‘The strange silence of prolocutor Twisse: Predestination and politics at the Westminster assembly (1643-1652)’, a paper given at the Religion in the British Isles Graduate Seminar in Oxford on 7 April 2009. And ‘Politics and religion in the Westminster assembly and the ‘grand debate’, a conference paper at the Insular Christianity (1400-1700) colloquium in Dublin on 3 June 2009.

The first of these papers is to be published in Seventeenth-Century Journal. The second is to be developed as a chapter in a published volume of conference proceedings.

June 2009 - Funding from the British Academy has enabled a search for correspondence between the Westminster assembly (1643-1652) with European churches. Research conducted over a two year period, concluded in December 2008, included the efforts of Dr Inga Jones (née Volmer) to contact and query over 200 archives. This research uncovered significant letters to and from the assembly and between European Reformed churches wondering how to weigh the competing claims of the assembly, Parliament and Charles I. The joint-fundraising campaign of the assembly and the Long Parliament on behalf of suffering Irish Protestants was particularly successful in the Netherlands and the records of Dutch classes and synods, explored by Prof. Fred van Lieburg.

Dr Chad Van Dixhoorn argues that this research sheds new light on Parliament’s complicated relationship with what it called ‘the best Reformed churches’. Copies and details of all assembly correspondence will be included in the final volume of the minutes and papers of the Westminster assembly. Preliminary results from this research were given by Dr Van Dixhoorn at a conference in Dublin in June 2009 on ‘Insular Christianity’. It is expected that his paper will be published along with other contributions in a volume of conference proceedings.

David served as the consulting editor of the Minutes and papers of the Westminster assembly, and while he was unwell for some time, he continued to offer his wisdom as the chair of the advisory board until mid-January 2008.

To purchase a print, see http://www.reformationart.com/westminster-assembly-poster–2.html (thecoupon code WAPROJECT is entered on the secure checkout page).

Support the project by passing on this link, or by asking for a poster from Reformation Art for your office or church.

*(Note: this generous support for the Westminster Assembly Project is limited to the purchase of Westminster assembly prints only).

Workshop participants

Dr Mark Goldie (Churchill College, Cambridge)

Prof. Jackie Eales (Canterbury Christ Church University)

Mr Joel Halcomb (Project research assistant and PhD student, University of Cambridge)

Prof. Ann Hughes (Keele University)

Prof. Keith Lindley (University of Ulster)

Prof. John Morrill (Selwyn College, Cambridge)

Dr David Smith (Selwyn College, Cambridge)

Prof. John Spurr (University of Wales Swansea)

Dr Chad Van Dixhoorn (Wolfson College, Cambridge)

Dr Inga Volmer (Project postdoctoral research associate; University of Cambridge)

Dr David Wykes (Director, Dr Williams’s library; co-director, Dr Williams’s Centre for Dissenting Studies) 
 

Key project members unable to be present: 

Prof. David F. Wright (Emeritus, New College, University of Edinburgh)

Dr Mark Garcia (formerly, Wolfson College; now minister in Oakdale, Pennsylvania)

Mr Halcomb’s doctoral research is funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust. He is studying Congregationalism in England and Wales, 1640-1672 under the supervision of Prof. John Morrill.

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.
 

The correspondence of the Westminster Assembly chiefly comprises exchanges with Parliament and with foreign states, churches and persons. The letters of the Assembly provide insight into international ecclesiastical relations and structures, personal friendships, academic connections, and political responses to ecumenism. From the perspective of English Parliamentary history, the letters reveal which ecclesiastical bodies on the continent were suspected of being most favourable to the Parliamentary war effort and the cause of reform. The Assembly’s correspondence also sheds light on the errors of Parliament and its Assembly: the Reformed Church of France was angry when it received letters from the Assembly, the Church of Bremen was irritated when it did not. The Assembly’s unpublished papers remain priceless for researchers, as they shed light on intellectual connections and patterns of communication as well as provide us with a new window into the history of the Assembly and Parliament.    

The Assembly is known to have corresponded with bodies in Germany, France, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands. Most of the research in the Netherlands will be conducted with the help of Prof. Fred van Lieburg. Dr Inga Volmer will assist in visiting archives elsewhere in Europe.

The correspondence of the Westminster Assembly chiefly comprises exchanges with Parliament and with foreign states, churches and persons. The letters of the Assembly provide insight into international ecclesiastical relations and structures, personal friendships, academic connections, and political responses to ecumenism. From the perspective of English Parliamentary history, the letters reveal which ecclesiastical bodies on the continent were suspected of being most favourable to the Parliamentary war effort and the cause of reform. The Assembly’s correspondence also sheds light on the errors of Parliament and its Assembly: the Reformed Church of France was angry when it received letters from the Assembly, the Church of Bremen was irritated when it did not. The Assembly’s unpublished papers remain priceless for researchers, as they shed light on intellectual connections and patterns of communication as well as provide us with a new window into the history of the Assembly and Parliament.    

The Assembly is known to have corresponded with bodies in Germany, France, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands. Most of the research in the Netherlands will be conducted with the help of Prof. Fred van Lieburg. Dr Inga Volmer will assist in visiting archives elsewhere in Europe.