A Westminster Bibliography Part 1
Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9,
10
As much as I would like for it to do so, this present study does not undertake to be a definitive investigation of the Westminster Assembly and its work. Nor does this paper pretend to be able to deal adequately with the tens of thousands of books and pamphlets that were produced while the Westminster Assembly was in session (one estimate claims that over 30,000 titles appeared in London during the 1640's on the subject of church government alone). Either of those tasks would prove to be the work of a lifetime. My interest in this paper is to examine some of the forces that came into play during the Westminster period and perhaps demonstrate how those forces affected the documents which issued from the Assembly.
Therefore, it may seem that some ground is covered more than once. If a particular bit of information bears on both epistemology and hermeneutics and affects not only the Directory for Worship but the Confession as well, it could be mentioned as many as four times. I have not been so extreme, however. If anything, I have tended to err to the side of not mentioning a fact often enough.
Because many of the subjects with which the Westminster divines worked are once again before the church's eyes — issues of worship and church government to name but two — it is my hope that some of what is recorded here regarding the Westminster Assembly will be helpful to others today who are struggling with similar issues. Many today seem to think that they are the first to struggle with the problems of church government or family worship or such public worship issues as music, drama, preaching, and how to minister to a virtually illiterate generation. The Puritans not only faced the same or similar problems, they solved those problems with a remarkable ability to apply scriptural principles to specific problems in their church and nation.
I hope in these pages to demonstrate that the divines of the Westminster Assembly solved such difficulties without an appeal to pragmatism. There were political and historical forces at work, to be sure, yet the Westminster documents were not merely political. Chapter two of the thesis will explain some of the political considerations that were used in the providence of God to bring the Assembly into existence.
The Assembly's work was also affected by the epistemology of those present. How do we know what we claim to know? The Westminster Assembly was making truth claims about God, man, church and magistracy. On what basis could the Assembly be so bold as to claim to know the truth about such things? Why are the Westminster documents propositional in form? These questions will be explored in chapter three.
Chapter four may be the most controversial portion of the entire thesis. That chapter maintains that the differences between the Independents and the Presbyterians in the Assembly were far deeper than mere disagreements over a few incidentals of church government. In that chapter I will supply evidence that the divisions on church polity questions in the Assembly were essentially hermeneutical in nature. The reason the Independents and Presbyterians had differing ideas of church government is that they had differing methods of interpreting Scripture. As those differences became apparent the breach between Presbyterian and Independent became wider until it finally destroyed any possibility that the Assembly could be successful at its assigned tasks.
The latter part of this series will deal in some detail with the history behind the Westminster generated documents themselves. Although most Presbyterians are familiar with the Westminster Assembly's Confession and Catechisms, they are less familiar with the Assembly's Directory for Worship and its Form of Government. This series will therefore deal with the Directory and other lesser known documents in an attempt to make them better known to Presbyterians of this generation.
The importance of the Directory for Public Worship will be seen in chapter six. We live in an age in which many Presbyterians, even those who are otherwise conservative and Reformed, have abandoned Reformed principles of worship. Some have strayed so far from Reformed principles that their practices are indistinguishable from Anglican practices. note1 In other churches, PCA worship has as much resemblance to charismatic worship as anything else. It will not do as an answer to these innovations for us simply to assert that our fathers and grandfathers did not worship so. Rather, we must return to the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura or we shall remain hopelessly adrift in our worship of God.
The Form of Government produced by the Westminster Assembly is treated in chapter seven. Present day Presbyterians, though they are named after their church government, often have little understanding of it. The distinctions and differences between the Independents and Presbyterians in the Assembly often came down to the question of how Christ exercises his authority in his church. The political intrigue practiced by many of the Independent was demonstrated in detail by Philip Nye in the Assembly. When the Independents were unable to utilize reason convincingly, they turned to political intrigue and maneuvering. When the more perceptive divines in the Assembly saw through that subterfuge, the Independents turned finally to the Army to win by force of arms what they could not win by an appeal to Scripture.
