by most certain warrant of Holy Scripture.'^ While the revision of the Articles was being carried forward at Westminster, the cause of the 1 The Preface as well as ihe ultimate revision of this Article are given in the appendix to the printed Minutes of the Assembly. 158 opening of the Westminster Assembly : Parliament had been going backward in the country. One and another defeat had been sustained by their forces, and their supporters in various parts were becoming so disheartened, that at the request of the House of Commons divers of the members of the Assembly were sent away from their duties there, and instructed to go to various parts of the kingdom, and stir up the people to greater zeal in their cause. It might have been well for the Assembly itself had such a policy been followed more frequently when it became apparent that the work for which it was called was not to be rapidly completed. The immuring of so many of the ablest ministers for so long a time in London, if it strengthened their hold on that great city, tended to weaken their hold on their parishioners in the country and in the provincial towns, and so to separate the metropolis and the provinces as to make the revolution ultimately effected by the leaders of the army a far easier matter than it would have been had the elite of their ministers been able to be more in their parishes, and to guide opinion at so many important centres in harmony with what it was in London. It was at the same crisis in their fortunes that the Parliament finally made up their minds to outbid the king for the Scotch alliance, and despatched commissioners to Scotland to arrange terms with the Convention of Estates and General Assembly there, and in the Its Proceedings and Debates. 159 name of the Houses and the Assembly more formally to invite the assistance of Scottish com- missioners in the deliberations of the Assembly. All the Scottish leaders looked favourably on the cause which the English Parliament was defending, but all were not at first agreed that they ought to take a side in the contest between it and the king. Henderson and several other trusted counsellors had previously urged that the true position for them to assume, in the first instance, was that of mediators between the parties. But the coldness of their reception at Oxford had discouraged even these, while the concessions of the Parliament on the subject of episcopacy ' flattered the ambition of the nation,' and in the end the fervid eloquence of Johnstone of Warriston, advocating active parti- cipation in the contest, carried all before it.^ It was unanimously agreed that common cause should be made with their English brethren, and that every possible aid should be given them in the war into which they had been driven in defence of their religion and liberties. Yet all were determined not to draw their swords about mere civil grievances, however insupportable these were deemed to be, but to place the cause of the true Reformed religion and the government of Christ's Church according to His Word in the forefront, if not to bring the Ark of God itself into the battle. They would ' Baillie's Letlcrs, vol. ii. p. 90. i6o Opening of the Westminster Assembly: not have the civil league which the English com- missioners offered them, but pressed for a solemn religious bond like that into which in times of trial they and their fathers had entered, and which in their recent Vow or Covenant the English Houses had actually indorsed. The English commissioners were obliged at last so far to yield to the wishes of the Scotch as to make the proposed treaty a solemn League and Covenant ' for the defence and preservation of the Reformed religion in the Church of Scotland in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, and for the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland according to the Word of God and practice of the best Reformed Churches, and for bringing the Church of God in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, Confession of Faith, form of church-government, directories for worship and for catechising,' and then, only subordinately or con- junctly, 'for the defence and preservation of the rights and privileges of the Parliament, the liberties of the kingdoms, and of the king's Majesty's person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true religion and liberties of the kingdoms.' This Covenant, drafted by Henderson and ac- cepted by the English commissioners, was forth- with transmitted to England, where after some very slight changes it was approved by the Assembly Its Proceedings and Debates. 1 6 1 and accepted by the Houses, and finally was directed to be subscribed throughout the kingdom, as it also was in Scotland. It was subscribed there with singular unanimity and enthusiasm, and if with less general spontaneity in England yet certainly more extensively than is sometimes represented. Neale, who is by no means a blind admirer of the Scots, informs us that ' most of the religious part of the nation who apprehended the Protestant religion to be in danger, and were de- sirous of reducing the hierarchy, were zealous for the Covenant,' that others who were on the side of the Parliament took it in obedience to their authority, being sensible that on no other conditions could the assistance of the Scots be secured, and that a num- ber of the episcopal divines who made the greatest figure in the Church after the Restoration did not refuse it, as Cudworth, Wallis, Reynolds, Lightfoot, and many others. Lightfoot was so keen for it that he does not hesitate to speak of Dr. Burgess, who opposed it and petitioned the House of Com- mons to be heard against it, ' as a wretch to be branded to all posterity, seeking for some devilish ends, either of his own or others, or both, to hinder so great a good of the two nations,' ' to put in a bar against a matter of so infinite weight, and asperse such an Assembly with so much mire and dirt,'^ ' Lightfool's yi3?^y and authority was given to them to print 600 copies of the whole treatise for the service of the two Houses and of the Assembly. Shortly after, a new Order was made by the House of Commons that ' Scripture proofs should be added ; '^ and, on 29th April 1647, a committee of the Assembly further presented to both the Houses the Con- fession of Faith with the Scripture proofs inserted in the margin ; and of this also 600 copies were ordered to be printed. These three impressions were printed, not published, as — 'The humble ADVICE OF THE ASSEMBLY OF DiVINES NOW BY AUTHORITY OF PARLIAMENT SITTING AT WEST- MINSTER ' (with the additions respectively follow- ing) ' Concerning a part of a Confession of Faith ' — ' The inserting of these proofs, which contributed so much to give the doctrinal standards of the Assembly such a firm hold on the minds of the lay members of the Church, was urged by the House of Commons. Their motives, however, were suspected, and the Order was complied with by the divines somewhat reluctantly. The following copy of their Petition to the House of Commons, in answer to their Order, is preserved in a recently recovered volume of the records of the Commission of the Scottish Assembly : — ' The Assemblie of Divines having received an Order from this hon'^'"^ house, bearing date the 9th of October, that five hundred copies of the advice of the Assemblie of Divines, concerning part of a Confession of Faith brought into this house and no more, be forthwith printed for the use of the members of both houses only, and that the Divines be desired to put in the margent the proofs out of Scripture, to confirme what they have offered to the house in such places as they shall think most necessarie. Do humblie represent that they are willing and ready to obey that Order. Nevertheless, they humblie desire this hon'^''= house to consider that the reason why the Assembly have not annexed any texts of 368 The Westminster Confession of Faith. ' Concerning a Confession ofFaitJi' — and ' Concerning a Confession of Faith, with the quotations and texts of Scripttire annexed' It was in Scotland, in the autumn or before the close of the year 1647, that the first edition of the Confession, bearing the title by which it has continued to be known, was issued to the public, and attempts seem to have been made to reprint this in England. It was not till the summer of the following year that the Confession, with the exceptions of chapters XXX. and XXXI. and certain portions of chapters XX. and XXIV., was approved by the English Parliament, and was published in London with the title, '■Articles of CJiristian Religion approved and passed Scripture to the several brandies of the Confession w^^'' are sent up, wer not only because the former Articles of the Church of England have not any, but principally because the Confession being large, and, as we conceive, requisite so to be, to settle the orthodox doctrine according to the word of God, and the confes- sions of the best reformed churches, so as to meet with common errors, if the Scriptures should have bene alleadged, it would have required a volume. As also because most of the particulars, being received truths among all churches, there was seldome any debate about the truth or falsehood of any article or clause, but rather about the manner of expression or the fitness to have it put into the Confession. Whereupon q" y"" wer any texts debated in the Assembly, they were never put to the vote. And therefor everie text now to be annexed must be not only debated, but also voted in the Assembly ; and it is free for everie one to offer what texts he thinks fitt to be debated, and to urge the annexing of Scriptures to such or such a branch, as he thinks necessary w'^'* is lyke to be a work of great length. So that we humblie conceive, if it be the pleasure of this honourable House that we should annexe Scriptures, it is not possible that we should forthwith proceed to the printing of the Confession.' Acco2tnt of its Preparation. 369 by both Houses of Parliament after advice had ivith the Assembly of Divines.' This title was adopted because it was in nearer agreement with that of the Thirty-nine Articles, and also because the treatise was not in the direct form of a Confession, i.e. with the words ' I confess,' or some similar expression, at the beginning of the several chapters or sections, as in the old Scotch and several of the Continental Confessions.^ Before the debates on the Confession came to a close, Twisse and Henderson, who had been able to take but little part in them, were called to join the general assembly and church of the first-born above. The former died on the morning of Sunday, 19th July, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 24th, but his body was removed from its place of honourable sepulture at the Restoration. The latter died on the 19th August, worn out with anxieties and incessant labours more than by old age ; as glad, he said, to be released as ever school- boy was to return from school to his father's house. He had done a work which his countrymen were not to let die. But his departure left them for the time ' dark, feeble, and deploring.' ^ Further details respecting the Confession and the proceedings of the English and Scottish Parliaments on it will be found in the notes appended to various passages of the printed volume of the Minutes of the Assembly, and particularly in that on pp. 412-423. 2 A LECTURE XI. THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH OR ARTICLES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Part II. — Its sources and type of doctrine : answers to objections brought against it. In my last Lecture I gave you a brief sketch of the development of doctrine in the British Churches before the meeting of the Westminster Assembly, and a pretty full account of the proceedings of the divines in preparing their Confession of Faith. To-day I am to speak to you of the sources and character of that Confession, and briefly to advert to certain charges made against it. It was long the received opinion that the As- sembly's Confession was derived in a great mea- sure from foreign sources, either Swiss or Dutch. The fact was overlooked that in Reynolds, Perkins, Whitaker, Carleton, Downame, the Abbots, Daven- ant, Overall, Prideaux, Ussher, Hall, Twisse, Ames, Ball, Featley, and Gataker, England for half a cen- tury had had a school of native theologians devel- oping an Augustinian or moderately Calvinistic type of doctrine, without slavish dependence on the divines of any Continental school — a system Westminster Confession of Faith. 371 perhaps quite as largely drawn from Augustine and other early western doctors, as from any of the Reformers. Mr. Marsden, who has done so much by his writings to vindicate the character and teaching of the Puritans, has ventured (p. 86) to say of the Confession of the Assembly that ' it is in many respects an admirable summary of Christian faith and practice,' * pure in style, the subjects well distributed and sufficiently compre- hensive to form at least the outline of a perfect system of divinity.' But he has failed to light on its sources, and expressed regret that Ussher and the leaders of the native English school were not present in greater force to check undue deference to the views of Calvin and Bullinger. The younger Dr. M'Crie again, in his Annals of Presbytery in England, has confidently affirmed that ' it bears unmistakeably the stamp of the Dutch theology in the sharp distinctions, logical forms, and juridical terms into which the Reformed doctrine had gradually moulded itself under the red heat of the Arminian and Socinian contro- versies.'^ Others, with greater want of caution still, have ventured to single out Cocceius ^ or ' Anttals of English. Presbytery, p. 177. - Hallam says somewhat equivocally of him, — ' He was remark- able for having viewed, more than any preceding writer, all the relations between God and man under the form of covenants, and introduced the technical language of jurisprudence into theology. . . . This became a very usual mode of treating the subject in Holland, and afterwards in England.' 372 The Westminster Confession of Faith. Turretine as the true and immediate prototype of the teaching of the Confession. But the West- minster divines had done their work before either of these men had become known as influential factors in the development of the Reformed theo- logy. And there is abundant evidence that in its general plan, as well as in the tenor and wording of its more important Articles, the Assembly's Confession is derived immediately, not from foreign, but from native sources, and that it embodies, not conclusions adopted slavishly from any continental school, but the results of the matured thought and speculation of the native British school,^ which led quite as much as it followed in the wake of others, both in reviving the life of the Churches and in systematising their doctrines. The Confession may confidently, and I may now say confessedly,^ be ^ Irish Articles. — Of the Holy Scriptures and the three Creeds, of Faith in the Holy Trinity, of God's Eternal Decree and Predestina- tion, of the Creation and Government of all things, of the Fall of Man, Original Sin, and the State of Man before Justification (including article on Free Will), of Christ the Mediator, of the Second Covenant, of the Communicating of the Grace of Christ, of Justification and Faith etc, Westminster Confession. — I. Of the Holy Scripture. II. Of God and of the Holy Trinity. III. Of God's Eternal Decree, iv. Of Creation. V. Of Providence. VI. Of the Fall of Man, of Sin and of the Punishment thereof. IX. Of Free Will. Vll. Of God's Covenant with Man. viii. Of Christ the Mediator, x. Of Effectual Calling. XI. Of Justifica- tion. XIV. Of Saving Faith, etc. For fuller statement of this and other correspondences, see the works referred to on pp. 374, 376. 2 Schaff s Creeds of Christendom, vol. i. p. 761 ; Killen's Eccle- siastical History of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 494, 495. Its sources and type of Doctrine. 373 traced up to those unquestionably Augustinian Articles^ of the Irish Church, which arc beheved to have been prepared by Ussher when Professor of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin, and which in 161 5 were adopted by the Irish Convocation, with the assent of the Viceroy or the King, as ' Articles to be subscribed by all ministers,' and at least not to be contradicted by them in their public teaching. This, I hardly need to remind you, was before the Synod of Dort had met, or the intense heats, which the agitation of the Arminian and Socinian controversies occasioned there, had extended to Britain ; while the more important of the juridical terms were already in use both on the Continent and in Britain, and * These Articles were held in high repute by almost all the sound Protestant ministers in Britain as well as in Ireland. They embodied the mature opinions of Ussher and of several other learned and orthodox divines, who scrupled at no ceremony required in the Service Book, shrunk from no submission required to the absolute will of the King in things indifferent, and were in no sense liable to the charge of following Puritanism, if that was anything else than a nickname extended to the opinions of all who did not favour the views of Laud and his school. In these articles we have certainly the main source of the Westminster Confession, and almost its exact prototype in the enunciation of all the more important doctrines of the Christian system. In the order and titles of most of the articles or chapters, as well as in the language of many sections or subdivisions of chapters, and in a large number of separate phrases or voces signci/iC, occurring throughout their Con- fession, the Westminster divines appear to me to have followed very closely in the footsteps of Ussher and the Irish Convocation. There are not wanting indeed proofs that other Reformed Con- fessions, particularly those of the French and Belgian or Dutch 374 '^^^^ Westminster Confession of Faith. several of them, in fact, in the Roman Cathoh'c as well as in the Protestant Church.^ ' This elaborate formulary,' Dr. Killen tells us, 'when adopted, was signed by Jones, Archbishop of Dublin, Speaker of the House of Bishops in Convocation and Lord Chancellor of Ireland ; by the Prolocutor of the other House of the clergy, in their names ; and by the Lord Deputy Chichester, in the name of the Sovereign. It has indeed been questioned whether it was ever submitted to the Irish legislature ; and on the presumption that such an oversight occurred its authority has been challenged ; but as Parlia- ment was sitting it is quite possible that even this form was not neglected, though we have no positive proof of its observance. It is certain that at the time the Articles were understood to possess the highest sanction which the State could confer on them.' Ussher at least did not regard them as superseded by the adoption of the English Articles in 1634, and continued to require subscription to them as well as to the latter while he remained in Churches were also kept in view by them. But if the order of the chapters in these other confessions be compared with that of the Irish and Westminster formularies, it will at once be perceived that these last two have a special affinity in that respect, as well as in regard to the exact titles of the chapters and the language in which many of the sections are expressed. For particulars, see Introduction to the Minutes of Westminster Assembly, pp. xlvii. xlviii., and my lecture on The Westminster Confession, pp. 8-12, and 33-42. ' Paper by Prof. A. A. Hodge, p. 366 of Report of the Proceed- ings of the Second General Council of the Presbyterian Alliance. Its sources and type of Doctrme. 375 Ireland. The adoption of these Articles induced a number of Puritan ministers from England, as well as from Scotland,^ to settle among the colonists of Ulster, among whom, till the time of Strafford, they enjoyed a generous toleration, and more than repaid it by the good service they did to these motley immigrants. Perhaps equally with the similar efforts in Scotland the following year, to unite both parties in drawing up a new Confession and formularies, they are indications of a nobler policy on the part of Abbot to emphasise the great matters on which moderate Puritans and Churchmen of his own school agreed, and to cast into the shade or allow a large toleration on the minor matters on which they differed, — a policy for which the times were not ripe, or to which the King himself proved fickle. In a lecture on the Confession of Faith pub- lished in 1866,^ I exhibited in detail the corre- spondence between these Irish Articles and the Westminster Confession, both in general arrange- ments and the wording of many sections. The more important of the correspondencies have been reprinted in that great work of Dr. Schaff on the Creeds of Christendom, for which we owe ^ ' All of them enjoyed the churches and tithes though they remained Presbyterian and used not the liturgy.' — Neal. ' Epis- copacy existed, but only in a very modified form.' — Perry. * Westminster Confession of Faith: A Contribution to the Study of its History, and to the Defence of its Teaching. Edinburgh, 1866. 376 The Westminster Confession of Faith. him such a debt of gratitude. The subject has been treated more succinctly but very satis- factorily since, by Dr. Briggs of New York, in his paper in the Presbyterian Review for January 1880. I do not venture to assert that the Assem- bly have in no case determined questions which Ussher and the Irish Convocation had left un- decided ; but I do say that these questions are neither many nor important, and are rather de- tails than principles of their system, which they did not mean thereby to elevate to a factitious importance. Besides, when occasion called they took the greatest pains to express their senti- ments in such a way as to obviate or minimise objections which had been taken or might fairly have been taken to the words or matter of the English and the Irish Articles.^ Dean Stanley has on various occasions admitted that this, in several important instances, has been fully made out.^ The volume of their minutes which has been published clearly shows that more than one * While the terms predestinate and predestination are used in the same sense as in the English and Irish Articles, the term reprobated, which had been admitted into the Lambeth and Irish Articles, is exchanged for the word foreordained. The expression, ' to reconcile His Father unto us,' retained both in the English and Irish Articles, is also changed. See notes in Minutes, pp. xlviii., etc. - In his paper in the Contemporary for March 1866, p. 547, also in the paper written by him just before his death, and inserted in Macmillan'' s Magazine for August 1881, this is admitted in regard to several very important particulars. Its sources and type of Doctrine. 377 attempt made to persuade them to determine questions wisely left undecided by the Irish Convocation and the Synod of Dort, was stren- uously resisted^ by a number of the English members, who were true successors of the great English divines who had attended that Synod, and claimed in various respects to have moderated its conclusions. With respect to the doctrine of the Covenants, which some assert to have been derived from Holland, I think myself now, after careful in- vestigation,entitled tomaintain thatthere is nothing taught in the Confession which had not been long before in substance taught by Rollock and Howie in Scotland, and by Cartwright, Preston, Perkins, Ames, and Ball in his two catechisms in England, while there is a perceptible advance beyond what is exhibited as the general teaching of the Dutch divines in the Synopsis Pttrioris Theologies as late as 1642. The later and most remarkable treatise of Ball, on the ' Covenant of Grace,' was published with recommendatory notices by Reynolds, Caw- drey, Calamy, Hill, Ashe, and Burgess at the very time the Assembly began to frame its Confession, and it contains all that has been admitted into the Westminster standards, or generally received on this head among British Calvinists.- The ^ Mimtles of Westminster Assembly, pp. 150, 151, 152, etc. ^ See the account given of it in my paper in the Report of tin Proceedings of the Second General Council (f the Presbyteriaji Alliance, pp. 47S, 479 ; also Appendi.x, Note N. 37^ The Westminster Confession of Faith. work of Cocceius, even in its earliest form, was not given to the world till after the Confession had been completed and published ; nor was it brought substantially into the shape in which we now have it till 1654, by which date several other treatises on the subject of the Covenants had issued from the English press. Some have forgotten these patent facts ; many more have overlooked the less patent but not less important ones that Cocceius was the pupil of Ames or Amesius/ the well- known English Puritan who was called to teach theology in Holland. He, as well as Cloppenburg his colleague, taught and published views as to the Covenants, similar in character to those of Ball already referred to. Cocceius, it is true, does not directly acknowledge his obligations to the English divines as he does his obligations to Olevianus. Still, there are resemblances in his work to theirs, and there are more marked resemblances to Ball's, especially to its historical sections, in the great work of Witsius De CEconomia Fcederwn. Had the Dutch writers really preceded the English these resemblances would no doubt have been confidently appealed to as proof that the English had borrowed from or followed in the wake of the Dutch. ' ' Amesius the Puritan insisted upon piety of heart and life, and Amama his friend specially enforced the study of the original text of Scripture. The two latter obtained great influence over the mind of the piously educated young student.' — Dorner's //w/^ry of Protestant Theology, vol. ii. p. 31. Its sources and type of Doctrine. 3 79 In regard to the important chapters of the Confession on the Holy Scriptures, God and the Holy Trinity, God's Eternal Decree, Christ the Mediator, the Covenant of Grace, and the Lord's Supper, which so largely determine its character as a whole, the resemblance to the Irish Articles both in expression and general arrangement is so close, that not the slightest doubt can be entertained about the main source from which the materials for these chapters have been derived.^ As little doubt can be entertained in regard to the design of the framers in following so closely in the foot- steps of Ussher and his Irish brethren. They meant to show him and others like him, who had not had the courage to take their place among them, that though absent they were not forgotten nor their work disregarded. They meant their Confession to be in harmony with the consensus of the Reformed Churches, and especially of the British Reformed Churches, as that had been expressed in their most matured symbol. They desired it to be a bond of union, not a cause of strife and division, among those who were resolutely determined to hold fast by 'the sum and substance of the doctrine ' of the Reformed Churches — the ' See my paper on the bibliology of the Westminster Confession in the Appendix to The Proceediugs of the First General Presby- terian Council (Edinburgh, 1877) ; Introduction to the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly, pp. xlix, to Ixix. ; and Lecture on the IVestminster Confession of Faith, pp. 8-12. 380 The Westminster Corifession of Faith. Augustinianism so widely accepted in the times of Elizabeth and James. In that logical and system- loving age, it was thought that they had been wonderfully successful in their efforts to carry out their desires and intentions, so that Baillie could boast of their work being 'cried up by many of their greatest opposites as the best Confession yet extant,' and Baxter could concede that it was ' the most excellent for fulness and exactness he had ever read from any Church,' and, with all his individualism, could pitch on nothing in it as con- trary to his judgment save a few minor matters which he did not venture to deny were capable of a benign interpretation. The Independents both in England and New England, and the Baptists in England, expressed their substantial approval of it, so far as it had been accepted by the English Parliament. In our own day a different view has often been taken of the Confession, and many hard things have been said of it, some by professed friends, more by avowed opponents of its teaching. I have endeavoured, in the Introduction to the published volume of the Minutes of the Assembly already referred to, to vindicate it from the more serious charges which have been brought against it, and to claim for it and its authors that the justice be done them to read it in the light of the writings and known sentiments of the men who drew it up, and less exclusively than has long been done in the light of the teaching; and traditions of later and narrower Its sources and type of Doctrine. 2i^i times — to strip it as far as possible of the accretions which in the lapse of time have gathered round it, and marred in greater or lesser measure its goodly form and true proportions.^ I must refer any of }'ou who wish to go thoroughly into this matter to what I have there advanced and still abide by, as to the inspiration and consequent canonicity and authority of Holy Scripture, the doctrines of the Blessed Trinity, of the creation and the fall of man, of Christ the Mediator, of redemption and justification through his obedience unto death, of the Christian Sabbath and the Lord's Supper, and above all, of the mysterious doctrine of predestina- tion, in the exposition of which the Irish Articles are most closely adhered to.^ On this last it has been again grievously misrepresented by some, of ' We have several excellent commentaries on it, but they are mostly expository or dogmatic, and have made comparatively little use of the vast mass of materials we possess in the writings of those who framed it, to illustrate its spirit and expound the^more delicate shades of its teaching. Quotations from Owen and later men are not without their use, nor those from Hooker and Pearson ; but more use must be made of the writings of the members of the Assembly, and of the writings of that great divine from whose Articles and Catechisms they drew so largely. - I place the two once more in opposite columns, that it may be seen how closely the later has followed the earlier, and how faithfully, in regard to this important head, the terms of pacifica- tion agreed to by the Irish Convocation in 1615 were adhered to : WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. IRISH ARTICLES. Chapter III.-Of God's Article III -Of God's Eternal Decree and Eternal Decree. Predestination. I. God from all eternity did, II. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy coun- by his unchangeable counsel. 382 The Westminster Confession of Faith. whom better things might have been expected, and the fairness at least have been shown to deal with its teaching on this mysterious subject as it was explained in the writings of the great English sel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass : yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed condi- tions ; yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such con- ditions. III. By the decree of God, "j for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are pre- destinated unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to ever- lasting death. IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated and fore- ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed ; and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished. ^ V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass : yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures, and neither the liberty nor the con- tingency of the second causes is taken away, but established rather. 12. By the same eternal coun- sel, God hath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death : of both which there is a certain number known only to God, which can neither be in- \ creased nor diminished. 13. Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed in his secret Its soiu'ces and type of Doctrine. 383 scholars and divines from whom mainly it came, and as it has been guarded by the authors of the Con- fession themselves, and not as it has been exagger- ated by the representations of any later or narrower and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perse- verance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto ; and all to the praise of his glorious grace. VI. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto. Where- fore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ ; are effectually called to faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season ; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effec- tually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. counsel to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath cliosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. 14. The cause moving God to predestinate unto life, is not the foreseeing of faith, or persever- ance or good works, or of any- thing which is in the person predestinated, but only the good pleasure of God himself. 