Peers defeat the Commons' measures of reform which led, in 1642, to the bishops being forcibly deprived of their seats and votes. And on the 10th September, the same year, after king and parliament had proclaimed war against each other, the parliament solemnly and formally abolished Episcopacy as the religion of the realm. The wise politicians that then defended the constitution thought that the only safe course was to bring down in a common ruin the royal despotism and the ecclesiastical system which had been its instrument and bulwark.

An

Hence it happened that in 1643, so far as Parliamentary enactment was concerned, there was no national ecclesiastical establishment. The church revenues were confiscated; its dignitaries, functionaries, with all their titles, jurisdictions, and offices, were abolished. The position was embarrassing. establishment was thought necessary, and since the old was destroyed a new must be organized, more in accordance with the Scriptures and the national constitution. But as this was scarcely a work for statesmen, the Parliament resolved to call "An assembly of learned, Godly, and judicious divines, to consult and advise of such matters and things," and thus aid in setthing, (so the ordinance of convocation saith,) "such a government in the Church as may be most agreeable to God's Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformed Churches abroad." Such was the primary and principal design of the Assembly-to elaborate an ecclesiastical, not a theological, system,-the latter, at least, being subsidiary and subservient to the former.

Two very important historical facts support our conclusion. (1.) The condition on which the Scottish Church consented to send commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament agreed to assist the English in its struggle against the king, was the adoption of "the Solemn League and Covenant." Subscription to it was the price the English Puritans paid for the help of the Scottish Presbyterians. that document was emphatically ecclesiastico-political an agreement as to forms of government, not as to theological

Now

The Solemn League and Covenant was subscribed by the Houses of Parliament and the Assembly of Divines in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, 22d. Sept., 1643. Henderson and Nye presided, each in his own fashion setting forth the advantages certain to accrue to Church and State from such a holy alliance. Then the Solemn League and Covenant was read from the pulpit, paragraph by paragraph, while all present stood up, and, with right hands uplifted, vowed to God that they would observe the terms and fulfil the obligations of this covenant with Him and each other. Thereafter "they stept into the Church to sign," the Commons subscribing to one copy, the Divines to another. "There signed in all about 220 honourable members that day. The whole Parliamentary party, down to the lowest constable or drummer in their pay, gradually signed."

beliefs. (2) The arrival of the Scottish Commissoners entirely changed the tone and drift of discussion in the Assembly. The English divines commenced to revise the thirty-nine articles; but on the advent of the Scottish, this revision ceased. Theology was pushed aside, and ecclesiastical polity called out on the arena. Calvinism and Arminianism were shelved, while Presbyterianism, Independency, and Erastianism waged a hot and merciless war. Henderson and Nye, Rutherford and Lightfoot, Gillespie and Selden argued and refined and defined on the nature and power of the Church, the utility and lawfulness of superior courts, the authority of the civil magistrate in matters of religion; but they scouted contemptuously insipid discussions on those theological questions that speak to the human heart in every nation in every age. Only when wearied with the high arguments of the former did they turn for relaxation and recreation to the platitudes of the latter. From the lofty platform of ecclesiastical strife, they rarely and reluctantly descended into the arena of theological debate. Church politicians they were, and after infinite labour they produced a second-hand Church polity."

Here we can but put the question :-Can a Confession of Faith, arising out of such conditions and circumstances, possess the qualities of a permanent, universal, unbiased, and exhaustive Christian creed?

2. Who were the Authors of the Westminster Confession, and how were they qualified for their work? Here we lay down the principle that a creed intended to be permanent and binding on the Christians of a country, should be compiled and sanctioned by an Assembly, or Council, composed of the most eminent Christian men then living, whatever their denomination. Theology is general, but ecclesiastical polity particular; theology concerns the whole Christian Church, but ecclesiastical polity only a section of it. Every man who believes that the Bible is God's word is concerned to know whether the doctrines of the Trinity in unity, the incarnation and divinity of our Lord, atonement by sacrifice, salvation through faith, be true or false; but only a certain class is concerned to know whether a Church should be governed by Bishops, or Presbyters, or Pastors and Deacons. Church government is a question of accident and form; doctrine a question of essence and spirit. Hence, while a council of ecclesiastical politicians must of necessity be sectional, a council of theologians, compiling a creed for a Christian country, should be universal.

