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126-618: The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of divines (theologians) and members of the English Parliament appointed from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England . Several Scots also attended, and the Assembly's work was adopted by the Church of Scotland . As many as 121 ministers were called to the Assembly, with nineteen others added later to replace those who did not attend or could no longer attend. It produced

252-534: A catechism between December 1643 and January 1647 containing fifty-five questions, before it decided to create two catechisms rather than one. The Larger Catechism was intended to assist ministers in teaching the Reformed faith to their congregations. The Shorter Catechism was based on the Larger Catechism but intended for use in teaching the faith to children. Parliament demanded scripture proofs for

378-717: A psalter , translated by Francis Rous for use in worship. A Confession of Faith to replace the Thirty-Nine Articles was begun in August 1646. While there is little record of the actions of the Assembly during the writing of the Confession, it is clear that there were significant debates in the Assembly over almost every doctrine found in it. The Confession was printed and sent to Parliament in December. The House of Commons requested scripture citations be added to

504-507: A "primitive" episcopacy, which would include elements of presbyterianism and a reduced role for bishops. There were also several congregationalists , who favoured autonomy for individual local churches. Their most influential divines were Thomas Goodwin , Philip Nye , Sidrach Simpson , Jeremiah Burroughs , and William Bridge . They were often called the "dissenting brethren" in the Assembly. They have sometimes been labelled "Independents", but they rejected this term. The Assembly members for

630-401: A break with the rest of the Assembly when they published An Apologeticall Narration , a polemical pamphlet appealing to Parliament. It argued that the congregational system was more amenable to state control of religious matters than that of the presbyterians because they did not desire the church to retain any real power except to withdraw fellowship from aberrant congregations. By 17 January,

756-411: A church to be a single local congregation, while the majority considered the national church to be a unity and were alarmed at the prospect of a disintegrated English church. Despite these debates, up until the end of 1643 there was hope that a common church government could be framed that would be satisfactory to all parties involved. On 3 or 4 January 1644, the five leading dissenting brethren signalled

882-489: A deep sleep to fall upon Adam and forms a woman ( Genesis 2:21–22 ), and Adam awakes and greets her as his helpmate. Genesis 3 , the account of the Fall: A serpent persuades the woman to disobey God's command and eat of the tree of knowledge, which gives wisdom. Woman convinces Adam to do likewise, whereupon they become conscious of their nakedness, cover themselves, and hide from the sight of God. God questions Adam, who blames

1008-693: A larger audience. He is also considered an important prophet of God in Druze faith, being among the seven prophets who appeared in different periods of history. Some Taoists in the Tang dynasty , inspired by Emperor Taizong 's syncretic beliefs and policies encouraging it, viewed the Christian version of Jesus as a redemptive manifestation of " the Way ", and respected his ancestors, including Adam, as well. Some Mongolian Christians and Muslims thought Adam

1134-582: A long life. A similar warning can be found in The Zohar . The Sefer Raziel HaMalakh (רזיאל המלאך) ( Raziel the Angel ) is a collection of esoteric writings, probably compiled and edited by the same hand, but originally not the work of one author, which according to tradition was revealed to Adam by the angel Raziel. The book cannot be shown to predate the 13th century, but may in parts date back to Late Antiquity , and like other obscure ancient texts such as

1260-626: A mention at the beginning of the Books of Chronicles where, as in Genesis, he heads the list of Israel's ancestors. The majority view among scholars is that the final text of Genesis dates from the Persian period (the 5th century BCE), but the absence of all the other characters and incidents mentioned in chapters 1–11 of Genesis from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority to

1386-607: A new Form of Church Government , a Confession of Faith or statement of belief, two catechisms or manuals for religious instruction ( Shorter and Larger ), and a liturgical manual, the Directory for Public Worship , for the Churches of England and Scotland. The Confession and catechisms were adopted as doctrinal standards in the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches, where they remain normative. Amended versions of

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1512-611: A requirement for children in many Presbyterian churches. The migrations and missionary efforts of each of these groups lead to the widespread significance of the Westminster Assembly throughout the English-speaking world. The Assembly's Confession was particularly influential in American Protestant theology. It was included with congregationalist changes as part of the 1648 Cambridge Platform ,

1638-408: A statement produced by ministers of colonial Massachusetts and the surrounding region, and again in colonial Connecticut as part of the 1708 Saybrook Platform . The Confession was modified for American Baptists in the 1707 Philadelphia Confession . The Adopting Act of 1729 required American Presbyterians to agree to the theology of the Assembly's Confession, and the Confession remains a part of

1764-438: A view, and he argued that Christ's death, as well as saving those who had been chosen, offered salvation to all people on condition that they believe. The Assembly's Confession did not teach such a view, and its language is much more amenable to a particular redemption interpretation, but there is a general agreement among scholars that the Confession's language allows an hypothetical universalist interpretation. Covenant theology

1890-435: A whole, rather than just the Christian tradition. Divinity can be divided into several distinct but related disciplines. These vary, sometimes widely, from church to church and from one faith tradition to another, and even among various programs within a particular church. For example, Scottish divinity programs are traditionally divided between biblical and theological studies. A typical divinity program will include many of

2016-525: A woman from the dust, as he had created Adam, and named her Lilith ; but the two could not agree, for Adam wanted Lilith to lie under him, and Lilith insisted that Adam should lie under her, and so she fled from him, and Eve was created from Adam's rib. Her story was greatly developed, during the Middle Ages , in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim , the Zohar and Jewish mysticism . Other rabbis explained

