Parliament and Assembly on this vital question of spiritual discipline still remained an unsettled and rankling sore. On resuming the subject the following year, Parliament passed certain ordinances which were gravely objectionable to the Assembly-among the most obnoxious being the withholding from the Church's office-bearers of all powers of censure or suspension of members, except for certain specified scandalous offences; the appointment in each county of a civil committee for spiritual causes; and the power of appeal from the proposed National Church Assembly to Parliament itself. Against such invasions of the spiritual independence and self-governing rights of the Church, the Assembly felt bound in conscience strongly to petition Parliament.1 This dignified and ably reasoned petition the House of Commons demeaned itself by a vote of eighty-eight to seventy-six to regard as a breach of privilege exposing the members of Assembly to the awful penalties of a præmunire; but, as has been said, "Seldom has the House of Commons put itself into a less dignified position, willing to wound and yet afraid to strike." The Assembly held fast by its integrity, and, as one of its lay members protested, in perhaps the greatest speech addressed to it that Christ "has given no supreme headship over His Church to any Pope, King, or Parliament whatsoever. . . Is it so small a thing to have the sword, that they must have the keys also ?" Parliament resiled in some measure from its position; but the harmony between itself and the Assembly was never fully restored. Ordinances were passed, when too late, for setting up a National Presbyterian Establishment; but meanwhile Cromwell was beginning to carve out his own rough and

"No nobler paper proceeded from the Assembly, nor could Twisse have closed his official career, as he did, more worthily than by putting his name to it."-Prof. Mitchell's Westminster Assembly, p. 297, where the chief part of it will be found. 2 Ibid., p. 306.

3 Ibid., pp. 314–319.

4 The nine captious questions proposed by Parliament on 30th April, 1646, about the jus divinum of spiritual government, the Assembly carefully considered. The most important and valuable result perhaps of the whole situation is the extremely powerful reply of the London ministers, entitled Jus divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici; or, the divine right of Church Government asserted and evidenced by the Holy Scriptures, by sundry ministers of Christ within the City of London. It was published in 1646, and then revised in a second edition in 1647.

ready solution of these Church and State difficulties with his sword.

IV. The Composition of the CONFESSION OF FAITH and the CATECHISMS.

The Westminster Assembly was far from being occupied with polemical debates merely. Much hard and laborious work was being quietly and peacefully prosecuted, in committee and otherwise, during its protracted sessions. Enduring monuments of learned and deliberative toil remain in the Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Drafted by some of the ablest of the Divines, nineteen chapters of the Confession were finished by the 25th September, 1646; and the entire book was laid before Parliament 26th November of the same year. The later, or disciplinary, portions received only a qualified approval however, for reasons already assigned. The Shorter Catechism1 was ready in Nov., 1647, and the Larger one, which was an amplification of it, in 1648.

The Assembly continued to meet, though with diminished numbers, till 22nd February, 1649, about three weeks after the King's execution; having sat a little over five years and a half, and held 1163 sessions. It then was continued as a Committee for the trial and examination of ministers, till Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament, 25th March, 1652, when it broke up also as a Committee, without any formal dissolution.

1 Very full and most interesting details in Prof. Mitchell's "Catechisms of the Second Reformation (1886), with lists of editions, translations, and expositions of the SHORTER CATECHISM.

III.

PRESBYTERIAN LONDON, 1643-1649.

To speak of Presbyterian London, is to use no exaggerated language. Strange as it may sound in modern ears, it describes exactly what London became under the Long Parliament. From the meeting of the Westminster Assembly in July, 1643, and the public adoption by Parliament of the Solemn League and Covenant in September of that same year, London grew intensely Presbyterian in its sympathies, although Presbyterial worship and order did not come fully into operation over the City and suburbs till August, 1646. All classes seemed under a Presbyterian spell, or frenzy, as the Cavaliers reckoned it. Traditionally Puritan in temper, London struggled for and welcomed the new religious Establishment. Presbyterian Puritanism may have subsisted longer in Lancashire; but in London it achieved its earliest triumph and its highest renown.