At the same time the Presbyterians were being wearied by the Independents in the Assembly they were also being hassled by the Erastians in Parliament. Though a separate document was not produced by the Assembly in its controversy with Parliament, this thesis details the course of the controversy in chapter eight. note2 The form of Presbyterianism finally established by Parliament was characterized by Scottish commissioner Robert Baillie as a "lame Erastian Presbytery." We will therefore examine the controversy that resulted in George Gillespie's landmark answer, Aaron's Rod Blossoming. Hopefully, with more and more Presbyterian churches going hat-in-hand to the government for papers of incorporation, a proper Westminster view of the relationship between church and state will prevent the rise of a new Erastianism in this country. As our church's courts and committees seem to be more concerned with limiting legal liability than with proclaiming the whole counsel of God, perhaps we will all benefit from the wisdom and courage of the Westminster Assembly, who withstood the wrath of Parliament in order to maintain, "The Lord Jesus, as king and head of his church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of church officers, distinct from the civil magistrate."note3
Finally, this thesis treats the Westminster Assembly's Confession of Faith in chapter nine. Once again, it should be noted that the Assembly's Confession has specific importance for Presbyterians at the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. Even conservative Presbyterians are presently undergoing an "Identity" crisis. note4 The reason for the identity crisis is that we are not who we have claimed to be. The Confession consists of a series of related propositions. Many modern Presbyterians, rather than accepting those propositions at face value and either confessing them or repudiating them, prefer to hide behind a vague "system" which is capable of change with every meeting of a church court.note5 A clear understanding of the Confession of Faith is therefore critical for modern Presbyterians.
My opinion is very similar to that of PCA pastor Tony Dallison, who wrote,
One reason for the revival of interest [in the Puritans] is no doubt due to the similarity of our own times to those of the Puritan era. Our twentieth century has been convulsed by wars and revolutions, the rise of totalitarian regimes and the threat of nuclear warfare. It is haunted by the prospect of the end of the world through famine, overpopulation, exploitation of the limited resources of the planet, the upsetting of the delicate balance of ecology….
The Puritan era, too, was a period of great upheaval and uncertainty. The Turkish Empire, though on the decline, still posed a threat in the background to Christendom. The influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe had but recently been destroyed. There was widespread uncertainty and unrest. These were exciting times for the newly liberated Protestant Churches to discover their identity and to become established in theology and church polity.note6
It was the generation following that of Shakespeare, Spencer, and "rare Ben Jonson." note7 It was the generation of Milton and Hobbes. That which had been was rapidly passing from view and that which would be was yet on the horizon — a cloud the size of a man's hand.
Civil war gripped England — not a regional conflict such as was experienced in this country from 1861 to 1865 — but a conflict between King and Parliament, with the issue nothing less than the divine right of kings. It was an age of aristocrats and levellers, of gentlemen and soldiers, of preachers and pirates. In short, it was the age of the Puritans.
What a strange generation of men those Puritans were! If the generation previous to theirs is known for its plays and sonnets, then the Puritans of the Stuart monarchies must be known for their sermons and their scientific treatises. note8 The Puritans were very much concerned about this present world — but in a scientific more than an artistic way. They studied the logic of Peter Ramus and conducted university classes as much by debate as by lecture. For the Puritan mind, the key to learning was making the right distinctions — and that involved first asking the right questions. The more precise the thought, the more useful they regarded it to be. Unlike twentieth century men, they saw nothing incongruous about designing telescopes in the morning and burning witches in the evening. They did both to the glory of God. Puritanism as the extension of Calvinism that it was, was far more than a view of justification by grace through faith. Puritanism was far more importantly about discipline and obedience. It was thus firmly anchored in this-worldly endeavors; it appropriated worldly means to pursue godly ends: magistracy, legislation, and even warfare when necessary.