2142-461: A woman, Eve , as his companion. In Genesis 3 Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge and God condemns Adam to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death. Genesis 4 deals with the birth of Adam's sons, and Genesis 5 lists his descendants from Seth to Noah . In the entire Hebrew Bible, Adam appears only in chapters 1–5 of the Book of Genesis, with the exception of

2268-583: Is God's deputy, the initiation of a new cycle of sentient life on earth, or both. Similar to the Biblical account, the Quran has Adam placed in a garden where he sins by taking from the Tree of Immortality , so loses his abode in the garden. When Adam repents from his sin, he is forgiven by God. This is seen as a guidance for human-life, who sin, become aware of their mistake, and repent. In Gnostic belief-systems,

2394-409: Is an interpretive framework used by Reformed theologians which was significantly developed during the seventeenth century. Under this scheme, as articulated by the Assembly, God's dealings with men are described in terms of two covenants: the covenant of works and covenant of grace. The Westminster Confession was the first major Reformed symbol to explicitly mention the covenant of works (sometimes called

2520-629: Is considered the founder of the religion and the first prophet. He heralds manda (knowledge) and the true path of enlightenment. He is viewed as the propagator of kushta or divine truth. According to the Mandaean calendar , 2021–2022 CE in the Gregorian calendar would correspond to the Mandaean year 445391 AA (AA = after the creation of Adam). In the ancient Gnostic text On the Origin of

2646-407: Is linked with the professional degrees for ordained ministry or related work, it is also used in an academic setting by other faith traditions. For example, in many traditional British public schools and universities, the term is often used in place of Religious Studies , which deals with religion more broadly, to describe classes that include theology and philosophy in the context of religion as

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2772-850: Is not found in Judaism nor in Islam, and was introduced into Christianity by the Apostle Paul , drawing on currents in Hellenistic Jewish thought which held that Adam's sin had introduced death and sin into the world. Sin, for Paul, was a power to which all humans are subject, but Christ's coming held out the means by which the righteous would be restored to the Paradise from which Adam's sin had banished mankind. He did not conceive of this original sin of Adam as being biologically transmitted or that later generations were to be punished for

2898-533: The Apocalypse of Moses , which probably originates in first-century CE Jewish literature, the altar of the Temple of Solomon was the centre of the world and the gateway to God's Garden of Eden, and it was here that Adam was both created and buried. In the 17th-century book Kav ha-Yashar , the author warns not to talk negatively about Adam, and writes that those who talk positively about Adam will be blessed with

3024-649: The Bahir and Sefer Yetzirah , it has been extant in a number of versions. Zunz ("G. V." 2d ed., p. 176) distinguishes three main parts: (1) the Book Ha-Malbush; (2) the Great Raziel; (3) the Book of Secrets, or the Book of Noah. These three parts are still distinguishable—2b–7a, 7b–33b, 34a and b. After these follow two shorter parts entitled "Creation" and "Shi'ur Ḳomah", and after 41a come formulas for amulets and incantations. The idea of original sin

3150-685: The Book of Common Prayer on the Scots beginning in 1604. The Scots considered this a reversion to Roman Catholicism. Charles furthered English impositions on the Church of Scotland in 1636 and 1637. This led to the First Bishops' War between Charles and the Scots in 1639. Charles called what came to be known as the Short Parliament to raise funds for the war, but he soon dissolved it when it began voicing opposition to his policies. Following

3276-468: The Book of Jubilees , tells how Adam had a daughter, Awân, born after Cain and Abel, and another daughter, Azura , born after Seth, and they had nine other sons; Cain married Awân and Seth married Azûrâ, thus accounting for their descendants. The Life of Adam and Eve and its Greek version the Apocalypse of Moses recount how Adam repented his sin in exile and was rewarded by being transported to

3402-519: The Garden of Eden by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . This action introduced death and sin into the world. This sinful nature infected all his descendants, and led humanity to be expelled from the Garden. Only through the crucifixion of Jesus , humanity can be redeemed. In Islam, Adam is considered Khalifa (خليفة) (successor) on earth. This is understood to mean either that he

3528-578: The Islamic creation myth , he was the first prophet of Islam and the first Muslim . The Qur'an states that all the prophets preached the same faith of submission to God . When God informed the angels that he would create a vicegerent ( Arabic : خليفة , romanized :  khalifa , lit.   'caliph') on Earth, the angels enquired, asking, "will You place therein that which will spread corruption and bloodshed?" God responded, "I know what you know not" ( Qur'an 2:30 ), and commanded

3654-492: The Presbyterian Church (USA) 's Book of Confessions . The Confession has been called "by far the most influential doctrinal symbol in American Protestant history" by the historian of religion Sydney E. Ahlstrom . 51°29′58″N 0°07′43″W  /  51.4994°N 0.1286°W  / 51.4994; -0.1286 Divinity (academic discipline) While it most often refers to Christian study which

3780-656: The Roman Catholic Church during the English Reformation , was still too heavily influenced by Catholicism. They sought to rid the church and nation of any of these remaining influences. This included the Church's episcopal polity , or rule by a hierarchy of bishops . Puritans, unlike separatists , did not leave the established church. Under Charles, the Puritans' opponents were placed in high positions of authority, most notably William Laud who

3906-576: The Rump Parliament on 20 April 1653. The Assembly was a product of the British Reformed tradition, taking as a major source the Thirty-Nine Articles as well as the theology of James Ussher and his Irish Articles of 1615. The divines also considered themselves to be within the broader European Reformed tradition. They were in frequent correspondence with continental Reformed theologians, and sought their approval. They also drew upon

