John Ley
1583–1662
Subdean of Chester; Westminster Annotator; mediator between Presbyterians and conformists.
Biography
Of Christ Church Oxford, then Great Budworth (Cheshire) for forty years (from 1616) and subdean of Chester Cathedral. Ley contributed to the Westminster Annotations on the Bible (1645-47), the major Reformed commentary on the whole canon to come out of the Assembly years, alongside Gataker, Reynolds, and others. A moderate Presbyterian widely consulted by his peers as a careful exegete, he had been a Reformed conformist before the Civil War — held the subdeanery at Chester before being made Provost in 1645. Patternes of Piety (1640) was a catechetical handbook, A Discourse of Disputations Chiefly Concerning Matters of Religion (1658) summed up his approach to controverted theology. Died in office at Solihull in 1662, three weeks after the Act of Uniformity could have ejected him.
Principal works
- Patternes of Piety (1640)
- A Discourse of Disputations Chiefly Concerning Matters of Religion (1658)
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.