Scribes, close to the Prolocutor, while the members were seated in tiers
at the sides and other end. The forms of debate and voting were very much
those of the House of Commons. Besides the meetings of the Assembly as
such, there were afternoon meetings of Committees for the preparation of
business for the Assembly. There were three such chief Standing
Committees, to one or other of which every member belonged. [Footnote:
Lightfoot's Notes of Assembly Works (ed. 1824), Vol. XIII, pp. 4, 5; and
Baillie, II. 107-109]


FIRST BUSINESS OF THE ASSEMBLY: REVISION OF THE ARTICLES.

Not till Thursday, July 6, or indeed Saturday, July 8, was the Assembly
constituted for actual business. On the first of these days the
Regulations which had been drawn up by the two Houses of Parliament for
the procedure of the Assembly were duly received; and on the second all
the members of Assembly present took the solemn Protestation which had
been settled for them by the Commons with the concurrence of the Lords.
It was in these terms: "I, A. B., do seriously and solemnly protest, in
the presence of Almighty God, that in this Assembly, wherein I am a
member, I will not maintain anything in matters of Doctrine but what I
think in my conscience to be truth, or in point of Discipline but what I
shall conceive to conduce most to the glory of God and the good and peace
of His Church." So sworn, the members were ready for their first work.
That also had been rigidly prescribed for them by Parliament. On July 5
the Commons had ruled and the Lords had agreed "that the Assembly, in
their beginning, in the first place shall take the ten first Articles of
the Church of England into their consideration, to vindicate them from
all false doctrine and heresy." In other words, it was the pleasure of
Parliament that the first business of the Assembly should consist in a