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4032-555: The Second Bishops' War with the Scots in 1640, Charles was forced to call another parliament to raise additional funds. What came to be known as the Long Parliament also began to voice vague grievances against Charles, many of which were religious in nature. Parliament had many Puritans and Puritan-sympathizing members, who generally opposed the existing episcopal system, but there was little agreement over what shape

4158-623: The Star Chamber , courts which had inflicted severe punishments on Puritan dissenters, were also abolished. The idea of a national assembly of theologians to advise Parliament on further church reforms was first presented to the House of Commons in 1641. Such a proposal was also included in the Grand Remonstrance , a list of grievances which Parliament presented to Charles on 1 December that year. Charles responded on 23 December that

4284-627: The Thirty-Nine Articles , the current doctrinal standard of the Church of England, and "to free and vindicate the Doctrine of them from all Aspersions of false Interpretations". After a day of fasting , the Assembly took a vow, as directed by Parliament, to "not maintain any thing in Matters of Doctrine, but what I think, in my conscience, to be truth". The divines organized themselves into three standing committees, though each committee

4410-471: The talmudic hypothesis that Adam instituted the custom of fasting before the winter solstice and rejoicing afterwards – an observance that devolved into Saturnalia and the Calends . Adam withdrew from Eve for 130 years after their expulsion from Eden, and in this time both he and Eve had sex with demons, until at length they reunited and Eve gave birth to Seth. A 2nd-century BCE Jewish religious work ,

4536-399: The Assembly and Parliament were already deteriorating in 1644, when Parliament ignored the Assembly's request that "grossly ignorant and notoriously profane" individuals be barred from communion. While members of Parliament agreed that the sacrament should be kept pure, many of them disagreed with the presbyterian majority in the Assembly over who had the final power of excommunication , taking

4662-499: The Assembly and not have expected them to attend because Charles had not approved of the Assembly. Only one, Daniel Featley , participated, and he only until his arrest for treason in October 1643. Debate on church officers began on 19 October. The Assembly began with the issue of ordination, as many of the divines were concerned about the rise of various sectarian movements and the lack of any mechanism for ordination of ministers of

4788-487: The Assembly continued to try to find ways to reconcile the dissenting brethren with the majority throughout 1644, including the establishment of a special committee for that purpose in March. However, on 15 November, the dissenting brethren presented their reasons for disagreement with the rest of the Assembly to Parliament, and on 11 December the majority submitted a draft of a presbyterian form of government. Relations between

4914-444: The Assembly's vision of a national, compulsory presbyterian church would never come to fruition. In London, where support for presbyterianism was greatest, presbyteries were established in only sixty-four of 108 city parishes, and regional presbyterian classes were only formed in fourteen of England's forty counties. A planned national general assembly never met. Many presbyterians did, however, establish voluntary presbyteries in what

5040-454: The Assembly. Twenty-two appointed members of the Assembly died before 1649, and they along with those who did not attend for other reasons were replaced by another nineteen members. Three non-voting scribes were also added in 1643. The Assembly's first meeting began with a sermon by William Twisse in the nave of Westminster Abbey on 1 July 1643. The nave was so full that the House of Commons had to send members ahead to secure seats. Following

5166-590: The Book of Common Prayer. The Assembly was strictly under the control of Parliament, and was only to debate topics which Parliament directed. Assembly members were not permitted to state their disagreements with majority opinions or share any information about the proceedings, except in writing to Parliament. Parliament chose William Twisse , an internationally respected theologian, to be the Assembly's prolocutor or chairman . Due to Twisse's ill health, Cornelius Burges , whom Parliament appointed as one of several assessors , served as prolocutor pro tempore for most of

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5292-573: The Church during the tenure of William Laud . Some had been ejected from their churches or cited by ecclesiastical courts for their views. Some had fled to the Continent , and one to the American colonies . Nonetheless, they all considered themselves members of the Church of England and had received episcopal ordination. Most were conformists , meaning they agreed to follow the Act of Uniformity 1558 and

5418-506: The Church of England. Defying the king, between 12 February and 20 April 1642, each county delegation of England in the Commons chose two divines, in addition to two for each county of Wales , four for London , and two for each University ( Oxford and Cambridge ). County delegations often chose divines from their own county, but not always. Commons chose the members in this way to ensure that their local constituencies were represented in

5544-694: The Commons, and ten from the House of Lords. The Assembly was almost entirely English; Parliament appointed Englishmen for the counties of Wales, but the French stranger churches (churches of Protestant refugees from Catholic France) sent two ministers in place of any from the Channel Islands . Many of the divines were internationally recognized scholars of the Bible, ancient languages, patristics , and scholastic theology . Many were also famous preachers. Most of these theologians had retained their positions in

5670-673: The Confession were also adopted in Congregational and Baptist churches in England and New England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Confession became influential throughout the English-speaking world, but especially in American Protestant theology. The Assembly was called by the Long Parliament before and during the beginning of the First English Civil War . The Long Parliament

5796-482: The Confession, which were provided in April 1648. Parliament approved the Confession with revisions to the chapters on church censures, synods and councils, and marriage on 20 June 1648. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland had already adopted the Confession without revision in 1647. The restoration of Charles II in 1660 effectively made this legislation a nullity. The Assembly had already done significant work on

5922-523: The East end of churches were also reinstated. To the Puritans, these seemed to be a step in the direction of Catholicism. There were also conflicts between the king and the Scots , whose church was ruled by a system known as presbyterianism , which features elected assemblies. James , Charles's predecessor as King of Scotland , made it clear that he intended to impose elements of episcopal church government and

