![]() ![]() artistic and psychological details of the text under-examined. Many of these readings contribute substantially to our understanding of historical and cultural contexts, while they perhaps leave the actual. In a development familiar to scholarship on early modern drama, recent attempts to historicize Arden of Faversham have multiplied rather than clarified the possible meanings of the play-text. Texas Studies in Literature and Language 45.1 (2003) 42-72 To answer these questions, this paper discusses the Assembly's debate over the ecumenical creeds. Previous histories have placed ecclesiology on centre stage this study asks if ecclesiology should not be given a more modest role in the drama of the Assembly. ![]() Second, this article asks if there are other possible taxonomies of the Assembly that can take into account some of the many debates in the Assembly that have little or nothing to do with ecclesiology. This article assumes that ecclesiological classifications are essential for understanding the Westminster Assembly but it questions why the Assembly bifurcated into ‘the familiar party division of Presbyterians and Independents.’ While being alert to the gathering's social and political contexts, I ask if there may be theological or hermeneutical reasons for divisions in the Assembly. ![]() This ecclesiological reading of events is not exclusive to the Assembly indeed, almost the entire godly community of the 1640s has consistently been understood in terms of ecclesiological compartments. Historians have almost always viewed the Westminster Assembly (1643-52) principally from the perspective of church government and the players in the story are labelled Presbyterians, Independents, and Erastians. For this set represents a generous gift to scholars of the seventeenth century and to all those interested in the development of Reformed Protestantism in the English–speaking world and beyond. Perhaps we should add here a note of thanks not just to him (and his assistants) but to his wife and children as well. It is as good an indication as any of the all-consuming nature of van Dixhoorn's task. He once had a dream, he tells us, in which one of the Scottish commissioners to the assembly, Samuel Rutherford, offered to help interpret the nearly impenetrable handwriting of the assembly's main scribe, Adoniram Byfield. I recall being told that he had calculated (I think with tape measure in hand) that, yes, all the members of the assembly could squeeze into the smallish Jerusalem Chamber in which they met he had even taken a shrewd guess, based on the voting records, as to which groups of divines sat next to whom, and where. If we count his years as a Cambridge PhD student, van Dixhoorn has worked full-time on the Westminster Assembly for longer than it existed in the first place. Wright and John Morrill, but one quickly gets the sense that this is the fruit of his singular vision. He had help along the way, to be sure, and the skilful guidance of David F. ![]() It is difficult to conceive how Chad van Dixhoorn could have done a better job of putting these minutes and papers at the service of the scholarly community. Knowing the intense labour and demanding exactitude of a project like this, I am very impressed. To put it simply, this is a sublime scholarly achievement. In writing this review I am in no small danger of running short of superlatives. ![]()
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