Three
The Westminster Assembly (1643–1649)
By August 1642, Charles and the English Parliament were embroiled in civil war. Both sides appealed to the Scots for support. This, in turn, started to polarize opinion within Scotland, between moderate royalists who felt the revolution had progressed as far as it decently should, and those who believed security lay, not in trusting Charles, but in closer union with England—a union in which Scotland would be an equal partner, and whose constitution would limit royal power.1 Whereas it is probable that most of the nobility favored the former stance, the great majority of the lesser ranks sided with the General Assembly’s conviction that the Covenanting movement would best be served by opening negotiations with the English Parliament. Accordingly, since Charles refused to call a Scottish Parliament, the Privy Council voted, on the 12 May 1643, to summon a convention of estates for the 22 June.2 Meanwhile, Charles, looking for reinforcements, had opened negotiations in Ireland with a view to recalling English soldiers from there. By the time the information reached Scotland, it was believed that the troops were in fact Irish Catholics bent on destroying the protestant cause. Thus, when the convention assembled, the credibility of the king’s supporters was undermined and they were unable to stop negotiations commencing with the English representatives on the 7 August.3
The ultimate result was the Solemn League and Covenant, a treaty whose principal points were that each country would endeavor, (i), to preserve the reformed religion in Scotland, and continue the reformation of religion in England and Ireland according to “the example of the best reformed churches” (in other words, presbyterianism), (ii), to extirpate popery and prelacy, (iii), to preserve the rights and privileges of both parliaments and the authority of the king, (iv), to deal with any “incendiaries, malignants, or evil instruments” who oppose the Covenant, (v), to promote peace and union between the two countries, and (vi), to assist the other partner in maintaining adherence to the Covenant.4
Although the document bears the hallmarks of a proposed religious settlement, the English parliamentarians’ overriding concern was the winning of Scottish military assistance. They were prepared to accept the Covenant as a price to be paid, but the fact remained, “the more they saw of Presbyterianism, the less the parliamentarians liked it, and the more they labored to keep it out of sight.”5 Nevertheless, The English Long Parliament showed interest in the Scottish alternative to episcopacy, and had, in June, already commissioned an assembly of divines to meet at Westminster and consider what form of government might “be most agreeable to God’s Holy Word, and . . . nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland.”6 The divines met on the 1 July, and invited the Kirk to send representatives. On the 19 August, the General Assembly appointed a pool of eight commissioners, from whom a minimum of three would be constantly present at the assembly. This initial pool of Scots representatives was composed of some of the Kirk’s leading figures. From the ministry, there was Samuel Rutherford (St. Andrews), Robert Baillie (Glasgow), Alexander Henderson, Robert Douglas and George Gillespie (Edinburgh), and from the elders, John, Earl of Cassillis, John, Lord Maitland and Johnston of Wariston.7 The first three Scots commissioners were formally welcomed at the Westminster Assembly on the 15 September 1643.
Business moved slowly in the early months, however the pace began to quicken when, on the 2 January 1644, the agenda turned to the theory and practice of election and ordination. Although the gathering approved the proposition that the apostles had power to ordain officers in all churches and to appoint evangelists to ordain, the Scots, through Gillepsie, challenged the translation of one of the proof texts, which read: “And when they had ordained them elders in every church” (Acts, xiv, 23).8 Gillepsie claimed that the Greek word which “Episcopal translators” had deliberately rendered as ordaining, was “truelie choyseing, importing the peoples suffrages in electing their officers.”9 This sparked off much debate until Henderson contrived a compromise which added the provision that the meeting was referring to the verse as a whole, and that it did not intend thereby “to prejudge any argument which in due time might be alleadged out of this place, either for popular election, or against it.”10 It was a liberty which the Kirk was glad to remember and put on record the following year, when it ratified the articles on ordination.11
Shortly after this, detailed discussion on the issue of ordination was halted until March. Meanwhile, discussion began on whether or not presbyterian church government was scriptural.12 Although little was conclusively settled, the Scots did well out of the debate which led to the validity and standing of presbyterianism being viewed in a more respectful light than previously.13 However, as the reopening of the discussions on ordination was to demonstrate, any endorsement of presbyterianism was not to be equated with a wholehearted acceptance of popular control of the Church.
On the 21 March, the Westminster Assembly turned its attention to the proposition that a congregation should accept a minister recommended to them by the superior church authority, unless they could show “just cause of exception against him.”14 The Scots had two difficulties with this. First, having already had experience of parochial intransigence, they felt obliged to press for a more detailed definition of what the qualification allowed, Gillespie asking, “But if they cannot shew just cause against him, what then is to be done?”15 There was also the matter of what Henderson called “the people’s interest, in point of election”16 He wanted to know how much preliminary consultation would there be? In seeking to resolve these scruples, the Scottish commissioners found themselves sandwiched between two opposing positions.
On the one hand, there were the moderate English Puritans, who considered that the proposed concession already bestowed a privilege upon a congregation that was more than adequate. On the other side, there were the Independents, who argued that the proposition’s approach was the wrong way round, and that any recommending should be by the people to the presbytery. In their view, what had been suggested came “not up to the privilege of the people.”17
For their part, the Scots were in the difficult position of being unable to speak with one voice, since their own church was at the time engaged in the process of internal debate upon congregational rights in vacancies. There were those, like Rutherford, who unequivocally adhered to the belief that, “The Scriptures constantly give the choice of the pastor to the people. The act of electing is in the people; and the regulating and correcting of their choice is in the presbytery.”18 Set against that, there were those like the historian and presbyterian apologist, David Calderwood (1575–1650), who wrote from Scotland censuring the Scots commissioners for allowing the power and status of kirk sessions, and thereby congregations, to be elevated to a point that, as Baillie ruefully reported, “we put ourselfe in hazard to be forced to give excommunication, and so entire government, to congregations, which is a great stepp to Independencie. Mr H[enderson] acknowledges this; and we are in a pecke of troubles with it.”19