6048-484: The English Parliament. Eleven of these, four theologians and seven members of Parliament, were also invited to the Assembly. The commissioners were given the opportunity to become full voting members of the Assembly but declined, preferring to maintain their independence as commissioners of their own nation and church. Samuel Rutherford , George Gillespie , and Alexander Henderson were the most outspoken of

6174-630: The Erastian view that it was the state. Also, by 1646, Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army had won the war on behalf of Parliament. Cromwell, along with a majority of the army, was strongly in favour of religious toleration for all sorts of Christians even if the national church was to be presbyterian. His rise to power as a result of his military victories made the idea of a strictly presbyterian settlement without freedom of worship for others very unlikely. Parliament at least wanted to know which sins in particular were grave enough to trigger excommunication by

6300-424: The Erastian view, John Lightfoot and Thomas Coleman , but the presence of members of Parliament, especially John Selden , as well as the fact of parliamentary oversight of the Assembly, gave Erastian views disproportional influence. Several episcopalians, supporters of the existing system of bishops, were also included in the summoning ordinance, but Parliament may have nominated them to lend greater legitimacy to

6426-690: The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland was reestablished in 1690 following the Glorious Revolution , it ratified the Westminster Confession, but not any other document produced at Westminster. The Confession remains, according to the 1929 Declaratory Articles , the Church of Scotland's "principal subordinate standard ", subordinate to the Bible. Memorization of the Shorter Catechism has been made

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6552-541: The Imamate, would also hold the position of enunciator and prophet ( Arabic : نبي , romanized :  nabi ). In the Islamic traditions ( ahadith ), Adam is given the name Adam-aI-Safi ( Arabic : آدم ألصافي , lit.   'Adam, The Chosen One') by Allah. The Druze regard Adam as the first spokesman ( natiq ), who helped to transmit the foundational teachings of monotheism ( tawhid ) intended for

6678-434: The Islamic religious tradition. He writes that Adam was the first enunciator of divine revelation ( Arabic : ناطق , romanized :  nāṭiq , lit.   'orator') and Seth was his legatee ( Arabic : وصي , romanized :  wasī , lit.   'inheritor, guardian'). He argues that the descendants of Seth are Aimmah , culminating in the seventh Imam, Nuh/Noah who, in addition to holding

6804-530: The Reformed doctrine. The divines had a strong view of the inspiration of the Bible , and believed that God revealed himself in the propositions found in Scripture. While the issue of biblical inerrancy , the belief that there are no errors in the Bible, did not arise until the eighteenth century, the divines clearly did not believe the Bible to contain any errors. Many of the divines held a rather mechanical view of biblical inspiration , believing that not only

6930-399: The Scots that Parliament was serious about reforming the church and induce the Scots to come to their aid. On the other hand, the war added strain to the already busy Parliament. Parliament finally passed an ordinance to hold the assembly on its own authority without Charles's assent on 12 June 1643. It named as many as 121 ministers and thirty non-voting parliamentary observers: twenty from

7056-597: The Thirty-Nine articles would need to be proven from the Bible. Assembly members were prone to long speeches and they made slow progress, frustrating the leadership. The eighth of the Thirty-Nine Articles recommended the Apostles' Creed , Nicene Creed , and Athanasian Creed , considered to be basic statements of orthodoxy , to be received and believed. The Assembly was unable to resolve conflicts between those who would not be bound by creeds and those who wished to retain

7182-458: The Westminster Assembly during a time of increasing hostility between Charles I , monarch of England and Scotland, and the Puritans . Puritans could be distinguished by their insistence that worship practices be supported implicitly or explicitly by the Bible, while their opponents gave greater authority to traditional customs. They believed the Church of England , which had separated itself from

7308-651: The Westminster Assembly was repudiated by the Church of England during the Restoration in 1660. The Act of Uniformity 1662 , a law requiring even greater adherence to the Book of Common Prayer and support for episcopalianism than had previously been required, forced Puritan ministers to leave the Church . Though some presbyterians continued to desire to be readmitted to the established church, restrictions on worship for non-conformists led to presbyterians putting aside differences with congregationalists and adopting congregational church orders. The Civil War brought with it

7434-452: The World , Adam originally appears as a primordial being born from light poured out by the aeon known as forethought. Accordingly, his primordial form is called Adam of Light. But when he desired to reach the eighth heaven , he was unable to because of the corruption mixed with his light. Thus he creates his own realm, containing six universes and their worlds which are seven times better than

7560-455: The angels to prostrate to Adam. Adam and Eve both ate from the Tree of Immortality ( Arabic : شَجَرَةُ الْخُلْد , romanized :  šajara al-ḫuld ) despite Allah's warnings against it, and both shared guilt equally, for Eve neither tempted Adam or ate before him; nor is Eve to blame for the pain of childbirth, for God never punishes one person for the sins of another. The Shia school of Islam does not even consider that their action

7686-426: The army supported congregationalism. A third group of divines were known as Erastians , a term for those who believed that the state should have significant power over the church. The entire Assembly was Erastian in the sense that the body had been called by Parliament and was completely under state control. Those labelled "Erastian" at the Assembly believed the civil authority, rather than church officers, should hold

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7812-769: The beginning of the First Civil War, the Long Parliament recognized that they would need assistance from the Scots. In return for a military alliance, the Scottish Parliament required the English to sign the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643, which stipulated that the English would bring their church into greater conformity with the Church of Scotland. The Scottish Parliament sent commissioners to London to represent Scotland's interests to

