on, and sequestration became more and more co-extensive with
"malignancy," the number swelled till, as is calculated, some 1,500 or
1,600 clergymen in all, or about a sixth part of the total clergy of
England, were thrown out of their livings. [Footnote: Commons Journals of
dates July 3, July 27, and Sept. 6, 1643; White's _First Century_,
Fuller's Church History (ed. 1842), III. 458, 460; Neal's Puritans, III.
23-34. Sec also Hallam's Const. Hist. (10th ed.), II. 164-166.]

_Filling up of Vacant Livings by the appointment of New
Ministers_.--For the sequestered livings there were, of course,
numerous candidates. Not only were there the "plundered" Puritan
ministers, most of them congregated in London, to be provided for; but
there were the young Divinity scholars growing up, for whom, even in a
state of war, or at least for such of them as took the side of
Parliament, it was necessary to find employment. Obviously, however, some
order or method had to be adopted in the exercise of the large patronage
of vacant livings which had thus come suddenly into the hands of
Parliament. The plundered ministers could not be thrust promiscuously, or
by mere lottery, into such livings as were vacant. They had all,
certainly, the qualification of being already ordained; but there were
different sorts of persons among them, and some with very little to
recommend them except their distress. It was essential that there should
be some examination or re-examination of all such petitioners for new
livings, in order that the unfit should not be appointed, and that the
others might be provided for according to their degrees of fitness.
Accordingly, at the request of the two Houses, the Westminster Assembly
(Oct. 1643) appointed two-and-twenty of its Divines to be a committee for
examining and reporting on the qualifications of all such petitioners for
livings as might be referred to it by Parliament. About the same time a
provisional arrangement was made for the more difficult matter of