15. Such as are predestinated unto life, be called according unto God's purpose (his Spirit working in due season), and through grace they obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they be made like the image of his only. begotten Son Jesus Christ, they walk religious- ly in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity. 32. None can come unto Christ unless it be given unto him, and unless the Father draw him. And all men are not so drawn by the Father that they may come unto the Son. Neither is there such a sufficient mea- sure of grace vouchsafed unto every man whereby he is enabled to come unto everlasting life. 384 The Westminster Confession of Faith. school, or as it may be distorted by questionable inferences of their own. In regard to the doc- trine actually taught in the Confession I cannot compress into shorter space what I have already said, but must content myself with referring to the VII. The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his crea- tures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice. But such as are not predestin- ated to salvation shall finally be condemned for their sins, 14. For all things being or- dained for the manifestation of his glory, and his glory being to appear both in the works of his mercy and of his justice ; it seemed good to his heavenly wisdom to choose out a certain number towards whom he would extend his undeserved mercy, leaving the rest to be spectacles of his justice. 17. We must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth unto us in Holy Scripture ; and in our doings, that will of God is to be followed, which we have ex- pressly declared unto us in the Word of God. VIII. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending to the will of God revealed in his Word, and yield- ing obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effec- tual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel. The only section of this chapter of the Westminster Confession which has not a correspondent paragraph in the Irish Article is the second. This simply negatives the Jesuit theory of a predesti- nation based on scientia media, and that was the least that could be expected from an Assembly over which Twisse presided. Answers to Objections. 385 pretty full statement I have given in the Introduc- tion to the Mijiutes of the Westminster Assembly, pp. lii. to Ixiv. I subjoin, however, a brief reply to some of the objections brought against it. In reply to the reckless assertion, that those who hold this doctrine as it is set forth in the Westmin- ster Standards cannot preach to their perishing fellow-sinners the love of God and the freeness of Christ's salvation, I deem it sufficient to point to the fact that they have never ceased to preach these truths fully and faithfully. They believe them in their inmost hearts, and allow their belief to influence their conduct and mould their teach- ing, and none have ever set forth these precious truths with more winning tenderness or more marked success, than the men who embraced their system of doctrine, and had a firm grasp of their principles as Leighton, Rutherfurd, Sedgewick, Arrowsmith, Tuckney, Calamy, and Bunyan, in the seventeenth century, Willison, Boston, Whit- field, and the Erskines in the eighteenth, and Chalmers, M'Cheyne, the Bonars, Nicolson, and Crawford in the nineteenth century. By none in recent times has the general Fatherhood of God been more resolutely defended than by the last named of these divines, who was fully persuaded that, in that as well as in the other distinctive articles of his creed, he was following faithfully^ in * See the views of Harris and Ball in Minutes, pp. Ix., Ixiii. 213 386 The Westminster Confession of Faith. the footsteps of the Westminster divines. Even the so-called 'grim' Synod of Dort denounced it as a calumny against the Reformed Churches to assert that they held * that God of his own absolute or arbitrary will, and without any respect of sin, hath foreordained or created the greater part or any part of mankind to be damned, or that his decree is in any such sense the cause of sin or of final unbelief as it is the cause of faith and good works.' And as to the atonement of Christ they say, ' This death of the Son of God is the only and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sins, of infinite price and value, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world.' ' Further- more, it is the promise of the gospel, that whosoever believes in Christ crucified should not perish but have everlasting life ; which promise, together with the injunction of repentance and faith, ought pro- miscuously and without distinction to be declared and published to all people to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel. But forasmuch as many being called by the gospel do not repent nor believe in Christ, but perish in their infidelity, this comes not to pass through any defect or insufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ offered upon the cross, but by their own proper fault' And again they say, ' This default is not in the gospel, nor in Christ offered by the gospel, nor in God who calleth them by his gospel, and moreover bestoweth Answers to Objections. 387 diverse special gifts upon them, but in themselves who are called ; of whom some are so careless that they give no entrance at all to the word of life ; others entertain it, but suffer it not to sink into their hearts, and so . , . afterwards become revolters.' Even this much misrepresented Synod, no less than many Calvinists in our own day, appears to represent God our Father as having done as much for all to whom the gospel is sent, as the opposite system represents Him as having done for any. As Dr. Crawford has so well put it : * It is only with reference to the non-elect that the Fatherly love of God can be deemed to be obscured by Calvinists. And hence the question comes to be, Wherein does the atonement present a less gracious aspect to those who are not eventually saved, according to our view of its special destination, than according to the views entertained by those who differ from us ? The atonement /^rj-^, accord- ing to the Arminian view, does nothing more for all men than, according to the Calvinistic view, it does even for the non-elect. It does not per se secure their actual salvation, but merely renders salvation attainable by them on condition of their repenting and believing the gospel. Now certainly it cannot be said to do less than this according to the doctrine of the most decided Calvinists, who hold, in the words of Owen, that " Christ's oblation of himself was every way suffi- 388 The Westminster Confession of Faith. cient to redeem and save all the sinners in the world, and to satisfy the justice of God for all the sins of all mankind," and that if there were a thousand worlds the gospel of Christ might on this ground be preached to them all — there being enough in Christ for the salvation of them all, if so be they will derive virtue from him by faith.' In reply to the not less reckless charge some have preferred, that they who hold this doctrine teach ' that scarcely anybody can be saved,' and so drive many into the opposite error of universal- ism, I say that Calvinists have good cause to feel amazed that any one having claims to scholarship and candour should ever have preferred it. In none of the authorised formularies of the Calvin- istic Churches with which I am acquainted is any foundation given for such a caricature of the system or for putting a narrower meaning on the 'some' who are to be saved than on the ' others ' who are not. The nearest approach to it I remember occurs in the Confession of Lord Bacon, who was free from any taint of Presbyterianism or Puritan- ism, and he merely uses, to describe the elect, the scriptural epithet 'little flock.' It is not from among them only that occasional discourses have come on the fewness of the saved. They are quite as much entitled as the representatives of any other school to speak of those who shall ultimately Answers to Objections. 389 be gathered into one, under Christ their head, as a great multitude which no man could number, of ail nations and kindreds and people and tongues, and to hold, as some of the most pronounced of them in our own day have avowed they do, that the number of the saved will at last far exceed that of the lost. With respect to the charge that Calvinism has tended greatly to foster Rationalism and Socinianism, one might at once admit that these have been the errors to which Protestantism in every form has been most liable, just as credulity and superstition have been the besetting sins of the Roman and Anglo-catholic schools. And yet such an one need not hesitate to affirm that it is not the case that Calvinism has been in any special sense chargeable with or responsible for these erroneous tendencies. In the age of the Reforma- tion their chief advocates were found among the Spaniards and Italians who had joined the Re- formers, and Spain and Italywerejustthe twocoun- tries in which the theology of Augustine was least in reputeand living power. In the following century it was not among the Calvinists of France, Switzer- land, or Britain, but among the Remonstrants of Holland, that the tendency to rationalising and Socinianising modes of thought first markedly showed itself. It spread to many of the Lutheran Churches of Germany before it seriously injured the Calvinistic Churches. It affected the Church 390 The Westminster Confession of Faith. of England herself before it touched the Non- conformist Churches. In our own day no one not utterly blinded by prejudice will venture to deny that the tendency in question is to be found in Lutheran and Arminian Churches quite as much as in the Calvinistic, in the Church of England herself quite as markedly as in any communion of Scottish or American Presbyterians. Further, it is asserted that Calvinism has been unfavourable to literature. It may be admitted at once that many of the eminent literary men of the present age are unfavourable to the doctrinal system of Augustine and Calvin, but it must be admitted also that the greater part of them are not more friendly to many of the doctrines which used to be held firmly by Arminians, and in par- ticular to that view of the atonement which has been current among Lutherans and Arminians as well as Calvinists. But literature did not take its origin in the nineteenth century, and Calvinism has contributed its fair share to the cultivation of it. It is admitted that it has had quite its due propor- tion, and even more than its due proportion of the great preachers who have adorned the Christian Church from the age of Augustine to that of Whitfield, and some of the greatest preachers since Whitfield's time have held and taught its principles. It is admitted also that it has had a few poets and hymn-writers. The father of English poetry has Answers to Objections. 391 at least spoken of it more respectfully than some modern divines : — ' But I can ne bolt it to the bren, As can the holy doctor St. Austen, Or Boece or the bishop Bradvvardin.' But in his day perhaps it was still a half truth, though in ours it is said to have become wholly false. Then, should he be left out who wrote : ' Some I have chosen of peculiar grace. Elect above the rest ; so is my will :' and should not the names of Doddridge, Newton, Cowper, and Bonar be added to those of Toplady and Watts, if what it has done for hymnology is to be fairly weighed .-* It is admitted it has given us one religious allegory ; it might have been admitted that it had given us two at least, for the Holy War of Bunyan is only inferior in pathos and spiritual power to his Pilgrim's Progress. And before it is urged to its disparagement that it has not given us more books of this class, let any other school be named which has given as many of equal merit, and which have been as richly blessed. In practical divinity and treatises which appeal to the heart and conscience as well as to the intellect it is admitted that Calvinism is rich, and in our own language there are no treatises can be named which, in their power of rousing the careless, encouraging the doubting, and cheering the de- sponding, deserve to be set alongside of Baxter's 392 The Westminster Confession of Faith. Call to the Unconverted 3iY\d his Saints Everlasting- Rest, and Bunyan's Jerusalem Sinner Saved ; and notwithstanding- all his individualism, the former as well as the latter sides with Calvin in regard to the doctrine of predestination and many of the other articles of his creed. Then, as has been already hinted, Lord Bacon, Hooker, Ussher, Hall, Leighton, and Sibbes were Calvinists, and it is so far from being true that Calvinism has been un- favourable to literature in Britain that on the con- trary it may be affirmed that if the names of all who were Calvinists were struck out of the list ©f her worthies, the Church of England herself would find the number of the great names which adorn her annals seriously curtailed. What has been asserted by some of Calvinism in general has been affirmed by others of Scottish Calvinism in particular. The account I have already given of the works of its theologians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries will I hope suffice to show that during these ages it held its own among the Reformed Churches, and in pro- portion to its size contributed its fair share, and somewhat more, to the elucidation and defence of a moderate Calvinism, and bore the heaviest share of the contest for the autonomy of the Church, the Presbyterian constitution of its governing coun- cils, and the rights of its ordinary members in the choice of their pastors. Leighton, the only one of Answers to Objections. JVJ its prelates in the seventeenth century who gained a name and fame for himself as a theologian, passed his happiest days as a minister of its Pres- byterian Church ; and most of those discourses which charm us still, and which were treasured in many a humble Presbyterian household ere yet they had come to be so generally valued elsewhere, were preached from the pulpits or delivered from the chair of Divinity in our Covenanting Church. In the eighteenth century the literary fame of the leaders, lay as well as clerical, of the national Church of Scotland is universally acknowledged, and the contributions made to theological litera- ture in an untheological age by a single Scottish divine — Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen — by his Disser- tation on Miracles, his Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, and his opus magmiin on the Gospels, were such as many larger Churches in that century might have been proud of Then in the same century there arose or came to maturity a school of history and philosophy which added greatly to our country's fame. Its chief ornaments were ministers, preachers or elders of the national Church, and Sir William Hamilton, the greatest ornament of that school in our own times, expressed himself far more respectfully regarding its Calvin- istic theology than many have the assurance to do who have not a tithe of his learning, insight, and speculative power. He had been alienated not 394 '^^^ Westminster Confession of Faith. from Calvinism but from what he held was a misrepresentation of it. ' He regarded Calvinism,' his biographer tells us, ' as the more philosophical system,' and spoke * with the highest respect of its author,' but 'he protested against its alliance with [Edwards's system of] philosophical necessity — a protest in some measure shared by his strenuous antagonist Principal Cunningham.' At present Biblical and historical studies show quite as decided a tendency to revive in Scotland as in England. A Scottish publisher, by naturalising among us the best products of German thought, has done more to promote such studies than any of his brethren in Britain. Scottish scholars have held their own in the Jerusalem Chamber in the revision of our venerable translation of the Scriptures, and especially of the Old Testament. Dr. Pusey himself did not disdain, for the elucidation of the Chaldee of Daniel, to call in the aid of a Scottish scholar, whose untimely removal from the chair he was so peculiarly fitted to adorn we all deeply regret. The charges I have still to mention are of minor importance.^ The first of them is the assertion, so often and confidently propounded of late, that the Confession represents the creation of the world as having taken place in six ' natural or literal days,' which almost all orthodox divines now grant that 1 This, somewhat abridged, appears in paper named, p. 377. Answers to Objections. 395 it did not. But the whole ground for the assertion is furnished by the words ' natural or literal ' which the objectors themselves insert or assume. The authors of the Confession, as Dr. A. A. Hodge has well observed,^ simply repeat the statements of Scripture in almost identical terms, and any interpretation that is fairly applicable to such passages of Scripture as Gen. ii, 3 and Exodus XX. II, is equally applicable to the words of the Confession. It is quite true, as he has shown, that since the Confession was composed, many facts of science previously unknown have been brought to light respecting the changes through which our globe and probably the stellar universe had passed before the establishment of the present order of things, and that new arguments have thus been furnished against interpreting the days mentioned in the above passages of Scripture as literal days. But it is a mistake to suppose that this method of interpreting the days in these passages originated in modern times, and was altogether unknown to the men who framed our Confession. To prove it a mistake it is not necessary to have recourse to the ingenious conjecture, that some of the Cam- bridge men in the Assembly may have been acquainted with the manuscript work of Dean Colet, preserved in their archives, and only given to the public in our own time, in which the figura- ^ Commentary on the Confession of Faith, p. 82. 396 The Westminster Confession of Faith. tive interpretation of the days of creation is main- tained.^ There is no lack of evidence, in works published before the meeting of the Assembly, and familiar to several of its members, to show that the figurative interpretation had long before Dean Colet's time commended itself to several eminent scholars and divines with whose works members of the Assembly were acquainted. If there was one Jewish scholar with whose writings such men as Lightfoot, Selden, Gataker, Seaman, and Coleman were more familiar than another, it was Philo of Alexandria ; and Philo has not hesitated to characterise it as ' rustic simplicity, to imagine that the world was created in six days, or, indeed, in any clearly defined space of time.' Augustine,^ the great Latin doctor, with whose works several of the Westminster divines were far better acquainted than most of their successors, in his literal Commentary on Genesis, maintains that the days of the creation-week were far different from {longe dispares), and again, very unlike to {;>miltiu)i inipares) those that now are in the earth. Procopius, a Greek writer not unknown to some of the Westminster divines, teaches that the number of six days was assumed not as a mark of actual time, but as a manner of teaching the order 1 Colet's Letters to Radnlphus on the Mosaic Account of the Creation, with translation and notes by J. H. Lupton. 1876. ^ Migne's edition of Augustine, De Genesi ad literam, iv. 27. Answers to Objections. 397 of creation ; while in certain commentaries in that age, attributed to the Venerable Bede, and largely read in England, though now deemed spurious, a similar opinion is said to be found.^ The figura- tive interpretation therefore of the six days of creation is no make-shift of hard-pressed theo- logians in the nineteenth century. It was held by respectable scholars and divines, from early times, and was known to the framers of our Confession ; and had they meant deliberately to exclude it they would have written not six days, but six natural or literal days. The next topic to which I advert is the charge made against the Confession of teaching that not all infants dying in infancy, but only an elect portion of them, are saved. Here again scrimp justice has been dealt out to it. Its exact words are, ' Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit.' This statement, it has been averred, necessarily implies that there are non-elect infants dying in infancy who are not ' regenerated and saved.' It does not seem to me when fairly interpreted to imply any such thing. It might have been susceptible of such an interpretation had it been allowed to stand in the form which it appears to have borne in the 1 Most of these testimonies are referred to, and the opinion they express is admitted to be prohabilis, in the sense his sect used tliat term, by Sixtus Senensis in his Bibliolheca Sancta, p. 422. 39^ The Westminster Confession of Faith. draft first brought in to the Assembly — ' elect OF infants,'^ not elect infants. But the very fact that the form of expression was changed shows how anxious the divines intrusted with the methodising of the Confession were to guard against pronounc- ing dogmatically on questions on which neither Scripture nor the Reformed Churches had defi- nitely pronounced. The statement occurs, it is im- portant to notice, not in the chapter treating of pre- destination, but in the chapter treating of effectual calling ; and is meant, not to define the proportion of infants dying in infancy who shall be saved, but to assert the great truths, that even they are not exempt from the consequences of the fall, but are by nature every one of them in the massa perditionis ; that they can only be separated from it, and saved, by the electing love of the Father, the atoning work of the Son, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost ; and that they, however as yet incapable of the exercise of reason and faith, may by the Holy Spirit be regenerated and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. As Dr. Hodge has briefly and clearly expressed it :^ ' The phrase " elect infants " is precise and fit for its purpose. It is certainly revealed that none either adult or infant is saved except on the ground of sovereign election — that is, all salvation for the ^ Minutes of Westminster Assembly, p. 162, Sess. 534. * Hodge on the Confession of Faith, pp. 174, 175. Answers to Object ions. 399 human race is pure grace. It is not positively revealed that all infants are elect, but we are left for niany reasons to indulge a highly probable hope that such is the fact. The Confession affirms what is certainly revealed, and leaves that which revelation has not decided to remain without the suggestion of a positive opinion upon one side or the other.' In historical vindication of this inter- pretation of their meaning, I deem it only necessary to refer to the judgment of Davenant and the other English divines at the Synod of Dort, who were the precursors and teachers of the leading English divines of the Assembly. The Arminians had maintained that, as all infants dying in infancy were undoubtedly saved, there could not be said to be any election, so far as they were concerned. The English, though personally not much in advance of their brethren on the Conti- nent, gave special prominence in their reply to the statement that, even granting the premises of the Arminians, the conclusions drawn from them were by no means legitimate or necessary. Election and preterition, they said, had respect to the whole mass of fallen humanity, not to certain separate divisions of it according to age or circumstances, and that though a certain number of infants dying in infancy might not be separated from or elected out of a certain number also dying in infancy and not elected, yet if all were separated from the 400 The Westminster Confession of Faith. common mass of mankind sinners, and bound up in the bundle of life with Christ, that was quite sufficient to constitute an election of them, and to warrant such an expression as elect infants dying in infancy. Ad rationetn electionis divines sive ponendavi sive tollendam circinnstantia cetatis est quiddain impet'tinetis. . . . Fac, igitiir, omnes infantes servari ne nno qnidem prceterito, tamen quia electio et preteritio respicit massam. 7ion cetatem, licet non e numero infa^ititim, tamen e commnni inassa Jioniinmn peccatorum segregati sutit quod ad electionis rationem constituendam sufficit} Few of these divines, or of their successors at Westminster, had probably, in personal opinion, advanced as far as good Bishop Hooper, who, as I told you in a previous Lecture, said, ' It is ill-done to condemn the infants of Christians that die without baptism, of whose salvation by the Scriptures we be assured. ... I would likewise judge well of the infants of the infidels who have none other sin in them but original. . . It is not against the faith of a Chris- tian man to say that Christ's death and passion extendeth as far for the salvation of innocents, as Adam's sin made all his posterity liable to con- demnation.' But the best of them had cometo adopt the first part of his opinion (which was more than many high churchmen had then done), and from reverence for him and others whom they loved, to ^ Acta Synodi Dordrechtaim, p. 499, 410 editio. Answers to Objections. 401 refrain from pronouncing positively against the second. The last topic to which I shall advert as having been quite as much misunderstood as either of the preceding, is the concluding statement in the same chapter : ' Much less can men, not professing the Christian religion, be saved in any other way, be they ever so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the law of the religion they do profess ; and to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious and to be detested.' This is a slight softening down of a statement made in more extreme form in the English Articles,^ and in some of the other Reformed Confessions, and perhaps the Baptists somewhat improved it in 1677 when, under the guidance of Bunyan, they changed the words 'not professing the Christian religion ' into * not receiving the Christian religion,' to make it more clear that they meant the statement to be limited to those who had had the Christian religion tendered to them, but had refused to receive it, and continued obs- tinately to live by the light of nature and the law of the religion they professed. That, I think, was what the Westminster divines also had chiefly in view (I will not, in remembrance of certain questions ^ 'They also are to be had accursed that presume to say,' etc. — Article XVIII. 'We utterly abhor the blasphemy oi them that affirm,' etc. — Scottish Confession of 1560. 'Abominamur impiissi- mam vesaniam.' — Conf. Helv. Post. 2 C 402 The Westminster Confession of Faith. in the larger Catechism, say exclusively in view), to bear their testimony, in common with other Reformed Churches, against the Spiritualists or the Pantheists of the school of Servetus, as well as against the Deists and Free-thinkers among them- selves, who, living in the full blaze of the light of revelation, preferred nature's twilight, and despised the riches of God's goodness and forbearance and long-suffering. They who hold that the words of the Confession were meant to have a wider application should at least do its framers the justice to remember that all they do absolutely define is, that the persons spoken of cannot be saved by the light of nature, or the law of the religion they profess ; and that when they go on in a subsequent chapter to define the Church of visible professors and outward ordinances, all that they venture to affirm is, that out of it there is no * ordinary possibility of salvation,' not that the salvation-bringing grace of God is never mani- fested outside the portals of 'the house of his continual residence,' or otherwise than through its ordinances. Even a Scottish divine, more than half a century before, in a catechism which cir- culated in England as well as in Scotland, had in answer to the question, Hozu is a man framed and made able to serve God? inserted the following statement : ' By the effectual working of God's Spirit in him, extraordinarily and withont ordinary meajis, howbeit but seldom in a Reformed Church, Answers to Objections. 403 and ordinarily by ordinary means at all times in a Reformed Church.'^ That is, I suppose, where a church had been planted, and brought into harmony with the requirements of the word of God, the influences of the Spirit were ordinarily (though not even then exclusively) communicated through the channel of its ordinances ; but where a church had not been set up or had fallen from pristine purity, the Spirit of the Lord was not restrained from working extraordinarily and with- out ordinary means. Ball, whose treatise on the Covenant of Grace was published in 1645, and recommended by several members of the Assembly, affirms (p. 47) : ' We know God is not tied to the means, nor do we absolutely exclude every par- ticular man from the grace of the covenant who is excluded from the covenant outwardly ad- ministered, but we cannot think they shall uni- versally be partakers of the grace of the covenant.' Yet once more, let me repeat, that all I contend for is that the Westminster divines have not pro- nounced against the more liberal views on such subjects which modern Calvinists have commonly adopted ; not that they themselves generally held them, but that they knew of them, and knew them to be tolerated or favoured by several whom they loved and honoured for the good service they had done in their day and generation, and that they were content to give forth no binding determina- ^ Gallcncays Catechism.- 404 The Westminster Confession of Faith. tion in regard to them. Their main object, as I said in the outset, was to set forth in their Con- fession the great principles of the faith common to the Reformed or Calvinistic Churches, without exalting into principles points on which these Churches had not thought fit to decide. And I believe that in adherence to their creed and method lies our only hope of a United Anglo-Saxon Presbyterianism — Calvinistic yet comprehensive, strong yet forbearing in the use of its strength, earnest and untiring in self-sacrificing Christian work, orderly yet free in its worship. It is hardly possible for a minister of the national Church to conclude a lecture on this subject without reference to the very remarkable paper on it which appeared in Macviillan's Maga- zine for August 1 88 1, and was the last literary labour of one whom even those who most differed from him had learned to love and esteem. Dean Stanley, more than any Englishman of our day, had striven to understand our ways and to reci- procate the warm regard in which we held him, and in this the last paper which proceeded from his pen we have^ with all its defects, a generous and valuable testimony to the merits of that Confes- sion to which the Presbyterian Churches, under scorn and obloquy and misrepresentation, have so resolutely clung. While others who have never managed to rid themselves of early idola specus Answers to Objections. 405 about it, can hardly speak with patience of the re- presentation it gives of the character and purposes of God, this ' eirenic ' divine does not hesitate to vindicate its teaching on the latter as in substantial accord with that of his own (and he might have added still more of the Irish) Church, and not unreasonable in itself; while of its teaching on the former subject he affirms that the glowing words it adds to the definition of God ^ in the English (he might have said too in the Irish) Article 'have no parallel ' in those or ' any of the earlier creeds.' He speaks in terms of like admiration of the chapter relating to Christ the Mediator and his mediatorial work, and of ' the much larger and no- bler description of the sacred volume ' in Chapter I. 'than is to be found in the Tridentine or the Anglican Confession.' And from a different point of view from that I have thought fit to take, he finds something to say for the language it uses in speaking of elect infants and of those who do not profess the Christian religion. The three ques- tionable statements to which he is disposed to take objection are, as himself admits, of inferior moment, and will not generally in Scotland be regarded as very questionable by those who are * ' Most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin ; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and withal most just and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.' 