the minutes and papers of the westminster assembly

Van Dixhoorn has lectured at RTS Washington since 2008 where he teaches church history and practical theology. In 2014 The Banner of Truth Trust published his Confessing the Faith: a reader's guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith. He has taught theology at universities and seminaries in the UK and US, and has held three fellowships at the University of Cambridge.Ī former British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, in 2013 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of his five-volume work on the Westminster assembly, published by Oxford University Press in 2012. ― Alec Ryrie,Church Times About the AuthorĪ Canadian by birth, Chad Van Dixhoorn is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary (MDiv, ThM) and the University of Cambridge (PhD). It will be used into the next century and beyond.

― Crawford Gribben This set will now be utterly indispensable: every research library should buy it. an astounding achievement a judgment which will be echoed by all students of the northern Renaissance. These Minutes are a critical record of a decade of theological controversy. ― The Reformed Theological Review It is extremely difficult to do justice to this edition in a review like this. These volumes demonstrate an extraordinary attention to detail. ― Modern Reformation The publication of these volumes in September 2012 marked the conclusion of nearly 12 years work and is an astonishing achievement. These volumes will probably form the basis for scholarship that seeks to interact with the Westminster Assembly for the remainder of this century, at least. ― The English Historical Review This is a monumental academic and theological contribution. a vital resource for students of the post-Reformation era and the Reformed tradition. these five volumes constitute a remarkable accomplishment. ― Church History and Religious Culture We can be grateful that Byfield's hand has finally been mastered by Chad Van Dixhoorn, who has completed the Herculean task of producing a definitive critical edition.

Those studying the political, theological, and ecclesiastical climate of he 1640s in Britain cannot now do so without recourse to these volumes. ― Journal of Ecclesiastical History There are simply too many outstanding features to highlight. To put it simply, this is a sublime scholarly achievement. I am in no small danger of running short of superlatives.

These texts reveal much of the assembly's work behind the scenes, and explain how the gathering could at once serve as an icon of godly rule, producing classic texts in the history of Christian doctrine and practice, while simultaneously becoming entangled in prolonged debates and the 'democratic anarchy' which characterized the British Revolution. It also includes all known assembly papers, many of them only recently discovered. This edition documents almost 2,000 examinations of preachers for churches, fellows for colleges, and heretics for heresy. All surviving votes and debates of the assembly are provided here for the first time. The gathering left behind an extraordinary testimony of its reforming activities, and the manuscript minutes constitute one of the most important unpublished religious texts of seventeenth-century Britain. The story of the Westminster assembly's accomplishments, as well as its failures, are told in the texts of this edition. Printers and booksellers INSERT: Included in Starkmann 40% promotion, September-October 2014 theologians and members were paraded down London streets and feasted at banquets. Visitors made their way to the abbey, from an unknown Muslim to the elector palatine of the Rhine. Christians wrote from Europe to ask the assembly for advice. At home and abroad, people perceived the assembly to be a powerful patron. Members of the assembly were involved in every significant political debate of the decade, and the public blamed or blessed the think-tank for radical changes in the church. For more than ten years the Westminster assembly was one of the major institutions of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

The minutes and papers of the westminster assembly