Westminster Assembly

Parliament called the Westminster Assembly during a time of increasing hostility between Charles I, monarch of England and Scotland, and the Puritans.

[2] Puritans could be distinguished by their insistence that worship practices be supported implicitly or explicitly by the Bible, while their opponents gave greater authority to traditional customs.

James, Charles's predecessor as King of Scotland, made it clear that he intended to impose elements of episcopal church government and the Book of Common Prayer on the Scots beginning in 1604.

Charles called what came to be known as the Short Parliament to raise funds for the war, but he soon dissolved it when it began voicing opposition to his policies.

[10] Parliament had many Puritans and Puritan-sympathizing members, who generally opposed the existing episcopal system, but there was little agreement over what shape the church should take.

[12] Committees were organized in the House of Commons to enact religious reforms, leading to the imprisonment of Archbishop Laud and his supporters in the Tower of London as retaliation for their repression of Puritans.

[13] The idea of a national assembly of theologians to advise Parliament on further church reforms was first presented to the House of Commons in 1641.

Assembly members were not permitted to state their disagreements with majority opinions or share any information about the proceedings, except in writing to Parliament.

Due to Twisse's ill health, Cornelius Burges, whom Parliament appointed as one of several assessors, served as prolocutor pro tempore for most of the Assembly.

[29] Following the sermon, the divines processed to the Henry VII Chapel,[30] which would be their place of meeting until 2 October when they moved to the warmer and more private Jerusalem Chamber.

After a day of fasting, the Assembly took a vow, as directed by Parliament, to "not maintain any thing in Matters of Doctrine, but what I think, in my conscience, to be truth".

[34] In addition, over 200 ad hoc committees were appointed for tasks such as examination of candidate preachers, college fellows, and suspected heretics.

[42] On 12 October 1643, Parliament ordered the Assembly to cease work on the Thirty-Nine Articles and to begin to frame a common form of church government for the two nations.

Their most influential divines were Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William Bridge.

They did not see any particular form of church government as divinely mandated, and because of this the dissenting brethren allied with them when it became clear that a presbyterian establishment would be much less tolerant of congregationalism than Parliament.

[56] On 3 or 4 January 1644, the five leading dissenting brethren signalled a break with the rest of the Assembly when they published An Apologeticall Narration, a polemical pamphlet[57] appealing to Parliament.

[58] By 17 January, the majority of the Assembly had become convinced that the best way forward was a presbyterian system similar to that of the Scots, but the dissenting brethren were allowed to continue to state their case in hope that they could eventually be reconciled.

Philip Nye, one of the dissenting brethren, asserted in a speech that a presbytery set over local congregations would become as powerful as the state and was dangerous to the commonwealth, provoking vigorous opposition from presbyterians.

[60] Owing to a strong belief in the unity of the church,[61] the Assembly continued to try to find ways to reconcile the dissenting brethren with the majority throughout 1644, including the establishment of a special committee for that purpose in March.

[62] However, on 15 November, the dissenting brethren presented their reasons for disagreement with the rest of the Assembly to Parliament,[63] and on 11 December the majority submitted a draft of a presbyterian form of government.

While members of Parliament agreed that the sacrament should be kept pure, many of them disagreed with the presbyterian majority in the Assembly over who had the final power of excommunication, taking the Erastian view that it was the state.

His rise to power as a result of his military victories made the idea of a strictly presbyterian settlement without freedom of worship for others very unlikely.

Parliament passed an ordinance establishing religious tolerance and ensuring that the Assembly's vision of a national, compulsory presbyterian church would never come to fruition.

[73] Many presbyterians did, however, establish voluntary presbyteries in what was a de facto free church situation until the Restoration in 1660, when a compulsory episcopal system was reinstated.

Following the rise of Cromwell and the secret Engagement of some Scots with Charles this hope was abandoned, and the documents were never formally adopted.

[83] The Assembly understood its mandate under the Solemn League and Covenant to have been fulfilled on 14 April 1648 when it delivered the scripture citations to Parliament, and the Scottish Commissioners had already left by the end of 1647.

Scholars had begun to argue that the Hebrew vowel points, marks added to the text to aid in pronunciation, of the Old Testament were probably not part of the original.

[100] Edmund Calamy held such a view, and he argued that Christ's death, as well as saving those who had been chosen, offered salvation to all people on condition that they believe.

[117] The Civil War brought with it the end of the consensus among English Protestants that there should be a single church imposed by the state, though there was still not complete freedom of religion.

[73] The ideals of the dissenting brethren of the Assembly were significant in the rise of denominationalism, the doctrine that the church is found in several institutions rather than a single one in a given location.