This struggle had reached its acutest stage when “the Long Parliament” met, on the third of November, 1640. Profoundly distrustful of the King’s sincerity, and determined on its own behalf to be trifled with no longer, Parliament was in no mood for compromises with respect whether to civil or to ecclesiastical affairs. On the ecclesiastical side it was without concern, indeed, for doctrine. It was under no illusions, to be sure, as to the doctrinal significance of the Catholic reaction, and it was fully sensible of the spread of Arminianism in high places.⁴ But although there were not lacking hints of such a thing, Tract No. 90 had not yet been written,⁵ and the soundly Reformed character of the Church of England as well in its official Articles of Religion as in its general conviction was not in dispute. John Milton accurately reflects the common sentiment of the day when he declares that “in purity of Doctrine” English Churchmen “agreed with their Brethren,” that is, of the other Reformed Churches, while yet in discipline, which is “the execution and applying of Doctrine home,” they were “no better than a Schisme, from all the Reformation, and a sore scandall to them.”⁶ What the nation in Commons assembled was determined to be rid of in its Church establishment was, therefore, briefly, “bishoprics” and “ceremonies” - what Milton calls “the irreligious pride and hateful tyranny of Prelates” and the “sencelesse ceremonies” which were only “a dangerous earnest of sliding back to Rome.” The Convocation of 1640, continuing illegally to sit after the dissolution of the “Short Parliament,” had indeed endeavored to protect the established organization of the Church. It had framed a canon, requiring from the whole body of the clergy the famous “et cetera oath,” a sort of echo and counterblast to the “National Covenant” which had been subscribed in Scotland two years before (February 28, 1638). By this oath every clergyman was to bind himself never to give his consent “to alter the government of this Church by archbishops, bishops, deans, and archdeacons, etc., as it stands now established, and as by right it ought to stand.”⁷ It was even thought worth while to prepare a number of petitions for Parliament with the design of counteracting the effect of this act of convocation. The most important of these, the so-called “London” or “Root and Branch” petition, bore no fewer than 15,000 signatures; and the personal attendance of some 1500 gentlemen of quality when it was presented to Parliament lent weight to its prayer. This was to the effect that “the government of archbishops and lord bishops, deans, and archdeacons, etc.” (the same enumeration, observe, as in the “et cetera oath”) “with all its dependencies, roots and branches, may be abolished, and all laws in their behalf made void, and the government according to God’s word may be rightly placed amongst us.”⁸ Parliament, however, was in no need of prodding for this work, though it was for various reasons disposed to proceed leisurely in it. The obnoxious Act of Convocation was at once taken up and rebuked. But even the Root and Branch Petition, which was apparently ready from the beginning of the session,⁹ was not presented until December 11, and after its presentation was not taken into formal consideration by the House until the following February. As was natural, differences of opinion also began to manifest themselves, as to precisely what should be done with the bishops, and as to the precise form of government which should be set up in the Church after they had been dealt with. There is no reason to doubt the exactness of Baillie’s information¹⁰ that the Commons were by a large majority of their membership for erecting some “kind of Presbyteries,” and “for bringing down the Bishop in all things, spiritual and temporal, so low as can be with any subsistance.” In Parliament as out of it the great majority of leading men had become Presbyterian in their tendencies, and the Independents were for the present prepared to act with them. But there was very little knowledge abroad among the members of Parliament of what Presbytery really was,¹¹ and even the most convinced Presbyterians doubted the feasibility of setting up the whole Presbyterian system at once, while an influential party still advocated what Baillie calls¹² a “calked Episcopacie.”¹³ It still hung in the balance, therefore, whether bishops should be utterly abolished; and any hesitation which may have existed in the Commons was more than matched in the House of Lords. Above all it never entered the thought of Parliament to set up in the Church any manner of government whatever over which it did not itself retain control.¹⁴ The result was that actual legislation dragged. Abortive bill after abortive bill was brought in; now simply to deprive the prelates of secular functions, and again to abolish the whole Episcopal system. It was not until the autumn of 1641 (October 21), that at length a bill excludingthe bishops from secular activities was passed by the Commons to which the assent of the Lords was obtained (February 5, 1642); ¹⁵ and not until another year had slipped away that, under Scotch influence (August, 1642), a bill was finally passed (January 26, 1643) abolishing prelacy altogether.

Alongside of these slowly maturing efforts at negative legislation there naturally ran a parallel series of attempts to provide a positive constitution for the Church after the bishops had been minished or done away. It was recognized from the beginning that for this positive legislation the advice of approved divines would be requisite.¹⁶ Preparation for it took, therefore, much the form of proposals for securing such advice. From all sides, within Parliament and without it alike, the suggestion was pressed that a formal Synod of Divines should be convened to which Parliament should statedly appeal for counsel in all questions which should occasionally arise in the process of the settlement of the Church. And from the beginning it was at least hinted that, in framing its advice, such a Synod might well bear in mind wider interests than merely the internal peace of the Church of England; that it might, for example, consider the advantage of securing along with that a greater harmony with the other Reformed Churches, particularly the neighboring Church of Scotland. It was accordingly with this wider outlook in mind that the proposition was given explicit shape in “the Grand Remonstrance” which was drawn up in the Commons on November 8, 1641, and, having been passed on November 22, was presented to the King on December 1. This document began by avowing the intention of Parliament to “reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the prelates had assumed unto themselves,” and to set up a juster “discipline and government in the Church.” It proceeded thus (§ 186): “And the better to effect the intended reformation, we desire there may be a general synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this island; assisted with some from foreign parts, professing the same religion with us, who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good government of the Church, and represent the results of their consultations unto the Parliament, to be there allowed of and confirmed, and receive the stamp of authority, thereby to find passage and obedience throughout the kingdom.”¹⁷ In pursuance of this design, the Commons engaged themselves desultorily from the ensuing February (1642) in preparations for convening such a Synod. The names of suitable ministers to sit in it were canvassed; selection was made of two divines from each English and one from each Welsh county, two from the Channel Islands and from each University, and four from London;¹⁸ and a bill was passed through both Houses (May 9 to June 30, 1642) commanding the Assembly so constituted to convene on July 1, 1642.¹⁹ The King’s assent failing, however, this bill lapsed, and was superseded by another to the same general effect, and that by yet another, and yet another, which went the same way, until finally a sixth bill was prepared, read in the Commons as an ordinance on May 13, 1643, and having been agreed to by the Lords on June 12, 1643, was put into effect without the King’s assent. By this ordinance,²⁰ the Divines, in number 121, supplemented by ten peers and twenty members of the House of Commons (forty being a quorum) were required “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 thereafter “from time to time [to] sit, and be removed from place to place” and 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 otherwise, without the consent of both or either House of Parliament.”

