THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: ITS LEADING INCIDENTS BY THE REV. PROFESSOR M'CRIE, D.D., EDINBURGH. THE first in this group of divines, Mr. | their champion." We have no reason to suppose that he ever abandoned his Presbyterian principles; but there is ground to suspect that he allowed himself to be carried away by the stream, into something like republicanism. We do not find Marshall's name among the ministers who remonstrated against taking away the life of the King. Without giving credit to a tithe of the charges brought against him by his enemies, or even of what Denzil Holles, his Presbyterian opponent in politics, has advanced against him, we fear that he exposed himself to some of them by his keenness as a political partisan. Certain it is, that never did man suffer more in his character from the abettors of tyranny than Stephen Marshall. They reviled him during life; they insulted him on his sick-bed; they dug up his bones after the Restoration; and they heaped every possible abuse upon his memory. One writer calls him the "Geneva Bull, a factious and rebellious divine." Another styles him "a notorious Independent, and the arch-flamen of the rebellious rout." The fact is, however, that he never was an Independent, but lived and died an avowed Presbyterian. And Mr. Baxter, who knew him well, declares that he was a "sober and worthy man," and used to observe, on account of his great moderation, "that if all the bishops had been of the same spirit as Archbishop Usher, the Independents like Jeremiah Burroughs, and the Presbyterians like Mr. Stephen Marshall, the divisions of the Church would soon have been healed." ‡ *Mem. of Denzil Lord Holles, pp. 88, 107, 123. Athenæ, by Bliss, iii., 715. Brook's Puritans, iii., 251. accepted of the bishopric of Norwich. For this conformity he is taunted by those same writers, who teem with reproaches against the nonconformity of his more consistent brethren. We certainly shall not vindicate his conduct in this matter; though it is well known that, even after his elevation to the mitre, he continued, in The next in the group is Mr. Edward Calamy, of Aldermanbury, London, the grandfather of the still more celebrated Dr. Edmund Calamy, of London, the author of many well-known works. None was more highly respected as a man, or admired as a preacher. Learned in controversy, he was the first man openly to avow and defend the Presby-heart and judgment, a Presbyterian. terian government before a Committee of Parliament; and though tempted afterwards with a bishopric, he continued stanch to his principles to his dying day. In Edmund Calamy we have a fine specimen of the open, manly, and straightforward Englishman,-a highminded disdain of everything mean, and the noble love of liberty. This is the man who could speak the Word of God to kings, and not be ashamed,—who | could tell Cromwell to his face, that if he attempted to assume the kingly power, "he would have nine in ten of the nation against him;" and who, preaching before General Monk, after the Restoration, and having occasion to speak of filthy lucre, could say, "Why is it called filthy, but because it makes men do base and filthy things;" and tossing the handkerchief which he usually held in his hand towards the General's pew, added, "Some men will betray three kingdoms for filthy lucre's sake."* The other three divines we have mentioned as having had a share in Smectymnuus, viz., Mr. Thomas Young, Mr. Matthew Newcomen, and Dr. William Spurstow, were all equally distinguished for their piety, learning, and worth. Those who are anxious for an explanation of this anomaly, may find it perhaps in a cause to which we may ascribe the falls and ficklenesses of greater men than Reynolds, and which is hinted at by Wood as follows:" It was verily thought by his cotemporaries that he would have never been given to change, had it not been to please a covetous and politic consort, who put him upon those things he did.”* Mild and timorous to excess, especially in the presence of great men, he was altogether unfit to contend with them; but one who knew him well has declared, that "Bishop Reynolds carried the wounds of the Church in his heart and bowels to the grave with him."