V.—Vol. I. 329.
Respecting the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly.
The question has often been asked, "What became of the minutes of the Assembly kept by the scribes?" It has been said by some, they were burnt in the fire of London; by others, that they were destroyed (1834) in the fire which burnt down the House of Commons ("Hetherington's Hist. of the Westminster Assembly," preface v.) Whether it be the case that some MS. records of the proceedings were so consumed I have no means of ascertaining. But certainly there exist in Dr. Williams' library, minutes of the Assembly's business, in the handwriting of Adoniram Byfield, one of the scribes. As so many incorrect accounts of these MSS. have been given, I am glad to be able to present the following description of them, drawn up from the carefully-prepared but unprinted catalogue of Dr. Williams' MSS. by Mr. Black, and from my own examination of the papers. They consist of three volumes, and contain minutes of the sessions of the Assembly of Divines from August the 4th, 1643, to April the 24th, 1652, and what are, apparently, the rough notes of proceedings, debates, and orders of the Assembly, taken for the most part by Adoniram Byfield, one of the scribes.
On the fly-leaf of the first volume is a list of members, amongst whom the sum of £100 had been distributed in sums of £5 each, according to the decision of a Committee (Sept. 8th, 1643) "appointed to dispose of the £100, allotted by the order of Parliament, to such persons as they shall find to have most need thereof, for supply of their present necessities."—Vol. i. 24.
This volume contains heads and particulars, in many cases very brief, of speeches delivered in the Assembly, with the names of speakers appended in the margin, as well as lists of resolutions passed, and various other memoranda. The proceedings of sessions thus reported extend from August the 4th, 1643, to April the 11th, 1644.
The second volume embraces similar minutes from the 12th of April to the 15th of August, 1644, with a list of members prefixed. Some of the notes are written in shorthand by a different scribe; but however unintelligible the shorthand may be, it is not much more so than Mr. Byfield's longhand in some places.
Vol. iii. gives further minutes from November the 18th, 1644, to March the 25th, 1652. The late ones are briefly, but more distinctly recorded, in the handwriting of better scribes than Byfield.
"The latest sessions relate almost exclusively to examinations for ordinations for livings, in relation to which an original paper was found loose in the book, now inserted in its proper place, where the name occurs—viz.: testimonial from R. Robinson in favour of Mr. Gilson, M.A., and fellow of C.C.C., Oxon., 14th March, 1650-51."
Some of the papers in this volume are carelessly arranged, but they contain only trivial memoranda.
There are bound up in this volume Minutes of Provincial Assemblies holden at Sion College, and elsewhere in London, from the 27th of November, 1650, to the 9th of April, 1655.
"It does not appear when these volumes were deposited in this library. They came most probably with Morrice's MSS."
Mention has often been made of there being in Dr. Williams' library fourteen or fifteen small volumes of the Assembly's transactions, by Dr. Thomas Goodwin. No manuscript notes by Goodwin can there be found. The three volumes just described contain a number of distinct thin MSS. bound up together. Do not they after all contain the fourteen or fifteen small (thin?) MSS. incorrectly ascribed to Dr. Goodwin?
In the Advocate's library, Edinburgh, there are two volumes of manuscript notes, by Gillespie, which—according to Dr. Hetherington, who inspected them—"corroborate the printed accounts of Lightfoot and Baillie."