The prominence given in this ordinance to the reorganization of the government of the Church of England as the primary matter upon which the Assembly thus instituted should be consulted was inherent in the nature of the case, but should not pass without specific notice. And, we should further note, next to the reorganization of the government of the Church the reform of its liturgy was, as was natural in the circumstances, to be the Assembly’s care. Doctrinal matters lay wholly in the background. In the heading of the ordinance it is described with exactness as an ordinance “for the calling of an Assembly of learned and godly Divines, and others, to be consulted with by the Parliament, for the settling of the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England”; while it is only added as something clearly secondary in importance that its labors may be directed also to the “vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the said Church from false aspersions and interpretations.” In the body of the ordinance the occasion of calling such an Assembly is detailed. It was because “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 more specifically because Parliament had arrived at the determination that the existing prelatical government should be taken away as evil, “a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom.” The prime purpose for calling the Assembly is therefore declared to be “to consult and advise” with Parliament, as it may be required to do, in the Parliament’s efforts to substitute for the existing prelatical government of the Church, such a government “as may be most agreeable to God’s holy word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other Reformed Churches abroad.” It is a clearly secondary duty laid on it also “to vindicate and clear the doctrine of the Church of England from all false calumnies and aspersions.” It has already been pointed out, that this emphasis on the reformation first of the government and next of the liturgy of the Church, merely reflects the actual situation of affairs. The doctrine of the Church of England was everywhere recognized as in itself soundly Reformed, and needing only to be protected from corrupting misinterpretations; its government and worship, on the other hand, were conceived to be themselves sadly in need of reformation, in the interests of adjustment to the will of God as declared in Scripture, and of harmonizing with the practice of the sister Reformed Churches. Of these sister Reformed Churches, that of Scotland is particularly singled out for mention as the one into “a nearer agreement” with the government of which it were especially desirable that the new government of the Church of England should be brought. But this appears on the face of the ordinance merely as a measure of general prudence and propriety - there is nothing to indicate that any formal uniformity in religion with Scotland was to be sought. It was with the reorganization of the Church of England alone that Parliament was at this time concerned; and the Assembly called “to consult and advise” with it in this work, had no function beyond the bounds of that Church.

What is of most importance to observe in this ordinance, however, is the care that is taken to withhold all independent powers from the Assembly it convened and to confine it to a purely advisory function. Parliament had no intention whatever of erecting by its own side an ecclesiastical legislature to which might be committed the work of reorganizing the Church, leaving Parliament free to give itself to the civil affairs of the nation. What it proposed to do, was simply to create a permanent Committee of Divines which should be continuously accessible to it, and to which it could resort from time to time for counsel in its prosecution of the task of reconstituting the government, discipline, and worship of the Church of England.²¹ Parliament was determined to hold the entire power, civil and ecclesiastical alike, in its own hands; and it took the most extreme pains to deny all initiation and all jurisdiction to the Assembly of Divines it was erecting,²² and to limit it strictly to supplying Parliament with advice upon specific propositions occasionally submitted to it. The ordinance is described in its heading as an ordinance for the calling of an Assembly “to be consulted with by the Parliament.” And in the body of the ordinance the function of the Divines is described as “to consult and advise of such matters and things, touching the premises”- that is to say, the Liturgy, Discipline, and Government of the Church, together with the clearing and vindicating of its doctrine - “as shall be proposed unto them by both or either of the Houses of Parliament, and to give their advice and counsel therein to both or either of the said Houses, when, and as often as they shall be thereunto required.” And again, with perhaps superfluous but certainly significant emphasis, in the empowering clauses, the assembled Divines are given “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 are further enjoined “to deliver their opinions and advices of, or touching the matters aforesaid, as shall be most agreeable to the word of God, to both or either of the said Houses, from time to time, in such manner and sort as by both or either of the said Houses of Parliament shall be required; and the same not to divulge, by printing, writing, or otherwise, without the consent of both or either House of Parliament.” To make assurance trebly certain the ordinance closes with this blanket clause: “Provided always, That this Ordinance, or any thing therein contained, shall not give unto the persons aforesaid, or any of them, nor shall they in this Assembly assume to exercise any jurisdiction, power, or authority ecclesiastical whatsoever, or any other power than is herein particularly expressed.” The effect of these regulations was of course to make the Westminster Assembly merely the creature of Parliament. They reflect the Erastian temper of Parliament, which, intent though it was upon vindicating the civil liberty of the subject, never caught sight of the vision of a free Church in a free State, but not unnaturally identified the cause of freedom with itself and would have felt it a betrayal of liberty not to have retained all authority, civil and ecclesiastical alike, in its own hands as the representatives of the nation. With it, the great conflict in progress was that between King and Parliament; and what it was chiefly concerned with was the establishment of Parliamentary government. In its regulations with respect to the Westminster Assembly, however, it did not go one step beyond what it had been accustomed to see practised in England with regard to the civil control of ecclesiastical assemblies. The effect of these regulations was, in fact, merely to place this Assembly with respect to its independence of action, in the same position relatively to Parliament, which had been previously occupied by the Convocations of the Church of England relatively to the crown, as regulated by 25 Henry VIII (1533/4), c. 19, revived by 1 Eliz. (1558/9), c. 1. s. z., and expounded by Coke, “Reports,” xiii. p. 72.²³ And it must be borne in mind that stringent as these regulations were, they denied to the Assembly only initiation and authority: they left it perfectly free in its deliberations and conclusions.²⁴ The limitation of its discussions to topics committed to it by Parliament, moreover, proved no grievance, in the face of the very broad commitments which were ultimately made to it; and its incapacity to give legal effect to its determinations - which it could present only as “humble advices” to Parliament - deprived them of none of their intrinsic value, and has in no way lessened their ultimate influence.

In pursuance of this ordinance, and in defiance of an inhibitory proclamation from the King, the Assembly duly met on July 1, 1643. It was constituted in the Chapel of Henry VII after there had been preached to its members in the Abbey by Dr. William Twisse, who had been named by Parliament prolocutor to the Assembly, a sermon which was listened to by a great concourse, including both Houses of Parliament. Sixty-nine members were in attendance on the first day; and that seems to have thereafter been the average daily attendance.²⁵ No business was transacted on this day, however, but adjournment was taken until July 6: and it was not until July 8 that work was begun, after each member had made a solemn protestation “to maintain nothing in point of doctrine but what ‘he believed’ 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.” The first task committed to the Assembly was the revision of the Thirty-nine Articles, and it was engaged upon this labor intermittently until October 12, at which date it had reached the sixteenth Article.²⁶ That the Assembly was thus put for its first work upon the least pressing of the tasks which were expected of it - “the vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the Church of England from all false aspersions and misconstructions” - may have been due to the concurrence of many causes. It may have been that in its engrossment with far more immediately pressing duties than even the settlement of the future government of the Church of England, Parliament had had no opportunity to prepare work for the Assembly. Beyond question, however, the main cause was the premonition of that change in the posture of affairs by which the work of the Assembly was given a new significance and a much wider range than were contemplated when it was called, and an international rather than a merely national bearing. It was natural that Parliament should hold it back from its more important labors until the arrangements already in progress for this change in the scope of its work were perfected. It is not necessary to suppose that the determinations of the Assembly were essentially altered - or that Parliament supposed they would be - by the change in the bearing of its work to which we allude. It is quite true that in the course of the debates which were subsequently held, sufficient confusion of mind was occasionally exhibited on the part of many in the Assembly to make us thankful that these debates were actually regulated by the firm guidance of men of experience in the matters under discussion.²⁷ But the known convictions of the members of the Assembly, evidenced in their printed works no less than in the debates of the Assembly, render it altogether unlikely that had they been called upon, as it was at first contemplated they should be, to advise Parliament unassisted and merely with respect to the settlement of the Church of England, they would have failed to fight their way to conclusions quite similar to those they actually reached.²⁸ Nevertheless the alteration of the bearing of their work from a merely national to international significance, obviously not only gave it a far wider compass than was at first contemplated, but quite revolutionized its spirit and threw it into such changed relations as to give it a totally different character.