† The Dr. Arrowsmith and Dr. Tuckney may be classed together, as alike celebrated for their learning, as having both been appointed to Masterships and Professorships of divinity in the University of Cambridge, and as having both, it is said, had a principal share in the composition of the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. Dr. Arrowsmith is described by Baillie, curiously enough, "as a man with a glass eye, in place of that which was put out by arrow," but a "learned divine' notwithstanding, of which we may judge from his Tactica Sacra and Chain of Principles. But it is time to take a glance at the plain but pleasant-looking old man who other Presbyterian members of this As- gazes at us in his portrait with a calm sembly. Among so many godly and eye and studious brow, surmounted with learned divines, it is extremely difficult its modest black cap, is Dr. Anthony to make a selection. Among those, how- Tuckney, who is also known to the ever, most distinguished for their learn- theological world by his writings. "How ing it would be unpardonable to pass often," says one of his grateful students, without notice Dr. Edward Reynolds," have I heard him instigating and inwho, Wood tells us, was "the pride and flaming the minds of the youth in their glory of the Presbyterian party." And studies, as much by his example as his good reason had they to be proud of one exhortations! How often seen him who excelled so much as a scholar, orator, relieving the poor with bountiful hand, and theologian.† King Charles, on his assigning to them a great part of his restoration, endeavoured to bring over to income! " + We are credibly informed Prelacy, some of the most eminent divines that "the answers in the Larger Cateamong the Dissenters. He failed with chism, and particularly the exquisite exthem all, except Dr. Reynolds, who position of the commandments, were his, Calamy's Account, ii. 6. + Middleton's Biogr. Ev. iii. 426. Granger's Biogr. Hist. iii. 240. * Athenæ, by Bliss, iii. 1086. + Calamy's Life of Baxter, i. 174, 176. Prælect. Theol. per A. Tuckney. Præf. and were continued for the most part in the very words he brought in." much frequented, and he was universally beloved."* We think from this descripWith these men we might associate as tion we should know good old Mr. Simeon fellow Masters at Cambridge, Dr. La- Ashe. Time, however, would fail us to zarus Seaman, who is described as "a speak of Oliver Bowles, Thomas Case, person of a most deep, piercing, and eagle- | Anthony Burgess, Francis Cheynel, eyed judgment in all points of contro- Jeremiah Whittaker, Joseph Caryl, versial divinity, in which he had few Obadiah Sedgwick, and others, whose equals, if any superiors,"-" an invincible names are associated with works that have disputant," and whom even Anthony contributed to form the religious character Wood is constrained to acknowledge as a of our nation, and that impart to this learned man; and there is Mr. Richard day instruction and consolation to many Vines, of whom Fuller says he was "the thousands. champion of the party in the Assembly, and therefore called their Luther: "+ and there is Dr. Edmund Staunton, son of Sir Francis Staunton; and Dr. Hoyle, Professor of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin, the only Irish divine in the Assembly, and one who was held in high esteem, a master of the Greek and Latin Fathers, and who, Calamy says, "reigned both in the chair and in the pulpit." § Under the management of these conscientious and talented masters, the universities, rectified from the abuses by which they had been disgraced, became what they were intended to be -the nurseries of learning, piety, and virtue. And then, still looking round on the Presbyterians in the Assembly, we find a Thomas Gataker, whose writings gave ample attestation to the character he received during life of a perfect helluo librorum, -a devourer of books; who showed a learning as multifarious as it was profound; and who could write as learnedly on the subject of Lots, as on Transubstantiation, and the Tetragrammaton. While among those more distinguished for ministerial gifts, "workmen that need not to be ashamed," we find such names as those of Dr. William Gouge of Blackfriars, London, one of the annotators on the Bible, and president of Zion College; and Mr. Simeon Ashe, of St. Austin's, "good old Mr. Simeon Ashe," as Calamy describes him, "a Christian of the primitive simplicity, and a Nonconformist of the old stamp. He was eminent for a holy life, a cheerful mind, and a fluent elegancy in prayer. He had a good estate, and was much inclined to entertainments and liberality. His house was *Calamy's Continuation, vol. i. p. 114. + Dyer's Hist. of Cambridge, ii. 106. Fuller's Worthies. Reid's Hist. of Presb. Church in Ireland, vol. i. 404. § Continuation, ii. 472. It is not meant to be asserted that the men whom we have now described were faultless. So far from this, their characters were, in some instances, disfigured, and their good exposed to be evil spoken of, by no small blemishes, rendered the more observable from the neighbourhood of very praiseworthy qualities in the same individuals. In some cases, as already hinted, they were driven by the violence of the times, to plunge more deeply into the political agitations of the day, than became the ministers of peace. Nor can even the very great provocations and persecutions they had suffered, or the dangers with which they were encompassed, altogether excuse the ungracious violence with which, in their sermons before Parliament, some of the warmer spirits among them urged the “execution of