Westminster Assembly

The Westminster Assembly of Divines 1643 was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. The Puritan faction in Parliament made five attempts to appoint an assembly between June 1642 and May 1643, but each time King Charles refused to sign the bill. A sixth bill was prepared and passed as an ordinance of the House of Commons; and, with the agreement of the House of Lords it became effective without the king's assent in June 1643. Westminster Assembly. ... Westminster Assembly. ... // Events January 21 - Abel Tasman discovers Tonga February 6 - Abel Tasman discovers the Fiji islands. ... The Long Parliament is the name of the English Parliament called by Charles I, in 1640, following the Bishops Wars. ... The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the mother and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion. ... The Puritans were members of a group of English Protestants seeking further reforms or even separation from the established church during the Reformation. ... Insert non-formatted text hereInsert non-formatted text here:This article is about the legislative institution. ... Events January 4 - Charles I attempts to arrest five leading members of the Long Parliament, but they escape. ... Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. ...

The Assembly consisted of 30 laymen (10 lords and 20 commoners) and 121 divines or clergymen. The clergy were selected to represent four separate groups: Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. ...

1. The episcopalians (who supported an episcopacy) included such figures as James Ussher, bishop of Armagh. The episcopalian group usually did not attend the sessions, because the king had not authorized them.
2. The presbyterians (who supported an assembly-based structure found in Puritanism), the largest group, included figures such as Edward Reynolds.
3. A small group of Independents (of the various Congregationalist views) were present and had the support of Oliver Cromwell, and these included Thomas Goodwin.
4. The Erastian representatives, such as John Lightfoot, who favored the state's primacy over the ecclesiastical law.

With the abdication of the Episcopalians and the deaths of a few others, Parliament determined that an additional twenty-one ministers should be appointed, these to be known as superadded divines. The average daily attendance was between sixty and eighty members. The Assembly's first meeting was in the Henry VII Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey on July 1, 1643. It later moved to the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster. It met 1,163 times between 1643 and 1649, and was never formally dissolved by Parliament. During the Interregnum, it met generally only for judicial matters to examine ministers who presented themselves for ordination or induction into vacant charges. The Westminster Assembly was an advisory arm of the Parliament who selected its members, proposed its topics for discussion and delineated its scope of work. Parliament provided an allowance of four shillings per day for each of the divines to defray their expenses. The first task given to the Assembly was revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The first ten weeks of the Assembly were expended in debating the first fifteen of the Articles. The word Episcopal is derived from the Greek επισκοπος epískopos, which literally means overseer; the word however is used in religious terms to mean bishop. ... James Ussher (also spelled Usher) (January 4, 1581–March 21, 1656) was Anglican Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–1656 and a prolific religious scholar who most famously published a chronology which dated the Creation from 4004 BC. Ussher was born in Dublin, Ireland into a... Armagh is a city in Northern Ireland, the capital of County Armagh. ... Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed churches family of denominations of Christian Protestantism based on the teachings of John Calvin which traces its institutional roots to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. ... Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation indepedently and autonomously runs its own affairs. ... Unfinished portrait miniature of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1657. ... Thomas Goodwin (October 5, 1600 - February 23, 1680) was an puritan priest who served as chaplain to Oliver Cromwell. ... Thomas Erastus (September 7, 1524 - December 31, 1583), German-Swiss theologian, whose surname was Liber, Lieber, or Liebler, was born of poor parents, probably at Baden, canton of Aargau, Switzerland. ... John Lightfoot (March 29, 1602 - December 6, 1675) was an English churchman and rabbinical scholar. ... In Western culture, canon law is the law of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches. ... The Henry VII Lady Chapel is a large chapel at the far eastern end of Westminster Abbey. ... The Abbeys western façade The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which is almost always referred to as Westminster Abbey, is a mainly Gothic church, on the scale of a cathedral, in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. ... July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 183 days remaining. ... // Events January 21 - Abel Tasman discovers Tonga February 6 - Abel Tasman discovers the Fiji islands. ... // Events January 30 - King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland is beheaded. ... The English Interregnum was the period of republican rule after the English Civil War between the regicide of Charles I in 1649 and the restoration of Charles II in 1660. ... The Thirty-Nine Articles are the defining statements of Anglican doctrine. ...

The civil war between the forces of Parliament and the Royalists supporting Charles I was at a stalemate. Irish Catholics who had revolted in 1641 were threatening to join the Royalist side. Desperate for help, Parliament sent a delegation to the Scots seeking aid in their civil matter. Though the English sought to enter into a civil league for defense of civil liberties, the Scots quickly responded that the spirit of the contest in which they had been engaged (the Bishop's Wars) was of a religious character, in defense of religious liberty. Eventually the two sides forged a document intended to serve both causes, The Solemn League and Covenant. In return for sending the Scottish army south to support the Parliament, the Scots obliged the English to reform the Church of England "for the preservation of religion in Scotland, the reformation of religion in England and Ireland according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed churches" and the extirpation of prelacy and popery. Six Scottish commissioners were appointed to travel to England to sit with the Westminster Assembly. The Parliaments of England and Scotland eventually required that all persons above the age of 18 in both countries swear to the oath of the Solemn League and Covenant. The Covenanters, named after the Solemn League and Covenant, were a party that, originating in the Reformation movement, played an important part in the history of Scotland, and to a lesser extent in that of England, during the 17th century. ...

On October 12, 1643, the Westminster Assembly received a directive from Parliament that the divines should forthwith "confer and treat among themselves of such a discipline and government as may be most agreeable to God's holy word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and other Reformed Churches abroad." The Assembly abandoned work on the Thirty-Nine Articles and proceeded to create an entirely new set of documents. Over the next four years, the Assembly produced and forwarded to Parliament "The Directory for the Publick Worship of God", "The Form of Presbyterial Church Government", a "Shorter Catechism" and "Larger Catechism", and a creedal statement, "The Westminster Confession". The House of Commons insisted that the Assembly include scriptural proof texts with the Confession and the two catechisms. The divines also examined and approved the use of Rouse's metrical version of the Psalter in general worship.

All of these documents were debated fiercely. The Erastians, Presbyterians and Independents could never agree on church government. The Independents were thoroughly congregational in their view of church officials. They resisted the idea of church courts and held that members of each congregation should have all power and authority. They agreed that each congregation should choose their own minister, but they opposed regulation and correction of those choices by presbyteries. The Erastians believed in civil authority over the ecclesiastical. In their minds the civil magistrate, being Christian, should have jurisdiction instead of church courts. Sin was to be punished by civil courts, and ecclesiastical bodies should be forbidden from withholding sacraments or excommunication.

The completed work of the Westminster Assembly was eventually adopted with revisions in England, but was revoked during the Restoration in 1660. All of the documents were embraced by the Church of Scotland. Further, they formed the cornerstone of the Presbyterian Church and other reformed churches as they established themselves throughout Europe and America. Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location (dark green) within the British Isles Languages English (de facto) Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st... The Church of Scotland (C of S, also known informally as The Kirk; until the 17th century officially the Kirk of Scotland) is the Christian national church of Scotland. ... Presbyterianism is part of the Reformed churches family of denominations of Christian Protestantism based on the teachings of John Calvin which traces its institutional roots to the Scottish Reformation, especially as led by John Knox. ...

References

• Cross, F. L., E. A. Livingstone, eds. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. London: Oxford UP, 1974.

External links

• The 1646 Westminster Confession