The Westminster Directory

In 1643, following the outbreak of civil war in England between the Puritan-controlled Parliament and the Anglican King Charles I, Parliament commissioned 150 ministers and lay leaders to draft a new confession, catechism, worship service, and form of government for England. Although this body, later known as the Westminster Assembly of Divines, was predominantly Presbyterian, almost a dozen Congregationalists were invited. This body produced the first Westminster Directory. Introduction The Westminster Assembly first began work on replacing the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in the belief that both Presbyterians and Congregationalists shared compatible views of worship. One Congregationalist was elected to the nine-member subcommittee on liturgical matters. As late as the end of the nineteenth century, the Congregational historian Williston Walker could say that this order of worship "is substantially the one that has been used in conservative Presbyterian and Congregational chur…