Westminster Synod
The Synod of Westminster ( English : Westminster Assembly ) is the name given to the Puritan - Presbyterian church council in the 17th century, which was convened by the British Parliament to reorganize the Church of England . Church representatives from Scotland also took part in the synod , which met in Westminster Abbey . The synod lasted a total of six years (1643–1649). She wrote various scriptures, including the Westminster Confession of Faith , a large ( Westminster Larger Catechism ) and a small catechism ( Westminster Shorter Catechism ), as well as a general order of worship ( Westminster Directory of Public Worship , also called Directory of Public Worship ). These writings are still considered to be the central confessional writings of the Presbyterian churches.
From June 1642 to May 1643, the faction of the Puritan MPs in parliament tried to call the assembly five times without success. The project always failed because King Charles I of England had always refused to sign the law. Only the sixth legislative initiative was successful. The draft was introduced by the House of Commons and became law in June 1643 without the signature of the king, as the House of Lords had already approved the law.
composition
The synod consisted of a total of 30 lay people (including 10 nobles) and 121 clergy . The church representatives represented a total of four different Christian currents:
- Representatives of the Episcopal Church , including James Ussher ( Archbishop of Armagh ), who, however, almost never took part in the negotiations of the council because they received no permission from the king. The Episcopal Church represented a constitution under state church law, at the head of which the respective sovereign held episcopal church sovereignty.
- Representatives of the Presbyterian Church, the largest group including personalities such as Edward Reynolds , George Gillespie and Samuel Rutherford , among others . The Presbyterians promoted a body of elders through which the church should be governed.
- A small group of independents who essentially represented the various forms of congregationalism (the autonomy of the individual parish has top priority). Thomas Goodwin was one of them. The representatives were assisted by Oliver Cromwell .
- Advocates of the theology of Thomas Erastus , including John Lightfoot , who believed the church should be subordinated to state authority.
Due to the fact that the representatives of the episcopal church did not participate and various other synodal members died, the parliament decreed the appointment of 21 further clergymen. The average number of participants in the council ranged from 60 to 80 people. The first session of the council took place on July 1, 1643 in the so-called "Henry VII Lady Chapel" in Westminster Abbey. The congregation was later moved to the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster. The synod met a total of 1163 times between 1643 and 1649. It was never formally dissolved by a parliamentary resolution.
meaning
During the time of the English Interregnum , one dealt primarily with questions of canon law, such as ordination or church taxes. The Westminster Assembly can today be seen as an advisory body of the parliament, since this decided on the composition of the synodals, determined the topics and delimited the work area. Parliament granted the synodal a meeting fee of four shillings a day to cover their expenses. The first task that Parliament gave the Council to process was the revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles . Ten weeks were used to debate the first fifteen articles.
In the civil war between the troops of parliament and the troops of Charles I loyal to the king, a stalemate had come about. The Irish Catholics who rose in 1641 threatened to join the royalist side. Desperate for help, Parliament sent a delegation to Scotland. The English asked the Scots to defend civil rights. However, they saw in the dispute a religious character, which was the defense of religious freedoms. Finally, they agreed on a joint agreement, the Solemn League and Covenant , which took into account the concerns of both parties. The Scots agreed to support Parliament's struggle against the "Papists" on condition that the Scottish system of church administration be adopted in England. Six Scottish representatives were chosen to take part in the negotiations of the Council at Westminster Abbey. Finally, the parliaments in Scotland and England enforced that all persons over the age of 18 had to take an oath to the Solemn League and Covenant .
procedure
On October 12, 1643, the synod received an instruction from parliament: The clergy should immediately “discuss orders and rules that, in the best possible agreement with God's holy word, preserve the peace of the church in the country in an appropriate manner and lead to a stronger unity with the church lead by Scotland and other Reformed churches abroad ". The Synod then finished revising the Thirty-Nine Articles and began producing a number of its own writings. Over the next four years, the Synod created, among other things, the Directory of Public Worship , The Form of Presbyterial Church Government , a Creed, the Westminster Confession , a detailed catechism ( Westminster Larger Catechism ) and a shorter catechism ( Westminster Shorter Catechism ) and led forward this to Parliament. The House of Commons insisted on publishing various biblical evidences in the two Catechisms and the Westminster Confession . The clergy also examined and confirmed the use of the Psalter in the metric "Rouse version" in worship.
All the documents were heavily debated. The Erastian advocates , the Presbyterians, and the Independent Group could not agree on a form of church administration. The independents pleaded for complete autonomy of the individual parishes without any overriding structure. They were opposed to the idea of a church jurisdiction and so they took the view that local parishioners should have sole authority and authority. They agreed to the position that each congregation should be able to independently determine its pastor, but refused to intervene in and correct the decisions by elders. The advocates of Erastianism advocated the subordination of the church to state authority. According to their ideas, since even Christians have sole jurisdiction, civil judges should not have their own ecclesiastical courts. They believe that sins should be punished by the civil courts. In their view, the churches should be prohibited from excluding believers from the sacraments or from excommunication.
The completed work of the council was finally passed with changes by the parliament in England , but canceled again during the Restoration in 1660. The Church of Scotland welcomed and adopted all of the Council's writings. In addition, the drafts of the Westminster Assembly are considered the cornerstone of Presbyterian church doctrine and other Reformed churches that were formed in Europe and the United States . Today the Synod of Westminster is the subject of an extensive research project in Cambridge .
literature
- William Maxwell Hetherington: History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines . ISBN 978-1117669267
- EA Livingstone, FL Cross (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. London: Oxford UP, 2005, ISBN 978-0192802903
- Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield: The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield . Baker Book House, 1978, ISBN 978-0801096457
- J. Gordon Melton: Westminster Confession . In: Encyclopedia of World Religions. Encyclopedia of Protestantism, No. 6, Facts of File, New York 2005, ISBN 978-0816054565
- Peter Wallace: Westminster Assembly . In: Religion Past and Present (RGG). 4th edition. Volume 8, Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, Sp. 1498-1499.