4o6 The Westminster Confession of Faith. not inclined to question much more. The first refers to the assertion of the autonomy of the Church, which he admits is made in moderate terms, and in regard to which Scotchmen generally still think that England has more to learn than they have. The second relates to the passage which by implication condemns marriage with a deceased wife's sister. And if there is nothing in the English Articles on that subject, the principle on which the condemnation is based is as firmly rooted in English as in Scottish law, and far more closely bound up with certain prominent events in the history of its Reformation. The third state- ment to which he takes objection is that which affirms the Pope to be the ' man of sin.' This however is taken from the Irish Articles of 1615, and if it is not in the English Articles there is no doubt it is in the Homilies^ to which the Articles refer, so that not even in regard to these is there material difference between the position of the clergy in the two Churches save in the matter of the autonomy of the Church, and in regard to that many of the clergy of the Church he adorned, as they think of the freedom we enjoy in the meeting of our courts and the exercise of our discipline, would be much more ready to say, ' Happy is the people that is in such a case ' than ' God, I thank thee that I am not as this Presbyterian.' ' On Peril of Idolatry, pt. 3; against Wilful Rebellion, pt. 6. LECTURE XII. THE assembly's CATECHISMS, LARGER AND SHORTER. My last Lecture was devoted to an account of the Confession of Faith which was prepared by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and is still accepted by almost all orthodox Presbyterians of the Anglo-Saxon race as their confession or chief doctrinal symbol. I showed you how carefully it was framed on the lines already laid down by the best British divines, and especially by that prince of theologians, Ussher of Armagh, — to whom his fellow-churchmen of subsequent times have failed to render the homage he deserves for his great learning and his firm attachment to Augustin- ianism and our common Protestantism. It now only remains that before concluding these historical sketches I should give you some account of the Catechisms of the Assembly, and especially of the Shorter Catechism, which, with Baxter, I regard as, in several respects, the most remarkable of their symbolical books, the matured fruit of all their consultations and debates, the quintessence 4o8 The Assembly s Catechisms^ of that system of truth in which they desired to train English-speaking youth, and faithful training in which, I believe, has done more to keep alive on both sides of the Atlantic reverence for the old theology than all other human instrumentalities whatever. Attention is only now beginning to be given in somewhat like adequate measure to the structure and composition of these catechisms. The com- position of the Confession of Faith has been minutely examined, and something like general agreement as to the sources from which it has been taken has been arrived at. But no similar service has yet been rendered in regard to the catechisms, and I* do not see how I can more appropriately bring these Lectures to a close than by bringing a humble contribution to supply this desideraUim. It may fairly be said of the catechisms framed on the system of the doctrinal Puritans, and pub- lished in England between the years 1600 and 1645, that their name is legion. Perhaps no other so convincing proof can be cited of the great influence they were exercising throughout these years of trial and oppression, and also of the manner in which they came to acquire, retain, and increase it, as that which is furnished by the floods of different catechisms and diff"erent editions of the same catechism, — often five or six, in several Larger and Shorter. 409 cases ten or twelve, and in some cases from twenty to thirty editions being poured forth from the London press in rapid succession. Among the members of the Assembly there were at least twelve or fourteen who had prepared and published catechisms of their own years before the Assembly met, as Twisse, White, Gataker, Gouge, Wilkinson, Wilson, Walker, Palmer, Cawdrey, Sedgewick, Byfield, and probably Newcomen, Lyford, Hodges, and Foxcroft, to say nothing of Cartwright, Perkins, Ussher, Rogers, and Ball, who somewhat earlier had prepared the way for them, and whom several of them can be shown to have more or less followed in their plan or in details. The first step towards the preparation of a catechism may be said to have been taken in December 1643,^ when Messrs. Marshall, Palmer, Goodwin, Young, and Herle, with the Scottish Commissioners, were appointed a committee to draw up a directory for public worship. That was intended to include a directory for catechising, if not a catechism, and the preparation of that paper was intrusted to Mr. Herbert Palmer.^ Notwith- standing his great reputation as a catechist, his paper, as first presented, does not appear to have come up to the expectation of the Scottish Commissioners. Their chronicler tells us, ' Mr. ' Baillie^s Letters, vol. ii. p. liS. * Ibid. vol. ii. p. 140. 4IO The Assembly s Catechisms, Marshall's part anent preaching, and Mr. Palmer's about catechising, though the one be the best preacher, and the other the best catechist in England, yet we no ways like it ; so their papers are passed in {i.e. into) our hands to frame them according to our mind.'^ This was written on 2d April 1644, and on 21st November of the same year it is briefly recorded that ' the catechise is drawn up, and I think shall not take up much time,' and again, on 26th December, that 'we have near[ly] also agreed in private on a draught of catechism, whereupon, when it comes into public, we expect little debate.' The natural inference from these notices seems to be that this catechism was either some one which had been drafted by themselves in terms of the remit made to them — the catechism published in 1644 for the benefit of both kingdoms, or that of Rutherfurd, still extant in MS. — and which they were prematurely counting on getting the committee and the Assembly to accept without much discussion, or else some modification of Mr. Palmer's directory or catechism, such as we shall find reason to believe they were willing, after consultation with their friends in the north, to accept, at least in its method and principles. Before this date the printed Minutes^ of the Assembly show that * Bailliis Letters, vol. ii. p. 148. * Page 12, 2d December 1644. Larger and Shorter. 411 Messrs. Marshall, Tuckney, Newcomen, and Hill had been added to Mr. Palmer ' for hastening the catechism,' and that on 7th February 1644-5 Messrs. Reynolds and Delme were added, — of course in conjunction with the Scotch Commis- sioners, who claimed the right to be on all com- mittees appointed to carry out any part of the uniformity covenanted for between the Churches. Among the catechisms which I examined cur- sorily in 1866 in the British Museum and in Sion College Library was one bearing the title, A71 Endeavour of making Christian Religion easie, and published at Cambridge in 1640 without the author's name, but which, from Dr. Wallis' preface to his Explanation of the Shorter Catechism, I concluded was probably Palmer's. In it each of the principal answers is, by repetition of part of the question, made a complete and independent proposi- tion, and these principal answers are broken down in a peculiar way in a series of subordinate ques- tions, all capable of being answered by the mono- syllables Aye or No. It did not then strike me as so similar to the Westminster Catechisms in their ultimate form as it does now, and not know- ing then what we know (now that the Minutes have been transcribed from the almost illegible original) of the successive stages by which this ultimate form was reached, I had almost forgotten all about it, till five years ago, when, as I ruminated 412 The Assembly's Catechisms, over the notes of a very unintelligible debate in the Minutes, this fact came back to my remem- brance as one which might enable me to cast light on it. It was not my good fortune, however, to get back to the British Museum till November 1 879, and before that time my attention, as well as that of others, had been called by an Edinburgh book- seller to what is said by Dr. Belfrage on the history of the Shorter Catechism prefixed to the second edition of his Practical Exposition of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. This history was not contained in the earlier edition of the book. Dr. Belfrage appears to have seen Palm.er's Cate- chism, and to have compared it with the Assem- bly's, but his conclusion regarding it coincided rather with my first impressions. He states, how- ever, that M'Crie, on the ground of the passage quoted above from Baillie, was disposed to come to the conclusion that ' Mr. Palmer was concerned in the first draft of the Catechism.' My friend Dr. Briggs, who also saw Palmer's treatise when in London in 1879, early in the following year gave an interesting account of its relations to the Shorter Catechism in the paper to which I referred in a former lecture.^ I have preferred to wait till I had leisure to make a further study of all the contemporary Puritan catechisms, and might venture to speak of them with fuller knowledge. 1 In Presbyterian Review, for January 1 880. Larger and Shorter. 413 I have little doubt that the paper which Palmer gave in to the Committee and to the Assembly in 1645, and which occasioned the debate to which I have referred, was substantially the same with the preface to his catechism. It details the method which he had himself made use of in his catechis- ings, and which many modern keys (as they are called) to the Shorter Catechism have borrowed from him or from Dr. John Wallis, who, without loss of time, applied the system of his revered master to the new catechism which the Assembly ultimately agreed on. The Scotch Commissioners, when they first heard this paper, were not satisfied with it ; and their impartiality therefore is the more highly to be commended in regard to it. They had themselves in the meantime brought out * the New Catechism according to the form of the Kirk of Scotland, published for the benefit of both King- doms,' and perhaps in the hope that it might be adopted as the common catechism. Yet when they had had time to consider the subject more deliber- ately, and advise with their friends in Scotland regarding it, they proved in the debate to which I have referred, if not the only, certainly the most prominent advocates of Palmer's method and peculiar form of catechism. This debate occurred on the 13th of May 1645, probably just after the fifth edition of Palmer's little treatise had appeared. His efforts on that occasion were directed mainly 414 ^-^^ Assembly s Catechisms, to securing the Assembly's approval of his method of catechising rather than of the detailed contents of his catechism. Yet, as I read the brief minutes of the debate, his efforts were not crowned with success. The Scotch Commissioners Rutherfurd and Gillespie spoke warmly in favour of his method of catechising, and of the practice he adopted of making each principal answer a dis- tinct and complete proposition, and breaking down the principal answers by subordinate questions which could all be answered by Aye or No. His personal friend Delme gave the plan a sort of gen- eral support, but all the other speakers, and among them Messrs. Marshall and Reynolds, two of the most prominent members of his committee, while frankly acknowledging his great skill and success as a catechist and the good that might come from ministers in their catechisings availing themselves of his method, resolutely objected to have these subordinate questions and answers reduced to rigid form and inserted in the public catechism.^ ' Llinitfes of Weslminster Assembly, pp. 91-94 — Mr. Alarshall : ' I confess that the pains which that brother that brought in the Report [hath taken] is both accepted with God and hath been blessed by him. . . . But I crave leave to give a few dissenting thoughts to the method propounded.' These were in substance that people would come to get up the subordinate answers by- rote as well as the principal ones, that good might come of the catechiser himself breaking up the principal answers in the method proposed, but not from their being inserted into the catechism and learned by rote. He approved, however, of commending all this in the preface to the catechism. Mr. Reynolds : ' We all L a rger and Shorter. 415 One can hardly contemplate without a shudder how near we were to missing the most concise, nervous, and severely logical catechism in our language had Mr. Palmer and the Scotch Com- missioners at that time carried their point and got these subordinate questions and answers inserted in the catechism. I do not think that was further pressed on the Assembly after this date,^ but Mr. Palmer continued to be so persuaded of its excel- lence and importance that he determined with himself that he would print upon his own method the catechism which the Assembly should ulti- mately adopt, and, departing to his rest ere that had been completed, he left his purpose, as a sacred legacy, to be executed by his young friend Wallis. He accordingly in 1648 published that explanation of the Shorter Catechism on the model of Palmer's agree that way which is most for ingenerating knowledge is most to be used. But that this way before you is the best way I cannot discern. [If] you resolve it shall be but a directory, then how shall those Ayes or Noes be of use ? . . . You will obtain your end as well by setting it down in the preface to the catechism.' Seaman says there were two questions before them, the one relating to a catechism, the other to the method of catechising, and that the two should be kept distinct, and the minister not too strictly tied up as to the latter. Palmer was somewhat dissatisfied with the result of the debate, and said that if he had not a peculiar in- terest in the matter he would have spoken more upon it. * Baillie, however, says at a later date : ' We had passed a quar- ter of the catechise and thought to have made short work with the rest ; but they are fallen into such mistakes and endless janglings about both the method and the matter that all think it will be long- some work.' — LetUrs, vol. ii. p. 416. 4i6 The Assembly s Catechisms, treatise, on which several so-called keys to it have in our own day been based. It was on 1st August 1645 that a further report was presented by the committee to the Assembly. The interval may possibly have been employed in trying to put the materials of Palmer's Catechism into more acceptable shape, or to bring it nearer to the Scotch one (which, though more brief, is framed on the same plan), and to disencumber it of all the subordinate questions to the formal insertion of which objection had been taken. The only hints which the Minutes supply are that there was a debate as to whether the Creed should be expressed and probably made, as it was both in the Scotch and in Palmer's, and several contemporary catechisms, the basis of the exposi- tion of the Articles of Faith, or whether these articles should be taken up in the systematic order more usually adopted in strictly Puritan catechisms. There was also a debate concerning God, which was one of the first articles in all the catechisms of the period, whether they were framed on the basis of the Apostles' Creed or of the commonly received system of theology. But I conclude that even yet the committee was not altogether of one mind,^ and that it was on this account that, after debate on 20th August, it was reconstituted, and Mr. Palmer, Dr. Stanton, and * Minutes, p. 124, 125. Larger and Shorter. 4 1 7 Mr. Young were appointed to draw up the whole draft of the catechism with all convenient speed. Either, however, they did not proceed very speedily or they met with unexpected difficulties in their undertaking, and, on 22d July 1646, Mr. Ward was adjoined to them. It was not till nth September 1646 that their report was called for, nor till the afternoon of Monday 14th Sep- tember that it was presented ; and from that date on to the 4th January 1646-7 it was from time to time taken up, and passed as far as the fourth commandment.^ On ist December, however, before much of it had passed, a large addition was again made to the committee, vizi, Messrs. Whitaker, Nye, and Byfield, and * the brethren who had been intrusted with the methodising of the Confession of Faith,' viz., Messrs. Reynolds, Herle, Newcomen, Arrowsmith, and Tuckney ; and pro- bably it was in consequence of these changes on the committee that on the 14th of January, on a motion by Mr. Vines, it was ordered 'that the committee for the catechism do prepare a draught of two catechisms, one more large and another more brief, in the preparation of which they are to have an eye to the Confession of Faith and the viatter of the catechism already bcgun,'^ or, as the Scotch Commissioners report it in a letter to the 1 Minutes, pp. 28 1 -3 1 8. * Minutes, p. 321 ; also Baillie's Letters, vol. ii. p. 379. 2 D 4i8 The Assembly s Catechisms^ Commission of their own Assembly, which bears unmistakeable evidence of being from the hand of Rutherfurd : ' The Assembly of Divines, after they had made some progress in the catechism which was brought in to them from their committee, and having found it very difficult to satisfy themselves or the world with one form of catechism or to dress up milk and meat both in one dish, have, after second thoughts, recommitted the work that two forms of catechism may be prepared, one more exact and comprehensive ; another more easie and short for new beginners.'^ The cate- chism which had already been so far passed was unquestionably still on the basis of Palmer's, but a large portion of the detailed historical explana- tions of the second part of the creed, relating to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our Lord, was omitted, and in the exposition of the com- mandments another basis is already plainly discernible, while a more pronounced Calvinistic character is given to the doctrinal teaching. The variations from and additions to individual answers can in general be still traced to other contempor- ^ MS. Minutes of Commission. To the same effect, Gillespie says to the Assembly in Edinburgh in August 1647, that the divines have found great difficulty how to make it full, such as might be expected from an Assembly, and, upon the other part, how to condescend to the capacity of the common and unlearned. Therefore they are a-making two distinct catechisms — a short and plain one for these, and a larger one for those of understanding.' Appendix to Baillie's Letters, vol. iii. p. 452. Larger and Shorter. 419 ary catechisms, and the more important of them to those of Ussher, on whose catechetical manuals, as previously on his Articles of Religion, they seem to me to take pleasure in falling back, especially on all cardinal questions. Even this partially passed recension of a catechism follows his and more strictly Puritan treatises rather than Palmer's, in placing in the forefront the question and answer as to the rule of faith, and in inserting another as to the decrees of God ; and it is to the same source we have to trace the questions and answers as to the covenants of works and grace, the prophetical, priestly, and kingly offices of the Redeemer, and the effectual calling, justification, adoption, and sanctification and perseverance of those who have been made partakers of redemption, and even the detailed and specific statements as to the sinfulness of the estate into which man fell. All these, which make the Westminster Catechisms what they ultimately became, are to be sought outside of Palmer's Endeavour of making Chris- tian Religion easie, which the more they tried to adapt it to their purpose, the more they had to alter or supplement it ; and all these are to be found in the distinctively Calvinistic catechisms of Ezekiel Rogers, John Ball, William Gouge, M[atthew] N[ewcomen], and, to a considerable extent, in those of Henry Wilkinson and Adon- iram Byficld, as well as of Archbishop Ussher. 420 The Assembly s Catechisms, Of this I deem myself entitled to speak with some confidence, having had the opportunity of carefully comparing the answers in their manuals as well as in Palmer's with the definitions ultimately inserted by the Assembly in one or other of its catechisms. It was not till after the Scripture proofs for the Confession of Faith were completed that the result of the labours of the reconstituted com- mittee in preparing a Larger Catechism were called for. But, on 15th April 1647, the first portion of them was presented to the Assembly and further portions were from time to time presented and discussed till, on 15th October of the same year, the Larger Catechism was finished, substantially in the shape in which we still have it. The doctrinal part of this manual, as every one who has carefully studied it knows, and as the resolution reconstituting the committee prepares us to expect, is taken to a large extent from the Confession of Faith. The explanation of the ten commandments, and of the duties required and the sins forbidden under each, is largely derived from Ussher's Body of Divinity, Newcomen's and Ball's catechisms, and perhaps also from Cartwright's Body of Divinity and some of the larger practical treatises of Perkins. The exposi- tion of the Lord's Prayer has been got in part from the same sources, in part also from Attersoll's, Larger and SJiorter. 42 1 or some other catechism based on Perkins' treatise on the Lord's Prayer, and like it, supplying matter for confession of sin, as well as for prayer more strictly so called, under each of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer. I can enter into particulars as to this derivation or correspondence only in the most cursory way. The first question or interrogation, which does not seem to have appeared in the former draft of the committee, is taken from the old English translation of Calvin's Catechism, What is the principal and chief end of man's life ? The answer to this question may be said to combine the an- swers to Question 3rd in the Catechisms of Calvin and Ames, ' To have his glory showed forth in us,' and ' in the enjoying of God,' and it may have been taken from them ; or the first part may have been taken from Rogers, Ball, or Palmer, and the second from an Italian catechism of the sixteenth century.^ The second question is one found in several contemporary catechisms, and the answer to it is substantially taken from the Confession of Faith. The third question, which in the former draft had stood apparently at the head,^ is put here in a somewhat altered shape, and the clause which had there been principal, and again becomes so in the Shorter Catechism, is brought in as subsidiary and thrown to the end of the answer. The next * ' Coder' eternamente Dio.' * Minutes, p. 281. 42 2 The Assembly's Catechisms, question, relating to the proofs showing that the Scriptures are the word of God, is found in many Puritan catechisms, and the answer is abridged from the Confession of Faith. The question as to what the Scriptures principally or especially teach is found both in Paget's and in Ball's Catechism, and the answer in Ussher's Principles of Christian Religion. The next question, What do the Scriptures make known of God ? and the answer, are found in analogous forms in Rutherfurd's and some other contemporary manuals. The answer to the question, What is God ?^ had in the former draft been taken from Palmer's work, with the ex- ception that 'perfection,' in the singular, had been changed into ' perfections,' in the plural, as it had been in another catechism published anonymously in the previous year. Here the former description is exchanged for one abridged apparently from Ussher's Body of Divi7iity?- The next answer, respecting the properties or attributes of God, was at first distinct from the previous one. Dr. Briggs supposes it may have been got by crush- ing into one the answers to more than a score of questions in Palmer's treatise and Dr. Matthews' by a somewhat similar condensation of various answers in Ball's larger catechism. But it is simply an abridgment of a paragraph in Chapter II. of the * 'God is a most glorious being, infinite in all perfections.' * 'God is a spirit, infinite in being and perfection.' Larger and Shorter. 423 Confession of Faith ; and the ultimate answer of the Larger Catechism to the question, What is God ? was got by joining these two answers into one. The answer to the same question in the Shorter Catechism is composed of the scriptural definition, ' God is a Spirit,' with the incom- municable attributes arranged in the same order as they were by Rogers, but in adjectival form, and the communicable in substantive form almost exactly as they had been given by Egerton. But time will not admit of my prosecuting this minute comparison further. The doctrinal defi- nitions in the Larger Catechism are, as I have said, in a great measure abridged from the Con- fession of Faith, and so far as they are not so they may generally be found in a shorter form in Ball's and Newcomen's catechisms, in more diffuse form in Ussher's Body of Divmity. The same may be said even more unreservedly of the exposition of the ten commandments and of the Lord's Prayer as concerns Newcomen and Ussher. But one of the most singular and unexpected disclosures brought to light in the recently published Minutes of the Assembly is that, while the first draft of a catechism in 1645 treated first of credeiida, then of the ten commandments, and so left to the last the means of grace and the Lord's Prayer, and while the Larger Catechism as finally adjusted followed the same order, yet, as 424 The Assembly's Catechisms, first entered on the Minutes of the Assembly in 1647, it treats of the means of grace or the word, sacraments, and prayer, before it expounds the commandments, in this following the plan of Ball's and some other catechisms, and showing that, if not in details, yet in outline and method, the divines followed some previous manual on the same plan as his — possibly that small one of date 1 542, attributed to Calvin, — which, after being long lost, has been brought to light recently by M. Douen, and printed as an appendix to the second volume of his Huguenot Psalter. At least they follow its plan more exactly than that of Ball ; and the statement of Baillie, given on page 415, is sufficient to show that the question of method con- tinued long to divide them. Their detailed and elaborate answers in the several parts of this catechism are, even when founded on previous treatises, carefully matured expansions of the given answers in these. I shall try to find room in the Appendix (O) for one specimen of this, furnished by the rules they have provided for the exposition of the commandments, on the principles set forth in our Lord's Sermon on the Mount. These rules had been more and more elaborated in the larger Puritan catechisms from the days of Whitaker and Cartwright to those of Ball and Ussher, and were finally brought as near to perfection as they could well be by Dr. Gouge and Mr. Walker — the sub- Larger and Shorter. 425 committee appointed to prepare them — probably with the help of Dr. Tuckney, who by that time was acting as chairman of the Committee on the Catechism, and is supposed to have taken a very special charge of- the exposition of the ten com- mandments. The Larger Catechism was completed on 15th October 1647, read over in the Assembly on 20th by Dr. Burgess, and on the 22d was carried up to the two Houses^ by the Prolocutor and the whole Assembly, when thanks were returned to them ' for their great labour and pains in compiling this Long Catechism.' It appears to have been presented in manuscript to the Scottish Assembly in July 1647, ^o far as it was then com- pleted, and on the 17th September certain alterations desired by their Commission were made at Westminster. It was approved by the General Assembly on 20th July 1648.^ It was presented with the proofs on 14th April 1648. The Shorter Catechism was not composed till after the Larger one had been virtually completed, though it perhaps embodies somewhat more of the materials of the earlier manual, which had partially passed the Assembly in 1646. Drs. Belfrage, Hetherington, and the younger M'Crie, relying on Neal's account, have stated that the shorter one was first completed and presented to * Lords' Journals, ix. p. 488 ; Commons' Journals, v. p. 340. * Peterkin's Rtxords of Kirk, p. 496. 426 The Assembly s Catechisms, Parliament. But Neal has fallen into the error of overlooking the fact, that the Larger Catechism, without proofs, was presented to Parliament on 22nd October 1647, as well as with proofs on 14th April 1648, while the Shorter Catechism, without proofs, was only sent up on 25th November 1647, and again with proofs on 14th April 1648.^ The following are the brief notices respecting it found in the Minutes of the Assembly. On 5th August 1647, it was resolved (p. 408) * that the Shorter Catechism shall be gone in hand with presently, by a committee now to be chosen,' and ordered that 'the Prolocutor, Mr. Palmer, Dr. Temple, Mr. Lightfoot, Mr. Greene, Mr. Delmy, shall be this committee.' It was to meet the same afternoon, and Mr. Palmer to take care of it, or be its convener. On August 9th, ' a report of the Short Catechism was made by Mr. Palmer, and Mr. Calamy and Mr. Gower were added to the committee.' ^ This is the last occasion in which the Minutes notice the presence of Mr. Palmer in the Assembly, and shortly after this he fell into a serious illness and died. The exact date of his death has not been ascertained even by Dr. Grosart, who has so carefully investi- gated his history ; but by 28th September a suc- cessor had been presented to one of the charges held by him. On August loth ' Dr. Temple made * Minutes, pp. 485, 492, 511. - Ibid. pp. 408-410. Larger and Shorter. 427 report of the Lesser Catechism.' On September 8th, Mr. Wilson was added to the committee for the catechism, and the same day Mr. Wilson made report of the catechism. On September 1 6th, a further order was given to proceed with the little catechism. It was not, however, till 19th October 1647, when the Larger Catechism was ready to be presented to the two Houses of Parliament, that orders were given to Messrs. Tuckney,^ Marshall, and Ward finally to adjust the Shorter one ; but no doubt preparation was being made for it during the interval by the com- mittee previously appointed, probably along with Wallis, who ultimately attended the committee as its secretary, and who in all likelihood had been privately assisting his friend Palmer with it during the last weeks of his life.^ On 2 ist October the first report from this new committee was brought in by Tuckney, and discussed. Some debate arose as to whether the word ' substance,' or rather the expression ' one in substance,' in the answer to the question, How many persons are there in the Godhead ? should be left out. This, wc know, was not done, but ' one in substance ' was changed into ' the same in substance,' a closer rendering of the Nicene oiioovcno^^ and the phrase ' Minutes, p. 4S5. Cambridge gave him leave of absence. - He was evidently a protege of Palmer and a fellow in the college of which Palmer was master. 428 The Assembly s Catechisms, ' equal in substance, power and glory,' originally- used in the Larger Catechism, was changed to the same form as in the Shorter. No further particu- lars of the debates on this catechism are given in the Minutes, but nothing save formal business was transacted in the Assembly till it had been finished. On 8th November, it is recorded that the commandments. Lord's Prayer, and creed were added to the catechism, and on the following day that Mr. Rutherfurd took his leave of the As- sembly, receiving the thanks of the Assembly through the Prolocutor for the great assistance he had rendered to it in its labours and debates.^ On the same day, Mr. Burgess and Mr. Cawdrey were added to the committee, along with Wallis, for the review of the catechism. All was again reviewed by the committee, and discussed by the Assembly before the 25 th November. The brief statement originally prepared as a preface was appended as a postscript. Messrs. Nye and Rey- nor dissented from the insertion of the creed at the end of the catechism, but possibly the terms ^ Minutes, pp. 487, 488. On 15th October, when the comple- tion of the Larger Catechism was reported, Mr. Rutherfurd moved, and the Assembly ordered, ' that it be recorded in the scribes' books that the Assembly hath enjoyed the assistance of the honourable reverend and learned commissioners from the Church of Scotland, in the work of the Assembly during all the time of the debating and perfecting the four things mentioned in the Covenant, viz., the Directory for Worship, the Confession of Faith, Form of Church- Government, and Catechism.' — Ibid. p. 484. La7'ger aiid Shorter. 429 of the postscript just referred to, and the explana- tion added some days later as to the sense in which the Article *he descended into hell ' was to be understood, may have satisfied their scruples.^ Though in Scotland, as elsewhere, this catechism has been, and deservedly so, the most popular of all the productions of the Assembly, it was the one with the elaboration of which the Scotch Commis- sioners had least to do. Henderson had left and had died before the Confession was completed. Baillie left immediately after it was finished, and took down with him to Scotland the first copy of the Confession, without proofs. Gillespie, after re- peated petitions to be allowed to return home, received permission to leave in May 1647, when the proofs for the Confession had been completed but while the debates on the Larger Catechism were still going on, and the answer to the question What is God .-* — with which his name has been tra- ditionally associated — had not as yet been adjusted for that Catechism, much less for the Shorter one.- ' Minutes, pp. 490, 492. ' Even three months after he left London all that he was able to report to the Scottish Assembly respecting the catechisms was that the divines ' have had no time yet to do anything in the lat- ter, but here is the copy of the greater, ^.uhich is almost complete.' The only instance in which we can be very sure that he has left his mark on the Confession is that (in ch. xxi. Miscellany Questions) pointed out some years ago by Professor Candlish : 'The heavenliness of the mat- The Scripture is known to be ter, the efficacy of the doctrine, indeed the word of Clod by (lie 430 The Assembly's Catechisms^ Even Rutherfurd had been seized with a fit of home-sickness, and wrote that he did not think the elaboration of this catechism of sufficient im- portance to detain him from his college and his flock at St. Andrews. At any rate, though per- suaded to remain till it had passed, so to speak, the first reading, he does not seem to have left his distinctive mark on it. Not the faintest trace of that wealth of homely imagery, which enriches the MS. catechism attributed to him, is to be found in the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. From first to last, it appears to me in its clear, condensed, and at times almost frigidly logical definitions, to give unmistakeable evidence of its having passed the majesty of the style, the con- beams of divine authority which sent of all the parts, the scope of it hath in itself, . . . such as the the whole (which is to give all heavenliness of the matter, the glory to God), the full discovery majesty of the style, the irresis- it makes of the only way of man's tible power over the conscience, salvation, the many other in- the general scope to abase man, comprehensible excellencies and and to exalt God ; nothing the entire perfection thereof, are driven at but God's glory and arguments whereby it doth abun- man's salvation, . . . the super- dantly manifest itself to be the natural mysteries revealed there- word of God.' — Confession of in, which could never have Faith, ch. i. § v. entered into the reason of man, the marvellous consent of all parts and passages (though writ- ten by divers and several pen- men), even where there is some appearance of difference, . . . these and the like are characters and marks which evidence the Scriptures to be the word of God. Larger and SJiorter. 