Westminster Assembly

“ Wedding as well as funeral parties assemble in this room from time to time, and the Chamber is occasionally lent by the Dean for special meetings. Thus the revisers of the Old Testament carried out their onerous task, the work of several years, seated round this table. Long before, in the seventeenth century, a very different body of men had met here, when the Westminster Assembly, driven from Henry VII.'s Chapel by {139} the freezing cold, moved into the warmer atmosphere of the Dean's house, and held many a stormy debate in this peaceful old-world place. ”

“ To me the House of Commons is always a delightful place. I offer it the uncompromising admiration that young poets lay at the feet of their mistresses; I feel for it the affection that a friend feels for a friend. But I do not wish it to be supposed, because I say all this, that I am convinced that I have in me the makings of a great statesman, or, indeed, that my presence at Westminster is in any serious degree indispensable to the safety of the commonweal. ”

“ There was only one way by which king and people could thus come face to face—Henry must summon to Westminster a Parliament to discuss those matters with him, and it must be a Parliament not made up of bishops and barons only; all England must be represented. ”

“ I do not think we have ever dreamt of a day when we should send representatives to Westminster. Our sympathies as a nation are not altogether, I think, with the party of progress. We are devoted to old institutions, and hold fast to such of them as are our own. ”

“ The Government will be safer with its Members on the moors or the golf links than daily running the gauntlet at Westminster.
House of Lords, Thursday.—When noble lords take their legislative business seriously in hand they show the Commons a better way. Their dealing with the Amending Bill has been a model of businesslike procedure. ”

“ The new constitution breathed, in fact, a perfectly different spirit from the old one. The vitality of our former government was drawn from the higher classes and the lower ones. An election for Westminster was not merely the return of two members to Parliament: it was a manifestation of the feeling prevalent amongst the masses throughout England; and the feeling amongst the masses had a great influence in moments of excitement, and in all matters touching the national dignity and honour. ”

“ The Commons, who are the people, when ordered to the bar of the Lords, humbly present themselves bareheaded before the peers, who remain covered. The Commons send up their bills by forty members, who present the bill with three low bows. The Lords send their bills to the Commons by a mere clerk. In case of disagreement, the two Houses confer in the Painted Chamber, the Peers seated and covered, the Commons standing and bareheaded.
"Peers go to parliament in their coaches in file; the Commons do not. Some peers go to Westminster in open four-wheeled chariots. ”

“ The old principle of the English constitution, which had worked itself into existence, or grown up from the necessities of men, during a long course of years, was, that the whole interests of the state should be represented, and that the House of Commons was the assembly in which the representatives of all those varied interests were to be found. ”

“ There is a difference at present between the two Houses of Parliament, the Commons desire (now that the Bill against the Earl of Strafford is presented) to sit at the hearing of his counsel, as co-judges with the Lords, with their hats on, to which the Lords not assenting, the Commons are now content to sit as they did in Westminster Hall, uncovered, so be that the Lords will please to come as a Committee without their robes, to which the Lords having not yet yielded the controversy is not yet ended. ”

“ When the rules of the two Houses of Congress conflict, the House of Representatives rules are of greater authority than those of the Senate in determining the parliamentary law of the country, just as the practice of the House of Commons, and not the House of Lords, determines the parliamentary law of England. ”

“ The Parliaments are so altered from their original Constitution, that between the Court and the Country, the House, instead of being united, is like Troops of a contrary Party facing one another, and watching their Advantage.
Even the well-meaning Men who have good Sense too, have their Difficulties in an Assembly; what they offer honestly for a good End, will be skilfully improved for an ill one. ”

“ Fact is, majority absent with influenza. Some seventy or eighty of us have formed House of our own; meet regularly at usual hour; get through business in a way that would astonish the residuum left at Westminster; and jog off comfortably for dinner. All Parties and all sections of Party represented. SPEAKER and Chairman of Committees still stick to Westminster. ”

“ Such a body would change only slowly in its character from election to election, and it would sustain a Government more real, steadfast, representative, assured and consistent than any the world has ever seen before.
Throughout the world a great and gathering body of opinion is moving steadily towards such a conception of a modern Government. And because of its present needs it is Great Britain which is likely to be for a time the battleground between modern and eighteenth-century conceptions of a legislative assembly. ”

“ With a great number of Americans, that have not visited England, there is in some way or another an abiding impression that the House of Commons is the most stately and dignified legislative body in the world. ”

“ It will be quite another thing to ask the Parliament of such a kingdom, a Parliament which has for ages been a sovereign assembly, which has for a very long time believed itself to be the first of all assemblies, a Parliament whose range of functions has been boundless, whose will has known no limit save the limits which the laws of nature impose on all wills—to ask such a Parliament as this to come down from its seat, to give up to some other assembly not yet in being the widest and greatest of its powers. ”

