The suiijects relating to the form of public worship and the statement of doctrines occasioned less difficulty. Early in 1()44 each of these was assigned to a small committee for the preparation of materials, after which they were to be brought first before the larger com- mittees and then before the Assembly. The IHredoi-y for I'liblic Worship was prepared in 1G44. The ques- tion of Church Goveriunent, so far as it referred to or- dination, was submitted to Parliament April 20, U)44, and ratified by that body Oct. 2. the same year. This Directory was completed during the following year, but the printing of it was delayed till 1647. In 1(145 to 1G46 the Confession of Faith was elaborated, and finally put into tiie shape in which it is still printed in Scot- land. The Larf/er Catechism was sent to the House of Commons Oct. 22, 1(>47; the Shorter Catechism, Nov. 25, the same year. In the autumn of 1048 both houses of Parliament ordered the printing and publishing of the Shorter Catechism, but the House of Lords was dis- continued before it had acted on the /Airf/er Catechism.
The other papers issued by the Assembly consisted onh' of admonitions to Parliament and the nation, con- troversial tracts, letters of foreign churches, etc. The last of the Scotch commissioners left the Assembly Nov. 9, 1647. On Feb. 22, 1649, after it had held 1163 sit- tings, lasting each from 9 o'clock A.M. to 2 P.^I.. the Parliament, by an ordinance, changed what remained of the Assembly into a committee for trying and exam- ining ministers, and in this form it continued to hold weekly sittings until the dissolution of the "Long Par- liament," April 20, 1()53.
A monthly day of fasting and prayer was regularly held in union with the houses of Parliament. In this time it had framed and adopted a complete standard of doctrine, government, and worship for the Reformeil churches of the three kingdoms. Its labors were ap- proved by Parliament, and their results elevated into laws of the State, though with certain modifications in the disciplinary arrangements, A perfect execution of these decrees was, however, impossible, because a large number of the English people adhered to the Episcopal estal)lishment and liturgy, and the great majority of Irishmen were of the Roman Catholic faith. Scotland alone gave them an unqualified obedience, which has
WESTMINSTER CATECPIISM 965 WESTMINSTER CONFESSION
been continued almost intact down to the present day. From Scotland the Westminster standards were trans- mitted, with unimportant modifications of statement, to the diflferent Presbyterian bodies of Nortli America. After completing its labors, the synod was perpetuated in the character of a board of examination and ordina- tion until March 25. 1G52, when tlie dissolution of Par- liament by Cromwell ended its existence, without any formal adjournment having been had.
The official records of the Assembly are supposed to have been lost in the great tire of London in llJOG, though it is said that Dr. McCrie, the younger, recov- ered a portion of them. Extensive private reports by members of the synod are yet extant, however, e. g. Lightfoot's Journal of the ProceediiM/s of the Assembly of Divines (Lond. 1824), Robert Baillie's Letters, amX three manuscript volumes of Goodwin's Notes. Claren- don's History of the Puritan Rebellion is biassed and in- sufficient: but Neal's History of the Puritans, pt. iii, ch. ii-x, has a very full and, upon the whole, trustworthy report. See also Hetherington, Histoiy of the West- minster Assembly of Divines (Edinb. 1843; N. Y. 1866) ; History of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (Presb. Board of Publ., Phila. 1841) ; Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (Edinb. 1874); (xillespie ( Worls, vol. ii ), Notes of the Proceedings of the Assembly of Divines (ibid. 1844); Fuller, Church History, and Worthies of Enylund ; Palmer, Noncon- formists' Memorial ; Price, History of Protestant Non- conformity ; Hetherington, History of the Church of Scotland; Reid, History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; ^toughton, Ecclesiastical History of England ; Rutherford, Letters ; Hanbury, Historical Memorials of the Independents; Brook, Zices of the Puritans; Reed, Lives of the Westminster Divines ; Wraith, Lives of Eng- lish and Scottish Divines ; Wood, A thence Oxonienses ; Marsden, Early and Later Puritans; McCrie, Annals of English Presbytery ; Stanley, Memorials of Westmin- ster Abbey; and Skeats, History of the Free Churches of England.
Westminster Catechism. These are two in number, the Larger Catechism being designed for use in public worship, the Shoiier for the instruction of the young. They are probably, next to the Heidelbei'g Cate- chism, the most widely circulated of Reformed catechisms, and differ from it in being more decidedly Calvinistic, and more logical in arrangement and intelligible in state- ment. The substance of the questions is steadily re- peated in the answers, and the use of the third person is maintained throughout. The Shorter Catechism is simply an abridgment of the Larger.
■Westminster Confession of Faith, that body of doctrines proposed by the Westminster Assembly, and adopted by Parliament in 1646 as the creed of the Eng- lish Church, and now the doctrinal basis of almost all Presbyterian churches. A committee, consisting of about twcnty-fi\'^ members, was appointed by the As- sembh' "to prepare matter for a joint Confession of Faith" about Aug. 20, 1644. The matter was prepared, in part at least, by this committee, and the digesting of it into a formal draught was intrusted to a smaller com- mittee on May 12, 1645. The debating of the separate articles began July 7, 1645, and on the following day a committee of three (afterwards increased to five) was appointed to "take care of the wording of the Confes- sion" as the articles should be adopted in the Assembly. On .July 16 the committee reported the heads of the Confession, and these were distributed to the three large committees to be elaborated and prepared for discussion. All were repeatedly read and debated in the most thor- ough manner possible in the Assembly. On Sept. 25, I64(), a part of the Confession was finally passed, and on Dec. 4 the remainder received the sanction of the As- sembly, when the whole was presented to the Parlia- m&nx. That body ordered tlie printing of six hundred copies for the use of members of Parliament and of the