This great change in the function which the Assembly was to serve, was brought about by the stage reached by the civil conflict in the summer of 1643. The Parliamentary cause had sunk to its lowest ebb; and it had become imperative to obtain the assistance of the Scots. But the assistance of the Scots could be had only at the price of a distinctively ecclesiastical alliance. The Scotch had been far greater sufferers than even the English from the absolutism which had been practised by the Stuart Kings in ecclesiastical matters. Not content with asserting and exercising original authority in the ecclesiastical affairs of England, these monarchs had asserted and were ever increasingly exercising the same absolutism in the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland also; and had freely employed the ecclesiastical instruments at their service in England in order to secure their ends in Scotland. But the relations of Church and State in Scotland were not quite the same as those which obtained in England.²⁹ In the northern kingdom, from the beginning of the Reformation, the ideal of a free Church in a free State had been sedulously cherished and repeatedly given effect; and the government of the Church was in representative courts which asserted and exercised their own independent spiritual jurisdiction. The interference of the King with the working of this ecclesiastical machinery was, therefore, widely resented as mere tyranny. And as it was employed precisely for the purpose of destroying the ecclesiastical organization which had been established in the Church of Scotland, and of assimilating the Scottish Church in government and mode of worship (doctrine was not in question³⁰) to the model of the Church of England, which was considered by the Scots far less pure and Scriptural than their own, it took the form also of religious persecution. No claim could be put in here, as was put in in England, that the royal prerogative was exercised only for conserving the ancient settlement of the Church. It was employed precisely for pulling down what had been built up, and was, therefore, not only tyrannical in form but revolutionary in its entire effect. Add that it was understood that the instrument, if not the instigator, of this persecuting tyranny had come in late years to be a foreign prelate aggressively bent even in England on a violently reactionary policy, to which that nation was unalterably averse, and in Scotland balking apparently at nothing which promised to reduce the Church there to the same Catholicizing model which he had set himself to establish and perpetuate in England, and it will be apparent how galling the situation had become. Chafing under such wrongs, Scotland needed only a spark to be set on fire. The spark was provided in the spring of 1637, by the imposition upon the Church of Scotland by the mere proclamation of the King - “without warrant from our Kirk,” as say the Scottish Commissioners - of a complete new service-book designed to assimilate the worship of the Scottish Church as closely as possible to that of England, or, as Milton expresses it from the English Puritan point of sight,³¹ “to force upon their Fellow-Subjects, that which themselves are weary of, the Skeleton of a Masse-Booke.”³² When the book was read in the Cathedral Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, July 23, 1637, however “incontinent,” says Baillie,³³ “the serving-maids began such a tumult, as was never heard of since the Reformation in our nation”; and thus “the serving-maids in Edinburgh” - symbolized in the picturesque legend of Jennie Geddes and her stool, which has almost attained the dignity of history - “began to draw down the Bishop’s pride, when it was at the highest.”³⁴ The movement thus inaugurated ran rapidly forward: as Archbishop Spottiswoode is said to have exclaimed, “all that they had been doing these thirty years past was thrown down at once.” The Scots immediately reclaimed their ecclesiastical, and, in doing that, also their civil liberties; eradicated at once every trace of the prelacy which had been imposed on them, and restored their Presbyterian government; secured the simplicity of their worship and reinstated the strictness of their discipline; and withal bound themselves by a great oath - “the National Covenant”³⁵ - to the perpetual preservation of their religious settlement in its purity.

The Scots to whom the English Parliament made its appeal for aid in the summer of 1643, were, then, “a covenanted nation.” They were profoundly convinced that the root of all the ills they had been made to suffer through two reigns, culminating in the insufferable tyranny of the Laudian domination, was to be found in the restless ambition of the English prelates; and they had once for all determined to make it their primary end to secure themselves in the permanent peaceful possession of their own religious establishment. The Parliamentary Commissioners came to them, indeed, seeking aid in their political struggle and with their minds set on a civil compact: they found the Scots, however, equally determined that any bond into which they entered should deal primarily with the ecclesiastical situation and should be fundamentally a religious engagement. “The English,” says Baillie,³⁶ “were for a civill League, we for a religious Covenant.” The Scots, indeed, had nothing to gain from the alliance which was offered them, unless they gained security for their Church from future English interference; while on the other hand by entering into it they risked everything which they had at such great cost recovered for themselves. Their own liberties were already regained; the cause of Parliament in England, on the contrary, hung in the gravest doubt. It really was an act of high chivalry, to call it by no more sacred name, for them to cast in their lot at this crisis with the Parliament; and more than one Scot must have cried to himself during the ensuing years, “Surelie it was a great act of faith in God, and hudge courage and unheard of compassion, that moved our nation to hazard their own peace, and venture their lives and all, for to save a people so irrecoverablie ruined both in their owne and all the world’s eyes.”³⁷ On the other hand, the Scots demanded nothing more than that the Parliament should explicitly bind itself to the course it was on its own account loudly professing to be following, and had already declared, in the ordinance (for example) by which it had called to its aid an advisory council of Divines,³⁸ to be the object it was setting before itself in the reconstruction of the English Church. All that was asked of the Parliament, in point of fact, was, thus, that it should give greater precision, and binding force under the sanction of a solemn covenant, to its repeatedly declared purpose. That the Parliamentary Commissioners boggled over this demand, especially if it were in the effort to keep “a doore open in England to Independencie,”³⁹ was scarcely worthy of them, and boded ill for the future. That they yielded in the end and the Scots had their way may have been, no doubt, the index of their necessities; but it would seem to have been already given in the logic of the situation. To hold out on this issue were to stultify the whole course of the Long Parliament heretofore. The result was, accordingly, “the Solemn League and Covenant.”

By this pact, the two nations bound themselves to each other in a solemn league and covenant, the two terms being employed apparently as designating the pact respectively from the civil and the religious sides. This “league and covenant” was sworn to in England by both Houses of Parliament, as also by their servant-body, the Assembly of Divines, and in Scotland by both the civil and religious authorities; and then was sent out into the two countries to be subscribed by the whole population. By the terms of the engagement made in it, the difference in the actual ecclesiastical situations of the contracting parties was clearly recognized, and that in such terms as to make the actual situation in Scotland the model of the establishment agreed upon for both countries. The contracting parties bound themselves to “the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies,” on the one hand; and on the other to “the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland,⁴⁰ in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches”; to the end that thereby “the Churches of God in the three kingdoms” might be brought “to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church government, directory for worship and catechizing.”⁴¹ According to the terms of this engagement, therefore, the Parliament undertook, in the settlement of the Church of England on which it was engaged, to study to bring that Church to the nearest possible “conjunction and uniformity” with the existing settlement of the Church of Scotland, and that in the four items of Confession of Faith, Form of Church Government, Directory for Worship, and Catechizing; and these four items were accordingly currently spoken of thereafter as “the four points or parts of uniformity.”⁴² By this engagement there was given obviously not only a wholly new bearing to the work of the Assembly of Divines which had been convened as a standing body of counsellors to the Parliament in ecclesiastical affairs, and that one of largely increased significance and heightened dignity; but also a wholly new definiteness to the work which should be required of it, with respect both to its compass and its aim. Whatever else Parliament might call on the Assembly to advise it in, it would now necessarily call on it to propose to it a new Form of Church Government, a new Directory for Worship, a new Confession of Faith, and a new Catechetical Manual. And in framing these formularies the aim of the Assembly would now necessarily be to prepare forms which might be acceptable not merely to the Church of England, as promising to secure her internal peace, and efficiency, but also to the Church of Scotland as preserving the doctrines, worship, discipline, government already established in that Church. The significance of the Solemn League and Covenant was, therefore, that it pledged the two nations to uniformity in their religious establishments and pledged them to a uniformity on the model of the establishment already existing in the Church of Scotland.

