WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES. One of five bills to which it was proposed by the Parliamentary Commissioners that the King (Charles I. should give his consent in the negotiations at Oxford (from 30th January to 17th April, 1643) was entitled 'A Bill for calling 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, and for the vindication and clearing of the doctrine of the said church from false aspersions and interpretations.' This bill was afterwards converted into ' An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament,' and passed 12th June, 1643.
The persons nominated in the ordinance to constitute the assembly consisted of a hundred and twenty-one clergymen, together with tsu lords and twenty commoners as lay assessors. Among the com moners were John Selden, Francis Rouse, Sir Henry Vane, senior and junior, ;John Glynn (the recorder of London), John Whyte, Bulstrodo Whitelock, Sergeant Wild, Oliver St. John, John Pym, and John Maynard. Among the most distinguished of the clerical members were, Dr. Ralph Brownriwe, bishop of Exeter ; Mr. Anthony Burges (considered the head of the Puritans), Edmund Calamy, Dr. Francis Cheynel, Thomas Coleman, Thomas Gataker (the editor of Marcus ' Antoninum '), Dr. Thomas Goodwin, Dr. John Racket (afterwards bishop of Lichfield), Dr. John Lightfoot, Dr. George Morley (afterwards bishop of Winchester), Dr. William Nicholson (afterwards bishop of Glouces ter), Philip Nye, Dr. John Prideaux (bishop of Worcester), Dr. Edward Reynolds (afterwards bishop of Norwich), Dr. Robert Saunderson (afterwards bishop of Lincoln), ])r. James Usher (archbishop of Armagh), George Walker, Dr. Samuel Ward, and John Wallis (the mathematician). Several other persons (about twenty in all) were appointed by the Parliament from time to time to supply vacancies occasioned by death, secession, or otherwise, who were called super added divines. Finally, two lay assessors, John Lord Maitland and Sir Archibald Johnson of Warriston, and four ministers, Alexander lienderson and George Gillespie of Edinburgh, Samuel Rutherford of St. Andrews, and Robert Millie of Glasgow, were, on the 15th of Sep
tember, 1643, admitted to seats and votes in the assembly by a warrant from the Parliament as commissioners from the Church of Scotland. They heel heen deputed by the General Assembly, to which body, and to the Scottish Convention of Estates, commissioners had been sent from the two houses of the English Parliament, and also from the Assembly of Divines, soliciting a union in the circumstances in which they were placed. This negotiation between the supreme civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the two countries gave rise to the Solemn League and Covenant, which was drawn up by I lenderson, moderator (or president) of the General Assembly, and, having been adopted by a unanimous vote of that body on the 17th of August, was then for warded to the English Parliament and the Assembly of Divines at Westminster for their consideration.
The meeting of the Assembly of Divines had been forbidden by the king in a proclamation dated the 22nd of June. The only effect how ever of that prohibition had been to induce the greater number of the members of episcopalian principles to refrain from attending. On Saturday, the 1st of July, the day named in the ordinance, sixty-nine clerical members assembled in Henry the Seventh's chapel, in West minster Abbey. They appeared, it is recorded, not in their canonical habits, but mostly, after the fashion of foreign clergymen, in black coats and bands. At subsequent sittings the attendance appears to have ranged between sixty and eighty. About twenty-five of the persons who had been nominated members of the Assembly (including one or two who had died) never took their seats ; and even of the sixty or seventy who attended pretty regularly, only from twelve to twenty were frequent speakers.