and upon convening the assembly of divines, was appointed by parliament their prolocutor, in which station he continued to his death, which happened after a lingering indisposition, about the 20th of July, 1646, in the seventy-first year of his age. He died in very necessitous circumstances, having lost all his substance by the king's soldiers, insomuch that when some of the asembly were deputed to visit him in his sickness, they reported, that he was very sick, and in great straits. He was allowed to be a person of extensive knowledge in school divinity; a subtle disputant, and withal, a modest, humble, and religious person. He was buried, at the request of the assembly, in the collegiate church of St. Peter's Westminster, near the upper end of the poor folks table, next the vestry, July 24, and was attended by the whole assembly of divines: There his body rested till the restoration of King Charles II. when his bones were dug up by order of council, Sept. 14, 1661, and thrown with several others, into a hole in the church-yard of St. Margaret's, before the back-door of the lodgings of one of the prebendaries. Towards the end of the year died the reverend and pious Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs; he was educated in Cambridge, but obliged to quit the university and kingdom for non-conformity in the late times. Upon his leaving England, he was chosen minister of an English congregation at Rotterdam, with which he continued till the year 1642, when he returned to England, and became preacher to twó of the largest and most numerous congregations about Lon He distinguished himself by his writings against arminianism. The most learned of that party confessed that there was nothing more accurate, exact, and full, on that controversy, than his works. His plain preaching was esteemed good: his solid disputations were accounted, by some, better: and his pious way of living was reckoned, by others, especially the puritans, best of all. Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. ii. P. 40. Ed. § He for some time sheltered himself under the hospitable roof of the earl of Warwick. Granger's History of England, vol. ii. p. 193, 8vo. This nobleman was a great patron of the puritan divines: and not contented with hearing long sermons in their congregation only, would have them repeated at his own house. Ibid. p. 116. Ed. don, viz. Stepney and Cripplegate. He was one of the dissenting brethren in the assembly, but was a divine of great candor, modesty, and charity. He never gathered a separate congregation, nor accepted of a parochial living, exhausting his strength in continual preaching, and other services of the church. He was an excellent scholar, a good expositor, a popular preacher; he published several treatises while he lived, and his friends have published many others since his death, which have met with a general acceptance. It was said, the divisions of the times broke his heart, because one of the last subjects he preached upon, and printed, was his Irenicum, or an attempt to heal divisions among christians. Mr. Baxter used to say, if all the presbyterians had been like Mr. Marshall, and the independents like Mr. Burroughs, their differences might easily have been compromised. He died of a consumptive illness Nov. 14, 1616, about the forty-seventh year of his age. CHAP. VIII. Proceedings of the Assembly upon their Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Provincial Assemblies of London. The King taken out of the Parliament's Custody, and conveyed to the Army. Controversy between the Parliament and Army. His Majesty's Conduct. He escapes from Hampton-Court, and is confined in the Isle of Wight. THE reverend Mr. Charles Herle succeeded to the prolocutor's chair by order of parliament July 22, 1646, in the room of the late Dr. Twisse, when the discipline of the church being pretty well settled, it was moved to finish their confession of faith. The English divines would have been content with revising and explaining the thirty-nine articles of the church of England, but the Scots insisting on a system of their own, a committee was appointed to prepare materials for this purpose May 9, 1645; their names were Dr. Gouge, Dr. Hoyle, Mr. Herle, Gataker, Tuckney, Reynolds, and Vines, with the Scots divines, who having first settled the titles of the several chapters, as they now stand in their confession of faith, in number thirty-two, distributed them for greater expedition, among several sub-committees, which sat two days every week, and then reported what they had finished to the committee, and so to the assembly, where it was debated paragraph by paragraph. The disputes about discipline had occasioned so many interruptions that it was a year and half before this work was finished, but on Nov. 26, 1646, the prolocutor returned thanks to the several committees, in the name of the assembly, for their great pains in perfecting the work committed to them. At the same time Dr. Burges was appointed to get it transcribed, in order to its being presented to parliament, which was done Dec. 11, by the whole assembly in a body, under the title of, The humble advice of the assembly of divines and others, now, by the authority of parliament, sitting at Westminster, concerning a confession of faith. The house of commons having voted the assembly thanks, desired them to insert the proofs of the several articles in their proper places, and then to print six hundred copies,‡ and no more, for the perusal of the houses. The reverend Mr. Wilson, Mr. Byfield, and Mr. Gower, were appointed, Jan. 6, to be a committee to collect the scriptures for confirmation of the several articles; all which, after examination by the assembly, were inserted in the margin. And then the whole confession was committed once more to a review of the three committees, who made report to the assembly of such further amendments as they thought necessary; which being agreed to by the house, it was sent to the press, May 11, 1647. Mr. Byfield, by order of the house of commons, delivered to the members the printed copies of their confession of faith, with scripture notes, signed CHARLES HErle, HENRY ROBOROUGH, ADONIRAM Byfield, Prolocutor, } Assessors, Scribes. And because no more were to be given out at present, every member subscribed his name to the receipt thereof. The house of commons began their examination of this confession May 19, when they considered the whole first chapter article by article; but the disturbances which arose between the parliament and army interrupted their proceeding the whole summer; but when these were quieted they resumed their work, and October 2, ordered a chapter of the confession of faith at least to be debated every Wednesday, by which means they got through the whole before the end of March following; for at a conference with the The MSS. to which Mr. Neal refers, though supported by the authority of Rushworth, made a mistake here: for by a copy of the orig inal order, given by Dr. Grey, in his Appendix, No. 71, it appears. that the order of the house was for printing 500 copies and no more of "The humble advice," &c. See also Whitlocke's Memorials, p. 233. Ed. Rushworth, part iv. vol. i. p. 482. VOL. III. 48 house of lord's March 22, 1647-8, the commons presented them with the confession of faith as passed by their house, with some alterations: they agreed with the assembly in the doctrinal part of the confession, and ordered it to be published, June 20, 1648, for the satisfaction of the foreign churches, under the title of Articles of religion approved and passed by both houses of parliament, after advice had with an assembly of divines called together by them for that purpose. The parliament not thinking it proper to call it a confession of faith, because the sections did not begin with the words I confess ;* nor to annex matters of church government, about which they were not agreed, to doctrinal articles; those chapters therefore, which relate to discipline, as they now stand in the assembly's confession, were not printed by order of the house, but re-committed, and at last laid aside; as the whole thirtieth chapter, of church censures, and of the power of the keys; the thirtyfirst chapter, of synods and councils, by whom to be called, and of what force in their decrees and determinations; a great part of the twenty-fourth chapter, of marriage and divorce, which they referred to the laws of the land; and the fourth paragraph of the twentieth chapter, which determines what opinions, and parties disturb the peace of the church, and how such disturbers ought to be proceeded against by the censures of the church, and punished by the civil magistrate. These propositions, in which the very life and soul of presbytery consists, never were approved by the English parliament, nor had the force of a law in this country: But the whole confession, as it came from the assembly, being sent into Scotland, was immediately approved by the general assembly and parliament of that kingdom, as the established doctrine and discipline of their kirk; and thus it has been published to the world ever since, though the chapter above-mentioned, relating to discipline, received no parliamentary sanction in England; nevertheless, as the entire confession was agreed to by an assembly of English divines, I have given it a place in the Appendix.§ Nor is it to be supposed, that the confession of faith it- Savoy Conf. Pref. p. 20. * S. Appendix, No. VIII. |