The taking of the Solemn League and Covenant by the two nations, on the one side marked the completeness of the failure of the ecclesiastical policy of the King, and on the other seemed to promise to the Scots the accomplishment of a dream which had long been cherished by them. The broader ecclesiastical policy consistently pursued by the throne throughout the whole Stuart period had been directed to the reduction of the religion of the three kingdoms to uniformity.⁴³ The model of this uniformity, however, was naturally derived from the prelatical constitution of the Church of England, to which the Stuart monarchs had taken so violent a predilection; and that, in the later years of their administration when the policy of “thorough” was being pushed forward, as interpreted in an extremely reactionary spirit. No one could doubt that important advantages would accrue from uniformity in the religious establishment of the three kingdoms; and the Scots, taking a leaf out of their adversaries’ book, began early to press for its institution in the reconstructed Church, on the basis, however, of their own Presbyterianism. Their motive for this was not merely zeal for the extension of their particular church order, which they sincerely believed to be jure divino; but a conviction that only so could they secure themselves from future interference in their own religious establishment from the side of the stronger sister-nation. They had no sooner recovered their Presbyterian organization, and simplicity of worship, therefore, than they began to urge the reformation of the sister-church on their model. The Scottish peace-commissioners, for example, took up to London with them, in the closing months of 1640,⁴⁴ a paper drawn up by Alexander Henderson, in which they set forth their “desires concerning unity in religion,” and “uniformity of Church government as a special mean to conserve peace in his majesty’s dominion.”⁴⁵ In this paper they declared that it is “to be wished that there were one Confession of Faith, one form of Catechism, one Directory for all the parts of the public worship of God, and for prayer, preaching, administration of sacraments, etc., and one form of Church government, in all the Churches of his majesty’s dominions.” Here we see enumerated the precise schedule of uniformity which was afterwards undertaken under the sanction of the Solemn League and Covenant, the items being arranged climactically in the order of ascending immediate importance. For the Commissioners recognized that it was uniformity of Church Government which was most imperatively required; and equally frankly urged that this uniformity of Church Government should be sought by the common adoption by both nations of the Presbyterian system. The propriety of such a demand they argued on the grounds that the Presbyterian system was the system in use in all other Reformed Churches; that the English prelatical system had been the source of much evil; that the Reformed Churches were clear that their system is jure divino, while the jus divinum was not commonly claimed for Episcopacy;⁴⁶ and above all, that the Scotch were bound by oath, not lately taken in wilfulness but of ancient obligation, to the Presbyterian system, while the English were free to recast their system, and indeed were already bent on recasting it. This paper was handed in to the Lords of the Treaty on March 10, 1641, with little apparent immediate effect. Indeed, there seems to have been even a disposition to resent its suggestions. The whole matter was put to one side by the Parliament with a somewhat grudging word of thanks to Scotland for wishing uniformity of Church Government with England, and a somewhat dry intimation that Parliament had already taken into consideration the reformation of Church Government and would proceed in it in due time as should “best conduce to the glory of God and peace of the Church.”⁴⁷ This response was accordingly embodied in the treaty of August 7, 1641,⁴⁸ to the effect that the desire expressed for “a conformity of Church Government between the two Nations” was commendable; “and as the Parliament hath already taken into consideration the reformation of Church Government, so they will proceed therein in due time as shall best conduce to the glory of God and peace of the Church and of both Kingdomes.”

Nevertheless the suggestion ultimately bore fruit. It was repeated by Henderson to the Scottish Assembly, meeting at the end of July next ensuing, in a proposition that the Scotch Church, by way of holding out the olive branch, should itself draw up a new “Confession of Faith, a Catechisme, a Directorie for all the parts of the publick worship, and a Platforme of Government, wherein possiblie England and we might agree.”⁴⁹ This proposal met so far with favor that Henderson was himself appointed to take the labor in hand, with such help as he should choose to call to his side. On further consideration, however, he himself judged it best to await the issue of affairs in England;⁵⁰ fully recognizing that the adoption of purely Scottish forms by both nations was not to be hoped for, but if uniformity was ever to be attained, “a new Forme must be sett downe for us all, and in my opinion some men sett apairt sometime for that worke.”⁵¹ Accordingly, when, as the outbreak of open war between the Parliament and the King became imminent in the midsummer of 1642, Parliament addressed a letter to the Scottish Assembly declaring “their earnest desyre to have their Church reformed according to the word of God,”⁵² and their well-grounded hope of accomplishing this task if war could be averted - all of which was interpreted, and was intended to be interpreted, by an accompanying letter “from a number of English ministers at London” in which it was asserted that “the desire of the most godly and considerable part” among them was for the establishment in England of the Presbyterian Government, “which hath just and evident foundation both in the Word of God and religious reason”; and, referring directly to the Scottish proposal, “that (according to your intimation) we may agree in one Confession of Faith, one Directorie of Worship, one publike Catechisme, and form of Government”⁵³ - the Assembly naturally responded⁵⁴ by reiterating its desire for this unifying settlement and renewing “the Proposition made by” its Commissioners in 1641 “for beginning the work of Reformation at the Uniformity of Kirk-Government.” “For what hope,” the Assembly argues, “can there be of Unity in Religion, of one Confession of Faith, one Form of Worship, and one Catechism, till there be first one Form of Ecclesiastical Government?” The response of Parliament,⁵⁵ satisfactory if a little reserved, intimated the expected meeting of the reforming Synod on November 5, and asked the appointment of some Scottish delegates “to assist at” it;⁵⁶ a request which was immediately complied with, and the Commissioners named, who, a year later, after the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant, went up in somewhat different circumstances, and with a somewhat different commission.⁵⁷ Meanwhile the Scots assiduously kept their proposals for the institution of uniformity of religious constitution in the two nations forward,⁵⁸ and the course of events finally threw the game into their hands, when the Commissioners of Parliament appeared in Edinburgh in August, 1643, seeking Scottish aid in their extremity, and swore the Solemn League and Covenant as its price. By this compact the two nations bound themselves precisely to the punctual carrying out of the program proposed by the Scottish Commissioners in 1640-1641.

