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Councils and Synods

Westminster Assembly

Councils and Synods

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The Westminster Assembly was a synod of English and Scottish theologians convened by the Long Parliament in 1643 to reform the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the Church of England during the English Civil War. It met, with interruptions, until 1649 and continued in a reduced capacity for several years afterward, sitting mostly in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey. Answering to Parliament rather than to any bishop, it produced a body of confessional documents that never became binding on the Church of England itself but became the doctrinal foundation of Presbyterian churches across the English speaking world.

Facts
The Event
Convened or Ordered By
The Long Parliament of England, acting without royal assent during the Civil War, with Scottish commissioners sitting alongside the English divines under the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant. 1
When It Happened
Convened July 1, 1643. Its main working sessions ran to 1649, with a reduced continuation into the early 1650s. 1
Where It Happened
Westminster Abbey, London, England, meeting first in the Henry VII Chapel and later, for warmth through the winters, in the Jerusalem Chamber. 1
Principal Parties
One hundred twenty one English divines named by Parliament, mostly Puritan clergy, joined by Scottish commissioners including Alexander Henderson, Samuel Rutherford and George Gillespie, who took part in debate though they held no vote. 1
Reception
Reception
Parliament never imposed the Confession on the Church of England, which reverted to episcopacy at the Restoration in 1660, but the Church of Scotland adopted it in 1647 and it remains the confessional standard of Presbyterian and many other Reformed churches worldwide. 1
Scholarship
How Firmly It Is AttestedSourced to the subject's own account
Attested 2
Structure
Creed PromulgatedSourced to the subject's own account
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms and a Directory for Public Worship. 2
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A Synod That Answered to Parliament, Not a Bishop

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Westminster Assembly did not sit at the invitation of a pope, a patriarch or even an archbishop. It sat because Parliament summoned it, in the middle of a civil war it had not yet won, to settle what the reformed Church of England would believe once the fighting stopped. That is worth pausing on, because nearly every other body in this section, an ecumenical council, a papal synod, met under a churchman's authority. Westminster met under a legislature's.

Its Scottish guests changed its outcome more than its English hosts may have expected. Parliament needed Scottish military help against the king, and the price of that help, the Solemn League and Covenant, was a seat at the table for Scottish commissioners who wanted the English church remade on Presbyterian lines, government by elected elders rather than by bishops. The commissioners could argue but not vote, yet the Confession that emerged in 1646 reads like a document built to satisfy Reformed churches on both sides of the border.

That is exactly what happened to it. England itself never adopted it: the monarchy returned in 1660, the bishops returned with it, and Parliament's own church settlement moved on without the Assembly's work. Scotland kept it, formally, in 1647, and from Scotland it traveled with Presbyterian emigration to become the confessional backbone of Presbyterian churches on every continent, a document written for one national church that ended up defining a worldwide one instead.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Church of England, Denominations

This source names Church of England directly: "discipline and government of the Church of England during the English Civil War."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Westminster Abbey, Sacred Sites

This source names Westminster Abbey directly: "mostly in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey."

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Belongs to Tradition

Presbyterianism, Denominations
Source The Westminster Confession of FaithWestminster Assemblythe holders' own account

Related To

Church of Scotland, Denominations
Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source
2. The Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Assembly, 1646the holders' own accountView the Source
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