"All the Puritans of later days refer with pride to London in the Civil War; and their boast is not unreasonable. No European metropolis has ever displayed a higher character for purity of morals, for calmness in the midst of danger, for disinterested patriotism (even if it were misled), for a universal respect for religion, united with earnestness and zeal in the discharge of all its duties."-Marsden's Later Puritans, p. 109.

And now that time has done much to clear away the dust of party violence and prejudice, it may be that Presbyterian London will appear not unworthy of so high, because so dispassionate, a judgment in its favour, long maligned and ridiculed as it has been.

The London of those days had probably in its widest extent not more than 150,000 inhabitants-the population of a third or fourth rate provincial town at present. Its relative importance in the country was, however, not so unlike the London of to-day. Bristol, its ancient rival, had fallen into the rear, and other towns were nowhere in comparison. Though still in

a sense a walled city, the main thoroughfares ran out in all directions beyond the seven famous old gateways, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Moorgate, Cripplegate, Aldersgate, Newgate, and Ludgate. The streets within were little better than narrow lanes, not without a certain picturesqueness, however, in the quaint architecture full of little nooks and corners, the closely huddled houses standing chiefly gablewise toward the street, with projecting tiers of latticed wood-work of varying height above.

Cheapside, or West Cheap, was of course the great artery of the City, throbbing with an accumulated flow of traffic and bustle from the countless tributaries within sound of Bow bells. Among the public buildings of which London could boast, the churches occupied no mean place. Its crowning pride was the vast Gothic pile of Old St. Paul's, with its steeple once 500 feet in height (though at this time reduced by an accident), and its great centre aisle, "Duke Humphrey's Walk," strangely enough an open thoroughfare and noted public lounge or sheltered rendezvous.

Lincoln's Inn Fields seem to have been the limit of building operations in the Old-bourne or Holborn direction. Fleet Street was already occupied; but the Strand, where the famous Maypole stood, was the free and open enough aristocratic quarter, with its great mansions toward the river. The City of Westminster would have been more aloof from her big sister but for the convenient water-way to which the Londoners were always partial. What were Hackney, Stepney, Islington, and even Charing Cross, and the like, but so many encircling villages more or less remote? And several boroughs, then distinct and separate enough, now occupy wonderfully central places in the ever-widening wilderness of brick.

When the Civil War broke out, London with its suburbs provided, in train bands and auxiliaries, under Philip Skippon as their major-general on the Parliamentary side, a force of not fewer than 18,000 men, arranged in half a dozen regiments, called the Red, White, Yellow, Orange, Blue, and Green. London had often shown itself a true and trusty bulwark against tyranny and misgovernment, but never more than in

this great crisis. The poor infatuated King cherished no goodwill to his capital. It had sheltered the "Five Members," and baulked him of his vengeance. In many other ways it had offered successful resistance to his insidious measures, and proved too much for him. An early episode in the war repeated his experience. Having had the decided advantage in the opening campaign, he thought to move at once on London, and carry it by a coup de main. The City showed a bold front, and, indignant at the King's treachery in stealing a march on them while he was feigning to make a treaty, all London flew to arms as they heard the boom of his cannon in taking Brentford, and compelled him to retire by sending out 24,000 men, in November, 1642, on the redoubtable march to Turnham Green, to support Lord Essex.

An earlier episode, two years before this, just when the Long Parliament had met, sufficed to reveal how London was likely to go on the Church reform question. This was the extremely cordial reception of the Scotch Treaty Commissioners, more especially of their clerical attendants, Henderson, Baillie, Blair, and Gillespie. The Corporation insisted on having them as their own special guests, making over to them one of the civic mansions, Worcester House, and the ancient church of St. Antholins, that adjoined it. To hear their sermons "there was so great a conflux and resort," says Clarendon, "that from the first appearing of day in the morning of every Sunday to the shutting of the light, the church was never empty." There was then established that cordial relation between them and the London Puritan clergy which produced ere long such striking results.

In this spirit London had thrown itself, shudderingly yet without any misgiving, into the war, when women yielded their jewellery and wedding-rings to what they deemed a sacred cause, and the citizens contributed their money and plate without stint. They did it religiously and without vindictiveness, as for the public weal. At this time the famous religious service known as "The Morning Exercise," was begun by Mr. Case, and circulated from church to church, to meet the rising spiritual requirements of the community. "Their sincerity," says