The Solemn League and Covenant, it must be borne in mind, was no loose agreement between two Churches, but a solemnly ratified treaty between two nations. The Commissioners who went up to London from Scotland under its provisions, went up not as delegates from the Scottish Church to lend their hand to the work of the Assembly of Divines, but as the accredited representatives of the Scottish people, to treat with the English Parliament in the settlement of the details of that religious uniformity which the two nations had agreed with one another to institute. They might on the invitation of the English Parliament be present at the sessions of the advisory Assembly it had convened, and give it their advice throughout all the processes of its deliberations. And it is obvious that their presence there would much advance the business in hand, by tending to prevent proposals of a hopelessly one-sided character from being formulated. It would seem obvious also that it was eminently fitting that Scotch counsels should be heard in the deliberations of a body to which, under whatever safeguards, was in point of fact committed the task of preparing the drafts of formularies which it was hoped might prove acceptable to both Churches - especially when thirty members of the English Parliament, the party of the other part to this treaty, were members of the body. But the proper task of the Scotch Commissioners lay not in the Assembly of Divines, but outside of it. It was their function, speaking broadly, to see that such formularies were proposed to the two contracting nations for the reducing of their church establishments to uniformity, as would be acceptable to the Church of Scotland which they represented, and would fulfil the provisions of the Solemn League and Covenant under the sanction of which they were acting.⁵⁹ And if the Assembly of Divines were utilized, as it in point of fact was utilized, to draw up these draft formularies, it was the business of the Scottish Commissioners to see that the Divines did their work in full view of the Scottish desires and point of view, and that the documents issued from their hands in a form in which the Church of Scotland could adopt them. In the prosecution of these their functions as Treaty Commissioners, their immediate relations were not with the Assembly of Divines but with the Parliament or with whatever commissioners the Parliament might appoint to represent it in conference with them. They could treat with or act directly upon the Assembly of Divines only at the request of Parliament, to treat with which they were really commissioned; and only to the extent which Parliament might judge useful for the common end in view. A disposition manifested itself; it is true, on their appearing in London, to look upon them merely as Scotch members of the Assembly of Divines, appointed to sit with the Divines in response to a request from the English Parliament. This view of their functions they vigorously repudiated. They were perfectly willing, they said,⁶⁰ to sit in the Assembly as individuals and to lend the Divines in their deliberations all the aid in their power, if the Parliament invited them to do so. But as Commissioners for their National Church, they were Treaty Commissioners, empowered to treat with the Parliament itself. Accordingly a committee of Parliament was appointed (October 17-20, 1643) to meet statedly with them and consult with them, to which was added a committee from the Divines; and it was through this “Grand Committee” that the work of the Assembly on the points of uniformity was directed.⁶¹ As they were requested by Parliament also “as private men” to sit in the Assembly of Divines they occupied a sort of dual position relatively to the Assembly,⁶² and this has been the occasion of some misunderstanding and even criticism of their varied lines of activity. The matter is, however, perfectly simple. In all its work looking to the preparation of a basis for the proposed uniformity, the Assembly really did its work under the direction proximately not of the Parliament but of “the Grand Committee,” and the results of its labors were presented, therefore, not merely to Parliament, but, also, through its Commissioners, to the Scottish Assembly. The Scotch Commissioners as members of “the Grand Committee” had therefore an important part in preparing the work of the Divines for them in all that concerned the uniformity; and as present at the deliberations of the Divines were naturally concerned to secure for their own proposals favorable consideration, and did their best endeavors to obtain such results as they might as Commissioners of the Scotch Church recommend to its approval. Throughout everything they acted consistently as the Commissioners of the Scotch Church, seeking the ends which they were as such charged with securing. They were not members of the Assembly of Divines, were present at its meetings and took part in its deliberations only by express invitation and frankly as the agents of the Scotch Church, and possessed and exercised no voice in the determinations of the body.⁶³

By the Solemn League and Covenant, therefore, the work of the Assembly of Divines was revolutionized, and not only directed to a new end but put upon a wholly new basis. Its proceedings up to the arrival of the first of the Scottish Commissioners in London, on September 15, 1643, and the taking of the Covenant on September 25th, must be regarded simply as “marking time.” The Parliament perfectly understood before the first of July, what was before it; and it could never have imagined that the revision of the Thirty-nine Articles upon which it had set the Assembly could prove an acceptable Confession of Faith for the two Churches. The employment of the Assembly in that labor was but an expedient to occupy it innocuously until its real work under the new conditions could be begun. With the coming of the Scotch Commissioners, however, the real work of the Assembly became possible, and was at once committed to it. Already on September 18, there was referred to it from the Commons the consideration of a discipline and government apt to procure nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and of a new liturgical form, and from the 12th of the October following,⁶⁴ when the Lords had concurred, the Assembly was engaged, with many interruptions, no doubt, but in a true sense continuously, and even strenuously, upon the “four things mentioned in the Covenant, viz.: the Directory for Worship, the Confession of Faith, Form of Church Government, and Catechism.”⁶⁵ And when “the debating and perfecting” of these four things were over, the real work of the Divines was done, and the last of the Scotch Commissioners accordingly, having caused a formal Minute to that effect to be entered on the records of the Assembly, felt able to take leave of the Assembly and return home.⁶⁶ As an advisory committee to the Parliament of England, many other tasks were laid on the Assembly, some of which had their close connection with its work on the points of uniformity, and some of which had no connection with it at all. And the life of the Assembly was prolonged as such a committee for many months after its whole work on “the uniformity” had been completed. But its significant work lies decidedly in its preparation of a complete set of formularies - Confession, Catechisms, Platform of Government, Directory for Worship - which it proposed to the contracting nations as a suitable basis for a uniform church establishment in the three kingdoms.

In the Second Article⁶⁷ some account will be given of the work of the Divines in the preparation of these formularies.

Footnotes

1. In the ordinance convening the Assembly, it is commissioned to sit “during this present Parliament, or until further order be taken by both the said houses.” ↩

2. “Laud’s real influence was derived from the unity of his purpose. He directed all the powers of a clear, narrow mind and a dogged will to the realization of a single aim. His resolve was to raise the Church of England to what he conceived to be its real position as a branch, though a reformed branch, of the great Catholic Church throughout the world… The first step in the realization of such a theory was the severance of whatever ties had hitherto united the English Church to the Reformed Churches of the Continent… . His policy was no longer the purely conservative policy of Parker and Whitgift; it was aggressive and revolutionary” (J. R. Green, “Short History of the English People,” New York, 1877, pp. 499-502). ↩

3. As Mr. J. A. R. Marriott, “The Life and Times of Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland,” 1907, p. 248, puts it: “On the side of King Charles all the Romans and Anglicans; on that of ‘King Pym’ all the many varieties of Puritanism.” ↩

4. Cf. the Resolutions on Religion of February 24, 1629; reprinted in Gee and Hardy, “Documents Illustrative of English Church History,” 1896, pp. 521 sqq. ↩

5. A precursor of Tract No. 90, however, had been published in 1634 by “Franciscus a Sancta Clara,” a pervert to Romanism of the name of Davenport, entitled “God, Nature, Grace, or a Treatise on Predestination, the Deserts and Remission of Sin, etc., - ubi ad trutinam fidei Catholicae examinatur confessio Anglicana et ad singula puncta quid teneat, qualiter differat, excutitur,” etc… A new edition of this Tract was called for in 1635. The reactionary divines meanwhile were already acting on such a theory. For the state of the case in the later years of James’s reign see Bishop Carleton’s ” Examination of Bishop Montague’s Appeal,” pp. 5, 49, 94. ↩

6. Cf. “Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England,” 1641, p. 7; or W. T. Hale’s edition, 1916, p. 8. ↩

