Lords who now and then dropped in, filling chairs round the fire. There must have been plenty of room in the Chamber for the accommodation of the Assembly, as ordinarily there were not present above threescore members. Everything proceeded in perfect order, and each meeting commenced and closed with prayer. As we read Baillie's description, we can see the Divines divided into committees, can watch them preparing matters for the Assembly, and can hear them speak without interruption, as each one addresses the reverend Prolocutor. The harangues are long and learned, and are well prepared beforehand with "replies," "duplies," "triplies." Then comes the cry, "Question-question;" the scribe, Mr. Byfield, immediately rises, approaches the chair, and places the proposition in Dr. Twiss's hand, who asks, "As many as are in opinion that the question is well in the stated proposition, let them say Aye;" "As many as think otherwise, say No." Perhaps Ayes and Noes "be near equal;" then the Prolocutor bids each side stand up, and Mr. Byfield counts. When any one deviates from the point in hand, there are exclamations of "Speak to order." Nobody is allowed to mention another by name, but he must refer to him as "the reverend brother who lately or last spoke, on this hand, on that side, above, or below." These methods of proceeding deeply interested Robert Baillie, who, by his minute description of them, greatly interests us. The Prolocutor, far too quiet a man for the Scotch delegate, is represented by him as "very learned, but merely bookish, and among the unfittest of all the company for any action; so after the prayer he sits mute." This, most persons will think, a chairman ought to do; but Baillie wished to have a President with more zeal for Presbyterianism, and therefore he preferred Dr. Burgess-in his estimation “a

very active and sharp man," who supplied, so far as was "decent, the Prolocutor's place."1

Twiss did not long retain the office which his modesty and infirmities had made him reluctant to accept. He fell down one day in the pulpit, and "was carried to his lodgings, where he languished about a twelvemonth," and then expired, July the 20th, 1646.2 His preference of a contemplative to an active life appeared in his exclamation after the attack which proved his death-stroke: "I shall have at length leisure to follow my studies to all eternity," and throughout he seems to have been as loyal as he was religious; for he often wished the fire of contention might be extinguished, even if it were in his own blood. A funeral in Westminster Abbey marked the public opinion of his worth; and there Dr. Robert Harris preached a sermon for him on Joshua i. 2, "Moses my servant is dead." The Assembly and the House of Commons followed his remains to the grave. Mr. Charles Herle, educated at Exeter College, Oxford, succeeded him in the office of Prolocutor.

There was an overwhelming majority of Presbyterians in the Jerusalem Chamber. Amongst the most eminent were Burgess and Calamy, Marshall and Ash. In the notes of the Assembly's proceedings taken by Lightfoot, these names repeatedly occur, together with the less familiar ones of Herle, Seaman, Cawdry, and others. The Scotch Commissioners, Henderson and Baillie—with whom were associated George Gillespie, a young man of rich promise, and Samuel Rutherford, whose "Letters on religious subjects are well known-likewise took a prominent part in the debates. It is proper here also to

1 Baillie's Letters, ii. 108, 109. 2 This is stated on the authority of Brook's Lives, iii. 15. His ac

count of Twiss's illness is confused, so is Clark's (Lives, p. 17,) to which Brook refers.

remember that Presbyterianism, predominant in the Assembly, was at the time supreme in the Senate. All the staunch Prelatists, and many moderate Episcopalians, had left the Long Parliament in St. Stephen's Chapel to join Charles's mock Parliament at Christ Church, Oxford. Advocates who exposed ecclesiastical abuses with the view of simply reforming the old establishment had disappeared. Of those who remained it would be uncandid to deny that some were sincere converts to the new system; and it would be credulous to believe that there were not others who, seeing which way the stream flowed, struck in with the current. At any rate, a Presbyterian policy prevailed in 1644. Holles, Glynne, Maynard, Rudyard, Rouse, and Prynne, together with Waller, Stapleton, and Massey, were the most distinguished members of the party; yet, though possessing amongst them considerable ability and learning, they were none of them men of great intellectual power or of any political genius.

The Erastians, as they are called, must not be overlooked. John Selden, already noticed, led the van, and his learning and reputation made him a formidable opponent. To gain any advantage when breaking a lance with such a person was counted a high distinction in theological chivalry, and this honour has been duly emblazoned by Scotch heralds more than once in favour of young George Gillespie, whom we have just mentioned. The solid and industrious Bulstrode Whitelocke, and St. John, "the dark lantern man," helped to form a small body of reserve on the same side, who, on special occasions, behaved themselves valorously in the Westminster field. The chief Divine who thoroughly advocated Erastianism was Thomas Coleman, Vicar of Blyton, in Lincolnshire, of some considerable note in his own day. But a far greater man-acting, however, only occasionally in con

nexion with the party-was the renowned Dr. Lightfoot, who in rabbinical lore may be regarded as equal, if not superior, to John Selden.1

But another class, entertaining different views, claim

our attention: the five dissenting brethren--Nye, Goodwin, Bridge, Burroughs, and Simpson.1

Philip Nye, a man of ability in some respects, and of bustling habits, stands out as chief of the five. Zealous in his commendations of the Covenant, he with equal zeal opposed Presbyterianism: the very thing which, according to the fairest rules of interpretation, it must be held to symbolize. He has been charged with disingenuousness; but experience in the matter of subscription makes charitable people slow to urge the charge. Those who vindicate subscription in "non-natural senses" ought to be the last to fling a stone at Philip Nye; and those who take the opposite side can hardly praise him for consistency of conduct. How the Covenant could be adopted by any one professing Independency is a puzzle, and the puzzle in Nye's case is the greater, because, not content with quietly assenting to it as many others did, he appears to have been a chief instrument in bringing it over the border, and in enforcing it upon his companions.

Thomas Goodwin surpassed Nye in learning and in other respects. His writings present him to us as an accomplished theologian, and a many-sided thinker, and shew that scarcely any forms of thought in metaphysical divinity escaped his notice.2 The breadth and

Hobbes wrote his Leviathan in 1651, in which he says (pt. iii., ch. 42, p. 287, London edition), "The books of the New Testament, though most perfect rules of Christian doctrine, could not be made laws by any other authority than that of kings or sovereign assemblies." His doctrine with regard to Christianity is, that socially considered it is". 'good and safe advice," but not obligatory law till the government of a country shall make it so. This part of the

philosopher's theory runs on the same line with Erastianism, only it is pushed further.

1 Altogether there were ten or eleven Independents in the Assembly. Baillie mentions Goodwin, Nye, Burroughs, Bridge, Carter, Caryl, Philips, and Sterry.-Letters, &c., ii.

IIO.

2 His works have been recently republished. His Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians illustrates what is said here.