7938-555: The belief that seminaries are an institution of man and not supported by Holy Scripture. Students earn such degrees at a free-standing seminary , theologate or divinity school , or at a university. The following is a list of most of the common degrees in divinity: Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God , and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism , Christianity , Gnosticism and Islam ). According to Christianity, Adam sinned in

8064-436: The birth of their first sons (except Adam himself, for whom his age at the birth of Seth, his third son, is given) and their ages at death (Adam lives 930 years, up to the 56th year of Lamech, father of Noah ). The chapter notes that Adam had other sons and daughters after Seth, but does not name them. Louis Ginzberg retells a midrash that God himself took dust from all four corners of the earth, and with each color (red for

8190-433: The blood, black for the bowels, white for the bones and veins, and green for the pale skin), created Adam. The soul of Adam is the image of God , and as God fills the world, so the soul fills the human body: "as God sees all things, and is seen by none, so the soul sees, but cannot be seen; as God guides the world, so the soul guides the body; as God in His holiness is pure, so is the soul; and as God dwells in secret, so doth

8316-429: The bodily creation of Adam is viewed in a negative light. Due to the underlying demonization of matter, Gnostic cosmologies depict the body as a form of prison of Adam's soul. This soul would have been transferred by Sophia (wisdom) onto the creator (Demiurge) of the material world , who in turn is tricked into blowing the soul into a body. In Genesis , the name "Adam" is given to the first human. Beyond its use as

8442-433: The catechisms as well. The Scots General Assembly approved both catechisms in 1648. The Assembly understood its mandate under the Solemn League and Covenant to have been fulfilled on 14 April 1648 when it delivered the scripture citations to Parliament, and the Scottish Commissioners had already left by the end of 1647. The Assembly continued to meet primarily for the purpose of examination of ministers for ordination. Most of

8568-504: The centre of the world and the gateway to the Garden of Eden. The early Christian community adapted this to their own legend of Golgotha , replacing the altar with the place of Jesus's crucifixion. According to this Christian legend, current in the time of Origen (early 3rd century CE), the holy blood of Christ trickled down and restored to life the father of the human race, who then led the saints who appeared to many in Jerusalem on that day as described in Scripture. In Mandaeism , Adam

8694-419: The church required no reforms. Undeterred, Parliament passed three bills in 1642 appointing an assembly and stipulating that its members would be chosen by Parliament. Charles, whose royal assent was required for the bills to become law, was only willing to consider such an assembly if the members were chosen by the clergy. This was the practice for selection of members of Convocation , the assembly of clergy of

8820-492: The church should take. Later in 1640, the Root and Branch petition was presented to the House of Commons , the lower house of Parliament. It was signed by about 15,000 Londoners and called for total elimination of the episcopal system. Committees were organized in the House of Commons to enact religious reforms, leading to the imprisonment of Archbishop Laud and his supporters in the Tower of London as retaliation for their repression of Puritans. The Court of High Commission and

8946-428: The church. With the rise of radical sectarian movements during the war, the divines became much more concerned with these groups than polemics against Catholicism. The divines were particularly concerned with those they labeled antinomians . This was a loose term for those who saw the moral law as no longer relevant for Christians. The divines saw these groups as more immediately threatening than Catholicism. The work of

9072-408: The church; the Assembly was reticent to provide such information, as the majority considered the power of the church in this area to be absolute. In May 1645, Parliament passed an ordinance allowing excommunicants to appeal the church's sentences to Parliament. Another ordinance on 20 October contained a list of sins to which the church would be limited in its power to excommunicate. To the majority of

9198-577: The commissioners. On 12 October 1643, Parliament ordered the Assembly to cease work on the Thirty-Nine Articles and to begin to frame a common form of church government for the two nations. The Assembly would spend a quarter of its full sessions on the subject of church government. The majority of the Assembly members supported presbyterian polity, or church government by elected assemblies of lay and clerical representatives, though many were not dogmatically committed to it. Several members of this group, numbering about twenty and including William Twisse, favoured

9324-420: The conclusion that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in the 3rd century BCE. The Bible uses the word אָדָם ‎ ( 'adam ) in all of its senses: collectively ("mankind", Genesis 1:27 ), individually (a "man", Genesis 2:7 ), gender nonspecific ("man and woman", Genesis 5:1–2 ), and male ( Genesis 2:23–24 ). In Genesis 1:27 "adam" is used in the collective sense, and

9450-454: The context of sex is absent; the gender distinction of "adam" is then reiterated in Genesis 5:1–2 by defining "male and female". A recurring literary motif is the bond between Adam and the earth ( adamah ): God creates Adam by molding him out of clay in the final stages of the creation narrative . After the loss of innocence, God curses Adam and the earth as punishment for his disobedience. Adam and humanity are cursed to die and return to

9576-406: The covenant of grace was a much more common feature of orthodox Reformed theology. The Westminster divines set these two covenants against each other as the two major ways in which God deals with people. The divines associated William Laud and his followers with Catholicism, which they were even more strongly opposed to. Before the civil war, the divines saw these two groups as the greatest threat to

9702-425: The covenant of life), in which God offered Adam eternal life on condition of perfect obedience. In the fall of man , Adam broke the covenant of works by eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil . To remedy this, God offered salvation apart from human initiative in what was called the covenant of grace. This covenant allowed man to enjoy eternal life despite his inability to obey God's law perfectly. The idea of

