Westminster Assembly.
Two catechisms, the longer and the shorter, were also prepared at Westminster,—the last of which, with its scripture proofs, was much more familiar to the children of Nonconformists in past generations than in the present. The Annotations which bear the name of the Assembly were, in fact, the production of a committee appointed by Parliament, including learned men who never belonged to the Assembly at all. The Assembly also undertook the revision of psalmody, which has obtained less notice than it deserves. Congregations were getting tired of Sternhold and Hopkins; consequently Parliament recommended there should be a new version. One, by Mr. Rouse, found favour with the Commons, and was submitted to the consideration of the Divines, who, after a careful perusal and some emendations, pronounced it "profitable to the Church, should it be publicly sung." But Mr. Rouse had a rival in Mr. Barton, who likewise had prepared a new psalter. He petitioned the Lords in favour of his own work, and obtained their patronage. They passed a resolution, enquiring of the Divines why Mr. Barton's book might not be used as well as others? The Lower House soon afterwards decided that Mr. Rouse's psalms and no others should be sung in all churches and chapels within the kingdom of England, the dominion of Wales, and the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. The Assembly, in answer to the queries of the House of Lords, replied that, if liberty should be given to people to sing whatever translation they liked, several different books would be used even in one and the same congregation at the same time, "which would be a great distraction and hindrance to edification." This was such an extraordinary contingency, that to contemplate it as at all probable, indicated the existence of an astonishing amount of disunion and obstinacy. It is a significant fact that, whilst in the Episcopal Church of England, after the imposition of the Prayer Book, the choice of a form of psalmody was left to the discretion of the clergy and their congregations, the Presbyterians, when in power, would not allow such liberty, but endeavoured to secure uniformity in the worship of praise, such as in the worship of prayer they did not even permit.[563]
1643-52.
The Westminster Assembly has seldom been treated with justice. By Episcopal Churchmen, too generally, it is depreciated; and by some it is dismissed with a few words of unconcealed contempt. Scotch Presbyterians have extravagantly extolled it; and Neal, the Independent historian of Puritanism is accused of damning it with faint praise. Clarendon speaks of the Assembly in words of scorn; and Walker, still more deeply prejudiced, writes against it with wearisome vituperation. Milton, who had incurred the censure of the Divines by his doctrine of divorce, could not be expected to pronounce an equitable judgment on their merits; and we do not wonder at the resentment which burns against his censurers through certain magnificently sonorous sentences in the third book of his History of England.[564] Baxter's words have been often quoted on this subject, and though not free from partiality, they deserve more than those of any other man to be repeated: "The Divines, there congregate, were men of eminent learning and godliness, and ministerial abilities and fidelity; and being not worthy to be one of them myself, I may the more freely speak that truth which I know, even in the face of malice and envy, that, as far as I am able to judge by the information of all history of that kind, and by any other evidences left us, the Christian world, since the days of the apostles, had never a synod of more excellent Divines (taking one thing with another) than this synod and the synod of Dort were."[565]
Westminster Assembly.
1643-52.
This is high praise; but it comes nearer to the truth than the condemnatory verdicts pronounced by some others. The godliness of the men is proved by the spirit of their writings, and by the history of their lives. Their talents and attainments even Milton does not attempt to deny. No one would think of comparing any of them with Jeremy Taylor in point of eloquence; and in breadth of sacred learning, in a certain skilful mastery of knowledge, and in the majesty and grace of polemical argument, the best were not equal to Hammond and Pearson. Cosin would surpass them all in some branches of study, which they would account useless. Certainly, none of them had the sagacious quaintness of Bishop Hall, or the inexhaustible wit of Thomas Fuller; but quaintness and wit are qualities not needed in theological conferences. Even superior eloquence and large accomplishments may, in such case, be dispensed with. The Westminster Divines had learning—scriptural, patristic, scholastical, and modern—enough, and to spare; all solid, substantial, and ready for use.[566] Lightfoot and Selden were of ponderous but not unwieldy erudition; and Arrowsmith and Calamy, though less known to literary fame, were ripe and ready scholars. Caryl and Greenhill had abundance of knowledge; Dr. Goodwin was, in many respects, the greatest Divine amongst them all. Moreover, in the perception and advocacy of what is most characteristic and fundamental in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they were, as a body, considerably in advance of some who could put in a claim to equal, and perhaps higher scholarship. They had a clear, firm grasp of evangelical truths. The main defect and the chief reproach of the Assembly consisted in the narrowness and severity of their Calvinism, and in the fierce and persistent spirit of intolerance manifested by the majority.