April 2007 - Assembling the minutes and papers: A review of a work in progress. Eight UK-based scholars joined David Wright and Chad Van Dixhoorn in Cambridge for a one day working session on the minutes and papers of the Westminster Assembly. Prof. Wright chaired a series of four rountable discussions: From manuscript to printed text; Editorial notation; Tools of access; and The papers of the Westminster Assembly.
The workshop was made possible by the generous gift of the particpants’ time and expertise and by the financial support of the University of Edinburgh. It was hosted by the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge. The editors wish to express their thanks to all involved.
Workshop participants
Prof. David F. Wright (Emeritus, New College, University of Edinburgh)
David is the project’s founder, consulting editor and chair of the advisory editorial board.
Dr Chad Van Dixhoorn (University of Cambridge)
Chad is the principal researcher of the Westminster Assembly Project and general editor of the edition in progress.
Prof. Gerald Bray (Samford University)
Prof. Bray is a theologian and a historian of biblical interpretation, creeds and councils. His most recent publication is a twenty-volume edition of the records of convocation of the Church of England.
Dr John Coffey (University of Leicester)
Among his other works, Dr Coffey has written two significant studies of colourful theological characters at the time of the Westminster Assembly. The first is a biography of the Scottish Calvinist Presbyterian, Samuel Rutherford. The second is a study of the English Arminian Congregationalist, John Goodwin.
Dr Mark Garcia (University of Cambridge)
Dr Garcia’s doctoral work focused on the soteriology of John Calvin. Mark is responsible for identifying the texts and theologians mentioned in the minutes of the Assembly and for aiding in the development of related editorial conventions.
Dr Aza Goudriaan (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
Dr Goudriaan has published in the field of early-modern philosophical theology in Europe, with his second major work coming out last year: Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625-1750 (Leiden: Brill 2006). More recently he has focussed on the rise of and variations within Arminianism.
Dr Robert Letham (Evangelical Theological College of England and Wales)
Dr Letham writes and teaches in the field of systematic theology. He recently completed a study of Eastern Orthodoxy and he is now beginning a book on the theology of the Westminster Assembly. In preparation for that study he has read the entire minutes of the Assembly as they are transcribed in a recent doctoral thesis.
Dr Anthony Milton (University of Sheffield)
Dr Milton has published a major study of early-modern Reformed and Catholic theology and polemics, has edited a volume of primary texts on the Synod of Dort, and has recently completed a biography of Peter Heylyn the historian, polemicist and formidable foe of Presbyterianism.
Dr Jason Rampelt (Faraday Research Institute, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge)
Dr Rampelt works in intellectual history, particularly in the early-modern period. His PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University considered John Wallis (1616-1703), an Oxford mathematician and natural philosopher who was a scribe at the Westminster Assembly early in his career. Wallis outlived all of the other assemblymen and his autobiography preserves the last first-hand testimony of its proceedings.
Dr Inga Volmer (University of Cambridge)
Dr Volmer entered the politics of the 1640s by examining the tragedies of war in the three kingdoms. Thanks to the generosity of the Leverhulme Trust and the British Academy, Inga is now a research associate of the project working on the front lines of an archival search for the Assembly’s European correspondence.