Those who desire to test the truth of the above representation may do so by consulting as the principal authorities on the subject-Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. ii.; Baillie's Letters, vol. ii. pp. 108-313. (Ed. 1841); and the partial, and consequently not over-reliable, "History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines," by the late Dr. Hetherington. This book is the work of a very zealous Presbyterian, and he deals out very scant justice to the Independent and Erastian Leaders.

How does the Westminster Assembly fulfil this condition? Was it sectional or universal? Thoroughly sectional-the very quintessence of sectarianism. It was politically sectional-only those who favoured the Parliament were permitted to sit in it. It was ecclesiastically sectional; no Episcopalian was a member. True, certain of the moderate churchmen, like Archbishop Usher, were invited, but the invitation being issued by a Parliament in arms against the king, they could not accept it. One Episcopalian attended a while, but being detected corresponding with Usher, he was forthwith expelled. The Westminster Confession is thus thoroughly sectional. We admit it to be the creed of a sect; we deny that it is in any sense, or to any extent, the creed of the Christian Church.

But again we inquire:-Were the Westminster divines the best qualified men then living to be the authors of a Confession of Faith? The judgement of posterity is generally according to truth. Has it, then, declared that the theologians who sat in Westminster were the most accomplished, profound, and subtle, of their day? It has accorded to Lightfoot the praise of extensive erudition and extraordinary critical ingenuity; to Thomas Goodwin the credit of breadth and penetration of mind; to Prolocutor Twisse the qualities of subtilty, comprehensiveness, and learning; to Philip Nye the praise of enlightened liberality, toleration that might honour the nineteenth, let alone the seventeenth, century; to Dr. Thomas Gataker, Dr. Cornelius Burgess, Edmund Calamy, Stephen Marshall, Jeremiah Burroughs, the fame of considerable culture and theological acumen; to the Scottish Commissioners, Henderson and Gillespie, high powers as ecclesiastical legislators and debaters; to Rutherford fervid piety and keen subtilty; to Robert Baillie extensive and varied learning, blended with an observant eye and a facile pen, which qualified him to be one of the pleasantest letter-gossips that ever talked on paper; but, with the exception of these, the Westminster Divines have receded into a nebulous haze, dim and indistinct, without shape or personality, to all save some Dr. Dryasdust, who has peered into the seventeenth century until its most nebulous forms have rounded into a certain individuality.

It cannot be maintained that the greatest theological thinkers then living sat in the Westminster Assembly; indeed, we are free to maintain that they did not. Archbishop Usher did not

These remarks, and those that follow under this head, must, of course, be taken in connection with the purpose for which the Confession was compiled. It was not issued as the Doctrinal Declaration of a sect; but as the Confession of Faith of the whole British Church. One act of Parliament abolished Episcopacy; another erected Presbyterianism, with the Confession as its creed, into the position of the British Established Church. Hence it claimed, and in Scotland still claims, to be a National Confession of Faith, according to which claim it is here criticised.

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sit in it, and no Englishman then living was his equal in classical, Biblical, and ecclesiastical lore; Richard Baxter did not sit in it, and he was then unsurpassed in his knowledge of the human heart and the Word of God, as well as in metaphysical and logical ability; John Hales, of Eton, did not sit in it, and he was certainly then unrivalled as a reflective thinker of keen true insight; William Chillingworth did not sit in it, and posterity has assigned him a place among the greatest, if not the very highest place among, British controversialists; Jeremy Taylor did not sit in it, and he, if no great logician, and no very reliable thinker, was, at least, an extensive and accurate scholar, a pious and pure-minded divine; Dr. Ralph Codworth did not sit in it, and no man in that age had a more philosophical mind, or more extensive acquaintance with the speculations of heathen and Christian philosophers; indeed, the best and greatest men living in 1643-men whose names are still mentioned with reverence-whose voices are still heard in our land-whose works will last as long as the English language endures, were not members of the Westminster Assembly. They were excluded from its councils because it was a sectional conclave, met for a sectional purpose, and not to draw up a creed for Christendom.*

Our queston here simply is :-How can a creed, compiled by men who were partizans, and who excluded from their councils the greatest Christian men then living, have any claims to be an adequate and impartial Confession of Christian Faith?

