Westminster Assembly

A body of clerics (120) and laymen (30) convened by the English Long Parliament in 1643 to arrange a religious settlement to replace the Church of England. Dominated by Presbyterians, it produced a directory of public worship to replace the Prayer Book, and the Westminster Confession of Faith. Its influence declined when the power of the army, which favoured toleration, increased after 1648.

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.

The Assembly consisted of 30 laymen (10 lords and 20 commoners) and 121 divines or clergymen.

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 Assembly's first meeting was in the Henry VII Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey on July 1, 1643. It met 1,163 times between 1643 and 1649, and was never formally dissolved by Parliament. 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.

The civil war between the forces of Parliament and the Royalists supporting Charles I was at a stalemate. 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. 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.

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 of Faith". The House of Commons insisted that the Assembly include scriptural proof texts with the Confession and the two catechisms. 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. In their minds the civil magistrate, being Christian, should have jurisdiction instead of church courts.

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.