judgment upon delinquents,"-meaning those who had been guilty of public crimes. Of their want of liberality to those who differed from them in matters of religion, we may afterwards speak. But among their minor failings, which, though leaning to virtue's side, have exposed them more than any other to the shafts of ridicule, we may notice the extreme length to which they protracted their religious services, the fault certainly of the age. What, for example, would be thought now-a-days, of such a fast as that in which the Assembly engaged, at the request of my Lord Essex, thus given by Baillie? "After Dr. Twisse had begun with a brief prayer, Mr. Marshall prayed large two hours, most divinely, confessing the sins of the members of Assembly, in a wonderfully pathetic and prudent way. After, Dr. Arrowsmith preached one hour, then a psalm; thereafter Mr. Vines prayed two hours, and Mr. Palmer preached one hour, and Mr. Seaman prayed near two hours; then a psalm. After, Mr. Hen *Account, ii. p. i. derson brought them to a short sweet | conference of the heart-confessed and other seen faults to be remedied. Dr. Twisse closed with a short prayer and blessing." "And yet," says Baillie, "this day was the sweetest that I have seen in England.' This reminds me of an anecdote told of Dr. Chadderton, one of the translators of the Bible in James I.'s time, who, after having preached on one occasion full two hours, paused and said, "I will no longer trespass upon your patience." Upon which, all the congregation cried out, "For God's sake, go on, go on," when he proceeded much longer in his discourse, to their great contentment and admiration. † Perhaps to these failings, or rather excesses, I might be expected to add a certain unnatural tone of austere sanctity, which is supposed to have characterised this age. But there is no reason to think that this was justly chargeable on the early Puritans or Presbyterians as a body; it belonged rather to the Sectaries in the later days of the Commonwealth, whose enthusiasm, degenerating into the gloom of fanaticism, became at last the very caricature of religion, and prepared the way for the opposite extreme of profligacy into which the nation sunk at the Restoration. The religion of Puritanism was not necessarily nor in fact identified with melancholy, though Butler, in his Hudibras, has ingeniously contrived to associate it, in doggrel verse, with the grotesque exhibitions of Sectarianism. Addison tells us an amusing story in the Spectator, of a youth who was nearly frightened out of his wits on being introduced to be examined by Dr. Goodwin, the Independent, then head of a college in Oxford, in a dark gallery hung with black, and enlightened by a single taper, when the Doctor, who appeared "with half-a-dozen night-caps on his head, and religious horror in his countenance," asked him the fearful question, "Whether he was prepared for death!"§ The moral is good, but the illustration does not apply to the Presbyterian Puritans of that time, who were far from being morose or inimical to innocent mirth. But let us not overlook the other members of the Assembly who were Of these opposed to the Presbyterians. one party was formed by the Erastians, who dissented from the grand proposition of the Assembly,-That the Lord Jesus, as King and Head of His Church, hath therein appointed a government, in the hand of Church officers, distinct from the Civil Magistrate; and whose leading principle was, that all Church government ought to be in the hand of the civil rulers. There were only two Erastian divines in the Assembly, namely, Dr. Lightfoot and Mr. Coleman, who was a learned and pious, but somewhat violenttempered divine, and whom Baillie describes, perhaps in too strong colours, as "a man reasonably learned, but stupid and inconsiderate, half a pleasant [half a buffoon], and of small estimation." But as Coleman died during the very heat of debate on the proposition already mentioned, Lightfoot was left to enter his solitary dissent against it. Insignificant as this party was in point of numbers, it derived importance from the character for learning enjoyed by the persons composing it, and still more so from the powerful support they received from the House of Commons' Parliament, the most of whom, according to Baillie, were "downright Erastians." "The Pope and the King," says this lively chronicler, "were never more earnest for the headship of the Church than the plurality of this Parliament." The learning of Lightfoot is beyond all question, and he certainly made abundant use of it in the Assembly, and, if we may judge from his own diary of the proceedings, with no small eclat. In these disputations he was ably backed by another man of prodigious erudition, the celebrated John Selden, who had a seat in the Assembly as one of the lay-assessors, deputed by the House of Commons. point maintained by these men was, that the Jewish Church and State were