John Bower has produced a critical text and introduction that immediately establishes him as the “new Carruthers” of the twenty-first century. But unlike previous editors of Westminster assembly documents - including the Carruthers, both father and son - Bower, in his exacting study of the original manuscripts and printed editions of the Larger Catechism, tells the story of the document’s birth, rather than the life-story of its different editions over the centuries. In doing so he comes closer than any previous scholar in recovering the text that the assembly itself created, prior to the errors introduced by the printing process.

The book has earned high praise from Richard Muller and Carl Trueman, and will surely establish itself as a new standard for critical editions of early-modern texts.

and Reformation Heritage Books

The Westminster Assembly Project, best known for the edition of Assembly minutes and papers to be published by Oxford University Press, has now entered an extensive publishing agreement with Reformation Heritage Books.

John Bower has joined historian Chad Van Dixhoorn in launching three new series of books by the Westminster Assembly, and one series of new and classic studies on the Assembly, all being published by Reformation Heritage Books. It is hoped that both texts and studies will stimulate further research in the Assembly and the religious dimension of English civil war politics. Certainly future publications on British post-Reformation theology and Puritanism will be enriched by these publications, briefly described here.

Principal Documents of the Westminster Assembly. This series will produce the six chief works authored by the Assembly for covenanted uniformity of religion in England: the Confession of Faith, Larger Catechism, Shorter Catechism, Directory for Public Worship, Directory for Church Government, and The Psalter. Each volume will contain a historical introduction, a critical text, and multi-column comparisons of original manuscripts and early editions. The inaugural volume, The Larger Catechism, has been prepared by John Bower and scheduled for a launch in March 2010.

Writings of the Westminster Divines. The aim of this series is to provide scholarly editions of texts by Westminster Assembly members and commissioners. Volumes will include previously unpublished manuscripts as well as republications of rare editions. Carefully determined editorial standards will be used to ensure an authoritative product that is accessible to modern readers, while remaining reliable for students and scholars.

Westminster Assembly Facsimiles. With this new series, Reformation Heritage Books and the Westminster Assembly Project are providing electronic and print access to publications by Assembly members in their original form. Free PDF downloads will be made available through the Westminster Assembly Project website. The same text can be purchased for your collection in paperback and hard cover from Reformation Heritage Books.

Studies of the Westminster Assembly. Complementing the primary source material in the other series, the Assembly studies will provide access to classic studies that have not been reprinted and to new studies, providing some of the best existing research on the Assembly and its members.

For more information on the Westminster Assembly Project, visit www.westminsterassembly.org. Information on Reformation Heritage Books can be found at www.heritagebooks.org and www.heritagebooktalk.org.

‘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)