II. A.D. 1643. assembly to encounter the censures of English CHAPTER historians of the most opposite opinions, unanimous alone in this, to spurn the memory of a body whose CHAS. I. existence was ushered in with so much pretence, and whose end was mean if not ridiculous. Clarendon overwhelms them with lordly scorn, and Milton with resounding periods of magnificent abuse. Neal, the puritan champion, awards that faint praise which is virtual censure. And Walker provokes a smile by the ludicrous violence of his pretended contempt and undissembled hate. In Scotland only the memory of the Westminster divines is still cherished; and their conduct is exhibited by living writers to the admiration of a people who revere them as the men who completed the edifice which Knox began. But time wears away the keen edge of censure, just as it stills the first tumults of applause. We can no longer believe, with Clarendon, that some of them were infamous in their lives and most of them of mean parts in learning, if not of scandalous ignorance; men of no other reputation than that of malice to the church of England.* Nor can we accept Milton's diatribe as within the fair limits of the most declamatory censure. They were men, he says, who had preached and cried down with a great show of zeal the avarice and pluralities of bishops and pluralists; they had said that one cure of souls was a sufficient employment for one spiritual pastor, if not a charge far above human strength. Yet now they were not unwilling to accept (besides one, if not two or more, of the best livings,) college * Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 530. II. CHAS. I. A.D. 1643. CHAPTER masterships in the university, and rich lectures in the city, setting sail to all winds that might bring gain to their covetous bosoms. Milton's temper was always harsh, if not vindictive; and we must, in justice, bear in mind that he had already—to avenge himself upon his wife, who had left his roof on some trifling quarrel--published his unchristian "Doctrine of Divorce," and that the maligned assembly had already censured it. But it is difficult to represent to modern readers, with adequate fidelity, the deep and bitter intensity of hatred with which the assembly was visited. "The Assembly Man" is, perhaps, one of the finest pieces of satirical prose-writing in our language; its unknown author pursues these puritan divines with shafts of envenomed malice; compared with him Milton is calm, and Clarendon generous.* But all this, and more that might be quoted to the same purpose, is exaggeration. The truth is, the weakness and consequent failure of the assembly was inherent in its birth. Its feeble constitution was ill adapted for the rough wear of troublous times. It was the mere child of the long parliament; its toy at first, and then, as it grew fretful, its annoyance. It had no legitimate character of its own. It was not a convocation of the church of England; it was not a general assembly after the manner of the kirk of Scotland; it was not even a synod, much less a general council. It was a mere convention of the parliament,† a sort of clerical *The Assembly Man, written 1647. It is in the Harleian Misc., vol. v. Rushworth so terms it. "The assembly of divines at Westminster was, properly speaking, the parliament's convention. Members of both II. A.D. 1643. committee to the house of commons, which might CHAPTER advise when its advice was asked, and could do no more. It was proposed at first, that in order to its CHAS. I. formation, two delegates should be sent from each county but this was not done; in fact, it was a packed assembly. Clarendon and Milton agree in this (and they have not been contradicted), that the members of the assembly were elected on the nomination of the members of the house of commons; and that they were chosen with a view to their political opinions, rather than with regard to higher qualifications; so that men who might have been expected there, were not invited, and others, who had no weight, except what they derived in revolutionary times from holding extreme opinions, were selected in their place. "A certain number of divines were called, neither chosen by any rule ecclesiastical, nor eminent for either piety or knowledge above others left out, only as each member of parliament thought fit in his private fancy." So Milton writes; and lord Clarendon to the same purpose. "If," he says, "an orthodox divine of high character were named in parliament by one who had not the confidence of the ruling faction, this was argument enough against him, and he was at once rejected." These charges, we repeat, have never been denied; and we are bound to admit their truth. The parliament had resolved upon a revolution, at least in spiritual matters; and in revolutions the leaders are soon compelled to seek houses to a great number sat in this assembly, and had the same liberty with the hundred and twenty divines to debate and give their votes in any manner." CHAPTER their instruments from the most willing and determined, not the most judicious and profound. II. CHAS. I. A.D. 1643. Thus the assembly became obsequious to the parliament, just as the parliament had become obsequious to the Scotch. They sanctioned the solemn league and covenant with all the solemnities of religion; and, if oaths and treaties could have done it, would have imposed a presbyterian church upon the nation. But the real effect of this daring measure was to disgust the people; though to complete, it is true, the destruction of the old episcopacy. In London only was it popular; for London was submissive to the parliament; and the citizens who refused to adopt the covenant were disqualified to sit in the common council or to vote at elections. As a political measure its effect was to gain the assistance of the Scotch, who crossed the border in the spring and joined the parliamentary forces. But it could not add to the credit of the divines of the assembly that they had been concerned in such an enterprise. Episcopalians detested them because they overthrew the church; independents because they endeavoured to set up a rigid presbytery; patriots and men of peace, because they fomented an internal war by the introduction of what was then considered a foreign soldiery. Politicians saw through their assumption and their vanity: they made use of them, despised them, and threw them off. After this, the conduct of the parliament towards the assembly soon began to express indifference, and at length contempt. Their debates were interrupted; their weekly payments were withheld. If they plunged unwarily into state no concern. II. CHAS. I. A.D. 1643. affairs they were reminded, without any excess of CHAPTER courtesy, to abstain from matters in which they had The parliament had its thirty members sitting with them; to overawe them with their presence, and to report their misdemeanors: all they resolved upon had again to be submitted to the decision of parliament, where not unfrequently their theology was questioned and their decisions were reversed. It was a mighty scheme-the reformation of the reformed religion; and one that in their hands profoundly failed. In Scotland their success was greater; but in Scotland presbyterianism had taken root, and there the solemn league sustained a very different character. There men lifted up their hands to heaven and swore, with the enthusiasm of patriots and the fervour of confessors, to defend the only true form of worship they or their fathers had ever known, from the powers of antichrist. In England men were asked to swear by the same form of adjuration that they would renounce the church in whose happy communion some of the holiest men of their generation, as they well knew, still lived, and in defence of which the most illustrious of their ancestors had died. They were to denounce as antichrist the church of archbishop Ussher and bishop Hall, of Jeremy Taylor and of Hammond; the church of Ridley and of Latimer, and of the noble army of the English martyrs in the cruel days of Mary. Even in the midst of civil war, enough of moderation and good sense was left to forbid the mad attempt. The taking of the covenant in Scotland was perhaps the most solemn scene in the religious history of nations. The forced |