all one, that in the Jewish commonwealth there was no Church government distinct from the civil Government,—and that therefore there should be no such distinction in Christian states. The grand "This man," says Baillie, speaking of Selden, "is the head of the Erastians; his glory is most in the Jewish learning; he avows everywhere that the Jewish State and Church were all one, and that so in England it must be, that the Parliament is the Church." * The Presbyterians, on the *Letters, ii. 268. contrary, maintained that such a dis- FOREIGN MISSION COLLECTION. tinction did exist under the Old Testament,—that the two kinds of government are in their very nature, distinct from, and independent of, each other, and that God never did confound them, nor intend that they should be ever confounded together. Without entering into this controversy, which was maintained at great length, and with much learning and ingenuity, on both sides, it may be remarked, as in some degree accounting for the line of thought and argument adopted by the three Erastians in this Assembly, that all of them were distinguished by a particular fondness for Oriental and Rabbinical learning. Coleman was so complete a master of the Hebrew, that he was commonly called Rabbi Coleman. And it is well known that the fame of Selden and Lightfoot rests chiefly on the same foundation. Superior as they may have been, it will not be considered a breach of charity to suppose that a consciousness of this tempted them to make a somewhat needless display of it in the Assembly. Certain it is, that though since highly applauded by some, it made but a small impression on the members, who were learned enough to appreciate, but too shrewd to be misled by the ingenuity of their objections. There is much force in the remark of honest Fuller, when speaking of Selden, "This great scholar, not overloving of any (and least of these) clergymen, delighted himself in raising of scruples for the vexing of others; and some stick not to say, that those who will not feed on the flesh of God's word cast most bones to others, to break their teeth therewith." We confess that we do not admire the vain-glorious tone in which he would say to the members, when they cited a text to prove their assertion, 'Perhaps in your little pocket Bibles with gilt leaves, (which they would pull out and read) the translation may be thus, but the Greek or Hebrew signifies thus and thus."+ And we cannot help recalling, in beautiful contrast to this, his own dying declara ACCORDING to the Synodical arrangement, the THIRD SABBATH OF MAY is fixed for the annual collection on behalf of the Synod's Missions to the Jews and Heathen. Practically, and at present, this Scheme includes only the Mission to in obtaining only one agent-our dear China; and hitherto we have succeeded and devoted brother, William Burns. But to the same Source which sent us Mr. Burns we look in hope and confidence for other evangelists like-minded; and, for the future exigencies of the Mission, we deem it of the utmost consequence to have a small Reserved Fund provided. Most Societies are at present crippled by the expenditure being in advance of the income; as, on the other hand, the prosperous start of the Scottish Mission to the Jews was in great measure which had accumulated in the hands of occasioned by the ample contributions the treasurers before any missionaries could be found. The Synod's Committee have no design to hoard up money; even as they will be careful not to commit the Church to a rate of expenditure which its But just as they deprecate debt, and as resources or its liberality will not warrant. they desire to be able to take prompt which the providence of God may present advantage of any auspicious openings to them, so they beg, as a provision against the time to come, the continued 66 tion, that "out of the numberless volumes he had read, nothing stuck so close to his heart, or gave him such solid satisfaction, as that single passage in Paul's writings, beginning with, "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men,' &c. (To be continued.) contributions of the brethren. The letter from Mr. Burns, inserted in the present "Messenger," gives a most cheering view of his progress and prospects. So much of the Lord's goodness Mission, that the collection this year may has marked the by-gone year of the well assume the character of a thankoffering. Sessions are respectfully urged to abide In regard to all these collections, by the appointed day. Whatever local or incidental hindrances may interpose, the season fixed by authority will be found in the long-run the most convenient; and over and above its moral value, we are sure that the largest financial result will be obtained by a stedfast adherence to the simultaneous system. JAMES NISBET, HUGH M. MATHESON, } Treasurers. Bills and Post-office Orders to be made payable to JAMES NISBET, 21, Berners-street, London. |