ordaining new candidates for the Ministry. The whole question of
Ordination having yet to be argued and settled in the Assembly (see
_ante_, p. 20), it was felt on all hands that some temporary
arrangement was imperative. Accordingly, by the advice of the Assembly,
the whole business of deciding who were fit to be ordained, and of duly
ordaining such, was entrusted by Parliament to certain committees or
associations of godly ministers, themselves already ordained, appointed
for certain centres and districts. The chief Ordaining Committee was, of
course, that for London and the country round. This committee, to which
was assigned not only the ordination of new ministers for its important
district, but also the ordination of all chaplains for the army and navy,
consisted of twenty-three associated Presbyters (ten Divines of the
Assembly and thirteen parish-ministers of London not in the Assembly), of
whom seven were to be a quorum. Whosoever, not already ordained, should
presume to preach publicly or otherwise exercise the ministerial office
without having been ordained by this association, or one of the others,
or at least without a certificate of having been approved by the
Examining Committee of the Assembly, was to be reported to Parliament for
censure and punishment. The London Divines were enjoined to be careful
whom they admitted into their pulpits. In short, it was the object of
both the Parliament and the Assembly to proclaim their determination
that, while the question of Church-government was being considered, some
decent rule of practical order should be carefully observed, and England
should not be allowed to lapse, as the loyalists were giving out, into a
mere anarchy of ranters, preaching cobblers, and every fool his own
parson. [Footnote: Neal, III. 88-90, and 138-141.]

_Visitation of the University of Cambridge_.--While the scandalous
and malignant among the parish clergy were being sequestered and ejected,
it was not to be expected that Parliament would spare the Universities.