Like Cervantes' knight errant, the Puritans had a basic distrust of the age in which they lived. Unlike the man of LaMancha, however, the Westminster divines did not see the golden age as recently past, but as soon coming. The more radical element within the Assembly may even have confronted windmills and jousted with giants. note9
Christopher Hill, professor at Balliol College of Oxford University in England, has written numerous books on the seventeenth century. note10 He acknowledges in his Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution,
The body of ideas which has to be called 'Puritan,' for want of a better word, was a philosophy of life, an attitude to the universe, which by no means excluded secular interests…. Puritanism in the seventeenth century was not in the narrow sense restricted to religion and morals, any more than science or history were narrowly 'secular' subjects.note11
Because men of such integrity and courage as the Puritans often influence not only their own generation but generations to come as well, there is a danger of viewing them as a monolithic group and failing to notice their differences. There were clearly differences among the men meeting at Westminster and one of the purposes of this thesis is to demonstrate that the Assembly did not always reach unanimity with respect to their practical writings. note12
Dr. Kitson Clark in The English Inheritance admits, "Though Puritanism plays a very important part in the development of the English heritage it is extremely difficult to give a precise meaning to the word itself…. It is applied [by historians] to a very large number of different people and it is difficult to find a common denominator." note13 While admitting that before 1640 the term referred to those who attempted to "presbyterianize" the English church in the manner of Field and Cartwright, Basil Hall is finally forced to the conclusion that the term "puritan" is very difficult to define. note14
Most Presbyterians are familiar with the fact that the Westminster divines wrote a confession of faith. Many are even aware that those same men wrote some catechisms — some may have memorized the Shorter Catechism. Few today, however, are aware that other writings were produced by the Westminster Assembly as well. Yet as Methodist Daniel Curry wrote nearly a century and a half ago, "The Assembly's chief value can be appreciated only by those who trace the hand of God in the affairs of men, overruling and directing them to advance the Redeemer's kingdom. Thus viewed, that Assembly appears as a point at which were collected the germs of the religious interests of unborn generations."note15
The Westminster Assembly wrote a "liturgy" known as the Directory for the Public Worship of God. Additionally they composed a guide for family devotions called Directory for Family Worship. Finally, the Assembly set forth a system of church government in their Form of Presbyterial Church Government.
The last mentioned document was by far the most difficult to produce because two major controversies surrounded it. The Independent controversy began in January 1643/44. note16 The last meeting of the Committee of Accommodation took place on March 9, 1645/46 when the Committee handed in to the whole Assembly its long and elaborate answers to the Independents. That report, known now as The Grand Debate, essentially ended the Independent controversy without a settlement. From that moment onward, the controversy ceased being a debate of principle and casuistry and became instead a quest for political power. note17 The Erastian controversy began — or the first intimations of it surfaced — at about the same time, on January 8, 1643/44. Essentially, the Erastians in the Assembly wanted to take church discipline and censures away from the church proper and give that authority to the civil magistrate. note18
Most of the church polity issues with which many pastors and elders in the PCA struggle were addressed by the Westminster Assembly; some of the issues were addressed by the Assembly and other issues were addressed by its members interacting with the various proceedings and documents of the Assembly. The PCA could save itself a lot of "reinventing the wheel" by becoming familiar with the debates over church polity that took place in the Westminster Assembly.
In an attempt better to avoid confusion throughout this paper, we should clarify some distinctions and terms that we will be using with regularity. The Puritans were a disparate group of ministers in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who wanted to see a further reformation in the polity and practice of the church(es) in England. Within the general heading of "Puritans," one could find both Conforming and Non-conforming Puritans. Under the rubric of "Conforming," one could find both Presbyterian Puritans and Episcopal Puritans. The Presbyterian Puritans were characterized by their commitment to church rule by means of synods. Episcopal Puritans were characterized by the idea that the Minister in a congregation should not only be the exclusive administrator of the Word and Sacraments, but should also be the chief governor in the church. Some of the Episcopal Puritan members of the Westminster Assembly believed the Minister should be the only governor or ruler in the church, while others allowed a subordinate role to "lay elders."
The Non-conforming, or Separatist, Puritans could also be further subdivided into "Independents" and "Sectaries," though the distinction is not always so clear. note19 The Independents who were members of the Westminster Assembly tried for some time to distance themselves from the more radical Separatists. The most radical Separatists, known as "Sectaries" in London of the 1640's, were much closer to those groups we today call "cults" than they were to the (mostly) orthodox Independents. The Sectaries during the days in which the Westminster Assembly sat included groups that denied the Trinity, Ecclesiastical Communists, Familists, Quakers, Anabaptists, and others. The Scottish Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly, Robert Baillie, stated of the London of 1646:
A few persons having locked themselves up within the narrow confines of one Congregation, with an Independent power, having made themselves uncontroulable by any or all upon earth; they open a wide doore to any erroneous spirit, to mislead them towards whatever fancie can enter into any cracked brain, without all possibility of any effectual remedy; …note20
From a practical standpoint, it eventually became impossible for the Independents to continue to distance themselves from the other Separatists. As the attempts at accommodation between the Presbyterians and the Independents within the Assembly broke down, the Independents turned from Parliament to Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army for support for their cause. However, by the time they began making their appeals to the New Model Army, the Army had been infiltrated by so many Sectaries that the Independents found themselves in the position of having to ask for government toleration not only for their orthodox, though Independent, churches; they had to ask for toleration for the wildest of the Sectaries as well in order to gain their support. Puritanism provided the theological background and even much of the epistemological background for the Independents, but hermeneutically they were actually more aligned with the Sectaries. Of course, from the standpoint of church polity, the Independent eventually had to grant the same toleration for the Anti-trinitarian that he claimed for himself.