43 1 through the alembic of Dr. Wallis, the great mathe- matician, the friend of Palmer, the opponent of Hobbes and the Socinians, and probably the last survivor of those connected with the great As- sembly who was not ashamed to speak of the benefit he had derived from its discussions during the preparation of its Confession and Catechisms, long after he had conformed to the Church of the Restoration.^ The Shorter Catechism contains, as I have just told you, more of the materials of the catechism partially passed by the Assembly in 1646, but not in a shape which brings them nearer to the form of Palmer's original work. On the contrary, it is a thoroughly Calvinistic and Puritan catechism, the ripest fruit of the Assem- bly's thought and experience, maturing and finally fixing the definitions of theological terms to which Puritanism for half a century had been leading up and gradually coming closer and closer in its legion of catechisms. It differs in one or two things even from the Larger Catechism, composed just before it. Its second question as to the rule of faith, if in more concise form than the third question of the other, is more direct and emphatic. Its definition of 1 Wodrow and both the M'Cries seem to look on his claim with a certain amount of favour. Dr Belfrage refers to a ' tlieologian of great research ' who favours that of Arrowsmith, but he does not appear to have been a member of the committee or in attendance on the Assembly at that time. 432 The Assembly's Catechisms, God is more happy, and, as already mentioned, is from a different source. It does not insert its definitions of faith and repentance where the other has them, but holds them over till its third part, when it comes to treat of the way of salva- tion and the means of grace. And while, as I have said, it is a thoroughly Calvinistic catechism, it has nothing of church censures, church courts, or church officers, as many similar productions have. Nay, it does not even have a definition of the Church, whether visible or invisible, like the Larger Catechism and the Confession of Faith, but only an incidental reference to it in connec- tion with the answer to the question. To whom is baptism to be administered ? It would seem as if in this their simplest yet noblest symbol they wished, as far as Calvinists could do so, to eliminate from their statements all that was subordinate or unessential — all relating to the mere organisation of Christians as an external community — all in which they differed from sound Protestant Episco- palians on the one hand, and from the less un- sound of the sectaries on the other, and to make a supreme effort to provide a worthy catechism in which all the Protestant youth in the country might be trained. So highly was the effort appreciated at the time that the king, no doubt with the sanction of Ussher and his fellow-chap- lains, in some of his latest negotiations with the Larger and Shorter. 433 Parliament, offered to license it, while still hesitat- ing to accept the Directories for Public Worship and for Church-Government as they had been drawn up by the Assembly. It was no sooner passed by the Parliament and published than it became widely popular in England, and it main- tained its popularity in a wonderful degree even after the sad reverses which befel its authors in 1662. For more than a century after that, it was the most widely recognised manual of instruction, not only among Presbyterians but also among the other orthodox Dissenters. The Independents used it both in England and America. The Baptists used it with a very few alterations, and in the i8th century that great evangelist John Wesley, who was ever ready to adapt to his own purposes good books prepared by others holding opinions considerably different from his own, allowed it to circulate among his societies in a modified form. It was early translated into Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and has been retranslated in our own day into Hebrew and Syriac, and into mo'' t modern languages both in the east and the west. When about twenty-five years ago I visited the Lebanon schools, in the neighbourhood of Beyrout, I was greatly interested to find that the American missionaries not only taught this old catechism to the Druse and Maronite children, but also taught it in the old Scottish form which has now 2 E 434 T^^ Assembly s Catechisms, all but disappeared at home, making it the first reading-book, having the A B C at the beginning, and a syllabary corresponding to our a, b, ab ; e, b, eb, etc., but of course all in orthodox Arabic. The guiding principle of the Assembly and its committee in its composition was that announced by Dr. Seaman in one of the earliest debates about it, viz., ' That the greatest care should be taken to frame the answer not according to the model of the knowledge the child hath, but according to that the child ought to have.' And if too little care was taken in former times to teach it intelli- gently to the young, and gradually to open up its full meaning to them, yet, as Dr. M'Crie has well observed, ' the objection was pushed too far when it was maintained that without a full scientific understanding of its doctrines it is useless to acquire familiarity with their phraseology and contents. The pupil must learn the rudiments of Greek and Latin long before he can comprehend the use of them, or apply them as a key to unlock the trea- sures of ancient learning [in fact, in all Churches he is first taught his Christian creed in this way], and experience has shown that few who have been carefully instructed in our Shorter Catechism have failed to discover the advantage of becoming acquainted in early life, even as a task, with that admirable form of sound words.' For three quarters of a century past, I do not believe that Larger and Shorter. 435 intelligent teachers of the Catechism have been rare, either in the parochial or in the Sabbath schools of Scotland, and with the helps with which Gall and others, who have drawn on the older stores of Wallis and Palmer and Lye, have provided them, there is no excuse for any teacher making the study of it an irksome task, or failing in a good measure to bring it down to the capa- cities and home to the hearts of his pupils. I am but fulfilling a simple duty when I thus publicly express my deep gratitude to my teachers, both in the day-school and in the Sabbath-school for the uniform pains they took to make the study of it interesting and attractive. I can confidently affirm that I found their instructions of no small advantage when I proceeded to the more systematic study of theology, and I shall never lose hope of the living orthodoxy of the Presbyterian Churches while their rising ministry and church-members are intelli- gently and affectionately trained in the Shorter Catechism, and set themselves to train their flocks in it as good old Principal Hill used to recommend them to do. In a paper I put in type towards the close of 1880, and hope soon to publish, I have endeavoured pretty fully to trace out the sources of the several answers in this Catechism, or at least to indicate the many points of contact and resemblance between them and those of the earlier Puritan 43 6 The Assembly s Catechisms, catechisms. The exercise has been interesting to myself, and I trust its results will not be un- interesting to many of my brethren. It shows how gradually in the stream of successive catechisms those definitions of theological terms which were ultimately to be perfected and crystallised, so to speak, at Westminster, were developed and matured, and more and more widely accepted. I cannot within the compass of this lecture enter into details, but I may say generally before closing, that so far as plan and the order of the questions or interrogatories is concerned, I regard the little catechism of Ezekiel Rogers, who was a minister first in Yorkshire, and latterly in New England, as most closely resembling the Assembly's Shorter Catechism. The answers in his little treatise are much more simple and elementary, the exposition of the ten commandments is in the briefest possible form, and the verbal coincidences in individual answers are few. But all is there in miniature, and almost all in the same order as in the later and fuller catechism. The plan of M, N.'s (or, as I suppose, Matthew Newcomen's) Catechism is very similar also, the execution is much more detailed, especially in the exposition of the commandments, and particular answers frequently coincide in expression as well as in general meaning with those of the Shorter Catechism. The chief deviation is, that it, like Larger and S /wrier. 437 that of the Church of England and several of the more moderate Puritan catechisms, begins by re- minding the catechumen of his baptism, and of the privileges and responsibilities connected with it. Next perhaps in point of resemblance stand the catechisms of Gouge and Ball. The author of the former was, like Newcomen, an influential member of the Assembly, and his treatise has many verbal coincidences with that prepared by them, but it deviates so far from it in plan by placing the exposition of the commandments before the ex- planation of the doctrines of the Christian faith. A similar remark applies to Ball's treatise, entitled A Short Catechism. This has decidedly more verbal coincidences with the Assembly's Shorter Catechism in the answers to particular questions, but it deviates farther in plan, treating first of doctrine, then of the means of grace, preaching, prayer, exposition of the Lord's Prayer and of the sacraments, of the Church and Church censures, and finally expounding the commandments, and concluding with a few general questions. Palmer's Catechism, as already stated, is similar in general plan, with the exception that, like the Anglican Catechism, it treats of prayer and the Lord's Prayer before it treats of the sacraments, and that it moulds its exposition of doctrine closely on the Apostles' Creed. It was unquestionably on the basis of its first part the divines began to work 43 8 The Assembly s Catechisms, in 1645, but so many of its historical questions have been omitted in the course of their successive revisions, and so much that was needed to explain and define important doctrines of the Christian system has been added, that the similarity is not now so marked in that first part, much less in the others, as, from the fact mentioned, one might have expected. The only trace the Shorter Catechism perhaps now bears of having been moulded on one which had the Apostles' Creed for the basis of its first or doctrinal part is that, at the close of that part, it takes account only of the eternal state of believers. But, strange as the fact may seem, it deviates in this from Palmer's, and from almost every other catechism — Newcomen's, however, as in so many other things, coming nearest to it. The only way in which one, who knows how strongly its authors speak in other parts of the desert of sin and the endless misery in reserve for the impenitent, can account for no reference being made to these topics in this place is, that the divines were expounding the last article of the Apostles' Cfeed, and had in view only the case of those who could truly say, ' I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting,' and did not deem themselves bound even in- cidentally to advert to the future of those who had neither part nor lot in Christ and his great salvation. Larger and Shorter. 439 The title sanctioned by the English Parliament for this catechism was not that originally fixed on by the Assembly itself, and by which it is now universally known, but the following expansion of it : — ' The Grounds and Principles of Religion con- tained in a Shorter Catechism (according to the advice of the Assembly of Divines sitting at Westminster), to be used throughout the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales.' ^ It seems to have had the approval of the divines, and at least ten or twelve editions of it with this title were published in England before 1720. Between 21st October and 19th November the Catechism may be said to have passed the first and second reading in the Assembly, and, without proofs, it was presented to the House of Commons on the 25th, and to the House of Lords on the 26th November. It was presented with proofs on 14th April 1648, and by 25th September 1648 it had been passed by the Houses, with the above title. It was approved by the General Assembly of Scotland on 28th July 1648, and their Acts in regard to it and the Larger Catechism were rati- fied by the Estates of the Scottish Parliament on 7th February 1649. No express mention is made of it or the Larger Catechism in the Act re-estab- lishing Presbytery after the Revolution, but it has always retained its place of honour in the Presby- 1 For procedure of the Houses, see Mimites of Assembly^ p. 511. 44 o The Assembly's Catechisms, terian Churches in Scotland, as elsewhere, as the most widely known and most highly valued of our doctrinal symbols. Richard Baxter's opinion of this Catechism was very high, and his testimony to its merits very emphatic : ' I do heartily approve,' he says, ' of the Shorter Catechism of the Assembly, and of all therein contained, and I take it for the best cate- chism that ever I yet saw, and the answers con- tinued (that is, I suppose, read continuously) for a most excellent summary of the Christian faith and doctrine, and a fit test to try the orthodoxy of teachers themselves.' Nay, he adds that, ' for the innate worth of it, he prefers it to any of the writings of the Fathers, and that he takes the labours of the Assembly, and especially the Con- fession and Catechisms, as the best book next his bible in his study.' The sainted Leighton seems also to have had a high opinion of it, and admits that the thoughts we find in it on the awful sub- ject of the divine decrees ' are few, sober, clear, and certain.' Principal Hill speaks with high com- mendation of the Catechism and the system of teaching it followed by the ministers of his day : ' Considered as a system of divinity,' he says, ' this catechism is entitled to much admiration. It has nothing superfluous ; the words are chosen with uncommon skill, and the answer to almost every question is a text on which a person vers- Larger and SJiorter. 44 1 ant in such subjects can easily enlarge, . . . and in the hands of an experienced, attentive exam- iner, . . . the catechism may be made completely to answer the purpose of leading the people to the apprehension of Christian doctrine and of the extent of Christian duty.' The opinion of Dr. Schaff in our own day, if, as becomes a German, somewhat more guarded than Baxter's, is hardly less remarkable. He says : ' The Shorter Catechism is one of the three typical catechisms of Protestantism which are likely to last to the end of time. It is fully equal to Luther's and to the Heidelberg Cate- chism in ability and influence ; it far surpasses them in clearness and careful wording (or, as he elsewhere says, in brevity, terseness, and accuracy of definition), and is better adapted to the Scottish and Anglo-American mind ; but it lacks their genial warmth, freshness, and child-like simplicity.' Perhaps quite as noteworthy are the words he quotes from Carlyle, who, when testifying against modern materialism, thus expressed himself: — ' The older I grow — and I now stand upon the brink of eternity — the more comes back to me the first sentence in the catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes : What is the chief end of man 1 — To glorify God, and enjoy him for ever.' LECTURE XIII. CONCLUSION AND RESULTS OF THE ASSEMBLY. With the completion of the Catechisms, the work of the Westminster Assembly may be said to have come to an end. Even before they were finished, the attendance had fallen off considerably, and it dwindled still further after they were out of hand, till there was often difficulty in obtaining the attendance of the forty members required to change a committee into a formal meeting of the Assembly. Rutherfurd, the last of the original Scottish Com- missioners, had taken his departure in November 1647, and it is more than doubtful whether Blair, who came up the following autumn, was ever admitted to take his seat. The Assembly after 1647 seems to have occupied itself chiefly in getting ready for publication its answers to the reasons of the dissenting brethren, in vindication of their dissents from the decisions of the Assembly on the subject of the presbyterial government of the church, and the ordination of its ministers, as well as to certain papers they had given in to the Conclusion a7id Results. 443 committee on accommodation.^ The divines also resumed consideration of the Queries of the House of Commons regarding the Jus divinjim of church- government, and made further progress in putting into shape their answers to them, but they do not appear to have completed their labours or to have presented the results of them to the House. Their sessions continue to be numbered till 226. February 1648-9, which is marked as Session 1163. After that date they met chiefly as a committee for the examination of presentees to benefices and of candidates for licence till 25th March 1652. Whether their meetings ceased at that date, or^ whether, though no record of them is now extant, they were continued till the dismissal of the Long • Parliament by Cromwell in the following year, has • not been positively ascertained. Before their sessions ceased to be numbered, the Parliament had been ' purged ' of a large proportion of its members, and the ancient constitution of the kingdom virtually set aside. The king had been tried, condemned, and executed by authority of a Commission or Court improvised by the ' Rump' of the House of Commons. Whatever doubt may exist as to the action or inaction of the Assembly in the case of Laud, there can be no doubt as to the courage and prompitude with which its leaders ' These, as stated on p. 200, were published in 1648, and with a new title-page in 1652. 444 Conclusion and Results and the Presbyterian ministers of London pro- tested against the judicial murder of the king, nor as to the earnest anxiety they showed to the last to help forward any settlement of out-standing differences which would have saved the monarchy, and afforded reasonable security for civil liberty. But their fast friends and allies, the Scotch, had now returned to their own homes, and, when too late, the Presbyterians in the south learned the value of their faithful warnings, and found they were indeed at the mercy of that sectarian army who were bent on securing their own ends, though these should be gained by overturning the ancient constitution of the kingdom, and setting up in its room a commonwealth in name, an oligarchy or military despotism in fact. The committee of the Scottish Estates had instructed their Commis- sioners to protest against the trial of the king, and the Commissioners of the Scottish Assembly, concurring in the protest, expressed their utter detestation of ' so horrid a design against his Majesty's person,' and disclaimed all responsibility for 'the miseries, confusions, and calamities that might follow.' Their deputy, Blair, expressed himself as strongly on the enormity of this act as the most ardent Royalist could desire, and never ceased to speak of the unfortunate monarch in terms of warm affection and regard.^ His early 1 Blair's Autobiography^ pp. 214, 261 — 'a good king evil-used.' of the Assembly. 445 interviews with Cromwell, on the other hand, seem to have left on his mind impressions^ even less favourable than those which Baxter and Ussher formed from their intercourse with him. Im- mediately on learning that the ' horrid design ' had actually been carried out, the Committee of the Scottish Estates caused Charles II. to be proclaimed king, and 'sent to their Commissioners in London a copy of the proclamation, with a remonstrance to the House of Commons, which gave so great offence to the regicides, that they first imprisoned the Commissioners,' and soon after ignominiously dismissed them from the kingdom under the escort of a troop of horse. The Scotch invited the young king to come among them and take possession of his throne, and with much persuasion they at last prevailed on him to accept their invitation. But he was far from hearty in the matter, and an extreme party had sprung up among themselves who were too much in sympathy with the sectaries of the south, and too distrustful of their old Royalist countrymen. In their earnest desire to satisfy th5 scruples and disarm the hostility of these men, the more moderate party consented to measures which were harsh towards their sovereign and towards many who were eager to forget past differences and do their utmost to defend their native country against the formidable invader who now ventured * '^\^vi'% Autobiography, p. 210 — * an egregious dissembler. ' 446 Conclusion and Results to assail it. All that the caution and skill of ex- perienced generals could in the circumstances effect was done by the Leslies. But, through the interference and dictation of fanatical busybodies, it is said, their plans were thwarted, the triumph which seemed almost within grasp was snatched from them, and a disaster was inflicted on the nation which was great in its immediate, and still greater in its remoter consequences. Cromwell's army, after its victory at Dunbar, returned, and for months occupied the very heart of the kingdom. Nothing remained for the young monarch after his coronation at Scone in 165 1, but, as soon as he could gather together even a less disciplined army, to summon to his aid the Royalists of the south, and to try the fortune of war in England. Few of them obeyed his hurried call, and at Worcester, on 3d September 1651 (the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar), after an obstinately contested en- gagement, his army was finally defeated, the sup- porters of the ancient constitution were crushed, ' Cromwell obtained his crowning mercy,' and the sectaries for a time became masters throughout the three kingdoms. Many fancy pictures have been drawn of the glories of that period in Scotland as well as in England, of the tranquillity of the country, the purity of the administration, and the compar- ative freedom and contentedness of the people. These pictures still require to be greatly toned down of the Assembly. 447 to bring them into fair accordance with known facts, which only the greater severities of the later Stuart regime could have cast so much into shade. There can be no question of the military genius or personal prowess or piety of Cromwell, nor of the high-toned morality of most of his entourage, nor of the worthiness of the ends aimed at in much of his foreign and domestic policy. But the circum- stances which brought him to the front, and which first tempted or shut him up to the course he thenceforth resolutely pursued, the expedients to which he had recourse on various occasions when he could not attain his ends by strictly consti- tutional means, made it from the first all but impossible that he should be honoured to ' bring health and cure ' to the distempered nation, or should ever come to trust and be trusted by the great majority who had been seeking, through all these commotions, not a new form of government or a new ruling dynasty, but the purification and continuance of the old. Neither the noble qualities and aims of the man, nor the brilliancy of his military successes, nor the greatness of his influence for much immediate good at home and abroad, ought to be allowed to blind us to the falseness of the position in which he put himself toward the legitimate aspirations of the nation, nor to the un- worthy trickeries^ and cruelties to which at times, 1 Even Neal says of his policy towards the Cavaliers, the 44^ Conclusion and Results in maintaining his position, he condescended to have recourse, nor to the sad consequences to Puritanism at home and to Protestantism abroad that ultimately came of his usurpation, and the measures by which its success was insured. Much of the hero-worship latterly paid at his shrine has been the glorification of force ; and, if ever there was a case in which it might be truly said that force was no remedy, it was for that in which the nation and its Parliament found themselves in 1648. He did not attempt to loose, but only cut the knot, overpowering by the force of the army the legitimate authorities of the nation when the prospect of agreement between them was not yet abandoned, — perhaps had begun to be somewhat more hopeful. By the judicial murder of the king, he outraged the feelings of the vast majority of the people, and by his whole policy he provoked and intensified that reaction which came to a head so soon after his death. His government was personal government almost as undisguisedly as ever that of Charles had been, and it was more unblushingly based on the supremacy of the army as ' a providential power,' entitled to overrule or supersede every other. It was a despotism to the core even when it was most a paternal and religious Presbyterians, and the Republicans : ' Cromwell had the skill not only to keep them divided, but to increase their jealousies of each other, and by that means to disconcert all their measures against himself.'— Vol. iv. p. 90. See also Beattie's History^ p. 261. of the Assembly. 449 one. And in Scotland as well as in Ireland, the paternal was ever the vanishing quantity, and the despotism pure and simple the constant one. He could confide only in his own small coterie ; his power of influencing individual men, even within the Puritan circle, was but limited ; he had no such gift of eloquence or electrical force as enabled him to move or control the hostile or in- different masses, and mould them to his will. He was never content, with all the safeguards he devised, to be simply the first magistrate in a free state.^ Even the Parliaments elected under the re- gulations drafted by him, or his Council, did not prove obsequious to his will, and were only a little less respectfully dismissed than the Long Parlia- ment had been. Whatever he may have tolerated in religion, he did not tolerate freedom of church- government in England, still less in Scotland. Notwithstanding all his advances, that country continued in a state of sullen discontent, if not of veiled rebellion. Not only was the General As- sembly dissolved in 1653, and prevented from meeting in 1654, but the synods and inferior courts 1 'lie wislied no doulit that England should be free and happy, but he wished too to be its greatest man, if not its sovereign. He had nothing of the magnanimity of Washington. To the last he was a slave to the vulgar lust of power ; and to this he sacrificed both his integrity and his country, his conscience, and his peace. . . . Of all usurpers, Cromwell was perhaps the best — the best of a race which merits the indignation of mankind.' — Marsden's Later Puri' tans, pp. 400, 403. See also Hallam, vol. ii. chap. x. 2 F 450 Conclusion and Results at times were vexatiously interfered with and dis- persed, and the decisions of presbyteries in the settlement of ministers, even when based on the call of the people, were often overruled. I have recently had occasion to examine the records of the Synod of Perth and Stirling during the period, which show a state of repression in that central province more systematic than previous researches had prepared me to expect.^ It was the tempo- rary success of his repressive policy, I believe, which emboldened Clarendon in England, and Sharp in Scotland, to pursue their far more rigor- ous and cruel courses. After the death of Crom- well, the motley fabric he had reared fell of its own accord. His son Richard abdicated the office of Protector, as soon as he found he could not count on the support of those who had followed * In October 165 1, there was no meeting of Synod — ' the Eng- lish army having overspread the land, and garrisons being planted both in Perth and Stirling, and no safety for travelling, nor liberty for the brethren to convene.' The following year, the Synod met at Dunning, but were kept out of the Church by a popular tumult, apparently encouraged by those who favoured the English faction. In October 1653, the Synod met at Dunblane, and, 'considering the poverty of the number, and also the want of freedom, being interrupted by the soldiers of Captain Robertson's command,' then lying at Dunblane, they unanimously adjourned the Synod till the following spring, protesting on the interruption of the soldiers, ' that this interruption should be no prejudice to their liberty to meet again, according to the power given them by Jesus Christ to assemble as well as to preach, in regard the Word of God, the Solemn League and Covenant, the Acts of the General Assembly, and the laws of the land all allowed it.' They did not meet of the Assembly. 451 the fortunes of his father. The officers of the army would have liked to retain the supreme con- trol of affairs in their own hands, but, uncertain of the attitude of Monk, and the Scottish division of the army towards themselves or to the exiled prince, they consented to recall the ' Rump,' of the Long Parliament, which, in 1653, Cromwell had contemptuously dismissed, and it continued to direct the government of the kingdom for a time. After Monk came with his forces to London, and was welcomed by its citizens, the ' excluded mem- bers ' were encouraged again to take their seats, and so the last legally elected Parliament, whose rights, Bradshaw had told Cromwell, were not invalidated by his act of dismissal, was peace- fully reinstated at Westminster. Without delay it fell back on its old traditions, restored the Solemn League and Covenant to its place of again till October 1654, and, expecting to be again interrupted, before taking up any other business, they made arrangements for their next meeting, as well as for the change of the time and place for it, if these should prove unsuitable or unsafe. They met again in April 1655, and, hearing that a party of soldiers was coming to interrupt their meeting, they improved on the innovation of the preceding year, and resolved not only to fix time and place for their meeting, but to transact their business before the usual ser- mon and the arrival of the soldiers, who apparently had been timed not to arrive till after sermon. That was not interrupted by them, but, immediately after, an English officer commanded the Assembly to dissolve, and, being asked to show his warrant for what he did, he refused, and threatened, and actually did use, vio- lence, whereupon the moderator, after the usual solemn protest, dissolved the meeting. See also Beattie, pp. 232-236. 452 Conclusion and Results honour in the House and in the churches, re- approved without qualification of all the chapters of the Confession of Faith save Chaps, xxx. and xxxi., and recognised the Presbyterian government of the Church, but with a toleration for tender consciences. And these, rather than the older arrangements of 1648, are those by which the spirit of English Presbyterianism ought in fair- ness to be judged. Having provided for the assembling of a Parliament more truly represen- tative of the nation and more in the old form, this memorable House of Commons then agreed to its own dissolution. The new House was elected to a certain extent by a far wider consti- tuency than Cromwell had ever intrusted with such powers, and a large number of old Cavaliers found places among its members. They were not so powerful in it, however, as they were soon to become, and it would probably have listened with favour to the suggestion of Sir Matthew Hale, that conditions should be arranged with the king, before his restoration, for securing the liber- ties of the nation and the reformation of the Church. But those in the immediate confidence of Monk, as well as those about the king, dreaded such a movement, and determined to hurry on the Restoration while the favourable impression pro- duced by the royal Declaration from Breda was still at its height. Thus, in the exuberance of an of the Assembly. 453 unsuspecting loyalty, all was confided to the honour of the king, and on the 29th of May he „ was welcomed to the capital with unbounded en- thusiasm and joy. There is perhaps no reason to suppose that the king himself meant deliberately to amuse or mislead those who so implicitly confided in him. Indeed the Declaration he issued in October 1660, and the offers of promo- tion he made to leading Puritans seem to show the contrary, and that he would have been grati- fied to be the means of restoring a better under- standing between those who had united in doing him so signal a service. But he was not thor- - oughly in earnest in the cause. It was good- - nature, more than any deeper principle which actuated him, and he was not resolute in his course. While he had not gone quite far enough in his Declaration to satisfy Baxter, and some of his more scrupulous brethren, he had gone too far to please the old bishops, and they left no stone unturned to avert the threatened mischief ' They worked upon Clarendon, they rallied the courtiers as one man round the banner of the High Church, they spirited away Sir Matthew Hale from the Lower House by having him appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer. At length their efforts were crowned with success.'