Originally printed in The Princeton Theological Review, vi. 1908, pp. 353-391.
In the First Article some account was given of the calling of the Westminster Assembly and of its historical meaning. It was pointed out that its really significant work was the preparation of formularies designed to serve the Churches of the three kingdoms as a basis for uniform establishments. Some account of its work on these so-called “four parts of uniformity” is now to be given.
Of these “four parts of uniformity” the one which was at once the most pressing and the most difficult for the Assembly was the preparation of a platform of government for the Churches. Both Parliament and Assembly were, indeed, fairly committed to the Presbyterian system under solemn sanction; and the majority of the members of both bodies were sincerely Presbyterian in conviction.1 But sincerity and consistency are very different matters; and so soon as the details of church organization were brought under discussion, a bewildering variety of judgments was revealed. The Scots, though prepared to yield in the interest of harmony all that it was possible to yield, perhaps more than it was altogether wise to yield, were yet peremptory for a really Presbyterian establishment, as they were bound to be under the engagements of the National Covenant and were fully entitled to be under those of the Solemn League and Covenant. In this they were supported by the overwhelming majority of the Assembly. It fell, indeed, to the lot of the Scots to hold back the English Presbyterians from precipitate and aggressive action. It was their policy to obtain if possible a settlement not so much imposed by a majority as at least acceptable to all.2 They therefore gave themselves not merely to conciliate the minor differences which emerged in the debate - on the part of those, for example, who preferred a mixed Presbyterian and Episcopal system (Twisse, Gataker, Gouge, Palmer, Temple) - but even “to satisfy” the small but able band of Independents in the Assembly (Goodwin, Nye, Burroughs, Bridge, Carter, Caryl, Phillips, Sterry), who wished all authoritative government in the Church to stop with the congregation. The Independents, on their part, adopted an obstructive policy, and set themselves not only to obtain every concession it was possible to wring from the majority, but to delay the adoption of its scheme of Presbyterian government, and if possible, to defeat its establishment altogether. They were supported in this policy by the Erastians who, though not largely represented in the Assembly (Lightfoot, Coleman, Selden), were dominant in Parliament,3 which accordingly showed itself ultimately averse to establishing any church government possessed of independent or final jurisdiction even in spiritual matters.4 In the vain hope of escaping the schism threatened by the Independents and of avoiding an open breach with the Erastian Parliament, the Presbyterian majority in the Assembly proceeded slowly with their platform of government, contenting itself meanwhile with debating and voting a series of detached propositions, which were moreover couched in the simplest and most comprehensive language, while they postponed for the present framing a systematic statement. This delay was, however, itself as great an evil as could have been encountered; and as the differences it was hoped to conciliate were such as in their nature were not subject to “accommodation,” the Assembly was compelled in the end to report its scheme of government, which it had thus reduced to its lowest terms and in so doing shorn of much of its strength and attractiveness, in the face of the protest of the Independents and to a determinedly Erastian Parliament.5
The first portion of the Assembly’s work presented to Parliament was the “Directory for Ordination” which was sent up on April 20, 1644.6 This was followed the ensuing autumn (November 8 and December 11, 1644) by certain “Propositions concerning Church Government,” compacted out of the several separate declarations upon points of government which had from time to time been voted by the Assembly in the course of its debates, now gathered together and thrown into some semblance of order. It must be confessed that the work of collecting and ordering these propositions was somewhat carelessly done. Now and then, for example, in transferring them from the Minutes clauses are retained which have no proper meaning in their new setting. We are told, for instance, that “the pastor is an ordinary and perpetual officer in the church, prophesying of the time of the Gospel”; and it is only from the vidimus of the votes of the Assembly preserved by Gillespie that we learn that the clause “prophesying of the time of the Gospel,” here sheer nonsense, was a comment on Jer. iii. 15-17 which was on this ground adduced as a proof-text for the proposition “that there is such an ordinary and perpetual officer in the church as a pastor.”7 Again there is enumerated among the offices of a pastor as if it were an independent function, “to dispense other divine mysteries”; and we have to go to Gillespie’s vidimus to learn that the Assembly meant just the Sacraments (along with the benediction) and no “other divine mysteries” by this phrase.8 The document nevertheless contains a firm enough, though cautiously worded, presentation of the essentials of the Presbyterian system; and was therefore followed, of course, by a protest from the Independent members of the Assembly, which naturally occasioned a reply from the Assembly itself. These documents were later (1648) published together under the title, “The Reasons Presented by the Dissenting Brethren Against Certain Propositions Concerning Church Government, together with the Answers of the Assembly of Divines to these Reasons of Dissent”; and republished in 1652 under the new title, “The Grand Debate concerning Presbytery and Independency by the Assembly of Divines convened at Westminster by authority of Parliament.”