9828-526: The death oracle given to Adam in Genesis 3:19 forms a link between man's creation from "dust" ( Genesis 2:7 ) to the "return" of his beginnings. Genesis 4 deals with the birth of Adam's sons Cain and Abel and the story of the first murder, followed by the birth of a third son, Seth. Genesis 5 , the Book of the Generations of Adam, lists the descendants of Adam from Seth to Noah with their ages at

9954-502: The decision. The House of Lords , Parliament's upper house, added another fourteen names on 14 May, to which the Commons agreed. Meanwhile, relations continued to deteriorate between the king and Parliament. Charles raised the royal standard at Nottingham on 22 August, marking the beginning of the First English Civil War . The start of the war lent support to the cause of the Assembly in Parliament, because holding it would convince

10080-401: The deeds of a remote ancestor. It was Augustine who took this step, locating sin itself in male semen: when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit they were ashamed and covered their genitals, identifying the place from which the first sin was passed on to all succeeding generations. Only Jesus Christ, who was not conceived by human semen, was free of the stain passed down from Adam. (Augustine's idea

10206-587: The divine right ( jure divino ) of church government. While the presbyterian divines were capable of defending their vision for church government as established by divine right in the Bible, they were unwilling to answer the queries because doing so would further expose the disunity of the Assembly and weaken their case in Parliament. In July 1647, the New Model Army invaded London and conservative members of Parliament were forced out. Parliament passed an ordinance establishing religious tolerance and ensuring that

10332-506: The divines were unhappy with the republican Commonwealth that emerged after Colonel Pride's Purge of the Long Parliament in 1648. As a result, a majority stopped attending rather than agree to the oath of Engagement to the Commonwealth that was imposed in 1649. Newspapers continued to report on the meetings of the Assembly as late as March 1653. The Assembly must have stopped meeting sometime between then and Cromwell's dissolution of

10458-428: The divines' dismay, an even more Erastian ordinance was proposed in March 1646. The Assembly published a protest, provoking the Commons to charge it with breach of privilege and to submit nine questions to the divines on the matter. Votes were to be included with the answers, an attempt to force the divines associated with the protest petition to reveal themselves. The Nine Queries, as they came to be called, focused on

10584-609: The documents of the Assembly were repudiated and episcopal church government was reinstated in England. The Assembly worked in the Reformed Protestant theological tradition, also known as Calvinism. It took the Bible as the authoritative word of God , from which all theological reflection must be based. The divines were committed to the Reformed doctrine of predestination — that God chooses certain men to be saved and enjoy eternal life rather than eternal punishment. There

10710-560: The earth (or ground) from which he was formed. This "earthly" aspect is a component of Adam's identity, and Adam's curse of estrangement from the earth seems to describe humankind's divided nature of being earthly yet separated from nature. Genesis 1 tells of God's creation of the world and its creatures, with humankind as the last of his creatures: "Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam ..." ( Genesis 5:2 ). God blesses mankind, commands them to " be fruitful and multiply ", and gives them "dominion over

10836-428: The end of the consensus among English Protestants that there should be a single church imposed by the state, though there was still not complete freedom of religion. The ideals of the dissenting brethren of the Assembly were significant in the rise of denominationalism , the doctrine that the church is found in several institutions rather than a single one in a given location. Though Protestants already commonly recognized

10962-444: The established church. While some members did not seem to think ordination necessary for preachers (though they should not administer the sacraments without it), a majority of the divines thought any regular preaching without ordination unacceptable and wished to erect a provisional presbytery for purposes of ordination. There was also debate at this early stage over the nature of the visible church . The congregationalists considered

11088-407: The existing language that the creeds be "thoroughly received and believed". The "excepters", who took the former position, argued that the articles only require the "matter" of the creeds be believed. On 25 August the article was put off until the rest of the articles could be dealt with. This early disagreement on fundamental issues revealed deep rifts between different factions of the assembly. From

11214-443: The fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" ( Genesis 1.26–27 ). In Genesis 2 , God forms "Adam", this time meaning a single male human, out of "the dust of the ground" and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" ( Genesis 2:7 ). God then places this first man in the Garden of Eden , telling him that "Of every tree of

11340-587: The following: Studying divinity usually leads to the awarding of an academic degree or a professional degree . Such degrees, particularly in modern times the Master of Divinity , are prerequisites for ordained ministry in most Christian denominations and many other faith communities. The exception to this is all "plain" churches such as the Amish , Old German Baptist Brethren , Old Order Mennonite , Dunkard Brethren , and many others. In fact, such churches hold to

11466-430: The garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" ( Genesis 2:16–17 ). God notes that "It is not good that the man should be alone" ( Genesis 2:18 ) and brings the animals to Adam, who gives them their names, but among all the animals there was not found a companion for him ( Genesis 2:20 ). God causes

11592-406: The groups were. Philip Nye, one of the dissenting brethren, asserted in a speech that a presbytery set over local congregations would become as powerful as the state and was dangerous to the commonwealth, provoking vigorous opposition from presbyterians. The next day, the Assembly finally began to establish a prescription for presbyterian government. Owing to a strong belief in the unity of the church,

11718-454: The heavenly paradise, foreshadowing the destiny of all the righteous at the end of time. The Archangel Michael attended Adam's death, together with Eve and his son Seth, still living at that time, and he was buried together with his murdered son Abel. Because they repented, God gave Adam and Eve garments of light, and similar garments will clothe the Messiah when he comes. According to