^ On the 28th of Novem- ber 1660, they saw this Declaration rejected in the ' Bayne's English Puritanism, p. 122. 454 Conclusion and Results House of Commons by a majority of 26. With- this may be said to have perished all prospect of such a reconstruction of the Church as would have satisfied the reasonable desires and cher- ished hopes of the more moderate Nonconformists, and with that almost all prospect of any large or liberal toleration to them outside. It was now unmistakeably clear that whatever may have been the personal wishes of the king, and one or two of the noblemen in immediate attendance on him, his chief advisers, lay as well as clerical, were not in favour of any real or generous compromise. The Savoy Conference could hardly in such cir- cumstances have been other than a failure, though every effort was made to load the Presbyterians with the odium of the failure. Their recent ser- vices to the royal cause, it was now evident, had not obliterated from the minds of their embittered opponents, the remembrance of the more ancient feud. Now that they thought they had them in their power, and a majority of the House of Commons at their back, they were determined to make their position as uncomfortable as they could. No real ground had been given for this. There was no inconsistency in contending, as these had done through all the preceding troubles, for a certain amount of liberty in the state, and of reformation in the Church, and yet standing by the ancient constitution and royal family. The of the Assembly. 455 attempt to misrepresent them, and excite preju- dice against them, and to revive the old doctrine of passive obedience, and the divine right of kings, was unworthy of those who prostituted their sacred office to assert it, and to prepare a fresh harvest of calamity for the nation. The issue of such a course could only be a great schism and a new struggle, which only truly Christian men could have continued to maintain so reso- lutely with no arms but those of prayer and patience. * At length the storm burst' The work of the Savoy Conference was transferred to the revived Convocation, and after the Book of Com- mon Prayer had been revised by them, and many minor alterations made (but few making it more - acceptable to the Puritans^), it was transmitted to the king, and the Bill to compel uniformity was re-introduced into Parliament. The history of its progress there, of the changes made in its pro- gress— tending to increase its harshness — and of the narrow majorities by which at last it was passed, has been often told, and recently it has been re-told with greater minuteness and accuracy by Canon Swainson. On the 14th January, it was read a first time in the House of Commons ; on the 8th of May, it finally passed the House of ' Even the 'ridiculous story' of Bel and the Dragon, struck out of the table of lessons after the Hampton Court Conference, was now restored. 45 6 Conclusion and Results Lords, and on the i8th it received the royal assent. ' The fate of the Puritans was thus sealed. The con- test of a hundred years was at an end/ and by St. Bartholomew's Day, 24th August 1662 (fixed by the Act), it is said that full two thousand of them had surrendered their benefices and left the Church. Their sorrows and sufferings were great and long- continued, but these at last came to an end. The consequences to the Church herself, immediate and more remote, as many of her truest friends have con- fessed, were more lasting, and even more deplorable. Mr. Marsden, their most generous critic in recent times, in one of the most eloquent passages in his second volume,^ calls in question the wisdom and expediency of the course they followed in refusing to accept the promotion offered them, and to take their place at once in the restored Church. ' They acted,' he says, ' with integrity, but they were not wise. . . . There seems to have been now, as there always was, a want of concert and of practical good sense amongst the Puritan leaders. . . . There are times when good men are imperiously called upon to accept preferment at the expense of reputation. Vulgar minds will find it impossible to respect or even to understand their motives. The race of ambition is a passion so universal, that the few who pursue it from disinterested motives are never appreciated. Yet Christian heroism calls, ^ Later Puritans, pp. 427, 428, and other writers quoted there. of the Assembly. 457 though rarely it must be allowed, for this species of self-immolation, and men, for their heavenly- Master's sake, must even be content sometimes to have greatness thrust upon them. To accept the preferments was at least to gain more influence with the Court ; to reject them was to abandon the little they possessed. They ought to have renounced the Covenant, they ought to have unsaid the former extravagancies of themselves or of their party : this indeed they did in private ; and they should not have shrunk from doing it publicly and before the people. Nor had they in truth much cause for shame. Which of their opponents had not something to retract ? Which of them, for instance, now ventured to maintain (whatever they might secretly wish) the canons of 1640 and the practices of Laud .-' . . . Had they accepted preferment it seems impossible that the calamities should have occurred which now imme- diately ensued. Could the Act of Uniformity have passed with Richard Baxter in the House of Lords ? Would the most violent High Church- man have ventured to recommend the king to put his hand to a bill which must instantly create a new secession and place at its head a band of Non- conforming Bishops ? . . . They did not perceive the importance of the crisis, and that this was their last opportunity. . . . Their motives were pure, but their decision was unfortunate.' 45 8 Conclusion and Results It may be granted to Mr. Marsden that there are times when such self-immolation as he describes may be Christian men's duty, but on the other hand it must be asserted that there are also times when the only effect of it would be to blot a good name, to mar the effect of a lifetime's labours, and grieve the hearts of the godly who must be parted from, without securing the confid- ence or gaining the kindly sympathies of those with whom they must associate themselves. There are times when all that is noblest and best in a man will rise in revolt against the thought of leaving those with whom he has been wont to take sweet counsel in matters of holiest concern, and going over to those who, he feels, do not understand him, cannot sympathise with him, will not heartily co-operate with him, but will do all they can to thwart him and make his new position irksome. And if ever there was a time when the spiritual instinct might be called in to aid in turn- ing one way or another the balance of the judg- ment, it was surely at such a crisis as had then occurred. Would the adhesion of even a large ' proportion of the Puritan ministers to the national Church have sufficed to abash vice in high places, or to arrest the excess of riot by which the Cavaliers of that generation were determined to signalise their emancipation from former restraints, or to secure even the most necessary reforms in of the Assembly. 459 the discipline and internal administration of the old Church ? Would it not have been a life-long martyrdom far more painful than that they were called to bear, to be cut off from those whose sympathy had cheered, whose counsel had guided, whose holy example had encouraged them in all good, to be associated and identified with men who hated their strictness, set no value on their peculiar excellencies, and did not feel their need of them, or really care to retain them ? Could they have hoped to find themselves in better case than did the sainted Leighton in Scotland, who was misjudged by those he left, mistrusted by those he joined, and at last constrained to abandon in disgust the work for the sake of which he had consented to make this sad self-immolation ? But acting as they did, resolving to forego preferment, rather than risk being compromised, these noble confessors at least preserved their own peace of conscience and the esteem and sympathy of those whose esteem and sympathy they truly valued, commanded the respect of their opponents, and bore a testimony to the reality of religious principle which told even on that backsliding generation, and has secured them honour and influence for all future time. Then a similar course to that Marsden recom- mends may be said to have been followed in Scot- land, both under the first and the second Protestant 460 Conclusion and Results episcopacies, as it had been in England on the accession of Elizabeth ; and under both it is ad- mitted to have been a signal failure. What the leaders of English Puritanism shrunk from doing at the Restoration several of the leaders of Scot- tish Puritanism ventured to do both in 1606 and in 1661, as Nicolson, Cooper, and Forbes at the former date, and Sharp, Leighton, Halyburton, and Honeyman at the latter. But they did not thereby succeed in repairing the breaches that had been made in the walls of Zion, nor in working out any great deliverance in the land. The results of their compliance were mortifying to themselves and disappointing to others, and ended in a policy so oppressive and unchristian that Archbishop Leigh- ton declared ' that he would not concur in plant- ing the Christian religion itself in such a manner, much less a form of church-government.' The fate of the Scottish Presbyterians was more tragic than that of the English. Thrown off their guard by the letter of the king, and the represen- tations of their envoy, they took no active measures to secure the dearly-won liberties of their Church till it was too late to do so. The English ad- visers of the king had made up their minds, in furtherance of what they deemed English interests, to defy Scottish opinion, and far outdo the repres- sive policy of Cromwell. That Church which was dear to the Scottish people, and had, notwithstand- of the Assembly, 461 ing many shortcomings, proved itself worthy of their love, which had never swerved in its loyalty to the sovereign, and had suffered much at the hands of the sectaries for its steadfastness in his cause, was not only cramped and repressed, but in a drunken fit deprived by the Parliament of the legal securities which his father had ratified, and the king himself had sworn to. The rights of the younger portion of the ministers to their benefices were put in jeopardy, and on their declining to make the compliances demanded of them, they were ordered by an Act of Council to leave by a certain day. A large number of them did so, and by that Act, and other repressive measures, it is said that nearly four hundred were outed or de- prived. How far Sharp, in whom they reposed so unlimited confidence, was the dupe of Monk and Sheldon, and how far he was the willing ally of the one in bringing back the king with- out conditions, and of the other in the insane attempt to wreathe the yoke of a new episcopacy round the neck of the Scottish nation, can hardly now be ascertained. But the result was as fatal to his country and himself as if it had been de- liberately planned, and English statesmen and their Scottish dupes or allies had determined to make Scotland a second Ireland. That which Henderson and their other leaders feared in 1641 had now come on them, when they were ex- 462 Conclusion and Results hausted by their previous struggles and less able effectually to oppose it. But they were to prove, by their heroic endurance of oppression and cruelty unparalleled, the constancy of their attachment to their beloved Presbytery, and to win back by these means what they had previously thought could be gained and retained by them only by force of arms. The withdrawal of so many able, zealous, and ^ experienced ministers (about 2000 in England and 400 in Scotland) was unquestionably a sad loss to the national Churches, and the long period of deadness that followed, the mad outbreak of vice, profanity, and religious indifference which for a time seemed to bear down all that was self- restrained and earnestly Christian, was perhaps its saddest consequence, sadder far than any that came to the sufferers themselves from the con- tempt and hatred and cruel oppression they had to endure. But the ejection of these confessors had other consequences which it would be wrong to overlook. It was overruled for good by Him who orders all things wisely and well, and was the means of working out results which, humanly speaking, could not otherwise have been gained. First, Their conduct bore striking testimony to the reality of religious principle. As I have just stated, it may be doubted whether the conformity of these men, and the continuance of the whole of of the Assembly. 463 them in the national Churches, would have arrested the sad course of events, and saved the nation then so resolutely bent on breaking loose from all restraint. But it might have shut their own mouths or weakened the force of the testimony which in more fortunate times they had borne for God and godliness, and would have had still to bear before men who were resolved to own them only as either knaves or fools. Their conformity in the circumstances, it seems to me, would have done more than anything else to justify the opinion that, after all their professions, they were but hypocrites or fair-weather Christians, who, whatever they might say for religion, were as reluctant as their neighbours to make any real sacrifice for it. But when their leaders, rather than prove unfaithful to the convictions Avhich in more fortunate times they had avowed, chose to forego the ease and independence which were within their reach, and to refuse the dignities which were offered them, and when so large a number of their followers joined them in surrendering their prefer- ments and exposing themselves to certain privation, and to almost as certain persecution, and when, notwithstanding all they had to suffer, they per- severed in their course, whatever men may say of them, they dare not for very shame say that they were not in sober earnest about religion and the scriptural organisation of the Church, and under 464 Conclusion and Results obloquy and apparent defeat achieving for their Master and themselves a glorious moral victory. A distinguished member of a later secession has illustrated the grandeur of the Puritan one by a comparison it would have been invidious in me to suggest, but I may venture to repeat his words : ' They went forth each man alone. They had no free press to plead their cause ; they had no free country in which to organise and carry on their church ; they had no Chalmers to be the Moses of their exodus ; they went forth as Abraham did, not knowing where they should obtain their next meal, or where they should sleep the next night — casting themselves and their little ones on the providence of God.' And I may venture to add that, if ever the words of the Apostle might be truly applied to any of his successors, they might be so to them : ' Being reviled, we bless ; being persecuted, we suffer it : being de- famed, we entreat.' The diaries of Philip Henry, recently published, furnish many noble and touch- ing illustrations of this. Second, It secured the ultimate triumph of the cause of civil liberty and religious toleration. Had all that they ventured to ask at the Restoration been frankly conceded to them, the loss to Britain and to Anglo-Saxon Christendom might have been far greater than the gain. Some of the worst excesses of the later Stuarts might have been escaped. of the Assembly. 465 The crown might have been a little more chary in exceeding its prerogatives and abusing its in- fluence, but its province would not have been so distinctly marked out, so carefully limited, or so faithfully kept as it has been under that happy Revolution Settlement, which was the real outcome of the influence of moderate Puritanism in its application to the State. The Church might have been somewhat more comprehensive, somewhat more tolerant of the friends of evangelical truth within her pale than for long she was, but she would not have been a whit more tolerant of those who were beyond her pale. In fact, from their smaller numbers and less influential position, the final triumph of the principle of toleration might have been long deferred. As I have said already, that was a noble principle which the Assembly had enshrined in its Confession, and while it shall continue to survive Puritanism will not need to hide its diminished head before any of the other Isms of the day : ' God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to His word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship. So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience, and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and 2 G 466 Conclusion and Results reason also.' If in the day of their prosperity they had affirmed this principle, a large number of them had failed consistently and lovingly to carry it out in practice. God suffered them to be cast into a furnace seven times heated, that they might learn in adversity the lesson they had not thoroughly mastered in prosperity, and from bitter experience be led to realise the full value and extent of the principle enshrined in their own Confession. TJiird, It has kept open for settlement in more fortunate times the questions which were then not ripe for settlement. Had these men conformed, having all conceded which they had ventured to ask, the constitution of the national Churches would have been but slightly modified, the cause of more free and simple worship, of a reasonably independent church action and government, and of a more pure and vigorous church discipline, would have been but little advanced. But by their ejection and continuance in separation, a testi- mony was kept up for the truths for which they and their fathers had witnessed, and by the experiences through which their descendants have since passed they have been enabled to give practical proof of the vitality of the principles for which their fathers contended, and to provide a contribution of no mean value for the happier times when English-speaking Christians on both sides of the Atlantic shall be inclined to forget of the Assembly. 467 the sad past and to labour together in rearing to their common Father and Redeemer a nobler temple than we have yet seen, and when perhaps even the bright vision of a united Protestantism, such as Cranmer and Calvin longed for, and Ussher, Leighton, Henderson, Howe, and Baxter laboured for, may be realised. These lectures on the Westminster Assembly, and the Westminster Standards, must now be brought to a close. I am sure that, after the length to which this one has already extended, you will excuse me from attempting to enter more fully into certain debatable questions which I have been able to touch on only in the most incidental manner. I should like to say something more on the question whether England was in any sense ripe for Presbytery in the middle of the 17th century, and whether our countrymen, by their over-keenness in pressing it, did not cast away a good chance of a more moderate, but more stable settlement, such as Ussher had proposed, under which the old Church of England might have proved to be one of the fairest daughters of the Reformation and remained in loving sympathy and hearty fellowship with the sister Churches. I must be content, however, to pass over such inviting topics, and to confine myself in a few closing sentences to one point only. It is said that the Westminster Assembly was, after all, a failure, and 468 Conclusion and Results that its standards, ere many years had passed, were cast aside in the land which gave them birth. In- deed it was so, and so' was much of the regard for God and things divine. Many, set free from the re- straint under which they had for a time been kept, surrendered themselves up to every excess of riot. The very king, for whose sake so much had been dared and suffered by loyal Presbyterians, heart- lessly forgot the promises he had given, and aban- doned them to the mercy of their old ant- agonists. The court he gathered round him was the most dissolute which England for centuries had seen, and many, of whom better things might have been expected, contended but feebly against iniquity in high places. Many of whom the age was not worthy surrendered their livings rather than submit to the new Act of Uniformity, and went forth from the Church they loved and wished to serve, to prove, under contempt and persecution, the reality of the Christian principles they had professed in the day of their prosperity and their deep attachment to the constitution of their native land. But though their doctrinal standards were haughtily ignored and themselves ejected from the reconstituted Church, their theo- logy lived on all the same. It lived on in the Episcopal Churches of England and Scotland in the teaching of Reynolds, Conant, Wallis, Hop- kins, and Leighton, and several other like-minded of the Assembly. 469 men, who strove to be faithful to God in the midst of abounding defection. It Hved on too, in the teaching of those who went forth as outcasts from society and the Churches of their native land, preached it by their meek and holy lives when no longer allowed to preach it by their lips, and out of their deep poverty and sore tribulation enriched after generations and stored the treasures of their experience and teaching in those precious practical treatises which will live while the English language continues to be spoken, and the faith of St. Paul, Augustine, Ussher, and Leighton to be valued, by the Anglo-Saxon race. Even in that time of lowest depression, emphatic testimony was borne to it by John Bunyan and his Baptist brethren, when, in 1677, they substantially adopted the Confession of the Westminster Assembly, as the Independents had previously done. In his thrill- ing sermons and inimitable allegories he secured for it as wide and loving acceptance among the humble and unlettered as the masterly discussions and defences of its more learned advocates secured for it among many of the educated and thought- ful. It is said to have been from the writings of Manton that Augustus Toplady, who was to stand so resolutely in its defence in the following cen- tury within the national Church, received his first earnest impressions. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms 470 Conclusion and Results continued to be adhered to in Scotland, within as well as without the reconstituted Church, even after the Acts of Parliament which had ratified them were repealed. And, though cast out in Old England, they were taken in in the New, and in other colonies beyond the Atlantic, first by the children of the Pilgrim Fathers, and then by the descendants of the Scottish and Scoto-Irish emigrants of a later day, under whose joint tutel- age mainly the United States have grown up into a great and noble nation — the heirs with us on this side of the old Augustinian faith and Presby- terian order, and I will add, so far as my acquaintance warrants me to speak, its main hope and stay in the future. In the same sad years not less emphatic testimony to the hold their system of theology still had on the minds of a very pious and earnest part of the nation was borne by the publication of numerous editions of the Shorter Catechism in England. These in- controvertibly show, either that, notwithstanding their hard lot. Nonconformists were at that time more numerous than has generally been supposed, or else that Evangelical ministers of the national Church did not yet scruple to avail themselves of a Catechism which they knew King Charles and his chaplains had in 1648 been willing to sanction ; and even under apparent defeat Puritanism con- tinued largely to influence the English nation. In the State during these sad years things went of the Assembly. 471 from bad to worse till the tyranny, licentiousness, and Popish proclivities of the later Stuart kings once more roused the nation against them, and provoked a revolution which, being more strictly kept within the lines of the constitution, has proved more practical and permanent. With the advent of William of Orange to the British throne Pro- testantism was once more saved, and civil and religious liberty at length was settled on a stable foundation. He not only granted by law a large ■ toleration outside to orthodox dissenters, but also strove to make the national Church so compre- hensive that if possible the mischief of St. Bartholomew's clay might be repaired, and moder- ate Puritans again find room within its pale. The success of this great scheme was prevented chiefly by the Jacobites and extreme High Churchmen, ^ but in part also, it must be admitted, by the indifference shown for it by not a few of the Puritan leaders. Notwithstanding the hard ex- periences through which they had passed, they were still a numerous and influential body, especially in London and other towns. It seemed as if, like ancient Israel, the more they were afflicted the more they multiplied and grew, and that it was not till the counsel of Balaam was adopted against them, or by them against them- .selves, and they fell off from the Evangelical faith of their fathers, that much real injury happened to them. ' So far as outward prosperity was con- 472 Conchtsion and Results cerned the position and prospects of Presbyterian- ism were never,' Dr. M'Crie assures us, ' brighter or more promising than at the era of the Revolution. In the great metropoHs its chapels were thickly planted, and they were filled with wealthy and influential congregations, which, so long as the older ministers survived, were favoured with a pure and vigorous dispensation of the Gospel, and in good measure kept alive the flame of holy zeal and heavenly devotion which had warmed the Church under the winter of persecu- tion.' Dr. Stoughton seems to think that at that era Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists together embraced nearly half of the population of England. Early in the i8th century a religious declension was ushered in, which in greater or less degree extended to all the Churches in Britain and on the Continent, ' a spiritual blight, which,' as Dr. M'Crie so well says, 'it is difficult to explain in any other way than by the withdrawal of God's Spirit from the Churches of the Reformation.' The Presbyterians of England, from their aversion to or neglect of subscription, even in the most general form, were among the first to sufier in this long and chilling winter time. Many of their congregations dwindled away ; not a few of their members, coming under the new Evangelical impulse given to England by Whitfield, sought for themselves a new home. Others merged with of the Assembly. 473 the Independents ; others lapsed into RationaHsm, if not into Arianism or Unitarianism, and the old Presbyterian Church of South Britain now lives mainly in the immortal writings of its early teachers, in the memory of the heroic sufferings they so meekly bore, and of their noble-hearted faithfulness to Christ and His truth in times of trial and rebuke. The torch of Evangelical Presby- terianism has been once more rekindled from Scotland, and promises now to give a brighter light than it has done for long. But the old lamp has been virtually extinguished, and the lamp- stand removed out of its place — reading to all, in these somewhat similar times, the much needed lesson that no past attainments, no past services, no past sacrifices will avail to preserve a Church from decay and dissolution if it hold not the beginning of its confidence steadfast unto the end, if it cleave not close to its divine Redeemer and be not unashamed of Him and His words when brought face to face with any faithless and scoffing generation, if it allows the light of Evangelical truth and the fire of Evangelical piety to die out or to die down. Let those of us who think we stand remember those who have fallen, and take good heed to ourselves lest there be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, and from him who is the light and life of men. And let us persevere in prayer, that He 474 Conclusion of the Assembly. with whom is the residue of the Spirit may be pleased to send down on us, in more abundant measure than ever hitherto, the influences of His Holy Spirit to revive His work in all the Churches of the Presbyterian family and to give us times of refreshing from His presence and from the glory of His power, such as our fathers longed for and were often privileged largely to enjoy. The standards of the Westminster Assembly have not failed to bind the Church and nation which have held by them to many sister and daughter Churches of which we have no cause to be ashamed, and which, with only the bond the Assembly provided to bind them to the historic past, — to the principles embodied in the creeds of the undivided Church, and to the teaching of Augustine and Calvin — have continued to live and thrive and do as noble service in the cause of our common Lord as any of those which claim a higher pedigree and retain a more rigid and elaborate ritual. And the end is not yet, nor while God continues to honour the Evangelical teaching of many of the distin- guished ministers in all our Presbyterian Churches to turn multitudes from lives of sin and selfishness to those of holiness and self-sacrifice, to comfort the wounded in spirit and quicken the careless, have we any cause to fear for the great principles of that Evangelical system long held in common by all the Reformed Churches. APPENDIX. APPENDIX. NOTE A, pp. 2, 7. The old English Puritan was such an one that honoured God above all, and under God gave every one his due. His first care was to serve God, and therein he did not what was good in his own, but in God's sight, making the Word of God the rule of his worship. He highly esteemed order in the house of God, but would not under colour of that submit to superstitious rites. . . . He reverenced authority keeping within its sphere, but durst not, under pretext of subjection to the higher powers, worship God after the traditions of men. He made conscience of all God's ordinances, though some he esteemed of more consequence. He was much in prayer, with which he began and closed the day. In it he was exercised in his closet, family, and public assembly. He esteemed that manner of prayer best where by the gift of God expressions were varied according to the present wants and occasions ; yet did he not account set forms unlawful ... he did not wholly reject the Liturgy, but the corruptions of it. He accounted preaching as necessary now as in the primitive church, God's pleasure being still by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe. . . . He esteemed that preaching best wherein was most of God and least of man, . . . and that method best which was most helpful to understanding, affections, and memoiy. The Lord's day he esteemed a divine ordinance, and rest on it necessary so far as conduced to holiness. He was careful to remember it, to get house and heart in order for it, and when it came he was studious to improve it. Lawful recreations he 478 Appendix. thought this day unseasonable, and unlawful ones much more abominable. Yet he knew the liberty which God gave him for needful refreshing, which he did neither refuse nor abuse. The sacrament of baptism he received in infancy, which he looked back to in age to answer his engagements and claim his privilege. The Lord's supper he accounted part of his soul's food ... he esteemed it an ordinance of nearest communion with Christ, and so requiring most exact preparation. He endeavoured to have the scandalous cast out of communion, but he cast not out himself because the scandalous were suffered by the negligence of others. He thought that God had left a rule in his Word for discipline, and that aristocratical by elders, not monarchical by bishops, nor demo- cratical by the people. Right discipline he judged pertaining not to the being but to the well-being of a church ; therefore he esteemed those churches most pure where the government is by elders, yet unchurched not those where it was otherwise. Perfec- tion in churches he thought rather a thing to be desired than hoped for. And so he expected not a church state without all defects. The corruptions that were in churches he thought it his duty to bewail with endeavours of amendment, yet would he not separate where he might partake in the worship and not in the corruption. . . . He put not holiness in churches ; he would have them kept decent, not magnificent. His chiefest music was singing of Psalms, wherein though he neglected not the melody of the voice, he looked chiefly after that of the heart. He accounted religion an engage- ment to duty, that the best Christians should be best husbands, best wives, best parents, best children, best masters, best servants, best magistrates, best subjects. . . . The family he endeavoured to make a church, both in regard of persons and exercises, admit- ting none into it but such as feared God, and labouring that those that were born into it might be born again unto God. He blessed his family, morning and evening, by the word and prayer. . . . His whole life he accounted a warfare, wherein Christ was his Captain, his arms prayers and tears, the cross his banner, and his word, * vincit qui patitur. ' — The Character of the Old English Ptiritan or Nonconformist by John Geree, M.A. London, 1646. Appendix. 