Francis Roberts
1609–1675
Rector of Wrington; the great Westminster covenant theologian.
Biography
Of Trinity College Oxford, then rector of Cheshunt and (from 1650) Wrington in Somerset, where he stayed until his death. Roberts was the younger generation's covenant theologian — his Mysterium et Medulla Bibliorum: The Mysterie and Marrow of the Bible, Viz. Gods Covenants with Man (1657) is one of the largest Reformed treatments of the covenant theology of the Old and New Testaments in any language, running to over 1,700 folio pages. It works out the Westminster covenant scheme into a systematic theology that influenced Cocceius and Witsius on the Continent and provided much of the structural backbone for later British covenant divinity (Boston, the Marrow men). He survived the Restoration in his parish, conformed in 1662, and died at Wrington in 1675.
Principal works
- Mysterium et Medulla Bibliorum (1657)
English Presbyterian divine
The great majority of the sitting members were English parish ministers of Presbyterian conviction. They formed the drafting core of the Assembly, manning its three standing committees and supplying most of the text of the Confession, the two Catechisms, and the Directory for Public Worship.