Series 1 > Diary of Sir Archibald Johnston of Wariston 1632-1639

INTRODUCTION
xli
land for vindicating their intention and actions from the unjust
■calumnies of their enemies.’1
The Covenanters were more concerned at this present
time with their negotiations for the immediate calling of a
General Assembly. This Hamilton was prepared to do,
hut it was soon found that he and they were entirely at
variance as to its constitution and powers. What he had
an his mind was an Assembly of which the archbishops and
bishops and constant (perpetual) moderators of presbyteries
should be members by virtue of their offices, and in which
-all matters which had already been determined by Acts
of Parliament should be excluded from consideration. The
Covenanters, on the other hand, insisted that a General
Assembly, as the supreme Court of the Church, must
be the uncontrolled and final judge in everything relating
to its own constitution and membership; that it alone
must have cognisance of all matters of doctrine, Church
government, and forms of worship; and that, although Parlia¬
ment might for the fortification of the resolutions of the
Church Courts give them formal ratification, its power to
legislate upon ecclesiastical subjects went no further. A
ratifying Act of Parliament, they contended, had no force,
independently of the resolution of the Church Court which it
confirmed, but at once became of no effect on the abrogation
of the resolution by a subsequent duly constituted Assembly.
Their requirements being much beyond what Hamilton
was, by the king’s instructions, authorised to accede to,
and he being moreover influenced by their plain intima¬
tion that failing a speedy settlement they would themselves
call an assembly, he craved delay to enable him to
return to Court to lay the state of the case before the king
and receive his further instructions. After some discussion
<lelay until 20th September was allowed, the leaders of the
1 It is given at length in Frankland’s Annals of Janies and Charles the First,
V- 739- See also Historia Motuum, p. 296.