479 The odds or difference between the Knave's Puritan AND THE Knave Puritan, The Knave's Puritan. The Knave Puritan. He that resists the world, the flesh, and He whose best good is only good to fiend, seenn, And makes a conscience how his days And, seeming, holy gets some false to spend, esteem ; Who hates excessive drinking, drabs. Who makes religion hide hypocrisy and dice. And zeal to cover o'er his villany ; And (in his heart) hath God in highest Whose purity (much like the devil's price, ape) That lives conformable to law and state. Can shift himself into an angel's shape ; Nor from the truth will fly or separate, And play the rascal most devoutly That will not swear or cozen, cogge or lie, trim, But strives in God's fear how to live Not caring who sinks, so himself may and die ; swim ; He that seeks this to do the best he can. He 's the Knave Puritan, and only he He is the knave's abused Puritan. Makes the Knave's Puritan abused be. It is now come to that pass that if any one give up his name to Christ, or but look toward religion, he is presently branded with the infamous name of Puritan ; but the truth is, it is no disgrace to be so styled, but rather, as now, it is an honour. Once (as a learned bishop could say) only such passed for Puritans as opposed the church-government, and cried out for discipline, but now to be truly religious is to become a Puritan ; . . . yea, to be a mere moral honest man is to incur that censure. Yea, if a man be but orthodo.\al, evangelical, papists will not doubt to load him with names more than a few. — P. 391 of Works of JR. Harris, B.D., one of the members of the Assembly. See also E 85, No. 20. NOTE B, p. 53. Travers, if ordained to the office of deacon in England, was certainly ordained to that of presbyter in the Puritan Church of Antwerp. He was admitted as Lecturer at the Temple, and for some years was associated with Hooker there, and was very highly esteemed by the benchers, who till that time had continued to receive the communion sitting. When deprived of his lectureship he was invited to Dublin by the Archbishop, and made Provost of Trinity College, where he had the honour of training Archbishop 480 Appendix. Ussher, who held him in the highest regard. With respect to purity of language and style, Mr. Marsden says that ' Cartwright and Travers are at least equal to Hooker, whose power lies rather in majesty of thought than in felicity of expression. In the pulpit, Travers preaching before the same audience — one of the most accomplished in England — carried away the palm of eloquence from his great opponent by the consent of all parties. Cart- wright's eloquence had won the admiration of Cambridge.' Yet according to Hallam, 'so stately and graceful is the march of Hooker's periods, so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and nol)le his diction, so little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrases, that I know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity. . . . He inquired into the nature and foundation of law itself as the rule of operation to all created being, . . . and having thoroughly established the funda- mental distinction between laws natural and positive, eternal and temporary, immutable and variable, he came with all this strength of moral philosophy to discriminate by the same criterion the various rules and precepts contained in the Scripture. ... It was maintained by this great writer, not only that ritual observances are variable according to the discretion of ecclesiastical rulers, but that no certain form of polity is set down in Scripture as generally indispensable for a Christian church. Far, however, from con- ceding_to his antagonists the fact which they assumed, he contended for episcopacy as an apostolical institution, and always preferable when circumstances would allow its preservation, to the more democratical model of the Calvinistic congregations ' {History of England, vol. ii. pp. 215, 217). Hooker, says Mr. Rawson Gardiner, 'had maintained that the disputed points being matters which were not ordained by any immutable divine ordinance, were subject to change from time to time, according to the circumstances of the church. For the time being, these questions had been settled by the law of the Church of England, to which the Queen as the head and representative of the nation had given her assent. With this settlement he was perfectly content, and he advised his opponents to submit to the law which had been thus laid down. Upon looking closely, however, into Hooker's great work, it becomes evident that his conclusions are based upon two Appe7idix. 48 1 distinct arguments, wliich, altliough tliey were blended together in his own mind at some sacrifice of logical precision, were not likely in future to find favour at the same time with any one class of reasoners. When he argues from Scripture and from the practice of the early church, the as yet undeveloped features of Bancroft and Laud are plainly to be discerned. When he pro- claims the supremacy of law, and weighs the pretensions of the Puritans in the scales of reason he shows a mind the thoughts of which are cast in the same mould with those of that school of thinkers of whom Bacon is the acknowledged head. Hookers greatness indeed, like the greatness of all by whom England was ennobled in the Elizabethan age, consisted rather in the entireness of his nature than in the thoroughness with which his particular investigations were carried out.' — IJistory of England from 1603 to 1616, vol i. pp. 157, 158. NOTE C, p. 70. Their petition is reprinted in E, 170, No. 4. Its contents are given pretty fully by Fuller and Neal, and somewhat abridged are the following: — i. In the church service — That the cross in baptism, interrogatories ministered to infants, and confirmation be taken away ; that baptism be not ministered by women, and cap and surplice be not urged ; that examination go before admission to the communion ; that priests, absolution, and such terms be corrected ; that the ring be not enforced, the service be abridged, church music moderated, and canonical Scriptures only read. 2. Concerning church ministers — Not to be admitted unless able for duties, and to preach diligently, and such as are already entered, and cannot preach to remove or pay a preacher ; that non-residency be not permitted, that King Edward's statute for the lawfulness of ministers' marriage be revived, that ministers be not urged to subscribe but, according to law, to the Articles of Religion and the king's supremacy. 3. For church livings and maintenance — That comtnendams and pluralities be discontinued, and that im- propriations be to some extent recovered. 4. For church discipline — That the discipline and excommunication may be administered according to Christ's own institution, or at least enormities re- dressed, as the issuing of excommunications by lay officials, and the too free use of them and of the ex officio oath. The official account of the confeience to which this petition led was published 2 H 482 Appendix. by Dr. Barlow, Dean of Chester, who, according to Fuller, ' set a sharp edge on his own, and a blunt one on his adversaries' weapons.' Drs. Reynolds and Sparkes complained that they were wronged by that relation, and Neal says that the author afterwards repented of it. Dr. Harris thinks the Puritans need not have complained so much, since, if he has not done justice to their arguments, he has abundantly made up for it by showing that their opponents were gross flatterers. None of their flatteries, however, was more gross than that of the author of this ' Sum and Substance of the Conference,' who, while omitting all the coarse jests and low buffooneries of the king, does not hesitate to say that in his abridgment of the proceedings the only wrong he has done ' is to his excellent Majesty, a syllable of whose admirable speeches it was pity to lose — his words, as they were uttered by him, being as Solomon speaketh, like apples of gold with pictures of silver.^ Sir John Harrington has preserved some of these precious pictures, which may still be seen in NugcB Antiqucc, vol. ii. p. 228, or in Spedding's Bacoji, vol. iii. p. 127. The king's own account of it is that they had ' kept such a revel with the Puritans ... as was never heard the like,' and that he had 'peppered them soundly.' Some still defend his jest about weak consciences, forgetting that though others than ministers were not called to subscribe, others than ministers were expected to observe the 'nocent ceremonies.' Some also suppose that they increased their demands, asking not only exemption from certain ceremonies, as in their petition, but the abolition of them ; but this arises from not distinguishing between their demands, and the reasons they urged, when pressed to it, in support of these demands. Besides the concessions mentioned on page 69 as made to them, there was one in regard to confirmation which has not attracted the notice it deserves, and which, when completed in 1662, nearly brought it to what Calvin had desired. It was only to be ad- ministered to those who had come to years of discretion, and who were prepared to take on themselves the vows made for them when baptized. Previously it might be administered to children as soon as they could say their catechism, and no promise or vow had been required of those receiving it. The addition made to the title of the absolution, to have brought out the king's idea, would have required to be 'or declaration of remission of sins,' not simply ' or remission of sins. ' The contest did not end with the discomfiture of the Puritans at Appendix. 4^3 the Conference. It was only removed from Hampton Court to Westminster. One of the first steps taken by the House of Commons was to name a Committee to prepare bills for the redress of ecclesiastical grievances. The king deeply resented this, and through his influence the bills were rejected in the House of Lords. But the Commons followed up their bills by an 'out- spoken address to the king,' in which they aver that their 'desires were of peace only and their device of unity,' Their aim, as Mr. Green says (vol. iii. p. 6i), had been to put an end to the long-stand- ing dissension among the ministers, and to preserve uniformity by the abandonment of a few ceremonies of small importance, by the redress of some ecclesiastical abuses, and by the establishment of an efficient training for a preaching clergy. If they had waived their right to deal with these matters during the old age of Elizabeth, they asserted it now : ' Let your Majesty be pleased to receive public information from your Commons in Parliament, as well of the abuses in the church as in the civil state and govern- ment. Your Majesty would be misinformed if any man should deliver that the Kings of England have any absolute power in themselves, either to alter religion or to make any laws concerning the same, otherwise than, as in temporal causes, by consent of Parliament.' Thus nobly did the English House of Commons range themselves on the side of the contemned ministers in the struggle which the ministers in Scotland had been left to maintain alone. NOTE D, p. 87. ' Anticipating their high destiny and the sulilime doctrines of liberty that would grow out of the principles on which their religious tenets were established, Robinson gave them a farewell breathing a freedom of opinion and an independence of authority such as then were hardly known in the world. . . . "When the ship was ready to carry us away," writes Edward Winslow, "the brethren that stayed at Leyden, having again solemnly sought the Lord with us and for us, feasted us that were to go, at our pastor's house, being large ; where we refreshed ourselves, after tears, with singing of psalms, making joyful melody in our hearts, as well as with the voice, there being many of the congregation very expert in music ; and indeed it was the sweetest melody that ever mine ears heard. After this they accompanied us to Delfc-haven, where we went to embark, . . . and after prayer performed by our pastor, 4^4 Appendix. when a flood of tears was poured, they accompanied us to the ship, but were not able to speak one to another for the abundance of sorrow to part." A prosperous wind soon wafts the vessel to Southampton, and in a fortnight the Mayflower and the Speedwell, freighted with the first colony of New England, leave Southampton for America. — Bancroft, vol.i. p. 307. Once and again they had to return through the faint-heartedness of the captain of the Speed- well, and, dismissing her, with numbers winnowed, ' the little band, not of resolute men only, but wives and children, a floating village, went on board the single ship, which was hired to convey them across the Atlantic' Many attempts have been made to repro- duce such memorable incidents in verse, none perhaps more interesting than the following, coming from the veiy time : — In midst of all these woful stirs grave godly men sat musing, How they their talents might improve to honour God in using. Nine hundred leagues of roaring seas dishearten feeble parts, Till cruel handling hasten on, and God doth strengthen hearts. ' Come,' quoth the husband, ' my dear wife, canst thou the seas endure. With all our young and tender babes ? Let 's put our faith in ure.' With watery eyes the wife replies, 'What remedy remains?' ' Forsaking all for Christ his sake will prove the greatest gains.' Thus pass the people to their ships. Some grieve they should go free. But make them swear, and search them bare, and take what coin they see. And, being once on ocean large, whose depths the earth wide sever, Return no more, though winds them taught to end their course endeavour ; In unknown depths and pathless seas their nights and days they spend ; Midst stormy winds and mountain waves, long time no land they kenn'd : At ship's mast doth Christ's pastor preach while waves, like prelate browed. Would fling them from their pulpit place as not by them allowed ; The swelling surges raging come to stop their mouths with foam For publishing of very truth that by God's word is known. But Christ, as once, now says, ' Peace, ye waves, be still ;' For all their height they fall down flat, they must obey His will. Long-looked-for land at last they eye, unknown, yet own they will, To plant therein new colonies, wide wilderness to fill. NOTE E, p. 92. ' Of all Charles's errors the most fatal to him was his misunder- standing of his own countrymen. They were loyal to the Crown, as they showed at Preston, and Dunbar, and Worcester. They were proud of seeing a prince of their own race on the English throne. As long as their religion was let alone, their lives and all that they had were at the disposal of their sovereign. But Charles chose to touch their allegiance to a still higher Sovereign, Appendix. 485 and they became immovable as their own mountains. There is something humorous in the spectacle of an Archbishop Laud trying to teach such a people as this a better religion. He was the man who was to show Scotland how to say its prayers ! No more memories of Knox and Melville ; no more outpourings of the spirit and rash extempore addresses to the Almighty of ignorance and vanity ; no more lay elders ; no more General Assemblies. Scotland was to be once more decently ruled by bishops duly consecrated, the parish churches served by surpliced clerks, on whose heads the bishops' hands had rested. And there must be a liturgy and altars, and reverential music to generate correct "catholic" emotions, and canons of discipline and ecclesias- tical courts to enforce them. , . In England, where the Church was composite. Laud had perhaps the letter of the law, or at least some show of law for himself. In Scotland he had no law at all, but when he heard how his liturgy had been received, he said merely that "he meant to be obeyed," and when he was told that he must back his orders there with 40,000 men, both he and the king thought it was both right and convenient that the 40,000 men should be raised and sent. To this intention the Scots replied with the ever-famous National Covenant, by which they declared " their sincere and unfeigned resolution, as they should answer to Jesus Christ in the great day, and under pain of God's everlasting wrath," to defend their national faith. The signing of the Covenant. in Edinburgh on March 3j 1638, was perhaps the most remarkable scene in Scotland's remarkable history. ' — Edin- burgh jRcuiriV, October 1882. NOTE F, p. 102. The following specimen of their barbarities has been recently brought under my notice :— ' Thomas Murray, minister of the Episcopal Church of Killelagh, was brutally massacred in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. It appears, by a petition presented by his widow to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at St. Andrews, in 1642, that he was actually crucified on a tree ; her two sons killed, and cut to pieces before her eyes ; her own body frightfully cut and maimed in sundry parts ; her tongue half cut out, and that she was kept in prison and inhumanly used by the rebels, from whom, at last, by God's merciful providence, she escaped, all which was testified 48 6 Appendix. under the hands of the best nobles and councillors of the kingdom ; and humbly praying them to extend their charity to her, which was granted. — The Hamilton Manuscripts, edited by Dr. Lowry, 1867, p. 35, note. See also, E 112, No. 24. Description OF THE Assembly.^ — Pp. 170, 171, 172. The question is often asked, Is there any trustworthy engraving of the Assembly in session ? and I am afraid it must be answered in the negative. Portraits of a number of the divines, arrayed as they were wont to appear in the pulpit, are still preserved, and there is a modern engraving professing to represent the Assembly in that stormy session when Nye made his famous speech against Presbytery. But it does not rest on any sure historical basis, nor give an accurate idea of the conclave as it really sat. It represents the divines as arrayed in gowns and as generally bareheaded, and in both these respects I think it is incorrect. Fuller tells us that Bishop Westfield and the episcopal divines, who appeared in their gowns and canonical habits, seemed the only nonconformists. Neal says that the most of the divines ' came not in their canonical habits, but chiefly in black coats [or cloaks] and bands, in imitation of the foreign Protestants.' The best aid therefore to a correct idea of the Assembly in session is probably furnished by the engrav- ing of the French Synod prefixed to Vol. i. of Quick's Synodicon Gallia Reformaice, and by that prefixed to the account of the Dissenting Synod of Salter's Hall in 1719. In both, the divines are represented as wearing not the academic gown or the modern so-called Geneva one, but the old Geneva cloak, and as retaining not only their skull-caps, but their high-crowned hats when seated in the Assembly. I think it was so also at Westminster, in regard to the hat as well as the cloak, both because that was the practice of the House of Commons, to which in most things they conformed, and also because Neal expressly includes among their earliest rules the following : ' That all the members of the Assembly have liberty to be co7>ered except the scribes. ' To these some time after the same indulgence was granted, and on 17th June 1645 the following additional rule was adopted : ' That in case any member have occasion to be out of his place, that then he be uncovered"'' 1 It was on 2ist September that the Assembly was authorised to remove to and at its last session in the following week that it 'adjourned to Hierusalem chamber Monday morning [2d October] 10 o'clock.' 2 Minutes of the Assembly , p. 105. Appendix. 487 — that is undoubtedly, take off his hat, not. his skull-cap. In the satirical pamphlets of the period, there arc various references to the dress of the Puritan ministers, especially (with a portrait) in that entitled The Assembly Man: 'His hands are not in his gloves, but his gloves in his hands. . . . His gown (I mean his cloak) reaches but his pockets. . . . His doublet and hose are of dark blue, a grain deeper than pure Coventry; but of late he's in black.' Their hair was generally cut close, according to a fashion now in vogue again, and the beard and moustache were often retained and carefully trimmed. The description applies chiefly to the younger men. The older members, I suppose, continued to have longer cloaks, and more flowing locks, and to wear the Elizabethan ruff rather than the broad band or falling collar. In E 95, No. 3, the following description is given of the Reformed minister : ' His habit shall be a high-crowned hat, a black leather [skull] cap, a sad medley cloak, and jerkin of the same, violet hose, and russet stockings.' NOTE G, p. 191. Besides the extracts from the Minutes given in the text, the following are the authorities which seem to me to warrant this view of the Assembly's attitude towards this question : — 1. yiis Divinum Kegimittis Ecclesiastici, by sundry ministers of Christ within the City of London. ' The third argument for the divine right of the mere riding elder shall be drawn from i Tim. v. 17 : " Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they that labour in the word and doctrine." From which words we may thus argue for the divine right of the riilittg elder : Major — Whatsoever officers in the church are, ac- cording to the word of Christ, styled elders, invested with rule in the church, approved of God in their rule, and yet distinct from all them that labour in the word and doctrine, they are the ruling elders in the church (which we inquire after), and 'Cti'sX jure divino. Minor — But the officers mentioned in I Tim. v. 17 are, according to the word of Christ, styled elders, [are] invested with rule iji the church, approved of God in their rule and yet distinct from all them that labour in the word and doctrine.' The detailed proofs and answers toexceptions extend to more than twenty pages. 2. A Vindication of the Presbyterial Government and Ministry, published by the ministers and elders met together in a Provincial 488 Appendix. Assembly, November 2, 1649, ' The third text for the divine right of the 7-uling elder is 1 Tim. v. 17 : "Let the elders that rule well," etc. . . . Now according to the grammatical construction, here are plainly held forth two sorts of eiders; the one only ruling, and the other also labouring in word and doctrine. Give us leave to give you the true analysis of the words, i. Here is a genus, a general, and that is elders. 2. Two distinct species or kinds of elders, those that rule well, and those that labour in word and doctrine. ... 3. Here we have two participles, expressing these two kinds of elders — riditig and labouring; the first do only rule, the second do also labour in word and doctrine. 4. Here are two distinct articles distinctly annexed to these two participles oi wpoea- rures, oi KowiCovres, they that rule, they that labour. 5. Here is an eminent discretive particle set between these two kinds of elders, these two participles, these two articles evidently distinguishing the one from the other, viz., /xaXiaTa, especially.'' The heads of the argument as well as the illustrations of the several heads, closely resemble some of the speeches made in the Assembly in 1643-4. 3. A Model of Church Government, by John Dury, one of the Assembly of Divines. ' i. That ruling elders are officers in the church of God may be clearly gathered from Rom. xii. 8, i Tim. V. 17, and I Cor. xii. 28. 2. That they are officers distinct from other officers is also plain from the same places ; chiefly from that of I Tim. V. 17, . . . for in [it] he doth mention two sorts of elders ' (p. 19). S&QzX&o A Model of Church Government under the Gospel, by a minister of London, approved by divers of his learned brethren : ' All elderships, consisting of preaching presbyters and other elders who do rule well, . . . Tare, jure divino, i Tim. v. 17.' 4. A Treatise of Ruling Elders, by a minister of the Church of Scotland [James Guthrie, of Stirling], Edinburgh, 1652, reprinted 1699. 'The officers in the House of God, who in the Scriptures are called by the name of elders, are of several sorts. Preaching elders or ministers, teaching elders or doctors, and ruling or governing elders ; all these three are oftentimes in the New Tes- tament comprised under the general name of elder' (pp. 21, 22). Then, after reference to the mistake of those 'who, either out of ignorance or disdain, do call them lay elders, as if they were a part of the people only, and not to be reckoned among the officers of the Lord's House, whom the Popish church in their pride, and others following them, call the clergy ' (p. 23), the author pro- ceeds to treat of the institution of ruling elders, in which chapter. Appendix. 489 after adducing other texts, he says : ' The third place of Scripture is I Tim. V. 17, . . . which text doth hold forth and distinguish two sorts of elders in the church, to whom the Lord Jesus hath com- mitted the power of ruling ; one sort who do also labour in the word and doctrine, to wit pastors and teachers ; another sort who do only rule, . . . and these are the ruling elders of whom we speak ' (p. 29). 5. Dickson's Expositio Analytica ovinium AposioUcarmn Epi- stolarmn, Glasguce, 1645. His comment on i Tim. v. 17 is: ' Ilorum presbyterorum duos facit ordines : alterum eorum qui laborant in sermone et doctrina quales sunt pastores et doctores, alterum eorum qui bene quidem pra;sunt, i.e. gubernandse ecclesiix; in vita et moribus incumbunt et non laborant in sermone et doc- trina, quales sunt seniores qui gubernatores vocantur, i Cor. xii. 2 ; Rom. xii. 8 ' (p. 534). This work was published in 1647, with recommendatory notices by the Prolocutor and Assessors, and the Scotch Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly. 6. Wylie's Abridgment of KuthcrfunVs Catechism. ^ Q. How is Christ's Kirk ruled at this time under the gospel ? By his office- bearers, doctors that opens up the word, pastors that presses it upon the hearers, elders that rules in discipline, and deacons that cares for the poor.' 7. Rutherfurd's Z>«^ 7v'/]f/// of Presbyteries, 'i Tim. v. 17. The elders who rule well are worthy of double honour, etc. This place speaketh clear for ruling elders ' (p. 142). On p. 145 he gives, as he had done in one of his speeches in the Assembly, the same five reasons as are given above in No. 2 for so expounding this text, and enters into a long argument in defence of the last of these reasons. In his later work on the Divine Right of Excom- munication mid Church Government, he again (pp. 432, 434) expresses his adherence to this interpretation of the text, and refers to what he had previously said in support of it. 8. CXI. Propositions concerning the Ministry and Government of the Church, by George Gillespie. ' This ecclesiastical government, distinct from the civil, is from God committed, not to the whole body of the Church or congregation of the faithful, or to be exer- cised both by officers and people, but to the ministers of God's word, together with the elders which are joined with them for the care and government of the church. — i Tim. v. 17.' 9. Christian Concord or Agreement of the Associated Churches and Pastors of Worcestershire. Baxter's own opinions are well known ; 490 Appendix. and therefore it is the stronger proof that there were those even in that district who held the presbyter theory of the -elder's office, that he should have found it necessary to express himself in the follow- ing tolerant terms : — ' It having been the custom of the church in the Apostles' day to have ordinarily many officers in a church, . . . we therefore judge it needful to use all lawful means to procure more ministers or elders than one in each church, even proportion- ally to the number of souls, and if not learned men and supported by the public maintenance, then less learned labouring at their callings, and taking private duties of the pastorate, and as long as we agree that these elders are ordained church officers, and what shall be their work there need be no breach among res, though we deterfnine not of their pffiver itt sacraments, and whether their office be the same with the teaching elders. Whilst we agree in practice, we may leave men's several principles in such a difficult controverted point to their own judgment' See also Hatch's Bamp. Led., pp. 54, 76. NOTE H, p. 195. ' That the magistrate is not obliged to execute the decrees of the church without further examination, whether they be right or wrong, as the Papists teach that the magistrate is to execute the decrees of their Popish councils with a blind obedience ... is clear. 1st. Because if, in hearing the word, all should follow the example of the men of Berea, . . . try whether that which concerneth their conscience be agreeable to the Scriptures or no, and accordingly receive or reject ; so in all things of discipline, the magistrate is to try by the word whether he ought to add his sanction to those decrees which the church gives out for edification. . . . 2d. The magistrate and all men have a command to try all things, ergo, to try the decrees of the church. . . . 3d. We behoved [otherwise] to lay down this Popish gi'ound, that the church cannot err in their decrees. . . . Whoever impute this to us who have suffered for nonconformity, and, upon this ground that synods can err, refused the ceremonies, are to consult with their own conscience whether this be not to make us appear disloyal and odious to magistracy in that which we never thought, far less presumed to teach and profess it to the world.' — Rutherfurd's Divine Right of Church Government and Excotn?jitmicatiofi, pp. 596? 597- Even more note- worthy are the utterances of Gillespie, when striving to vindicate Appendix. 49 1 against the reasonings and gibes of the Erastians, that more free and independent government of the church from which they feared so many evils and oppressions. 'I dare confidently say,' he affirms, ' that, if comparisons be riglitly made, presbyterial government is the most limited and least arbitrary government of any in the world.' And after entering into details to make good this affirmation as regards the Papal and I'relatical forms of government, he proceeds to maintain that Independents must needs be supposed to exercise much more arbitrary and un- limited power than the Presbyterians do, because they exempt individual congregations from all control and correction by superior courts, and because one of their three grand principles ' disclaimeth that binding of thetnselves for the future, unto their present judgment and practice, and avoncheth the keeping of this reserve to alter and retract. By which it appeareth that their way will not sufTer them to be so far . . . bounded within certain particular rules (I say not with others but even among themselves) as the Presbyterian way will admit of. ' He denies that, in claiming a distinct government for the church, the Presbyterians meant to deprive the Christian magistrate of that power and authority in matters of religion which the word of God and the Confessions of the Reformed Churches recognised as belonging to him. On the contrar)', he maintains that not only in extraordinary cases, ' when A church-government doth degenerate into tyranny, ambition, and avarice,' or those who manage it make defection from the truth, the Christian magistrate may, and ought to ' do divers things in and for religion, and interpose his authority divers ways, so as doth not properly belong to his cognisance, decision, and admini- stration ordinarily,' and in a well-constituted church ; but also that in ordinary cases he is free to act as his own conscience directs, in giving or refusing his sanction to the discipline of the church, and that if he is offended at any sentence given by its courts, they ought to be ready to give him an account of their proceedings, and by all means to endeavour to satisfy .his conscience, or otherwise to be warned or rectified if themselves have erred. — Gillespie's Aaron^s Rod Blossoming, etc., Rk. ii., ch. iii. NOTE I, p. 211. Professor Masson has frankly admitted that the Church of | ^ England was more tolerant than the Church of Rome, and Scottish i f 492 Appendix. Presbyterianism or Scottish Puritanism was more tolerant (though the reverse is usually asserted) than the Church of England prior to 1640 ; he might have added, prior to 1688, v^^hatever may have been the theorclical sentiments of Jeremy Taylor. The ordinance ^ against blasphemies and heresies, harsh and cruel as it seems to us, was not a tightening, but a relaxation, of the old law, and the restraint without law formerly practised, but put in temporary abeyance, by the abolition of the Court of High Commission, and of the office of bishop. Offenders were no longer to be punishable for opinions held, but for opinions deliberately expressed. They were not obliged to clear themselves by oath as in the Court of ft High Commission, but must be convicted by the testimony of two credible witnesses, or by their own voluntary confession. The charge must be prosecuted and proved in the civil courts within a limited time, and, as I take it, at least in graver cases, before a 1 jury. Cromwell himself, when at the height of his power, deemed ■ it necessary to set limits to toleration and the freedom of church courts ; and even when the Toleration Act was passed at the Revolution it was so, not in general or latitudinarian terms, but to the definite and limited extent required to meet the cases of the Puritans, the Baptists, and the Quakers. King William III., though probably as wise a monarch as ever sat on the throne of Britain, gave his assent to an Act for suppressing blasphemy and profaneness, by which it was provided that if any persons having been educated in, or at any time having made profession of, the Christian religion within this realm, should by writing, print- ing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the Persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or sliould assert or maintain there are more Gods than one, or should deny the Christian religion to be true, or the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority, he should the first time be subject to severe legal disabilities, and the second should suffer imprisonment for three years. Tillotson's successor in the see of Canterbury wrote in support of these Acts and the king's injunctions. The melancholy / words of Rutherfurd so often quoted, were but the echo of those of \ i the judicious Hooker (Bk, viii.) that in matters offaith, 'lawshould ' set down a certainty which no man afterwards is to gainsay.' The more melancholy words of the Lancashire ministers, that such ( a toleration as the sectaries then demanded ' would be the 1 V putting of a sword into a madman's hand, a cup of poison into \ the hand of a child, a letting loose of madmen with firebrands Appendix. 