attention to their doctrinal labours.

The manner in which the Assembly entered upon this solemn duty deserves
the utmost attention, as intimating the earnest and prudent spirit by
which their whole deliberations were pervaded. They appointed a committee
to prepare and arrange the main propositions which were to be examined and
digested into a system by the Assembly. The members of this committee
were, Dr Hoyle, Dr Gouge, Messrs Herle, Gataker, Tuckney, Reynolds, and
Vines, with the Scottish Commissioners Henderson, Baillie, Rutherford, and
Gillespie. Those learned and able divines began their labours by
arranging, in the most systematic order, the various great and sacred
truths which God has revealed to man; and then reduced these to thirty-two
distinct heads or chapters, each having a title expressive of its subject.
These were again subdivided into sections; and the committee formed
themselves into several subcommittees, each of which took a specific topic
for the sake of exact and concentrated deliberation. When these
sub-committees had completed their respective tasks, the whole results
were laid before the entire committee, and any alterations suggested and
debated till all were of one mind. And when any title, or chapter, had
been thus fully prepared by the committee, it was reported to the
Assembly, and again subjected to the most minute and careful
investigation, in every paragraph, sentence, and even word. All that
learning the most profound, intellect the most searching, and piety the
most sincere could accomplish, was thus concentrated in the Westminster
Assembly's Confession of Faith, which may be safely termed the most
perfect statement of systematic Theology ever framed by the Christian
Church.

In the preliminary deliberations of the Committee the Scottish divines
took a leading part, and none more than Gillespie. But no report of these
deliberations either was or could be made public. The results alone
appeared when the Committee, from time to time, laid its matured
propositions before the Assembly. And it is gratifying to be able to add,
that throughout the deliberations of the Assembly itself, when composing,
or rather, formally sanctioning the Confession of Faith, there prevailed
almost an entire and perfect harmony. There appears, indeed, to have been
only _two_ subjects on which any difference of opinion existed among them.
The one of these was the doctrine of Election, concerning which Baillie
i