In summary, to the Conforming Puritan the unity and uniformity of the national church were matters of great importance — even fundamental issues. The Non-conforming Puritans could only claim for their assemblies the right of either granting "fellowship" to kindred assemblies or withholding their "fellowship" from those they deemed unworthy. They did not regard the unity of the national church under a single ecclesiastical court system as either necessary or even desirable. They therefore called upon Parliament to grant universal toleration of every sect, but each sect was to be the judge of its own limits of "fellowship" or ecclesiastical toleration.
1. For example, one of the largest churches in the PCA conducts a weekly worship service using the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.
2. Actually, a document was produced in answer to the Parliament. It was called Divine Right of Church Government by Sundry Ministers of the City of London. Though the document is otherwise anonymous, it clearly has been written by at least some of the members of the Assembly and follows the order of the nine questions that Parliament put to the Assembly as part of their threatened præmunire. Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici: The Divine Right of Church Government (Dallas, TX: Naphtali Press, 1995).
3. WCF, XXX:i, emphasis added.
4. Tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement is hereby made of the Proposed Statement of Identity for the Presbyterian Church in America.
5. See, for example, John Frame's discussion of subscription to creeds in his The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, "The 'system,' then, is redefined for every specific case. The 'system' means what a particular session, presbytery, or general assembly says that it means." (p. 309) This writer finds such a position indistinguishable from the "implicit faith" required by adherents of the Roman Catholic system.
6. A. R. Dallison, "Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1645): A Theology of Hope," EQ, (April-June 1978), 86.
7. Ben Jonson's epitaph at Westminster Abbey, where he is buried, reads simply, "O Rare Ben Jonson."
8. John Milton seems to be the "exception that proves the rule" in this case.
9. The Puritans contended against the Stuart monarchy. Whether they jousted against windmills or giants depends upon how one views the world. In the view of many in the Assembly they fought against Antichrist himself.
10. See bibliography for a partial list.
11. Christopher Hill, Intellectual Origins of the English Revolution. (Oxford, England:Clarendon Press, 1980), 293.
12. I am here distinguishing "practical" from "doctrinal," not because they are opposed to one another, but because one is the practice of the other.
13. Kitson Clark, The English Inheritance, (New York: Macmillan, 1950), 103.
14. Basil Hall, "Puritanism: the Problem of Definition," Studies in Church History, II, ed. G. J. Cuming, (Camden, NJ: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965), 294.
15. Daniel Curry, "Westminster Assembly of Divines," MQR, XXX (October 1848), 577.
16. At the time the Westminster Assembly met, the new year began March 25th and was called the parliamentary year. Present calendars regard the new year as beginning January 1st. To ease in understanding what year is intended, I follow the convention of listing the year the contemporary documents list followed by a slash and the year we would presently understand it to be.
17. W. M. Hetherington, History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (Edmonton, AB: Still Waters Revival Books, 1991 reprint of 1856 edition), 225-56. Hereafter Hetherington.
18. Whether Erastus himself would have been regarded as Erastian by Westminster Assembly terminology is questionable. See the chapter "Erastus and Erastianism" in John Figgis' Divine Right of Kings. (Cambridge: University Press, 1914.) However, it is not the question this paper treats. We follow standard usage in referring to this controversy by the name "Erastian."
19. See infra, chapter 3.
20. Robert Baylie, A Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time. (London: Samuel Gellibrand, 1646), 112. Varous documents from the period have this commissioner's name spelled differently — usually Baillie -- but "Baylie" is the spelling contained in this particular work. Hereafter Dissuasive.
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