Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines
The notes kept by the Assembly’s scribes of its daily sessions from November 1644 to 1649, printed from transcripts of the manuscript. They record who spoke and, in broken form, what was said.
The volume was edited for a committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland from transcripts of the original minutes. The entries are often fragmentary: speeches are noted in snatches, with gaps the editors mark by dots, so a speaker’s argument can be followed only in outline.
Two passages are cited in the Westminster Confession. In session 522, on 22 October 1645, the Assembly debated the proposition that Christ intended to redeem the elect only. Edmund Calamy argued, appealing to the English divines at the Synod of Dort, that Christ paid a price for all, with an absolute intention for the elect and a conditional one for the rest, and that the universal offer of the gospel requires this; Samuel Rutherford denied the connection. Session 1163, dated 22 February 1648 in the old style, is noted by the editors as the last that is numbered.
Cited in
- 1643 to 1649, firm date