11844-482: The heavens of Chaos . All these realms exist within the region between the eighth heaven and the Chaos beneath it. But when the archons saw him, they realize the chief creator of the material world ( Yaldabaoth ) had lied to them by claiming he was the only god. However, they decide to create a physical version of Adam in the image of the spiritual Adam. But Sophia later sends her daughter Zoe (the spiritual Eve) to give

11970-408: The interplay between the individual "Adam" and the collective "humankind" is a main literary component to the events that occur in the Garden of Eden , the ambiguous meanings embedded throughout the moral, sexual, and spiritual terms of the narrative reflecting the complexity of the human condition. Genesis 2:7 is the first verse where "Adam" takes on the sense of an individual man (the first man), and

12096-481: The majority of the Assembly had become convinced that the best way forward was a presbyterian system similar to that of the Scots, but the dissenting brethren were allowed to continue to state their case in hope that they could eventually be reconciled. It was hoped that by avoiding asserting that presbyterianism was established by divine right, the congregationalists could be accommodated. Despite these efforts, on 21 February it became clear just how fundamentally opposed

12222-404: The most part reserved the label "Independent" for separatists who left the established church. The congregationalist divines cannot be equated with separatists and Brownists , as they had accepted episcopal ordination and remained in the Church of England. Their influence was assisted by the success of Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army in the ongoing civil war. Cromwell and many others in

12348-483: The name of the first man, the Hebrew word adam is also used in the Bible as a pronoun , individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as "mankind". Genesis 1 tells of God's creation of the world and its creatures, including the Hebrew word adam , meaning humankind. In Genesis 2 God forms "Adam", this time meaning a single male human, out of "the dust of the ground", places him in the Garden of Eden , and forms

12474-471: The original. This caused significant debate between Reformed polemicists and Roman Catholics. Catholics argued that such a discovery demonstrated the need for an authoritative magisterium to interpret the Bible as opposed to the Protestant doctrine of perspicuity , that the essential teachings of the Bible could be interpreted by anyone. English Reformed writers in particular took up the work of defending

12600-531: The physical Adam life before leaving the physical Eve with Adam and entering the Tree of Knowledge . However, according to the Hypostasis of the Archons , a spirit descends on the physical Adam and gives him a living soul. In Islam, Allah created Adam ( Arabic : آدم ) from a handful of earth taken from the entire world, which explains why the peoples of the world are of different skin colors. According to

12726-420: The power of church discipline . This included the power to withhold communion from unrepentant sinners. They did not see any particular form of church government as divinely mandated, and because of this the dissenting brethren allied with them when it became clear that a presbyterian establishment would be much less tolerant of congregationalism than Parliament. There were only two divines at the Assembly who held

12852-522: The pre-Reformation British theological tradition, which emphasized biblical knowledge and was influenced by the Augustinian theological tradition exemplified by Anselm , Thomas Bradwardine , and John Wycliffe . The recorded debates of the Assembly are full of citations of church fathers and medieval scholastic theologians. The Confession starts with the doctrine of revelation , or how people can know about God. The divines believed knowledge of God

12978-563: The same canonical book, like the Genesis flood narrative , are also understood as having been influenced by older literature, with parallels in the older Epic of Gilgamesh . In biology, the most recent common ancestors of humans, when traced back using the Y-chromosome for the male lineage and mitochondrial DNA for the female lineage, are commonly called the Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve respectively as

13104-508: The same time they announced their desire to formally unite the two churches. Following the rise of Cromwell and the secret Engagement of some Scots with Charles this hope was abandoned, and the documents were never formally adopted. The General Assembly ceased to function under Cromwell and the kings who succeeded him from 1649 to 1690. During and after the debates over church government, the Assembly framed other documents which did not cause open rifts. The Directory for Public Worship , which

13230-426: The same verse as meaning that Adam was created with two faces, male and female, or as a single hermaphrodite being, male and female joined back to back, but God saw that this made walking and conversing difficult, and so split them apart. The serpent approached Eve rather than Adam because Adam had heard the word of God with his own ears, whereas Eve had only his report; Eve tasted the fruit and knew at once that she

13356-469: The sermon, the divines processed to the Henry VII Chapel , which would be their place of meeting until 2 October when they moved to the warmer and more private Jerusalem Chamber . After their initial meeting they adjourned for about a week, as Parliament had not yet given specific instructions. On 6 July, they received a set of rules from Parliament and were ordered to examine the first ten of

13482-416: The soul." According to Jewish literature, Adam possessed a body of light, identical to the light created by God on the first day, and the original glory of Adam can be regained through mystical contemplation of God. The rabbis, puzzled by fact that Genesis 1 states that God created man and woman together while Genesis 2 describes them being created separately, told that when God created Adam he also created

13608-427: The validity of churches in different territories, the outcome of the Assembly's debates marks the wider acceptance of the idea that several true churches may be found in the same territory. The Confession produced by the Assembly was adopted with amendments by Congregationalists in England in the form of the 1658 Savoy Declaration , as well as by Particular Baptists in the form of the 1689 Baptist Confession . When

13734-411: The woman. God passes judgment, first upon the serpent, condemned to go on his belly, then the woman, condemned to pain in childbirth and subordination to her husband, and finally Adam, who is condemned to labour on the earth for his food and to return to it on his death. God then expels the man and woman from the garden, lest they eat of the Tree of Life and become immortal. The chiastic structure of

13860-451: The words and ideas but also the letters and vowel points of the Hebrew text were inspired by God. On the other hand, they acknowledged that the text was written by humans in their own styles. They did not make any distinction between essential and incidental matters with respect to biblical inspiration. Puritans believed that God is sovereign over all of history and nature and that none of what were called his decrees would be frustrated. There