493 in their hands ; an appointing of a city of refuge in men's consciences for the devil to fly to, a laying of a stumbling- block before the blind, a proclaiming liberty to the wolves to come into Christ's fold to prey upon the lambs,' etc., were but the rhetorical concentration of various utterances of the gentle Hurroughs, cropping up here and there in his treatise on Heart Divisions : ' If there were a company of madmen running up and 1 V down the streets with knives and swords in their hands, . . . must we do nothing to restrain them? The devil must not be let alone though he get into men's consciences. God hath appointed no city of refuge for him ; if he flee to men's consciences as Joab to ; the horns of the altar, he must be fetched from thence, or fallen | upon there.' Nay, the more clear-headed Owen, in a sermon preached before Cromwell's Parliament in 1652, is found tlius indoctrinating them : ' Know that error and falsehood have no right or title from God or man unto any privilege, protection, advantage, liberty, or any good thing you are entrusted withal : to dispose that unto a lie, which is the right of and due to truth, is to deal treacherously with Him by whom you are employed ; all the ten- derness and forbearance unto such persons as are infected with such abominations is solely upon a civil account, and that plea which they have for tranquillity whilst neither directly nor morally they area disturbance unto others,' — that is, as even the Lancashire ministers admitted, they are not to be disturbed so long as they keep their opinions to themselves, but they have no right to propagate them at their pleasure.' So much of matters of opinion 1 According to Baxter, Owen, Goodwin, Simpson, and Nye were chiefly con- cerned in drawing up the list of Fundamentals which the Parliament of 1654 wished to impose on all who claimed toleration. Neal (vol. iv. pp. 98-100) gives sixteen of them. The Journal of the House of Commons speaks of twenty, but inserts only the first— on Holy Scripture — which alone had been passed when Cromwell dissolved the Parliament, and in considerably longer form than the Committee had proposed : — That the Holy Scriptures of the Old That the Holy Scripture is that rule and New Testaments are the Word of of knowing God and living unto Him, God and the only rule of knowing him which whoso does not believe cannot be savingly and living unto him in all saved, holiness and righteousness in which we must rest ; which Scriptures whoso doth not believe, but, rejecting them, doth, instead thereof, betake himself to any other way of discovering the mind of God, cannot be saved. 494 Appendix. or belief. As to matters of practice, he continues : ' Know that in things of practice as of persuasion, that are impious and wicked either in themselves or in their natural and unconstrained con- sequences, the plea of conscience is an aggravation of the crime ; if men's consciences are seared and themselves given up to a reprobate mind to do those things that are not convenient, there is no doubt but they ought to suffer such things as to such practices are assigned and appointed.' But perhaps the strangest of all the strange utterances on this subject is that contained in a pamphlet published at London in 1652, and entitled The Key of Triie Policy or a Free Dispute concerning the consei-valion of lately obtained liberty. It professes to be the production of a Scotchman, but apparently of one who had espoused Republican principles, who boldly adopts the line of argument which an able reviewer in our own day has attributed to the Presbyterians and the majority of the Long Parliament. It is thus he argues (p. 9) : 'It is an old maxim in philosophy, Snblata causa tollitur effectus. And con- sequently such unprofitable and noisome members being put aside one way or other, it removeth the non-security and danger obtained liberty is exposed to. Will you tell me, is he not a desperate and unskilful physician who will take it on him to cure the body and not remove the cause of the disease ? That verily is to build without a foundation. What madness is it to go about to secure purchased liberty, and not remove the cause of its non-security ? Truly it is so much, as to keep fire in the bosom, and not to be burned, to touch pitch and not be defiled, to keep the thief in the house and the throat not to be cut, and to keep a viper in the bosom and not to be stinged. Oh ! shall liberty be preserved as long as its enemies are free ? No, verily. They will be still con- spiring and taking crafty counsel against it. So long as the son of Jesse liveth they will never think themselves secure, and that their kingdom shall be established. And therefore, Saul-like, they will still fall a-persecuting David. Nay, let me tell you, those become dccessory to their own hurt and ruin, who would not destroy the destroyers of their liberties. Thus they become negative cut-throats and burrios to themselves. But to prevent bondage and slavery, it is good, it is good to root out those who go about to destroy our liberty. Otherwise we abuse the power God and nature have conferred on us to maintain and defend our own liberties against our adversaries.' He then proceeds to offer his judgment in particulars as follows : — ' ist. All malignant and formal Presby- Appendix. 495 terian incendiaries should one way or other be rooted out if we mind to maintain our own liberties inviolable. This is evident from what is already said, for thcj are the very enemies by whom the Lord's people in the three nations only stand in hazard. They indeed are the Canaanites whom the Lord hath commissioned to destroy. They verily are the inhabitants of the land, and there- fore must be rooted out. . . . They are bears robbed of their whelps, and therefore they will never be satisfied till they be destroyed. They are Atnalek indeed, they lay in wait, while as the Lord's people in Britain came out of the spiritual Egypt from under the Episcopal and Malignant yoke, Atid therefore their name deserveth to be razed from tinder heaven. 2. Albeit all such should be rooted out and destroyed, yet not one and the same way. They should be dealt with according to their guilt. Some of them who are prime incendiaries and leading men should be finally cut off. Others again of them who are not so deep in the guilt, deserve not physically but politically to be cut off, i.e. (as Artaxerxes saith, Ezra V. 26) either by banishment or imprisonment, or confiscation of goods, according to their desert,' To the objection that this would make a pretty clean sweep in Scotland where such men were the more numerous party, and where few or none even of the 'godly ' were for the English interest, and where their action could not be said to be illegal even when it was hostile, the author replies (p. 21) : 'If the Parliament of England look not more to conscience and duty than quirks and law formality, they will be forced to condemn the best and weightiest of all their proceedings. I wonder if law-quirks taught a handful of godly men in the nation to turn a king off his throne, to cut off his head, to banish his son, to cut off the peers of the land, to turn out betrayers of their trusts and such like? I trow not ; I believe duty only led them on to such things. Oh ! shall not duty as yet lead them on to proceed against their and our implacable enemies? . . . Hath he not rented the kingdom from Saul for sparing Agag, and given it to them? Will they spare him too? No, I hope, as Samuel, they will hew him in pieces. The Lord put it in their hearts so to do.' This is the only pamphlet of the period in which I remember to have met with this famous simile. It proceeded not from sober- minded Puritan in time of peace, nor from maddened Covenanter in the day of sore distress, but from a fanatic sectary or rabid Protestor in the day of his triumph, and was adduced to encourage harsh measures, not against Papists and Prelatists, but against 49^ Appendix. the Presbyterians, his fellow-countrymen and fellow-covenanters. They, in his eyes, were' the Canaanites, the Amalekites, the Am- monites, the Joab and Shimei, whom King Solomon was to cut off, — nay, apparently the Saul who spared Agag and the Agag who was spared rolled into one. No comment on this production could well be more cutting than that which I find written in an old hand on the copy of it now before me : — ' To hang all Scots, the doom is sad ; Better it were to hang the dog that's mad." NOTE K, p. 257. 1. Act of General Assembly approving the Propositions con- cerning Kirk Government and Oj-dination of Aliiiisters — '. . . And now the Assembly having thrice read and diligently examined the Propositions (hereunto annexed) concerning the officers, assemblies, and government of the Kirk, and concerning the ordination of ministers brought unto us as the results of the long and learned debates of the Assembly of Divines sitting at Westminster, and of the Treaty of Uniformity with the Commissioners of this Kirk there residing : after mature deliberation, . . . doth agree to and approve the Propositions aforementioned, touching Kirk govern- ment and ordination, and doth hereby authorise the Commis- sioners of this Assembly who are to meet at Edinburgh to agree to and conclude in the name of this Assemblie, an uniformity betwixt the Kirks of both kingdoms in the aforementioned particulars, so soon as the same shall be ratified without any substantial alteration by an Ordinance of the Honourable Houses of the Parliament of England.' The Assembly excepted from their Act, and reserved the liberty of further discussion, respecting the right of the doctor to administer the sacraments and the respective rights of presbyteries and people in the calling of ministers. 2. Extract from Act approving of the Confession of Faith. — ' But lest our intention and meaning be in some particulars mis- understood, it is hereby expressly declared and provided that the not mentioning in this Confession the several sorts of ecclesiastical officers and assemblies shall be no prejudice to the truth of Christ in these particulars to be expressed fully in the Directory of government. ' Appendix. 497 3. Ratification of the Propositions for Church Government, Ordination of Ministers, and of the Act of Assembly thereanent. — ' The Estates of Parliament now conveened in the second session of this first Triennial Parliament, by virtue of the last Act of the last Parliament, holden by His Majesty and three Estates in Anno 1641, after public reading of the following propositions con- cerning Kirk government and ordination of ministers, together with the Act of General Assembly approving the same, do unani- mously ratify and approve the said Propositions according to the said Act of General Assembly, to the which Act the Estates do hereby add the authority of Parliament, and ordaine the same to have the strength and force of a law in all time coming.' This Act was not contained in former collections of the Scotch Acts, nor printed till the original register of the Parliament of 1645 was discovered a short time ago, and printed in full in the last edition of vol. vi. of Thomson's Acts of the Scottish Parliament, NOTE ]\I (i), p. 333. — Calvin's Relation to English Reformers. A vast amount of unchristian temper and unseemly bitterness has been expended on the discussion of this question, and the reformer of Geneva in particular has been loaded with an amount of abuse and misrepresentation more than sufficient to save him for ever from the woe denounced against those of whom all men speak well. Sed sis ttta sorte contentiis, 0 magne Calvine! One must read the impassioned diatribes which were fashionable sixty or eighty years ago, to be able to understand the noble courage and candour of Bishop Horsley when he uttered the words, ' I hold the memory of Calvin in high veneration ; his works have a place in my library, and in the study of the Scriptures he is one of the commentators I frequently consult.' And one cannot but rejoice that in our own day Dean Perowne has expressed himself in still stronger terms. It would require not a note or even a lecture, but a volume, to deal with these mis- representations in detail, and that may safely be left to some true-hearted successor of Toplady, or Thomas Scott, or Bishop Waldegrave, who still deems it the highest commendation of his Church that she is one of the fairest daughters of the Reformation. All that I feel called to do is to put in a demurrer to such mis- representations, and to state briefly two or three pleas in support of it. It is said the xviith Article cannot be meant of a dccretum 2 I 49 8 Appeiidix, absoluticm of a predestination in the Augustinian or in the Calvin- istic sense, but in that of the later Lutherans or Arminians, for it was with the Lutherans that the English Reformers were specially intimate, and from them, or through them, that some of their offices and several of their Articles came to them. One may leave on one side the offices with the remark that, so far as they came from the Nuremberg Liturgy, they came through the Consultaiio of Herman, Archbishop of Cologne. In the prepara- tion of that Bucer was quite as much concerned as Melanchthon, and Bucer was a predestinarian of the Augustinian school, who probably would have considered himself entitled to harmonise his views on baptismal regeneration with his views on predestination in the same way as Bishop Carleton and others did in the next century,^ and Mr. Gorham in the nineteenth. If any parts of the Burial Service came through Lutheran formularies, they came from ancient Western sources, reaching back to a time when Augus- tinianism, which affirmed the perseverance of all the predestinate, but not of all the regenerate, was the prevailing faith of the Western Church. With respect to doctrinal formularies, even if one were to grant all that has been advanced as to the close connection of the English Reformers with the Lutherans and their less close connection with Calvin and the Swiss, it would still remain to be pointed out — \st. That at the time the Augsburg Confession was composed, Melanchthon, as well as Luther, was still Augustinian, and that good authorities in our own day affirm that Luther remained so to the last, as did Flacius Illyricus, Schnepflf, Heshusius, and some others of his followers. 2d, That Brentz, who had the chief hand in drawing up the Wiirtemberg Confession (which in several articles seems in 1563 to have been followed by the English), though not a pronounced Augustinian himself, framed it when doing his utmost to preserve a good understanding with the more moderate of the Reformed, especially with Bucer and Martyr, and with others, of their school still remaining at Strasburg ; that his Confession was accepted by that free city, and that it was probably from thence, through Jewell, it found its way into England before 1563. John ab Ulmis had been employed to translate a Strasburg Confession into Latin for Cranmer. 3a', That it is only in Articles as to which Lutherans and Reformed were agreed, that a real similarity can be traced between the Edwar- dian Articles and the Augsburg or the early German Confessions. 1 Examinaiion of an Apj>eal to Casar, pp. 96, 97. Appendix. 499 None of these have an article on predestination, nor does any other Lutheran Confession, as Dr. Dorner tells us, have it. Nor can any such marked similarity be traced between this Article and any of the definitions of Melanchthon or of any Lutheran doctor of the Synergistic school. The only resemblance traceable is to certain expressions in the treatise of Luther on the Epistle to the Romans, and that, as already stated, was written while he was still a pronounced Augustinian, and teaches distinctly the Augus- tinian or predestinarian view. But it cannot be granted that the intimacy between the English and the Swiss Reformers was only formed during the later Marian times. Had the English exiles been regarded as Lutherans when driven from their own country, they would have been received with open arms by their co-religionists in Germany. But the very reverse was the fact. The strict Lutherans afforded them no shelter, shewed them but little kindness, and were not appealed to in their differences. We do not find even the gentle Melan- chthon specially exerting himself in their behalf, nor them resorting to him for counsel. Nor was it to him that the thoughts of those in prison in England turned. Hooper's recourse was still to his old friend Bullinger, and the one letter Cranmer is known to have written from his prison was addressed to his old and much trusted friend Martyr. Even in 1551-52, it was not to Melanchthon, but to Bullinger, that those who were exercised about predestination, and desired further counsel than the writings of Calvin and the teaching of Martyr supplied, were disposed to turn. Traheron or Trehern, tutor to the young Duke of Suffolk, the intimate friend and associate of Cheke, the young King's tutor, and, like him, a member of the sub-committee of the Ecclesiastical Commission, wrote to Bullinger on the question in the following terms : — ' There are cei^tain individuals here who lived among you some time, and who assert that you lean too much to Melanchthon 's views. But the greater number among us {plurimi), of whom I own myself to be one, embrace the opinion of yohn Calvin as being perspicuous and most agreeable to holy Scripture.' Then after thanking God that Calvin's treatise against Pighius on this question had appeared at the very time when it had begun to be agitated among them, he adds : — ' We confess that he has thrown much light upon the subject, or rather so handled it as that we have never before seen anything more learned or more plain.' Bullinger, some time before, had concluded with Calvin and the Genevese a 500 Appendix. consensus on the subject of the sacraments, in the xvith Article of which the topic of election was touched on, but, though it was so in the most guarded terms, its bearing was so obvious that Melan- chthon is said ' confodisse etim aj-ticiilum ' in the copy sent him. In the letter Bullinger sent to Traheron he states, even more decisively than in the consensus, that faith foreseen is not the cause, but the consequence of election, though still refusing to follow Calvin in his teaching on the subject of reprobation : ' Electionis et prse- destinationis causa non est alia quam bona et justa Dei voluntas indebite salvantis electos debite autem damnantis . . reprobos.' ' Interim fidem ceu opus nostrum non constituimus causam electionis quasi propter fidem quam in nobis pr^evidit Dens nos elegerit sed gratias Dei tribuimus electionem et salutem . . . Etenim Paulus non dicit Deum elegisse nos quod credituri eramus sed ut cred- eremus ; unde et Augustinus sumpsisse videtur quod dixit, Non quia credimus ipse nos elegit sed ut credamus ne priores videamus ipsum elegisse.' This letter, written in March 1553, can hardly have arrived in England in time to be used in the framing of the xvilth Article. It was not altogether to the mind of Traheron and those who thought with him, as appears by his reply, which, as well as his previous letter, is given at length among the Parker Society's original letters relating to the English Reformation (pp. 324-328). But it really concedes almost all that is maintained as dogma in the Confessions of the Reformed Churches, even those of them composed or approved by Calvin, though not all that he, Bucer, Beza, Martyr, and Knox deemed themselves warranted as private doctors to inculcate. So much importance was attached to it by Bullinger, that he had copies of it, evidently meant to be shown to others, sent to Hooper and to Martyr, who in reply informed him that, though not agreeing with him altogether, he had been especially on his guard in treating on that subject, ' lest men should cast all their faults and sins upon God, or derive from the will of God an excuse for their wicked- ness,' as would appear when his commentaries on the Romans were published, as he hoped they would be that same year. ' May God,' he adds, 'grant us all so to feel respecting predestination, that what ought to be the greatest consolation to believers may not become the painful subject of pernicious contention.' Neither was Calvin himself so little known nor so lightly esteemed in England at that time as some have represented. He was in high repute with the young King, the Protector, and several Appendix. 501 of the reforming nobles, with Cheke the King's tutor, and Traheron, as well as with Knox, Martyr, a Lasco, and the other foreigners then helping on the work in England. Bishop Coverdale, when in exile, had translated from the Latin his treatise on the Lord's Supper, which had commended his views on that subject to favour and acceptance, just as, we know from Traheron, his treatises on predestination were commending to favour his views on the only other subject then occasioning difference between the Lutherans and the Reformed. The treatise in answer to Pighius, which was published in the very beginning of 1552, is the one specially referred to by him, but that was not the first in which he had handled this subject, nor the first which had reached England. His commentary on the Romans, which was published in 1539, was well known, and in it he had treated on predestination in the same spirit as Martyr subsequently did. His bistittUions were not unknown, and in the second edition of that work, issued in 1539, a distinct chapter was assigned to this subject, which in the fifth edition, issued in 1550, was further enlarged, and so much run on that, without the author's consent, it was published separately the same year. It is not unusual yet to represent Cranmer as by no means on the most friendly footing with Calvin, and but half- reluctantly inviting him to that great council of the chief Reformers which he was so desirous to assemble. It is also represented that the main, if not the only object that council was intended to accomplish, was to heal the divisions that had arisen among Pro- testants on the subject of the Lord's Supper, But the letters of the Primate, and none of them more decisively than his letter to Melanchthon himself, show that the Confession, or consensus, was meant to embrace the whole circle of Christian doctrine. Strype expressly includes the question of predestination among others. When obliged reluctantly to abandon or postpone his grander scheme, he intimated his intention to press on without further delay the lesser one of preparing such a confession for his own Church, and strenuously proceeding in the reformation of manners as well as doctrine. This he did in a letter to the much maligned Calvin, who had shown himself more ready to second his efforts for the council, as well as for a closer civil league among Protestant States, than either Bullinger or Melanchthon had ven- tured to do. This letter, so far as I know, has only been recovered in our own day, and printed by the Strasburg theologians who are re-editing the works of Calvin with such loving care. For English- 502 Appendix. speaking churches, no more valuable addition has for long been made to our knowledge of the esteem in which he was really held by those who were engaged in the noble enterprise of reviving the life and restoring the purity of the English Church. Archbishop Laurence has much to say of his 'bold temerity,' and 'love of hypothesis,' as perhaps exceeding both his piety and his learning, and the entire want of community of spirit between him and the Reformers of the English Church, and what he has said many lesser men since have repeated with still greater bitterness and scorn. Here is how the honoured primate, who, more than any other, determined the character of that church, wrote to him in the autumn of 1552. No more noble or brotherly letter ever went to foreign Protestant from Lambeth Palace : — *Et pietate et eruditione prtestanti viro D. Joanni Calvino, amico suo dilecto. — Quod consilium meum laudas de conventu doctissimorum et optimorum virorum in Anglia habendo, ut posteris traderetur de reformatce doctrinae capitibus, juxta scripturse normam consensus, et studium operamque tuam ad hoc institutum perficiendum alacri animo offers, recte tu quidem mea sententia judicasti, et ad Dei gloriam propagandam voluntatem te habere propensissimam non obscuris argumentis declarasti. Atque utimam daretur facultas ad effectum perducendi hoc quod ecclesise tam utile judicamus. Verum multa sunt quse in animum meum inducunt hanc nostram deliberationem irritam fore : turn quod D. Philippus ad meas literas nihil hactenus rescripsit, tum quod D. Bullingerus respondet se vereri ne frastra de convocando con- cilio deliberemus hoc tempore, in quo Germania bello sic divexatur ut neque sibi neque D. Philippo consultum sit ecclesias suas relinquere. Quare hrec consultatio aut prorsus omittenda aut in aliud tempus magis opportunum differenda videtur. Interim nos ecclesiam Anglicam pro virili reformabimus dabimusque operam ut et dogmata et mores juxta sacrarum literarum regulam corri- gantur. Dominus Jesus te gubernet et tueatur ad suam gloriam et ecclesire redificationem. Vale. Tuus quantus est. — T, Cant. 'Lambethii, 4 Octobris 1552.' Sir John Cheke's letter, of 22d May 1553, ' Homini doctissimo ac pientissimo et mecum multis de causis conjunctissimo,' is even more laudatory, and speaks of a 'conjunctio doctrince,' as well as of a 'societas humanitatis et ingenii.' Appenaix. 503 NOTE M Martyr's Statements, etc. Nostra enim [sacramenta] . . . numero pauciora actu faciliora intellectu augustissima, obser- vatu castissima et significatione prffistantissima. — Augustinus citatus in commentario Martyris, p. 118. Multi satis habent si contem- plati fuerint, etc. {lU postea). Nemo enim sumendo sacra- menta gratiam uUam recipit quam fide non percipiat . . . neque vi, ut loquuntur, operis operati quicquam ex eis accedat (salutem afferant) Vox ea pere- grina est nee auditur usquam in sacris Uteris (123). — Qui enim sacramenta percipit vel digne vel indigne accedit : si indigne nil habet nisi damnum et jac- turam, si digne, igitur fide viva qua percipit representatam gra- tiam.— 494. Neque tantum sunt signa nostrarum actionum sed etiam promissionis et voluntatis Dei ejusque obsignationes. Et Spiri- tus Sanctus istis utiturad animos nostros excitandos. — 117. Sunt quidem et hi sacramen- torum fines, ut notae sint ac tessera; Christiance professionis et societatis sive fraternitatis . . . vera gratiic suae testimonia et sigilla ut per ea nobis gratiam suam testetur Deus, representet atque obsignet. — Formula Con- sensus Tintrini. (2), p. 336. Anglican Articles of 1553. Dominus Noster Jesus Christus sacramentis numero paucissimis observatu facillimis significatione praestantissimis societatem novi populi coUigavit sicuti est bap- tismus et coena Domini. Sacramenta non instituta sunt a Christo ut spectarentur aut circumferuntur, sed ut rite illis uteremur ; et in his duntaxat qui digne perc?piunt, salutarem habent effectum, idque non ex opere (ut quidam loquuntur) operato, quc-e vox ut peregrina est et sacris Uteris ignota sic parit sensum minime pium, sed admodum superstitiosum : qui vero indigne percipiunt damna- tionem (ut inquit Paulus) sibi ipsis acquirunt. Sacramenta per verbum Dei instituta non tantum sunt notffi professionis Christianorum sed certa quredam, potius testi- monia et efficacia signa gratise atque bonDS in nos voluntatis Dei per quae invisibiliter ipse in nobis operatur nostramque fidem in se non solum excitat verum etiam confirmat. 504 Appendix. Neque illi satis dicunt qui arbitrantur . . . Ci-enam Domini signum tantum esse Christian^E benevolentise et offtciorum mutuoe charitatis . . . caput et summam in hoc ponimus quod obsignet nobis Dei dona et promissiones quas ille offert fide apprehen- dendas (113), ut ibi mors Domini Gommemoraretur et communi- cantes fructum ejus perciperent et Christo conjungerentur (34) gratiam reconciliationem et re- missionem peccatorum. Fallun- tur ergo illi qui putant transub- stantiationem, etc. {nt posted). ToUenda est qufelibet localis prsesentia: imaginatio. Tametsi enimphilosophice loquendo supra ccelos locus non est ; quia tamen corpus Christi, ut fert humani corporis natura et modus, finitum est et cceIo ut loco continetur necesse est a nobis tanto locorum intervallo distare quanto coelum abest a terra, — For 711. Cons. Tig. Non tamen sentiendam est corpus Christi tarn late fundi quam late patet divinitas ejus. Illud enim ut humanse naturae conditio requirit, certo ac de- finito loco continetur qui est coelum . . . ut articulus de ascensione fidem facit (350). Falluntur ergo illi qui putant vel transubstantiationem vel prffisentiam Christi in Euchar- istia quasi ex illius carne quam, ut illi volunt, realiter manduc- amus (realiter et corporaliter percipimus (306), seternam vitam hausturi sumus. — 305. Cffina Domini non est tantum signum mutuse benevolentiffi Christianorum inter sese, verum potius est sacramentum nostra per mortem Christi redemptionis. Atque adeo rite digne et cum fide sumentibus, panis quem frangimus est communicatio cor- poris Christi : similiter poculum benedictionis est communicatio sanguinis Christi. Panis et vini transubstantiatio in Eucharistia ex sacris literis probari non potest sed apertis scripturse verbis adversatur et multarum superstitionum dedit occasionem. Quum natures humanse Veritas requirat ut unius ejusdemque hominis corpus in multis locis simul esse non possit sed in uno aliquo et definito loco esse oporteat, idcirco Christi corpus in multis et diversis locis eodem tempore praesens esse non potest et quoniam ut tradunt sacrse literse, Christus in coelum fuit sublatus, et ibi usque ad finem seculi est permansurus non debet quisquam fidelium carnis ejus et sanguinis realem etcorporalem (ut loquuntur) prsesentiam in Eucharistia vel credere vel pro- fiteri. Sacramentum Eucharistias ex institutione Christi non serva- batur, conferebatur, elevabatur, nee adorabatur. Appendix. 505 Elevatio, etc., non parvam occasionem idololatria; pia;bent. (Martyr m Ep. ad Cor. p. 162). Qua in re multum peccatur hodie . . . satisque habent homines si contemplati fuerint genuflexerint atque adoraverint. Minisiri nialitia non vitiat sacramenta, etc. (p. iiS). Sacrificium unicum nostrre salutis perfectum est per mortem Christi Jesu servatoris nostri in ara crucis (492), una enim ejus mors satis fuit ad omnia peccata expianda. Sacrifici qui illud sacrificium suis missis et superstitiosis at impiis susurris nobis applicent . . . Christum offerre pro aliis omnino commentum est (296). Sacramentum Eucharistise ex institutione Christi non serva- batur, circumferebatur, eleva- balur, nee adorabatur. Ministrorum nialitia noit tollit efficaciam institutionum divin- arum, etc. De unicd Christi oblatione in cruce perfeda. Oblatio Christi semel facta perfecta est re- demptio pro omnibus peccatis totius mundi turn originalibus quam actualibus : neque pr^eter illam unicam est ulla alia pro peccatis expiatio. Unde miss- arum sacrificia, quibus vulgo dicebatur, sacerdotem offerre Christum in remissionem pcenm aut culp^E pro vivis et defunctis figmenta sunt et perniciosoe im- posturce. NOTE TO PAGE 369. The first part of the following elegy on the older members of the Assembly is found appended to more than one funeral sermon. I give part of it from the funeral sermon on Vines, contained in E 870 :— ' That venerable Synod, which of late Was made the object of men's scorn and hate, (For want of copes and mitres, not of graces). Are now called up, like Moses ; and their faces. When they return, shall shine. God sees it fit. Such an Assembly should in glory sit. The learned Twisse went first (it was his right). Then holy Palmer, Burroughs, Love, Gouge, White, Hill, Whitaker, grave Gataker, and Strong, Perne, Marshall, Robinson, all gone along. I have not named them half. Their only strife 5o6 Appendix. Hath been (of late) who shall first part with life ; Those few, who yet survive, sick of this age, Long to have done their parts and leave the stage. Our English Luther, Vines, whose death I weep. Stole away (and said nothing) in a sleep. Sweet (like a swan) he preached that day he went, And for his cordial took a sacrament ; Had it but been suspected he would die, His people sure had stopped him with their cry.' The elegy on Ussher in E 875, almost exceeds the bounds of legitimate laudation. I can find room only for a few lines : — 'This was the man so just, so stout, so sage, The shame and glory of our sinful age. How said I ? Man? That epithet 's too mean. Armagh was more ; the miracle of men. Could he be less, who was both learned and meek ? Could he be less, who self did never seek ? Could he be less, who knew no guile, no gall ; Wise as a serpent, yet a dove withal ? Could he be less, who knew no kind of pride, And yet knew more than all the land beside ? His intellect scorned to be confined by Dover, Bravely expatiating the whole world over, Beyond the common ne plus ultra, he (Like Drake ambitious of discovery), Sailed still on, bounded by no degree On this side of universality, Storing his country with more noble prize Than that which in the Western climate lies ; America doth no such mines contain. As those comprised in the Indies of his brain. NOTE N, p. 377. The full title of this remarkable book is, ' A Treatise of the Cove- nant of Grace: wherein the gradual breakings ont of Gospel-grace from Adam to Christ are clearly discovered, the differences betwixt the Old and New Testament are laid open, divers errors of Armin- ians and others are confuted ; the nature of uprightness, and the way of Christ in bringing the soul into communion ivith Himself: together with many other points, both doctrinally and practically profitable, are solidly handled. By that faithful servant of Jesus Christ and minister of the Gospel John Ball . . . London, 1645.' The following is the table of the contents of the several chap- ters : — I. Of the first part. — i. Of the signification of the word Appendix. 