7. Wilkins, iv. p. 549; reprinted in Gee and Hardy, “Documents Illustrative of English Church History,” 1896, p. 536. ↩

8. Rushworth, “Historical Collections,” iv. 1692, p. 93; reprinted in Gee and Hardy, pp. 537 sq. ↩

9. Baillie, “Letters and Journals,” ed. Laing, 1841-1842, i. pp. 273 sq. ↩

10. Baillie, i. p. 303. ↩

11. Baillie, ii. p. 117. ↩

12. Baillie, i. p. 287. ↩

13. The views of this party find full expression in what Mr. Marriott (“The Life and Times of Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland,” 1907, p. 197) calls Falkland’s “powerful speech” in opposition to the “Root and Branch Bill.” It is printed by Mr. Marriott, pp. 198-204. Falkland was a typical example of the party, says Mr. Marriott (p. 248), which “anti-Laudian but not anti-Episcopal” felt strongly the evils of the Laudian reaction but were devoted to the traditional settlement of the Church. “He is a great Stranger in Israel,” said he in a speech of February 8, 1641 (Marriott, pp. 181-182), “who knows not this kingdom hath long labored under many and great oppressions, both in Religion and Liberty; and his acquaintance here is not great, or his ingenuity less, who doth not both know and acknowledge that a great, if not a principal cause of both these have been some Bishops and their adherents. Mr. Speaker, a little search will serve to find them to have been the destruction of Unity, under pretense of Uniformity; to have brought in Superstition and Scandal, under the Titles of Reverence and Decency; to have defiled our Church by adorning our Churches; to have slackened the strictness of that Union which was formerly between us, and those of our Religion, beyond the Sea, …” and the like. The remedy, however, for these evils, he insisted, was not to take away bishops but to reduce them to their proper place and functions as spiritual officers of a spiritual body. He expresses the opinion (Marriott, p. 200) that the utter destruction of bishops was not desired by “most men,” and that the petitions before Parliament were misleading, “because men petition for what they have not, and not for what they have,” and the like. Yet he betrays his conviction (p. 203) that “the Scotch government” is in store for England. Similarly Baxter (“Reliquiae Baxterianae,” Sylvester ed., London, 1696, I. ii. p. 146) tells us that Presbytery was “but a stranger” in England, and “though most of the ministers (then) in England saw nothing in the Presbyterian way of practice, which they could not cheerfully concur in, yet it was but few that had resolved on their Principles.” He adds: [the] “most (that ever I could meet with) were against the Jus Divinum of Lay Elders, and for the moderate Primitive Episcopacy.” ↩

14. It was this “trenchant secularity” of Parliament - its ingrained Erastianism - which afterwards made it so earnest and persistent for the government of the Church by a Parliamentary Commission. It was in this direction that its thoughts turned at the beginning of its discussion of the settlement of the Church (see the lucid account of the debates on the Root and Branch Bill given by Shaw, “A History of the English Church, during … 1640-1660,” 1900, i. pp. 90 sq., and cf. Fiennes’s speech, pp. 35-36); and from this determination it never receded. Mr. Marriott (“Falkland,” as cited, p. 208) remarks so far justly: “The fact is that the dominant sentiment of the Long Parliament as regards the Church was neither Episcopalian, Presbyterian nor Independent; it was Erastian. Amid infinite variety of opinions, two conclusions more and more clearly emerged: first, that there must be some form of ecclesiastical organization; and secondly, that whatever the form might be, its government must be strictly controlled by Parliament.” In their Erastianism Falkland and Fiennes were wholly at one. ↩

15. This bill was also passed by the King by a commission (“Lords’ Journal,” iv. p. 580), and therefore on any ground became a law of the Realm (“Statutes,” v. 138; 16 Car. i. c. 27), taking effect February 13, 1642. It may be read in Gee and Hardy, p. 564. ↩

16. The most notable early attempt to secure such advice was probably that taken by the Lords March 1, 1641, in the appointment of what has come to be known as Bishop Williams’ Committee. See the full account of this Committee in Shaw’s “History of the English Church, etc.,” 1900, i. pp. 65 sqq.; ii. pp. 287-294; cf. A. F. Mitchell, “The Westminster Assembly ” (Baird Lecture for 1882), ed. 2, 1897, pp. 100 sqq. Similarly, in its discussion of the “Ministers’ petition and remonstrance” in February, 1641, the Commons sought the advice of divines in its committee. The desirability of a standing Assembly of Divines for giving stated advice to Parliament was adverted to by more than one speaker in the course of the discussion of the Root and Branch Bill which was introduced on May 27, 1641: on the government to be set up after the abolishing of the prelates the debaters felt the need of advice from such a body. ↩

17. Rushworth, iv. 1692, pp. 438 sqq., especially p. 450; cf. Gee and Hardy, pp. 553 sqq., especially pp. 561 sq. ↩

18. “Commons’ Journal,” ii. pp. 524, 535, 539, 541. ↩

19. “Lords’ Journal,” v. p. 84; “Commons’ Journal,” ii. pp. 571, 572, 575, 579, 589, 595, etc. ↩

20. Rushworth, v. (III. ii.), 1892, pp. 337 sqq.: it is printed in the preliminary materials gathered at the opening of the Scottish editions of the Confession of Faith; also in the opening pages of A. F. Mitchell, “The Westminster Assembly,” ed. 2, 1897, pp. xiii.-xvi. ↩

21. “This is no proper Assemblie,” remarks Baillie (ii. p. 186), meaning that it has no such powers as belonged to the Scottish General Assembly, “but a meeting called by the Parliament to advyse them in what things they are asked.” As Dr. Leishman puts it, the Westminster Assembly “in the language of our time was rather a Parliamentary Commission The Westminster Directory, etc.,” 1901, p. x.). ↩

22. Cf. e.g. the explicit action of the Lords to this effect, “Lords’ Journal,” vi. p. 84, to which the closing words of the Ordinance are conformed. ↩

23. Even the Thirty-nine Articles (Art. xxi.) declare that “General Councils may not be gathered together but by the commandment and will of princes.” This was the “law of creeds” in England. Baillie (i. pp. 9546) even tells us that when the question was mooted in Scotland whether a lawful Assembly might be held without or in opposition to the will of the Crown, he was himself in grave doubt, and could find no example of a National Assembly meeting against the will of the supreme magistrate, rightly professing, either in antiquity or among the Reformed Churches. Scotland soon supplied him with an example. The doubts of Baillie in Scotland, the attitude of Parliament in England, are incident to the principle of establishment, and it would seem can finally be rid of only in free churches. We must bear in mind, however, that from the beginning the Scotch Church claimed and exercised autonomy in spiritualia. ↩

24. The independence of the spirit of the Assembly is illustrated by the conflict which arose between the Assembly and Parliament in the matter of the exclusion of the scandalous from the Lord’s Supper and in the much broader matter of the autonomy of the Church. In these matters, the Assembly exceeded its commission and offered unsought advice to Parliament, much to the distaste of that body; and even declined to act on the determinations of Parliament. ↩

25. Baillie, ii. p. 108: “Ordinarlie there will be present above three-score of their divines.” ↩

26. The House of Commons three years afterwards (December 7, 1646) sent an order to the Assembly asking to have sent up to it “all that they have done upon the Nine-and-thirty Articles,” its purpose being to employ them in its negotiations with the King. After some demurring, and after attaching to them an explanatory preface, the Divines sent them up on April 29, 1647. For its own use Parliament omitted the Preface and Article viii. on the Creeds; and they were printed in this form in a tract entitled “The Four Bills, sent to the King to the Isle of Wight to be passed,” which was published March 20, 1648. It is in this Parliamentary form that they have usually been reprinted, e.g. in Peter Hall’s “The Harmony of Protestant Confessions,” 1844, Appendix i. pp. 505-512; Neal’s “History of the Puritans,” ii. 1849, Appendix vii. pp. 454-457; Stoughton’s “Ecclesiastical History of England,” ii. (“The Church of the Commonwealth ”) 1867, Appendix iii, pp. 528-535. The lacking Preface and Art. viii. are printed by Drs. Mitchell and Struthers, “Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines,” 1874, Appendix i. pp. 541-542. The complete text, with all the changes made by the Divines marked, may be found in Appendix iv. pp. 343-348 of E. Tyrrell Green’s “The Thirty-nine Articles and the Age of the Reformation,” London, 1896. ↩

