George Walker
1581–1651
St John Evangelist Watling Street; doctrinal controversialist against the antinomians.
Biography
Of St John's Cambridge, then nearly forty years (1614-1651) at St John Evangelist Watling Street in London. Walker was one of the most pugnacious doctrinal controversialists of his generation — he tangled with the antinomians (Tobias Crisp, John Eaton) over the imputation of righteousness in the 1620s and 30s, with the Roman Catholic Anthony Champney over the marks of the true church, with Anthony Wotton and John Goodwin over justification, and with Archbishop Laud over Sabbatarianism. Laud imprisoned him briefly in 1635 for his manuscript The Doctrine of the Sabbath (eventually printed 1641). At the Assembly he was a strong Presbyterian and a careful drafter of the chapters on justification and the law, and one of Anthony Burgess's chief allies against the antinomian wing in the mid-1640s.
Principal works
- Socinianisme in the Fundamentall Point of Justification Discovered (1641)
- The Doctrine of the Sabbath (1641)
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.