507 Covenant ; 2. Of the Covenant God made with man in the state of innocency ; 3. Of the Covenant of Grace in general ; 4. Of thp Covenant oi promise ; 5. Of the Covenant ol promise made with Adam immediately upon his fall ; 6. Of the Covena^it of grace as it was made and manifested to Abraham ; 7. Of the Covenant of grace under Moses till the return of Israel from the Babylonish captivity ; 8. A particular explication of the Covenant that God made with Israel, and what Moses brought to the further expres- sure of the Covenant of grace ; 9. Of the Covenant that God made with David ; 10. Of the Covenant that God made with Israel ziiQx the Babylonish captivity ; 11. Of truth and uprightness. II. Of the second part. — Of the Nt"o Testavient or Covenant, and how God hath revealed Himself herein ; 2. Christ the Mediator of the A'ew Testament, for whom He died and rose again ; 3. How Christ hath fulfilled the office of Mediator, or how He is the Mediator of the A'hc Testament ; 4. How Christ doth bring His people into Covenant or fellowship with Himself ; 5. How Chris- tians answer to the call of Christ, and so come to have fellowship with Him. NOTE, p. 391. — Milton's relation to Calvinism. I have not ventured to do more than put it interrogatively- Some of the older editors of his great poem regard the passage quoted as evidence of the author's leaning to moderate Calvinism. But it is now known that before the end of his days he wrote a large treatise on theology in which he advocated opinions at vari- ance with the sentiments of the great mass of the Puritans on a question of far greater importance. This work was not published till our own day, and its learned editor has not ventured to do more than to say that the opinions maintained in it on the decrees of God are opposed to supralapsarianism on the one hand and to Socinianism on the other. But I find it difficult to resist the conclusion that Milton, by the time he wrote that treatise, had bid adieu not only to supralapsarianism, but even to infralapsarianism in its most moderate form. There is good reason to believe, how- ever, that he had abandoned his earlier creed very slowly and gradually, and before parting with Calvinism altogether, had taken refuge for a time in the more liberal school of Amyraut, Dave- nant, and Howe. It may be fairly questioned if he had finally 5o8 Appendix. left this refuge when he wrote the Paradise Lost. At least in the passage I have quoted, and some others in the poem, there seems to me more affinity to the opinions of that school than of any other. The opinion, that while God has given sufficient grace to all, he gives peculiar grace to some who of His will are elect above the rest, seems akin to their teaching. NOTE O, p. 424. I intended to exhibit at length in this note the correspondences between the rules given in the Larger Catechism for the explica- tion of the Divine Law, and those found in the earlier treatises of Perkins, Attersoll, Ball, and Ussher. I must refrain, however, from inserting these. Any one who will compare the rules as first in- serted in the MimUes of the Assevibly with the form in which they appear in the earlier treatises will see at a glance how closely the Westminster Divines followed in the wake of their predecessors. NOTE, p. 368.— Early Editions of the Confession OF Faith. The first three impressions of the Confession, as stated on the above page, were meant for the private use of the members of the English Parliament,' and the Assembly of Divines, and copies of them are still to be found in the British Museum (E 366 (?), E 368, E 516). From the third impression, but with certain variations preserved in most Scottish editions, 300 copies were reprinted in Edinburgh for the use of the members of the Scottish Assembly of 1647 (St. Andrews University Library, and in other libraries in Scotland). After the Confession was adopted by that Assembly, one edition appears to have been published before the close of 1647 (E 418, No. 12). A copy of this and of the London edition No. 3 is in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. In the same year the Confession, in the form approved by the English Houses, was published at London with the title Articles of Christian Re- ligiofi, etc., as on p. 368. Principal Lee seems to have doubted if it was ever published in this form, but copies exist both in the British Museum (116 f, 19, E 449, T. if^^) and in the Bodleian ; and another copy has recently been offered for sale in London. 1 In E 388, No. 6, it is expressly stated that ' the members subscribed their names to the receipt ' of their copies. Appendix. 509 These are all in qiiarfo. Another edition in octavo or i2mo was published at Edinburgh in 1648, with the following title: 'The I/itmble Advice of the Assembly of Divines now by authority of Par- liament sitiing at Westminster concer7iing [\) a Confession of Faith, (2) a Larger Catechism, (3) a Shorter Catechism. Presented by them lately to both Houses of Parliament' (3505 bb, Brit. Mus.) It was probably from one of the Scottish editions, that those pub- lished by Bostock at London in the same year were taken. They are — 1st, ' The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines, etc. [as in No. 3, above], Printed for Robert Bostock at the King's Head, Paul's Churchyard 1648' (ii6f, 20). At the end it has ' Impri- matitr yames Crawford, December 7, 1647.' 2nd, The Confession of Faith, and Catechisms agreed upon by the Assetnbly of Divines at IVesiminster to be a faj-t of teniformity in religion, betweejt the Churches of Christ in the Three Kingdoms. London, Printed for R. B, etc. [as above], 1648.' This is accounted the first English edition. The copy in the British Museum is from the library of the late Duke of Sussex, and bears the press mark 1412 a, 13. Another copy, bearing the press mark E 1419, has the Propositions concerning Church Government appended, and seems to have been the edition which brought him into trouble with the House of Commons (see their fournals under date 6th August 1649). I suppose it was from the first of these editions of Bostock that a German translation was made in the same year. Its title is : ' Demiithiger Bericht der versam7nelten uftd ietzund aus macht und Befehl des Parlaments zu IVestmiinster sitzenden Leht-ern der heilcgen Schrifft belangende, ein Glaubens Bekenntniss beyden hciusern des Parlaments neulich iiberreichet , im yahr nach Christi Gebiirt 1648, Zvo.' A copy of this edition, we learn from the Appendix to Niemeyer's Collectio Confessionum, is preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin. It is remarkable as being the first edition in which the Scripture proofs are inserted at length, instead of being merely indicated in the margin. The preface contains a very notable testimony to the high regard in which the divines of Britain and their work were held by their brethren in Germany, who also had been called to suffer for their faithful attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation. They speak of the Confession as, *ein Tractiitlein reich in alien Stricken Gottlicher Weisheit und Lehre, fast von Wort zu Wort aus heiliger Schrifft . . abge- fasst, und ist ein kurtzer Begriff des heilsamen Worte an deren Fiirbild dieselbe EngUindische Kirche nach abgeworffenen Joche 5IO Appendix. Babstischer Menschen-satzungen und Haupt-irrthilmen bis daher bestandig gehalten und annoch halten thut. . . Siehe, so stehet doch der Leuchter dieser so lehr und glauben-reicher Kirchen, durch Gottes guade unbeweglich und leuchtet auf demselben in diesem wollgegriindetem Glaubens-bekenntniss das Licht der Wahrheit . . hell und klar herfitr, glaiibigen hertzen zum Trost und Versicherung. ' Possibly a Dutch edition may have been pub- lished about the same time, and in 1649 a rare and much prized edition in English issued from the Elzevir press. Several editions in i2mo or i8mo were published in London and Edinburgh between 1650 and 1655, (3504 a, B. M. etc.), as were also two Latin editions in small 8vo at Cambridge in 1656 and 1659, and others of smaller size at Glasgow in 1670, and at Edinburgh in 1660, 1680, and 1694.^ In 1658 there issued from the London press what is termed the second English edition of the Confession, a large and neatly printed quarto, with the Scripture proofs inserted at length, and the emphatic parts of them in a different letter, A copy, with the press mark E 757, is in the British Museum, but it is by no means a rare edition. An edition in i2mo was published at London in 1660 (3505 aa, Brit. Mus.). The third (so called) English edition, is a small octavo, published at London in 1688. The fifth, bearing the date of 171 7, is a large octavo, and perhaps the most handsomely printed of all these early editions of the Confe^ssion. After the Revolution, editions in i2mo, without the proofs printed at length, were published in Scotland in 1688-9 ^^^ .1690, and in the latter year one in folio for the use of church courts, which, like the copy engrossed in the records of the Scot- tish Parliament in the same year, does not contain the proofs either in their abbreviated or lengthened form. The editions of later date need not be specified, with the exception of the beautiful octavo forming vol. i, of Dunlop's Collection of Confessions, etc., and published at Edinburgh in 1 7 19, with a memorable preface in defence of Confessions of Faith. The Independents' recension of the Confession was published in 1659, with the title, A Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised in the Congregational Churches in England. It does not differ materially from the recension of the Parliament save in the insertion of a chapter (xx.) on the Gospel and the extent of the grace thereof. This will appear to most Calvinists now-a-days a less happy statement than that sanctioned by the Westminster 1 It was reprinted in Glasgow in 1674. Appeiidix. 511 Assembly in their Larger Catechism, in answer to the question, ' How is the grace of God manifested in the second Covenant ? ' The Baptist recension was pubUshed in 1677, and again in 1688, under the title, A Cofifission of Faith, put forth by the Elders and Brethrett of 7na7iy congregations of Christians {baptized upon profes- sion of their faith) in London and the country, ivith^ an Appendix concerning Baptism. It follows mainly the Independent recension, but seems to me to show traces of the moderating influence of Bunyan. The first editions of the Catechism are in E 411, 416. NOTE (Additional), p. 369. — Subscription to the Confession. I have said elsewhere that the Westminster Divines, from their earnest desire to form one comprehensive Church, did not require subscription to their Directories for Public Worship and for Church Government, nor exact conformity to their minute details, as Laud had done to those of the Prayer-Book and Canons. It may be doubted if the English section of them meant to require more for their Confession of Faith than that it should be (like the Irish Articles) the norm of public teaching. They felt with Bax- ter that ' there is a singular use for a full body of theology or a profession concluded on by such reverend assemblies, that the younger ministers may be taught by it, and the reverence of it may restrain them from rash contradicting it ; and there is a necessity of exercising power in ministerial assemblies for the actual restraint of such as shall teach things intolerably unsound, and all ministers should be there accountable for their doctrine.' Such a full body of theology in a non-liturgical Church was essential as a guide in prayer as well as in preaching, and its authority as the norm of both was the least restriction that could be imposed if reasonable soundness was to be maintained, and due security given to the congregations that the liberty allowed in the devotional services should not degenerate into licence. Probably this was all that the majority of the English divines were disposed to insist on. At any rate a sentence of Tuckney often quoted, seems to point in that direction. ' In the Assembly I gave my vote with others that the Confession of Faith, put out by iuthority, should not be either required to be sworn or subscribed to, . . . but only so as not to be publicly preached or written against.' I have not come on any 512 Appe7idix. clear trace of this vote in the Minutes of the Assembly, but possibly it occurred on or soon after 26th November 1646, when the Con- fession was completed, and about to be sent up to the Houses, and when it is recorded that ' Mr. Nye, Mr. Carter junior, and Mr. Greenhill enter their dissent to the sending up of the Confession of Faith in order to the Preface, ' and is ordered that ' before the Confession of Faith be sent up the Preface shall be debated and prepared to be sent up with it, if any be made.' But so far as appears from the Minutes none was debated or sent up. The Church of Scotland, while agreeing with the English Divines as to the Directory of Public Worship, and Form of Church Government, has always required her ministers to regard the Confession of Faith as something more than the norm of teaching to which in their public ministrations they were to conform, and by the Act of the Scottish Parliament in 1693 she was sufficiently authorised to require more than this, including at least personal acceptance of its main doctrines, and of the sum and substance of the Reformed faith, as set forth in it. Writing from recollection of an examination of the Minutes of the Kirk-session of St. Andrews twenty years ago, and wishing to err on the safe side, I had said that the celebration of the Lord's Supper was discontinued for more than a year. Within the last few days I have had an opportunity of re-examining the Minutes, which are now in the Register House at Edinburgh, and am sorry to find that, at p. 236, I have so far understated the facts of the case. The Lord's Supper was not administered there between June 1650 and August 1656. Again and again in 1653 and 1654 ' the four ministers ' were ' seriously recommended ' and ' airnestly requeisted ' by the elders to confer together how this might be remedied, and, after it was begun to be again administered in the burghs, they were assured that ' the people heir are much greived y* they are so Ibng depryved of that comfortable ordinance,' but it was not till August 1656 that they resumed the dispensation of it. INDEX. The names in Italic are those of members of the Westminster Assembly. The use of the Roman and Arabic numerals immediately following the names has been explained in the note, p. xii. Aarau, Basel, etc., 30. Abbot, Abp., 77-80, 343, 375. Act of Supremacy, 280. Toleration, 471, 492. ■ Uniformity, 37, 455. Acts, Scotch, of 1567, 280; of 1592, 281-2. Adamson, Abp., 354. Alesius, Alexander, 14, 23, 29. Altare Damascenum, 354. America, 87, 470, 484. Amesius, or Ames, 344, 370, 378. Amyraut, 350. Anselm, 326, 327. Apocrypha, 6g, 91, 96. Apologetical Narration, 193, 197, 229. Replies to, 194. Aquinas, Thomas, 346. Argyll, Marquis of, xx, 125. Arminians, 340, 342, 352. Arrowsntitk, Dr. John, xvi, 58 ; 122, 312, 344. 345, 385, 417. 431- Articles of Religion, XLii. of Edward vi., 24. 330-335- ,\xxix. of Elizabeth, 5. 143. 146. XXXIX. of Elizabeth, debate on Art. vii. and xi., 146-157. of Westminster Assem- bly, see Confession of Faith. Articles, Lambeth, 338, 339, 340. Irish, 79, J 17, 371-376. Ashe, Simeon, xviii, 91. Assembly, General, of Scotland, 93, 106, 218-220, 222, 232, 262, 279, 352, 367, 444. 449- Assembly, Westminster, 105, 106, 108- 112, 115-127, 131, 356, 366, 442, 467. Assembly, Westminster, Baillie's accoun of, 170-172. Debates in, 180, 186, igr, 194, 226, 252, 287, 321, etc. See also Catechisms, Confession of P'aith, Directory for Public Worship, do. for Church Government. Augsburg Confession, 335. Augustine, Augustinianism, 326, 327, 333, 342. 346, 380. 389, 397- Autonomy of Church, pp. 269-324. Bacon, Lord, 59, 69, 388, 392. .Spedding's Life of, 59, 481. Baillie, Robert, xx, 25, 186, 186, 209, 214, 227, 283, 285, 302, 303, 350, 380, 429. Ball, John, 377, 378, 386, 403, 409, 420- 424, 437- Balttteriiio, Lord, xx. Bancroft, Abp., 68, 77, 341, 478. Baptism, 219, 361. Baptists, 380, 469. Barlow, 339, 479, 481. Baro, 337, 338, 341. Barret, 337, 341. Barrington, Sir Thos., M.P. , xiii. Bartholomew's Day, 57, 456. Bathurst, Tlieo., xiv, 29. Baxter, 118, 380, 453, 457. Baylie, Thos., B.D., xvii, 80. Bedford, Earl of , xii. Beza, 278, 348. Bible, 10, II, 12, 13, 34, 6g, 217, 279, 405. Genevan translation of, 34, 46. King James's translation, 69. Bishops, 40, 41, 61, 62, 68, 79, go, 95, 99, 114, 163, 253, 284, 337, 352, 457. Blair, Robert, xx, 236, 324, 442-445, 2 K 5H Index. Bohemian Confession, 274. Bolingbroke, Earl of , xii. Bonar, Dr. H., 385, 391. Bond, John, D.C. L., xix, 129. Book of Common Order, 34, 46, 49, 103, 221, 222, 23s, 236. Book of Common Prayer, 24, 25, 37, 59, 99, 102 ,156, 218, 224, 226, 235, 299, 455. Books of Discipline, 112, 221. Boston, 385. Bonlton, Sam., B.D., xix, 139. Bourne, Immanuel, 223, 290. Bowles, Oliver, B.D., xiii, 2; 137, 138. Boyd, Robert, of Trochrig, 349. Bradwardine, 78, 326, 327. Bridge, William, xiv, 10. Brownists, 53, 54. Bro7V}irigge, Bp., xiv, 19. Bucer, 327, 328. Buchanan, 356. Bulkley, Richd. B.D., xvi, 89. Bullinger, 43, 336, 347, 371. Bunyan, John, 385, 391, 392, 401, 469. Burges, Cornelius, Dr., xiv, 32; 98, 141, 162, 216, 235, 364, 425. Burgess, Dr. John, 73. Burgesse, Anthony, xvii, 85 ; 377, 428. Burnet, Bp., 64. Burroughes, Jer., xv, 44 ; 124. Burton, Mr., 84. Dr., 333. Byfield, Adoniram, xix ; 134, 409, 419. Byfield, Richard, xix, 135. Calamy, Edmund, B.D. , xv, 45 ; 98, 121, 385. Calderwood, 74, 220, 236, 354. Calvin, 34, 148, 334, 335, 347, 371, 497. Calvinism, objections against, 385-394. Cambridge, 44, 68, 327, 338, 343, 411, 427. Cameron, John, 349, 350. Campbell, Dr. George, 393. Canons of 1603-4, 71, 72. • — — 1637 (Scotch), 92. 1640, 133, 457. Capel, Richard, xiv, 28. Carleton, Bp. , 325, 336, 339, 341. Caryl, Joseph, xv, 47 ; 124, 168. Carter [John], xiv, 25. Carter, Thos., xviii, 105. Carter, W., xvi, 56. Cartwright, Thos., B.D., 52, 53, 65, 274, 275. 337. 343. 479- Case, Thos., xiv, 14. Castell on Propagation of Gospel, loi. Cassilis, Earl of, xx. Catechism and Catechising, 239, 291, 357, 407-441. Caivdrey, Daniel, xix, 125 ; 312, 409, 428. Ceremonies, 69, 231, 287. Chadderton, Dr., 68. Chalmers, Dr., 385, 464. Chambers, Humphrey, B.D., xvi, 75. Charles I., 82, 90, 95, 324, 444, 470. Charles 11., 444, 453, 468. Chaucer, 391. Cheynell, Fran., D.D., xvii, 98; 360. Christ, Head of Church, 182, 183, 314-319, 321-323. Church, 182, 361, 432. censures, 250. government, 180-199, 246-268. officers, 184, 247. Clarendon, iii, 453. Clendon, Thos., xviii, 124. Clerk, Peter, xiv, 26. Cleyton, Rich., xv, 41. Cloimorthy, Sir John, M.P., xiii. Cocceius, 371, 378. Coleman, Thos., xv, 38 ; 121, 168, 295, 322, 323- Colet, Dean, 395. Comenius, John Amos, 286, 287. Commissioners, Scottish, to Westminster Assembly, 125, i6g, 174, 185, 218, 256, 262, 296. Commissioners to receive Appeals, etc., 301-304, 321. Committee of Accommodation, 199-203. on Directory for Public Wor- ship, 214, 227. on Directory for Ordination, 358. on Confession of Faith, 357, on Catechisms, 409, 416, 417, 424, 426, 427. Grand, 96, 214. Committees of Assembly, Three larger, 142-145. Commons, House of, 54, 71, 96, 104, 175, 216, 219, 253, 306-308, 311, 320, 366, 367. Index. 515 Communion, 236, 290, 336, 361, Note M 2. Kneeling at, 25, 34, 40, 74. Sitting at, 11, 19, 216. Directory for, 234, 235. Couani, John, B.D., xvi, 76. Conference, Hampton Court, 68, 70, 76, 274, 338 ; also Note C, 481. Conference, Savoy, 454, 455. Confession of Faith, Westminster, 325, 357- 359- dissents from, 363, 364- Confession of Faith, sending up to Houses, 366, 367. title of, 368. sources of, 372-377, 381. — objections to, 385-406. — - Commentaries on, 381. — Early Editions of, 369, 508. Consensus of Zurich, 333, 497. Convocation of 1562, 40. of 1603-4, 71. of 1640, 94. of 1661, 455. Irish of, 161S, 339, 340, 374. of, 1634, 88, 374. 93. Conway, Earl of , xii Cooke, Francis, xvi, 67. Cooke, Sir John, M.P., xiii. Corbet, Edw., xvi, 69. Corbet, Edw., xix, 132. Court of High Commission, 54, 84. of Star Chamber, 54, 84. Covenant, Scottish National, 65, Note E, 484. Covenant, English National, 141, 160. Solemn League and, 160, 166- 168, 176-179, 298, 309, 317. Covenants of Works and Grace, 344, 377, 378. Coverdale, Miles, 12, 13, 48. Cowper, 391. Cranmer, Abp., 20-22, 106, 329, 330, 336. Crawford, Dr., 334, 385, 387. Creed, 148, 157, 416, 428. Cromwell, Oliver, 87, 177, 192, 211, 443, 445-450. Cromwell, Richard, 450. Cross, sign of, 40, 41, 481. Crosse, Robt., B.D., xvi, 60. Davenant, Bp., 121, 340, 341, 343. Davenport or Sancta Clara, 142. Deacon, an officer of church, 184, 247. Debate, The grand, between Presbytery and Independency, etc., 200, 442. Decree of God, 360, 381-384. Dehn^, Philip, xix, 133. Denbigh, Earl 0/, xii. Dickson, David, 352, 487. Directory for Family Worship, 227. for Public Worship, 212-241. for Church Government, Cart- wright's, 52, 230. , West- minster Assembly's, 257-259, 261-265, 289. Discipline, 221, 258, 293-4. Doctor, officer in church, 184, 185. Doddridge, 391. Dorner, History of Protestant Doctrine, 378, 499- Dort, 80, 142, 340, 373, 399, 400. Douglas, Robert, xx, 126. Downing, Dr. Calibute, xv, 43. Dun}iing, William, xviii, 121. Diiry, John, xix, 136; 191, 287, 488. Edward in., 270. Edward vi., 273, 276, 299, 327. Elder, ruling officer in church, 186-191, 487. Elizabeth, 34, 36-38, 41, 47, 50, 51, 55-58, 273, 276, 299, 340. Ellis, Edw., B. D., xvii, 99. England, Church of, 3, 15, 37, 40, 86, 91, III, 179, 237, 276, 285, 342, 406, 453, 467. Episcopacy, 97, 114, 162, 287. Erastus and Erastianism, ^150, i8o, 195 277, 278, 295. Erastian Queries, 140, 196, 311-313. Erie, John, B.D., xviii, 113. Erskine, Sir Chas., xx. Erskines, E. and R., 385. Essex, Earl of, xii, 178. Evelyn, Sir John, M.P., xiii, 308. Excommunication, 181. Exiles, English on Continent, 30-36. Falkland, Viscount, 178. 5i6 Index. Farrar, Bp., 20. Fasts and Fasting, 181, 312. Featley, Dr. Daniel, xvi, 66 ; 98, 117. — Speeches, 146-154. Fiennes, Nathaniel, xiii, 309. Forbes, Dr. John, 351. Ford, Thos., xix, 134. Form of Church Government in Church of England and Ireland, 259-261. Foxe, John, 29, 46. Foxcroft, John, xv, 54 ; 409. Frankfort, 32-34. Fuller, 100. Galloway, Patrick, 403. Gaiiunon, Hannibal, .xiii, 7. Gataker, Thos., B.D., xvii, 93; 121, 122, 152, 153, 156, 409. Geneva, 34, 35. Gibbon, John, xviii, 114. Gibbs, George, xv, 42. Gibso7i, Saimtel, -xvi, 63. Gillespie, George, xx, 125 ; i8r, 205, 220, 224, 227, 255, 257, 288, 296, 364, 429. Glasgow, Assembly of, 94, 352. Glynn, John, M.P, xiii. Good, U'illiajn, xix, 128. Goodman, Christ., 35, 36. Goodivin, Thos., B.D., xiv, 12; 124, 214. Gouge, William, D.D., xiv, 18 ; 123, 409, 419, 424, 437. Govjcr, Stanley, xiv, 34. Green, Johti, xiv, 33. Greenhill, iV., xvii, 87 ; 124. Grindal, Abp., 41, 50, 51. Guthrie, James, 191, 484. Hacket, Dr. John, xvii, 98 ; 100. Hale, Sir Matthew, 452, 453. Hales, John, 6, 231. Hall, Bp., 114, 118, 120, 341. Hall, Henry, B. D. , xvii, 77. Hallam, 5, 41, 58, 70, 86, 119, 272, 275, 371. Hamilton, Patrick, 346. Sir William, 393. Hammond, Dr. H., xviii, no; 237-240. Hampton Court, see Conference. Hardwick, Humphrey, 131. Harley, Sir Robt. , .xiii. Harris, Dr. John, xv, 49. Harris, Robt., B.D., xvi, 59; 385, 477. Hazclrig, Sir A., M.P., xiii. Heidelberg, 278. Catechism, 441. Henderson, Alex., xx, 103; 104, 125, 159, 185, 187, 217, 227, 245, 258, 267, 369, 429. Henrietta Maria, 82. Henry viii., 273, 276. Prince of Wales, 80, 81. Heppe, 7, 79, 343. Herle, Charles, xv, 39 ; 214, 288, 418, 426. Herrick, Rich., .xv, 40. Herring, J., 244. Hetlierington, Dr., 296, 425. Hickes, Gaspard, xiii, 8. Hildersham, Sam., B.D., xvi, 70. ///'//, Dr. Thos., XV, 52 ; 92, 99, 100. Hodge, Dr. A. A., 395, 398. Hodges, Thos., .xviii, 107 ; 409. Holdsworth, Dr. Richd., xviii, 98 ; 120. Holland, Dr., 343. Holland, Earl of, xii. Hooker, 53, 63, 340. Hooper, Bp., 15-19, 400. Howard, Lord, xii. Howie or Hoveus, 348, 34Q. Hoyle, Dr. Joshua, .xiii, 9 ; 122, 343, 357, 358. Humphrey, Dr. L., 48, 343, 345. Hutton, Henry, .xvi, 78. Idoneous persons, 263. Independents, 198-200, 217, 380. Jackson, John, xv, 55. James I. of England, and vi. of Scot- land, 63-81, 155, 282, 341, 354, 355. Jerusalem Chamber, 170, and note, 394, 486. Jewel, Bp. John, 337. Joh7tston, Sir A., or Lord Warriston, xx, 125, 159. 307> 313, 314-319- Johnston, Robt., xix, 138. Jurisdiction, ecclesiastical, 274. J7is Divinum, 312-314, 362. Keys, power of, 276. Knewstub, Mr., 68. Knox, John, 23-25, 44, 279, 347. Lancashire, 2ir, 260. Lance, JVm., xviii, 106 ; 162. Langley, John, M.A., xv, 71. Lasco, John a, 25-27. Index. 517 Latimer, Bp., 14. Laud, Abp., 83, 9'. 'o'- '38, 228, 239, 241- 245. 342. 352> 460. Leighton, Dr. Alex., 84, 85. Leighton, Abp. Robert, 85, 351, 385. 393. 440, 469. Leslie, Ale.\., or Earl of Leven, 446. Leslie, David, 446. Ley, John, xiv, 13. Liberty of Conscience, see Toleration. Lightfoot, Dr. John, xvi, 68; 121, 181, 215, 216, 224, 323. Liturgi', see Kook of Common Prayer. Laud's, 91, 92. London, 290, 301, 303, 321. Lords, House of, 98, 174. 215. 251, 254- Lord's Day, 19, 80, 361. Lord's Supper, n, 19. 20, 361, 381. Loudon, Earl of , xx. Love, Dr. Rich., xiv, 17. Luther, 277, 333-335. 347- Ly/ord, IVw., B.D., xviii, 104; 409. M'Cheyne, R., 385- M'Crie, Dr. Thos., Junior, 161, 166, 209, 371, 425, 472. Magistrate, Civil, 277, 289, 361, 364. Mnitland, Lord, xx, 126. Manchester, Earl of, xii, 303. Manton, Dr. Thos., xx, note ; 124, 469. March, John de la, xviii, 102. Marprelate Tracts, 54. Marsden, L., 56, 240, 371. 457- Marshall, Stephen, B.D., xiv, 23 ; 98, 124, 214, 232, 303, 409, 414. Marston Moor, 324. Martyr, Peter, 327, 328-334. Mary, Queen of England, 29. Massam, Sir IV., xiii. Massacre, Irish, loi, 102, 244, 485. Masson, Professor, 115, 243, 286. Maynard,Joh)i, M.P., xiii. May}iard, Mr. John, xviii, 123. Melanchlhon, 333. Meldrum, Dr. Robert, xviii. Melville, Andrew, 75, 282, 348, 356. Meiv, Williatn, P..D., xiv, 27. Mic/celthwaite, Thos., xviii, 116. M illenary Petition, 67, 481. Milton, John, 119, 284, 391, 507- Milton's Sonnet, 282, etc., 287. Model, New, 293. Monk, General, 451-453. 46i. Montague, Bp. , 339. Montrose, Earl of, 324. Moore, Dr. W., 223. Moreton, William, xvii, 88. Morlcy, Dr. Geo. , xv, 50. Naseby, 324. Neal, 163-166, 214, 425. Newark, 324. Newbury, 178. Newcastle, 324. Newcomen, Mattheii', B.D., xviii, 103; 139, 295, 304. 409. 419. 420, 423- Nicholson, U'vi., xvii, 92. Northumberland, Earl of, xii. Nowell, 337- Nye, Henry, xvii, 82. Nye, Philip, xiv, 30 ; 164, 229, 428. Obedience, Passive, 86. Officers, extraordinary and ordinary, of divine institution in the Church, 184. OfXOOVCTlO?, 427. Ordinance for calling the Assembly, ix, III, 112, 128. for Choice of Elders, 300, 301. for suspension of ignorant and scandalous, 290, 300, 301, 320. Ordinances for Presbyterian Government, 320, 321. Ordination, Book of, 90. Directory for, 251-256. Overall, Bp., 337. 339. 343. 37°- Owen, Dr. John, 203, 387. Oxford, 44. 45. 68, 129, 133, 324. 327. 343. 345- Painter, Henry, D.D.. xviii, 115. Palatine, Prince Elector, xx, 81. Palmer, Herbert, B.D., xiii, i ; 125, 149. 181, 187, 214, 409-416, 425. 426,427- Parker, Abp., 47- Parliament, 5, 28, 54. 7'. 82, 95. "4. "5. 130, 158, 159, 176, 238, 257, 259. 278, 297- Pashley, Dr. Christ., xvii, 95. Pastor, an officer of divine institution, 184. Peale, Edward, xiv, 22. Pembroke, Earl of, xii. 5i8 Index. Perkins, 370, 409. Feme, Andreas, xviii, 108. Petitions of Assembly to Parliament, 290 292, 297-300, 305. Philips, John, xvi, 74. Pickering, Benj., xvii, 81. Pierpoini, IVm., M.P., xiii. Pilgrim Fathers, 86, 17, and Note D, 483. Place, Sam7iel de la, xvi, loi ; 270, 271. Pluralities, 70, 285, 481. Prayer, Free, 225, 230. Pope and Popery, 102, 406. Poynet, Bp., 20, 35. Preaching, Directory for, 238-241. Praemunire, 131, 270, 307, 311. Predestination, 127, 327, 328, 331, 334, 335, 381-384- Prelacy, 163, note. Presbytery, 117, 192-200, 267, 268, 274. Price, Dr. Wnt., xviii, 118 ; 162. Prideaux, Edtn., M.P. , xiii. Prideaux, Bp. , 98, 343, 370. Privas, Synod of, 150, 155. Proclamation prohibiting meeting of As- sembly, 129, 130. Prophet, Nicholas, xviii, iii. Proofs, Scripture for Confession, 387. Prophesyings, 49-51, 74, 78, 239. Propositions concerning Church Govern- ment, 182, 247, 249, 256. Propositions, cxi., of Gillespie, 489. Protestation or Vow of Members of As- sembly, 141. Priti or Prynne, 84. Psalms, metrical, 46, 186, 217. Purge, Pride's, 211. Purit,ins, Origin of name, etc., 3, 7, 477. Pye, Sir Robert, xiii. Pym, John, M.P., xiii. Pyne, Joh?t, xiv, 15. Queries of Commons as to Jus diviniim, 306, 312-314. Rathbone, IVni., xix, 126. Rationalism, 389. Ray?tor, IVin., xiii, 6. Reasons of Dissent by ' Dissenting Bre- thren,' and Answers by Assembly, 200, 445- Regents or Professors from Scotland, 356. Revolution of 1688, 471, 472. Reynold.s, Dr., 68, 100, 337-339, 343, 370. Reynolds, Dr. Edivard, xv, 51 ; 121, 207- 210, 417. Reynolds, Robt., M.P., xiii. Ridley, Bp., 20, 336. Roborough, Henry, xix, 134. Rogers, Ezekiel, 409, 436. Rogers, Thomas, 340, 341. Rollock, 348. Root and Branch Petition, 97. Rouse, Francis, M.P., xiii, 186. Rubric, Black, 25. Rndyard, Sir Benj., M.P. , xiii, 310. Rules presented to 'Assembly, 134, 135. Ruther/iird, Samuel, xx, 125, 185, 285, 385, 410, 414, 428, 442. Ritiland, Earl of , xii. Sabbath, see Lord's Day. Salisbury, Earl of, xii. Sallaway, Arthur, xvii, 83. Salloway, Humphrey, M.P., xiii. Sampson, Dr., 48. Sanderson, Dr. Robt., xv, 53 ; 98. .Sandys, Abp., 39, 47. Savoy, see Conference. or Independent Confession, 380, 510. Say and Seale, Viscount, xii, 245. Schaff, Dr., 127, 375, 444. Scharpius or Schairp, Dr. John, 351. Scotland, Church of, iii, igi, 216, 229, 238, 254, 267, 346, 393, 413, 462. See also. Assembly, General. Parliament, 218-222, 257, 279- 281, 369, 439, 462. Reformation in, 41, 90, 103, 279- 203, 282. Scudder, Henry, xvii, 79. Seaman, Dr. Lazarus, xv, 48 ; 121, 304. Sects and Sectaries, 210, 211, 444-446. Sedgewick, Obadiah, xiv, 24 ; 385, 409. Selden, John, M.P., xiii, 143, 183, 288 306. Servetus, 402. Simpson, Sydrach, xvii, 84. Smectymnuus, 225. Smeton, 349. Smith, Dr. B. or P., xiv, 31. Socinianism, 389. Somersetshire, 261. Index. 519 Sparkes, Dr., 68. Spursttnue, Dr. Williaiii, .wii, 97. Stanley, Dean, 170, 173, 376, 404. Stanton, Dr. Ediiid., xvi, 65 ; 244, 360. St. John, Oliver, M.P., .\iii. S terry, Peter, 15. D., .wiii, 112. Stoughton, Dr., 95, 118, 164, 178, 197. Strafford, Earl of, 82, 88, 92, loi, 375. Strang, Dr., 351. Strasburg, 347. Strickland, John, .\i.\, 127. Strong, U')n., .\i.\, 137. Stroud, Williain, M.P. , xiii. Styles, Dr. Matthias, xvi, 62. Subscription, 47, 72, Note, 511. Supremacy, 272-274. Surplice, 32, 34, 40, 41, 89. Symsons, 353, 354. Synods, London, 259. Tate, Zoitch, M.P., xiii. Taylor, Francis, B.D., xiv, 35. Temple, Dr. Thos., xvii, 90; 357, 426. Thoroiighgood, Thos., xvi, 57. Tisdale, Christopher, xvi, 72. Toleration, Question of, 15, 202-211, Note, 491. Toplady, 341, 391, 471. Tozer, Henry, B.D., xvii, 96. Tuckney, Dr. Anthony, xv, 37 ; 122, 344, 385, 417. 425, 427- T-,i'isse, Dr. William, xiii, 5; 98, 112, 120, 131, 140, 149, 155, 288, 297, 344, 369, 409. Union, Protestant, 103, 104. Ussher, Al'p. James, xvi, 61 ; 89, 98, 117, 127, 287, 341, 343, 373. 374. 409> 419. 422. 423, 469. Valentine, Thos., B.D., xiii, 4. Vane, Sir Harry, Sen., M.P. , xiii. Vane, Sir Harry, Jun., M.P., xiii, 200. Veitch, Prof., 356. I'ines, Richard, xvii. 149. 304> 417- Walker, George, B.D., xv, 46; 409. Waller, Sir Williaiir, M.P., xiii. Wallis, Dr. John, xix, 11, 122, 123, 411, 415. 431- Wandsworth, Presbytery of, 52. Ward, Dr. Sam., xiv, 20; 98, 340, 343. Ward, John, xix, 131. Warivick, Earl of , xii. ll'eldy, or IFelhy, Jas., xvii, 94 Wentworth, see Strafford. Il'estjield, Bp., Thos., xviii, 109. Wharton, Lord, xii. Wheeler, William, M.P., xiii. Whidden, Francis, M.A., xiv, 16. Whitaker, Dr., 100, 337, 34^. Whitaker, Jeremiah, xvi, 64 ; 181. White, John, xiv, 21 ; 98, 141, 296, 409. White, John, M.P., xiii. Whitlocke, Bontdstrode, M.P., xiii. Whitfield, George, 385, 390. Whitgift, Abp., 53-55, 68, 76, 77, 337, 338, 341. Wild, Mr. Sergeant, M.P., xiii. Wilkinson, Henry, Sen., li.D., xiii, 3. li'ilkinson, Henry, Jitn., B.D., xviii, 119. Williams, Abp., 85, 97. Willison, 230, 385. IVilson, Thos., xv, 36 ; 409, 427. Wincop, Dr. Jolui, xviii, 117. Wincop, Dr. Thos., xiv, 11. Winrham, George, xx. Wishart, George, 347. Witsius, 378. Woodcock, Francis, xviii, 122 ; 244. Worcestershire, 261. Wiirtemberg Confession, 498. Wyclif, 2, 326, 327. Young, Dr. Thomas, xvi, 73; 214, 288. Young, Walter, M.P., xiii. Zurich, 30, 49, 336. EDINDVRCH UNIVERSITY PRESS : THOMAS AND ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, I'RINTKRS TO HER .MAJESTY. ^( -^-^/^r^-^f^' Date Due ^tt^ Ffg'f^l) '5*3 r t r>i II ttaa. di^MMIflMlkf^ flUv r»^ -I .piiirtiiili tig,, JO ' V' 9 ^' 'i** ****(*■'« I