PLAN OF THE MODERN DEANERY, INCLUDING THE ABBOT'S PLACE,' AND REPRESENTING THE JERUSALEM CHAMBER AT THE TIME OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY.

the ground stands two chairs, for the two Mr. Assessors, Dr. Burgess and Mr. Whyte. Before these two chairs, through the length of the roome, stands a table, at which sitts the two scribes, Mr. Byfield and Mr. Roborough. The house is all well hung, and has a good fyre, which is some dainties at London. Foranent the table, upon the Proloqutor's right hand, there are three or four rankes of formes. On the lowest we five doe sit; upon the other, at our backs, the members of Parliament deputed to the Assemblie.1 On the formes foranent us, on the Proloqutor's left hand, going from the upper end of the house to the chimney, and at the other end of the house and backsyde of the table, till it come about to our seats, are four or five stages of formes, whereupon their divines sitts as they please; albeit commonlie they keep the same place. From the chimney to the door there is no seats, but a voyd, about the fire. We meet every day of the week, but Saturday. We sitt commonlie from nine to one or two afternoon. The Proloqutor at the beginning and end has a short prayer. The man, as the world knows, is very learned

It was

in the questions he has studied, and very good, beloved of all, and highlie esteemed; but merelie bookish, and not much, as it seems, acquaint with conceived prayer, [and] among the unfittest of all the company for any action; so after the prayer, he sitts mute. the cannie convoyance of these who guides most matters for their own interest to plant such a man of purpose in the chaire. The one assessour, our good friend Mr. Whyte, has keeped in of the gout since our coming; the other, Dr. Burgess, a very active and sharpe man, supplies, so farr as is decent, the Proloqutor's place. Ordinarilie, there will be present about threescore of their divines. These are divided in three committees, in one whereof every man is a member. No man is excluded who pleases to come to any of the three. Every committee, as the Parliament gives orders in wryte to take any purpose to consideration, takes a portion; and in their afternoon meeting prepares matters for the Assemblie, setts doune their minde in distinct propositions, backs their propositions with texts of Scripture, After the prayer, Mr. Byfield, the scribe, reads the proposition and Scriptures, whereupon the Assemblie debates in a most grave and orderlie way. No man is called up to speak; bot who stands up of his own accord, he speaks so long as he will

without interruption. If two or three stand up at once, then the divines confusedlie calls on his name whom they desyre to hear first. On whom the loudest and maniest voices calls, he speaks. No man speaks to any bot to the Proloqutor. They harangue long and very learnedlie. They studie the questions well beforehand, and prepares their speeches; but withall the men are exceeding prompt, and well spoken. I doe marvell at the very accurate and extemporall replyes that many of them usuallie doe make. When, upon everie proposition by itself, and on everie text of Scripture that is brought to confirme it, every man who will has said his whole minde, and the replyes, and duplies, and triplies are heard; then the most part calls, 'To the question.' Byfield the scribe rises from the table, and comes to the Proloqutor's chair, who, from the scribe's book, reads the proposition, and says, 'As many as are in opinion that the question is 'well stated in the proposition, let them say I;' when I is heard, he says, 'As many as think otherwise, say No.' If the difference of I's and No's be cleare, as usuallie it is, then the question is ordered by the scribes, and they go on to debate the first Scripture alleadged for proof of the proposition. If the sound of I and No be near equall, then sayes the Proloqutor, 'As many as say I, stand up;' while they stand, the scribe and others number them in their minde; when they sitt downe, the No's are bidden stand, and they likewise are numbered. This way is clear enough, and saves a great deal of time, which we spend in reading our catalogue. When a question is once ordered, there is no more debate of that matter; but if a man will raige, he is quicklie taken up by Mr. Assessor, or many others, confusedlie crying, 'Speak to order to order!' No man contradicts another expresslie by name, bot most discreetlie speaks to the Proloqutor, and at most holds on the generall, The Reverend brother 'who latelie or last spoke,' 'on this hand,' ' on that syde,'' above,' or 'below.' I thought meet once for all to give you a taste of the outward form of their Assemblie. They follow the way of their Parliament. Much of their way is good, and worthie of our imitation: only their longsomenesse is wofull at this time, when their Church and Kingdome lyes under a most lamentable anarchy and confusion. They see the hurt of their length, but cannot get it helped; for being to establish a new plattforme of worship and discipline to their Nation for all time to come, they think they cannot be answerable if solidlie, and at leisure, they doe not examine every point thereof.

6

Here then took place those eager disputes between Selden

and Gillespie.'

6

Here Selden would tell his adversaries, Perhaps in your little pocket-bibles with gilt leaves (which they would often take out and read) the translation may be thus, but the Greek and Hebrew signifies thus and thus,' and so would silence them. He came, as Persians used, to see wild asses fight.' 'When the Commons tried him with 'their new law, these brethren refreshed him with their new 'Gospel." For five years, six months, and twenty-two days, through one thousand one hundred and sixty-three sessions, the Chapel of Henry VII. and the Jerusalem Chamber witnessed their weary labours. Out of these walls came the Directory, the Longer and Shorter Catechism, and that famous Confession of Faith which, alone within these Islands, was imposed by law on the whole kingdom; and which, alone of all Protestant Confessions, still, in spite of its sternness and narrowness, retains a hold on the minds of its adherents to which its fervour and its logical coherence in some measure entitle it. If ever our Northern brethren are constrained by a higher duty to break its stringent obligation, they may perhaps find a consolation in the fact, that the Westminster 'Confession' bears in its very name the sign that it came to them not from the High Church or Hall of Assembly in Edinburgh, but from the apartments of a prelatical dignitary at Westminster, under the sanction of an English Parliament, and under the occasional pressure of the armies of an English king.

6

Whilst the Jerusalem Chamber was thus employed, the Deanery itself was inhabited by a yet more singular occupant. The office had, on Williams's retirement, been given by the King to Dr. Richard Stewart; but he never took possession, and died in exile at Paris, where he was buried in a Protestant Richard cemetery near St. Germain des Près. The house, meantime, Stewart,

1 Lightfoot, i. 68; Hetherington, p. 252.

2

Hetherington, p. 326.

1645-51.

L L

John Bradshaw, 1649-59.

had been granted on lease to Bradshaw, President of the High Court of Justice. He belonged to a small Independent congregation, gathered in the Abbey under the ministry, first of Strong, and then of Rowe. Here, according to tradition, he loved to climb by the winding stair from the Deanery into some small chamber' in the South-western Tower. It is, doubtless, that which still exists, with traces of its ancient fireplace, but long since inhabited only by hawks or pigeons. A round piece of timber was long shown here as Bradshaw's rack; and the adjacent gallery was haunted,' as the Westminster boys used to believe, by his ghost. This 'melancholy wretch,' so writes the royalist antiquarian, ‘it ' is said, ended his days in the blackest desperation; but that 6 a church-roof was the nest of such an unclean bird, I have not before heard. Certain it is that he ended his days near 'this church, but that he spent them in it we have no authority but tradition. Yet it is not improbable that, in some of his fits, he might retire to a place very well suited to such a temper.'" The more authentic accounts

of his death do not exhibit any such remorse. 'Not on the tribunal only,' said Milton, in his splendid eulogy on his character, but through his whole life, he seemed 'to be sitting in judgment on Royalty.' Had it to 'to be done over again,' were amongst his last words, speaking of the King's execution, I would do it.' He was present at the Council of State in 1659. When the proceedings of the army were discussed and justified, and though by 'long sickness very weak and much exhausted, yet, animated