27. Cf. Baillie, ii. p. 177 (May 9, 1644), who, after remarking on the wide differences of opinion which emerged in the course of debate, cries out: “Had not God sent Mr. Henderson, Mr. Rutherford, and Mr. Gillespie, among them, I see not that ever they could have agreed to any settled government.” The task of establishing a Presbyterian government in a Church without any experience of it, in the face of violent Independent and Erastian opposition, was no light one: and it was altogether natural that the English divines whose Presbyterianism was purely theoretical, illuminated by no practice, should have been much disabled by varying views among themselves as to the best methods of procedure. ↩

28. Even Dr. Shaw allows (“A History of the English Church, etc.,” i. p. 3) that “it is probable that, without the necessity of calling in Scotch aid, and of adopting the Solemn League and Covenant, the Long Parliament would have resolved upon a system of Church government that might be called Presbyterian.” And when he adds “though in a sense very different from that usually conveyed by the term,” this caution need not be objected to: it is clear enough that the English, even in the Assembly and much more in Parliament, had much to learn as to what the Presbyterianism which they were intent on setting up was and what it carried with it. Scotch influence was necessary, however, not to make them Presbyterians, but to make them intelligent Presbyterians. ↩

29. Cf. the “Information from the Estates of the Kingdom of Scotland to the Kingdom of England,” 1640: “The second error ariseth from not knowing our laws and so measuring us with your line… We neither know nor will examine if according to your laws these may be accounted derogatory to royal authority. But it is most sure and evident by all the registers and records of our laws … that we have proceeded at this time upon no other ground than our laws and practice of this kingdom never before questioned, but inviolably observed as the only rule of our government.” The whole matter is judiciously stated by Dr. A. F. Mitchell in his Baird Lectures on “The Westminster Assembly,” ed. 2, pp. 289-291; cf. W. Beveridge, “A Short History of the Westminster Assembly,” 1904, pp. 116-122, note on “Spiritual Independence”; also Thomas Brown, “Church and State in Scotland,” 1891, pp. 114 sqq.; J. Macpherson, “The Doctrine of the Church in Scottish Theology,” 1903, Lectures 5 and 6. ↩

30. Cf. the Aberdeen Articles of 1616, which the Westminster Divines did not disdain to use in perfecting their own symbol. On these Articles, cf. C. G. M’Crie, “The Confessions of the Church of Scotland,” 1907, pp. 27-35. The Articles may be read in the “Booke of the Universall Kirk of Scotland,” pp. 1132-1139. ↩

31. Cf. “Of Reformation … in England,” 1641, p. 69; or Hale’s ed., 1916, p. 58. ↩

32. “Ar we so modest spirits, and so towardly handlit in this matter,” exclaims Baillie, when the imposition of the service-book was in progress, “that ther is apeirance we will imbrace in a clap such a masse of novelties” (“Letters,” i. p. 1). ↩

33. i. p. 18. James Gordon’s account is as follows: “A number of the meaner sorte of the people, most of them waiting maides and women, who use in that towne for to keepe places for the better sorte, with clapping of their handes, cursings and outcryes, raised such .ane uncoth noyse and hubbubb in the church, that not any one could either heare or be hearde” (“History of Scots Affairs, from 1637 to 1641,” 3 vols., Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1841, i. p. 7). Cf. Balcanquhal, “A Large Declaration concerning the late Tumults in Scotland from their first Original, etc.,” London, 1639, p. 23. To understand this scene we must bear in mind the division which obtained in Scotland of the Sabbath service into the Reader’s and the Minister’s Service. The Minister often entered the church only when his own part of the service began; and it had become the custom of “the better sorte” also to enter at that time. Meanwhile their places were kept for them by their maids. The congregation for the first half of the service was, therefore, chiefly made up of “waiting maides.” ↩

34. Baillie, i. p. 95. ↩

35. The National Covenant is printed in the current editions of the Scottish “Confession of Faith.” ↩

36. ii. p. 90. ↩

37. So Baillie soliloquizes (“Letters,” ii. pp. 99-100): and so all men at the time judged, as even Mr. J. A. R. Marriott allows. “Baillie is justified,” says he (“The Life and Times of Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland,” 1907, p. 303) “in taking credit for the Scots in coming to the assistance of a ruined cause.” ↩

38. “Such a government shall be settled in the Church as may be … most apt to procure and preserve … nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other Reformed Churches abroad.” This already promised in effect the establishment of a Presbyterian system in England. ↩

39. So Baillie, ii. p. 90; cf. also G. Burnet, “The Memoirs of the … Dukes of Hamilton, etc.,” 1677, p. 237. ↩

40. The inclusion of Ireland in the new church-system is to be observed: so that from the Treaty of Edinburgh, November 29, 1643, we hear always of “the three kingdoms” in this connection. (Cf. Shaw, “A History of the English Church, etc.,” i. p. 121, note 2.) ↩

41. Rushworth, v. 1692, pp. 478 sq. The “Solemn League and Covenant” is also printed in the ordinary Scotch editions of the “Confession of Faith”; and in Gee and Hardy, pp. 569 sqq. ↩

42. No doubt the engagement does not in so many words bind the English to the adoption of “the Presbyterian system,” and no doubt it was with a view to preserving to them a certain liberty of action that they insisted on inserting the clause “according to the Word of God,” and on defining the variety of prelacy which was condemned; but much too much has been made of these things (cf. Gardiner, “History of the Great Civil War,” i. 1888, pp. 270 sq.). After all the engagement bound the contracting nations to the preservation of the ecclesiastical establishment in Scotland, and to the reformation of the ecclesiastical establishment in England according to the Scotch model, so far as the Word of God permitted, and it was fully understood that whatever this saving clause denoted it had reference to details rather than to principles. It must be admitted, however, that there soon developed a disposition to treat this saving clause as permitting liberty in the settlement of the English Church, so far as the Scriptures allowed it: and to those who were able to persuade themselves that no schedule of church government was derivable from Scripture, this liberty stretched very far. We may observe how the matter was viewed by the Parliamentary contractors, as clearly as elsewhere, no doubt, from certain words of Browne, when rebuking the Assembly (April 30, 1646) for its attitude with respect to the jus divinum. “It is much pressed,” said he, “for the point of the Covenant. We all agree that the Word of God is the rule and must be the rule; but say there be no positive rule in the Word, are we by the Covenant bound to follow the practice of Reformed Churches in case it be against the fundamental law of the kingdom? You must interpret the Covenant so as that all parts may stand. We are bound to maintain the liberties of Parliament and kingdom. If I do any act against this I am a breaker of the Covenant” (Mitchell and Struthers, “Minutes,” pp. 454 sq.) That is to say, Browne is so convinced that there is no divine prescription as to the government of the Church and that the sole judge in ecclesiastical things is the State, and that, as Rudyard put it on the same occasion, “the civil magistrate is a church officer in every Christian commonwealth” to whom in England all jurisdiction is reserved, that he cannot admit that the Covenant with its “according to the Word of God” imposes any form of government whatever. He has more difficulty with the adjoined phrase, “and the example of the best Reformed Churches,” and in point of fact merely repudiates its binding force when inconsistent with English law - as if the very purpose of the Covenant were not to establish a new law in England. That the Covenant bound all parties to preserve the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland, no man doubted. ↩