13986-560: The world and developed the ability to receive revelation, God sent Adam to each and every branch of civilization. This opinion has also been alluded to and accepted by Islamic scholars of different sects. According to a revelation received by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad , the founder of the community, the Adam mentioned in the Qur'an was born 4,598 years before Muhammad. The Muslim thinker Nasir Khusraw offers another interpretation of Adam's significance to

14112-542: Was a de facto free church situation until the Restoration in 1660, when a compulsory episcopal system was reinstated. The new Form of Government was much more acceptable to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland . They passed it on 10 February 1645, contingent on some particularities of presbyterian government which were expected to be worked out in a forthcoming Directory for Church Government. At

14238-469: Was a sin, for obedience and disobedience are possible only on Earth, and not in heaven where the paradise is located. According to Qisas al-Anbiya , Adam fell on Adam's Peak located in central Sri Lanka , the tallest mountain in the world and so the closest to Heaven, and from there God sent him to Mecca , where he repented and was forgiven. At Mecca he built the first Sanctuary (the Kaabah – which

14364-487: Was available to people through nature as well as the Bible, but they also believed that the Bible, or Scripture, is the only way in which people attain saving knowledge of God. The doctrine of Scripture was also a particularly important area of debate at the time. Scholars had begun to argue that the Hebrew vowel points , marks added to the text to aid in pronunciation, of the Old Testament were probably not part of

14490-479: Was based on the ancient world's ideas on biology, according to which male sperm contained the entire unborn baby, the mother's womb being no more than a nurturing chamber in which it grew.) As mentioned above , the Apocalypse of Moses , a Jewish writing containing material probably originating from the first century CE, places both Adam's place of creation and his burial at the altar of the Temple of Solomon, seen as

14616-499: Was doomed to death, and said to herself that it was better she trick Adam into eating so that he too would die, and not take another woman in her place. Adam ate the fruit unaware of what he was doing, and was filled with grief. When Adam blamed Eve after eating the forbidden fruit, God rebuked him that Adam as a man should not have obeyed his wife, for he is the head, not her. An Aggadic legend found in tractate Avodah Zarah 8a has observations regarding Roman midwinter holidays, and

14742-423: Was governed by a system of elected assemblies of elders called presbyterianism , rather than rule by bishops , called episcopalianism , which was used in the English church. Scottish commissioners attended and advised the Assembly as part of the agreement. Disagreements over church government caused open division in the Assembly, despite attempts to maintain unity. The party of divines who favoured presbyterianism

14868-416: Was in the majority, but the congregationalist party, which held greater influence in the military, favoured autonomy for individual congregations rather than the subjection of congregations to regional and national assemblies entailed in presbyterianism. Parliament eventually adopted a presbyterian form of government but lacked the power to implement it. During the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, all of

14994-475: Was influenced by Puritanism , a religious movement which sought further reform of the church. They were opposed to the religious policies of King Charles I and William Laud , Archbishop of Canterbury . As part of a military alliance with Scotland , Parliament agreed that the outcome of the Assembly would bring the English Church into closer conformity with the Church of Scotland. The Scottish Church

15120-529: Was later rebuilt by Ibrahim ) and was taught the ritual of the Hajj, and wove the first cloak for himself and the first veil and shift for Eve, and after this returned to India where he died at the age of 930, having seen the sons of the sons of his children, 1400 in all. According to the Ahmadiyya sect, Adam was not the first human being on earth, but when the human race came into existence, and spread all over

15246-479: Was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, even though these " high churchmen " were in the minority. Puritans were forced to keep their views private or face fines and imprisonment. Laud promoted advocates of Arminianism , a theological perspective opposed to the Reformed theology of the Puritans. Worship practices such as kneeling at communion, bowing at the name of Christ, and the placement of communion tables at

15372-406: Was open to any member of the Assembly. The committees would be assigned topics and prepare propositions for debate in the full Assembly following each morning of committee meetings. In addition, over 200 ad hoc committees were appointed for tasks such as examination of candidate preachers, college fellows , and suspected heretics. The Assembly resolved, after some debate, that all the doctrines of

15498-461: Was significant debate in the Assembly over the relationship of God's decree of predestination to the redemption purchased by Christ's death. Many of the Reformed during this period taught that Christ died with the purpose only to save those who were eternally chosen to be saved, a doctrine called particular redemption . A vocal minority of the divines of the Assembly argued for a position known as hypothetical universalism . Edmund Calamy held such

15624-503: Was some disagreement at the Assembly over the doctrine of particular redemption — that Christ died only for those chosen for salvation. The Assembly also held to Reformed covenant theology , a framework for interpreting the Bible. The Assembly's Confession is the first of the Reformed confessions to teach a doctrine called the covenant of works , which teaches that before the fall of man , God promised eternal life to Adam on condition that he perfectly obeyed God. Parliament called

15750-466: Was the same person as Gautama Buddha . While a traditional view was that the Book of Genesis was authored by Moses and has been considered historical and metaphorical, modern scholars consider the Genesis creation narrative as one of various ancient origin myths . Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of the compilation of multiple previous traditions, explaining apparent contradictions. Other stories of

15876-459: Was to replace the Book of Common Prayer , was swiftly written in 1644 and passed by Parliament on 3 January 1645. The Directory , accepted by the Scots as well, took a middle course between the presbyterians and congregationalists. The presbyterians for the most part preferred a fixed liturgy while congregationalists favoured extemporaneous prayer. The Directory consisted of an order for services with sample prayers. The Assembly also recommended

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