3. What influence has the Westminster Confession of Faith exercised on subsequent theological thought and ecclesiastical action? The creed that is repressive of independent intelligent thought, and productive of intolerant action, has a practical injuriousness about it indicative of theoretical unsoundness. Our work is not now with the doctrinal soundness or unsoundness of the Westminster Confession, but our question is-How has it affected theological thought in the churches that have embraced it?

It is the Confession of Faith of the Calvinistic Churches of Scotland:-What, then, have these churches done since its adop

The list of eminent divines then living excluded from the Westminister Assembly might be considerably extended. Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich, a true poet and an excellent divine; Thomas Fuller, the witty and wise historian and preacher; Edward Pococke, the distinguished orientalist, the first English Professor of Arabic, the author of many learned works on Biblical criticism and exegesis; Brian Walton, editor of the celebrated London Polyglot; Drs. Hammond, Sanderson, Sheldon, and various others, superior in culture and capacity to the majority of the divines who sat at Westminister. And of eminent laymen absent from its counsels, we have but to mention Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, and John Milton, to show how far it was from numbering among its members the foremost men of the time.

tion for Christian literature and Christian thought? We pass over the latter half of the seventeenth century, as the Scottish Church was then so absorbed in the Covenanting struggle as to have neither time nor strength for other and calmer work. We shall confine ourselves to the post-revolution period, and examine its theological productions. But what strikes us as strange, there are few to examine. The post-Revolution Church settled into the dreariest Moderatism. Socinianism crept into many of its pulpits, and even into some of its professor's chairs. An inteltectual and moral lethargy stole over it, and it became the Minister of the State and the time, rather than the Minister of Christ. The Erskines came out from its communion, rippling the surface of stagnant religious thought, but they were only earnest evangelical preachers, not theologians, casting their contributions into the treasure-house of mind. And in that eighteenth century no really great religious thinker arose in Scotland. Hugh Blair moralised in half-Christian half-Heathen fashion in sermons as cold and pointless as they were elegant and formal. Principal Robertson wrote his histories, throwing out here and there scornful allusions to the headlong zeal of Luther, and the thoroughgoing fanaticism of Knox, condoling the while with Gibbon over the severe handling his sceptical xv. and xvi. chapters had received from the orthodox. Principal Campbell did good service to the cause of Biblical criticism, but when he appeared as an apologetic theologian against Hume, he produced a work that has held its ground from its design rather than from its intrinsic worth. In the departments of apologetics, dogmatics, and, with the exception of Principal Campbell's work on the Gospels, of Biblical criticism and exegesis, the Scottish Church of the eighteenth century was absolutely barren. It has been little better in the nineteenth. Its greatest man was Thos. Chalmers; but what is the net value of his contributions to modern theological thought? His "Natural Theology" throws little light on those complex and profound questions relating to science and religion now being debated; his "Bridgewater Treatise" is almost forgotten, save by a few students of moral philosophy; his "Astronomical Lectures" are remembered chiefly on account of their fervid eloquence; his Expository Notes on the Romans are mainly remarkable for the absence of all exegetical tact; his only really memorable works are not theological, but economical. Then as to Dr. Cunningham, his merit, and it cannot be denied that he had great merit in his own department, is that of a historian of thought-an expositor of systems already elaborated. In this century, as truly as in the former, the Scottish Church has beer barren of theological thinkers equal to the wants and culture of the day.