43. Cf. the expression given to this policy in the Preface to “The Book of Common Prayer,” which was thrust upon the Scottish Church in 1637 (Professor Cooper’s edition, Edinburgh and London, 1904, pp. 7-8). ↩

44. Cf. the letter of Alexander Balfour, from Newcastle, 29 December, 1640, printed in Laing’s ed. of Baillie’s “Letters,” ii. p. 473. ↩

45. The document is printed in the Appendix to Hetherington’s “History of the Westminster Assembly,” ed. 4, pp. 382 sq. Cf. Mitchell Baird Lectures on “The Westminster Assembly,” ed. 2, p. 105 and note. ↩

46. The jus divinum seems to have been first claimed for Episcopacy by Bancroft in the reign of Elizabeth, but was finding many supporters at the time when Henderson’s paper was drawn up, though these supporters still constituted only a party. The difference between the two parties in this matter was urged by Falkland (Marriott, p. 203): only “some bishops pretended to jure divino,” but this is the essence of “the Scotch Government.” ↩

47. Cf. Shaw, op. cit., i. pp. 128-130. ↩

48. Cf. Makower, “Constitutional History and Constitution of the Church of England,” E. T. 1895, p. 78, note 37. ↩

49. Baillie, “Letters,” i. p. 365; cf. p. 376. ↩

50. Baillie, ii. pp. 1, 2, 24. ↩

51. Henderson’s letter in Baillie, ii. p. 2. ↩

52. Baillie, ii. p. 45. ↩

53. Acts of Assembly, 1642 (July 22): “Acts of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1638-1842,” Church Law Society edition, Edinburgh, 1843, p. 66. ↩

54. This letter is printed in Rushworth, v. 1692, pp. 387 sqq. ↩

55. Rushworth, v. 1692, pp. 390 sqq. ↩

56. Baillie, “Letters,” ii. p. 55. ↩

57. These Commissioners were eight in number, and were fairly representative of the Church of Scotland, in the two parties into which it was then divided with respect to its sympathies with the old order in Scotland or with “the movement party in the South,” that is, the Puritans. Robert Douglas, Alexander Henderson, Robert Baillie, with the Earl of Cassilis and Lord Maitland, belonged to the one side; Samuel Rutherford, George Gillespie, and Archibald Johnston of Warriston to the other (cf. Leishman, “The Westminster Directory,” 1901, p. ix.). Douglas and Cassilis never went up to London on their commission, which Dr. Leishman supposes to have been due to the King’s veto on the Assembly, as both were strong royalists (as cited, p. x.). In the case of Douglas, at least, this seems hardly likely, in view of his position in the Commission of the General Assembly, and his letters recorded in its Minutes. Dr. Mitchell rather has the truth, when he writes (op. cit., pp. 129-130): “Robert Douglas, the silent, sagacious, masterful man… could not be spared from the duties of leadership at home, but he assisted and cheered them by his letters, maintained 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.” The notices of his colleagues in Baillie’s “Letters,” which are always appreciative and affectionate, exhibit a complete harmony among the Commissioners at London; and the “Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland,” published by Drs. Mitchell and Christie (1892), reveal an equal harmony between the Commissioners in London and the Commission in Edinburgh under the guidance of Douglas. ↩

58. Baillie, ii. p. 84; and cf. the correspondence with the King in Rushworth, ed. 1692, III. ii. (vol. v.), pp. 393 sq. ↩

59. The General Assembly (“Acts” for 1643, pp. 89-90, 90-92), addressing the Parliament of England, informs it that the Scottish Commissioners have been “nominated and elected” “to repair unto the Assembly of Divines and others of the Church of England, now sitting at Westminster, to propound, consult, treat, and conclude with them … in all such things… .” Here the Assembly of Divines and the Scotch Commissioners are looked upon as the two parties by whose consultings together the contemplated agreements are to be reached. Addressing the Assembly of Divines, however, the General Assembly only informs them that Commissioners had been appointed “to repair to your Assembly” without defining to what ends. It is to Parliament that the Assembly speaks as to the other contracting party. ↩

60. This “willingness” was not, however, spontaneous. Henderson tells us (Baillie’s “Letters,” ii. p. 483) that the Commissioners, “against their formar resolution, were, by their friends and for the good of the cause, persuaded to joyne” with the Assembly. Baillie’s own very lucid account runs as follows (ii. p. 110): “When our Commissioners came up, they were desyred to sitt as members of the Assemblie; but. they wiselie declyned to doe so: but since they came up as Commissioners for our National Church to treat for Uniformitie, they required to be dealt with in that capacitie. They were willing, as private men, to sitt in the Assemblie, and upon occasion to give their advyce in poynts debated; but for the Uniformitie, they required a committee might be appointed from the Parliament and Assemblie to treat with them thereanent. All these, after some harsh enough debates, was granted: so once a week, and whyles ofter, there is a committee of some Lords, and Commons, and Divines, which meets with us anent our commission.” For this committee see p. 102. ↩

61. “Commons’ Journal,” iii. p. 278; “Lords’ Journal,” vi. p. 265; Lightfoot’s “Journal,” p. 27 (xiii. 1824, of his “Works”). Cf. Baillie, ii. pp. 102, 110; and for the completeness with which they were from the first recognized and dealt with as Treaty Commissioners apart from the Assembly cf. instances in Rushworth, III. ii. (vol. v.), p. 371, ed. 1692. ↩

62. Cf. the speech of George Gillespie in the General Assembly, August 6, 1647 (Baillie’s “Letters,” iii. Appendix, p. 450). “Ye know we have acted in a double capacity according to our Commission: We have gone on in a way of treating with the Committee of Parliaments and Divines jointly, and have given in many Papers, as concerning the Officers of the Kirk excluding scandalous persons from the Kirk Sacrament, the growth of Heresies, and such things, as in your judgment and ours, was defective among them. We have acted in another capacity, debating with and assisting the Assembly of Divines their debates… .” Lord Warriston thus expresses his relation to the Assembly of Divines: “I am a stranger … having a commission both from that Church and State, and at the desire of this kingdome assisting to your debats.” (Speech to the Assembly of Divines, May 1, 1646, in “Records of the Commissions of the General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland,” edited by Mitchell and Christie, i. 1892, p. 92.) ↩

63. The fact that the Scotch Commissioners did not vote in the divisions of the Divines is made evident in various ways, and is confirmed by the absence of their names from all the recorded votes of the Assembly (see e.g. “Minutes,” p. 252). Cf. in general the note of Dr. Mitchell in his Baird Lectures (2d ed.), pp. 180-181. ↩

64. The order of the Commons was passed September 18 and at once communicated to the Assembly: but the Lords concurred only on October 12. See the facts drawn out by Shaw, “A History of the English Church,” i. pp. 153-154. ↩

65. “Minutes,” Session 936, October 15, 1647, p. 484. ↩

66. “Minutes,” p. 484. ↩

67. Below, pp. 36-72. ↩