“ But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish Church was subjected; and in greater boldness of access to the throne of grace, and in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law did ordinarily partake of.
II. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. ”

“ Our parliamentary gentlemen began as humbly as those of England, and though, as I have said, their assembly was but a simple court of justice, limited in its jurisdiction like the other courts of the realm, to judge disputes between private people, yet by dint of hammering upon the word parliament they believed themselves not less important than their English brethren, who form the legislative assembly, and represent all the nation. ”

“ King Edward the first, at Easter, 1276, held a parliament at Westminster, of Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and Commons, wherein many excellent laws were made, called the Statutes of Westminster the first. It is proper to mention that the Commons here spoken of, were not Knights of shires, or Burgesses, but the smaller Tenants who held in chief of the king, or Tenants in capite. ”

“ The visible church has the privilege of being under God's special care and government; of being protected and preserved in all ages, not withstanding the opposition of all enemies; and of enjoying the communion of saints, the ordinary means of salvation, and offers of grace by Christ to all the members of it in the ministry of the gospel, testifying, that whosoever believes in him shall be saved, and excluding none that will come unto him. ”

“ We not unfrequently hear persons speaking of the House of Commons as though that assembly alone constituted the parliament of these realms. It should be borne in mind that parliament consists of the sovereign and both Houses of legislature. ”

“ While in extreme cases there is no difficulty in deciding the question as to whether the practice of Congress determines the common parliamentary law, yet between these extremes there must necessarily be a large number of doubtful cases upon which there would be great difference of opinion, and to avoid the serious difficulties always arising from a lack of definiteness in the law, every deliberative assembly should imitate our legislative bodies in adopting Rules of Order for the conduct of their business. [1]
Plan of the Work. ”

“ The power of parliament is so great and extensive, that it makes, amends, reduces, revives, and abrogates laws, statutes, 111and ordinances, concerning matters ecclesiastical, civil, and military. None can begin, continue, or dissolve this council, but by the King’s authority. ”

“ Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth; and does gather and defend his church, and subdue their enemies; furnishes his ministers and people with gifts and graces, and makes intercession for them. ”

“ Ordinance by the few peers who remained brought about a fresh resolution from the members who remained in the Lower House, "that the People are, under God, the original of all just power; that the Commons of England in Parliament assembled—being chosen by, and representing, the People—have the supreme power in this nation; and that whatsoever is enacted and declared for law by the Commons in Parliament assembled hath the force of a law, and all the people of this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent and concurrence of the king or House of Peers be not had hereunto." ”

“ The House of Commons is represented as a wise and august Assembly; what it was long ago I shall not say, but in our days, it is full of disorder and confusion. The members that are capable and mindful of business are few in number, and the rest mind nothing at all. ”

“ Christ executes the office of a king, in calling out of the world a people to himself, and giving them officers, laws, and censures, by which he visibly governs them; in bestowing saving grace upon his elect, rewarding their obedience, and correcting them for their sins, preserving and supporting them under all their temptations and sufferings, restraining and overcoming all their enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel. ”

“ But the increase of population, and the extension of settlements, having rendered the exercise of the sovereign power by the people themselves intolerably burdensome, an act was passed, in 1639, "for establishing the House of Assembly." This act declared that those elected should be called burgesses, and should supply the place of the freemen who chose them, as do the representatives in the Parliament of England. These burgesses, with others called by special writ, together with the governor and secretary, were to constitute the General Assembly ”

“ II. After God had made all other Creatures, he created Man, male and female [4] , with reasonable and immortal souls, indued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own Image [5] , having the Law of God written in their hearts [6] , and power to fulfill it [7] : and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the Liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change [8] . ”

“ III. It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set, down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of His Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word. ”

“ Hope springs eternal in the legislative breast, and every assembly undertakes more work than it can accomplish thoroughly. In some legislatures this results in a headlong rushing through of measures almost without discussion at the end of the session. But while, under closure by compartments and the supply rule, this may be true in England of certain clauses of bills and of large parts of the appropriations, it is not true of bills as a whole. Parliament is, primarily, a forum for debate, rather than a machine for legislation, and bills that cannot be discussed at some length are dropped. ”

“ First William Penn had scolded the Assembly in a high key, then his sons; and, in resolution after resolution, the Assembly had, in true British fashion, stubbornly asserted the liberties and privileges of their constituents, and given the Proprietary Government, under thinly veiled forms of parliamentary deference, a Roland for its every Oliver. ”

“ It would be a pretty difficult task to lay down a plan for the Proceedings of your Assembly in future times, but in general we may observe to you that the Constitution of England owes its preservation very much to the maintaining{xliv} of an equal Balance between the branches of the legislature, and that the more distinct they are kept from each other, the likelier they will be to agree, and the longer they will be likely to last. ”