A Westminster Bibliography Part 7:
The Form of Church Government
Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9,
10
At the same time the Assembly was composing the Directory the struggle continued between the Presbyterians and the Independents in the Assembly. Still, the following propositions received unanimous support early on:
1. Christ hath instituted a Government, and Governors Ecclesiastical in the Church.
2. Christ hath furnished some in his Church with gifts of government and with commission to exercise the same when called thereto.
3. It is agreeable to and warranted by the Word of God, that some others beside minister of the Word should join with them in the Government of the Church.
The question of whether the government of the church should be in the hands of an eldership per se was discussed extensively. The question was whether there should be elders in every congregation by divine right [jus divinum]. The Assembly neither accepted nor rejected the "Presbyter" theory of the ruling elder. Some in the Assembly believed that the church governors should be considered not as presbyters in the New Testament sense of the word, but simply as seniores plebis as in the African Church, representatives or "lay helpers" to aid the presbyters (pastors) in ruling. Thus the Assembly voted not to use I Timothy 5:17 as a proof text for the office, settling for only Romans 12:7-8 and I Corinthians 12:28 as New Testament proofs for the office.
However, it was on the subject of the ordination of church officers that the divisions began showing up with regularity. Parliament was concerned that arrangements be made as soon as possible for the examination, ordination and installation of men into vacant charges throughout the country. On January 9, 1643/44, the Assembly's Committee reported with respect to ordination, "we humbly conceive that the preaching presbyters are only to ordain." The Independents would not allow that statement to pass unchallenged as it was opposed to their most fundamental proposition: that all authority — and therefore the authority to ordain1 — was derived from Christ through the particular congregation. They kept up the struggle over that single phrase until April 19th. Quoting W. M. Hetherington:
"The conduct of the Independents, on this occasion, was both discreditable in itself, and led to very pernicious results. It was discreditable either to their candour or their talents, to produce propositions couched in such ambiguous language, much more calculated to perplex than to clear the subject; and as they were men of decided abilities, the accusation falls upon their character, and constrains us to regard them as uncandid and disingenuous. But finding that they had succeeded so ill in their attempt to deceive or confuse in this instance, they never again could be prevailed upon to state to the Assembly their own opinions in writing, though sufficiently pertinacious in retaining them, and supporting them by every kind of argument. The new course of tactics thus adopted proved the means of retarding the Assembly beyond measure, and ended at last in rendering all its prolonged toils comparatively abortive."2
The Assembly proceeded to settle the doctrinal portion of ordination in a way adverse to the Independents. The rules then followed the doctrine. However, the Assembly took care to state carefully that no minister should be forced upon a parish if the congregation were unwilling to have him. The charge that is sometimes made against the Assembly (by John Milton and others) that "presbyter is but priest writ large," does not stand up to scrutiny. The Assembly left the final word of whether a minister could be settled in a parish in the hands of the congregation.
During the debates over ordination the five "Dissenting Brethren,"3 seeing that the votes in the Assembly were going against them, addressed themselves directly to Parliament by publishing their treatise, "An Apologetical Narration humbly submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament." The publication of a paper dissenting from the Assembly before the Assembly reported to Parliament was a breach of etiquette that brought on fierce discussions and accusations not only in the Assembly itself, but in Parliament and the press as well.4
The doctrinal portion of the Directory for Ordination was sent up to Parliament on April 19, 1644. But, especially in the House of Commons, such petty suspicions and party spirit prevailed that it was not formally sanctioned until October 2, 1644, nearly six months later. Meanwhile, as Parliament haggled over the Directory for Ordination, the Assembly continued its struggles over the proposition that had been tabled since February 6, "that the Scripture holdeth forth that many particular Congregations may be under one Presbyterian Government."
Additionally, since the Independents had 'gone public' with the Apologetical Narration, the Presbyterians began publishing pamphlets in earnest. One estimate claims that during the decade of the 1640's over 30,000 pamphlets on the subject of church government were published in the city of London.5 The gentlest and most conciliatory pamphlet was Charles Herle's Independency upon Scripture of the Independency of Churches. Herle later became Prolocutor (Moderator) of the Assembly after Dr. Twisse. The most elaborate and least gracious was Thomas Edwards' Antapologia. Edwards' words were so strong that it seems he suffers as much from a party spirit as do those he accuses. Later productions on the subject of Independency included Dr. Bastwick's Independency Not God's Ordinance (1645) and The Utter Routing of the Whole Army of Independents and Sectaries (1646) and Edwards' later work Gangræna, in three parts (1646).
The divisions over the subject of the authority of the presbytery caused the Assembly still further delays due to a desire on the part of the Presbyterian majority to accommodate the Independents as far as possible. It therefore took the Assembly until July 4, 1645, to send up the Draft of Church Government to Parliament. Though the Presbyterians carried the day in the Assembly, the Independents won the day from a practical point of view. The prolonged delay effected by the Independents proved to be the first fatal blow to the successful establishment of the Presbyterian Church system in England. The non-establishment of a church system was materially the same as the establishment of Independency.
At one point the Presbyterians and Independents were on the very verge of accommodation. Philip Nye and Thomas Goodwin, leaders of the Independents, were constrained to admit that the keys of doctrine at least are in the hands of a Synodical Assembly; and on March 14th the Committee of Accommodation reported that the Independents had agreed to the following propositions:
1. That there be a Presbytery, or meeting of the Elders of many neighboring congregations, to consult upon such things as concern those congregations in matters Ecclesiastical; and such presbyteries are the ordinances of Christ, having His power and authority [or alternate reading in Gillespie is "authority and power from him"].
2. Such presbyteries have power, in cases that are to come before them, to declare and determine doctrinally what is agreeable to God's Word; and this judgment of theirs is to be received with reverence and obligation as Christ's ordinance.
3. They have power to require the Elders of those congregations to give an account of anything scandalous in doctrine or practice.
On the nineteenth of March it was further agreed by the Independents in the Committee of Accommodation:
4. The churches and eldership being offended, let them examine, admonish, and, in the case of obstinacy, declare them either disturbers of the peace, subverters of the faith, or otherwise as the nature and degree of the offense shall require.
5. In case that particular church or eldership shall refuse to reform that scandalous doctrine or practice, then that meeting of elders, which is assembled from several congregations, shall acquaint their several congregations respectively, and withdraw from them, denying church communion and fellowship with them.6
The proposition to which the Independents simply could not agree was the proposition which carried in the Assembly by a mere eight votes, "that no single congregation which may conveniently join together in an association, may assume unto itself all and sole power of ordination." The discussions concerning this and similar propositions were carried on in the Westminster Assembly during 1644 and 1645 by a series of papers on both sides, afterward collected and published by order of Parliament by Adoniram Byfield, one of the Scribes, as The Grand Debate.7 Before Parliament finally accepted the Presbyterian plan, however, another complication arose... that of the Erastian Controversy. [This material was covered in Westminster Bibliography Part Three, Review of Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici, v4 #11-12].
1 Hetherington, 172.
2 Ibid, 174.
3 Thomas Goodwin, Jeremiah Burroughs, Philip Nye, William Bridge and Sidrach Simpson
4 Hetherington, 181-182
5 A. H. Drysdale, History of the Presbyterians in England: Their Rise, Decline and Revival. (London: Publication Committee of the Presbyterian Church of England, 1889), 264.
6 Lightfoot, 214-215; Hetherington, 202; Gillespie, 40-41,
7 The Grand Debate will be discussed in some detail in an upcoming dissertation expanding upon this thesis.
Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Page Last Updated: 01/10/08 12:21:14 PM