Ordinance for the Calling of an Assembly of Learned and Godly Divines
The ordinance of the two Houses of Parliament that created the Westminster Assembly. It names the members, fixes the place and day of meeting and limits the Assembly to advising Parliament on what Parliament refers to it.
The ordinance is made in the name of the Lords and Commons alone. Its preamble says that many things in the liturgy, discipline and government of the church still need reformation, and that the Houses have resolved that government by archbishops and bishops is “evil” and shall be taken away. It names ten peers, twenty members of the Commons and more than a hundred divines, and requires them to meet in Henry VII’s chapel at Westminster on 1 July 1643 with William Twisse as prolocutor.
The Assembly’s powers are narrow. It may confer only on matters put to it by one or both Houses, is to give its advice to them, and may not make its opinions public without their consent. The document is cited in the Westminster Confession for what the Assembly was and was not empowered to do.
Cited in
- 1643 to 1649, firm date