Reformed Christian Studies

By David Plant - Posted at the BCW Project : The alliance between the English Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters was sealed with the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant by both Houses of Parliament and the Scottish commissioners on 25 September 1643. It was a military league and a religious covenant. Its immediate purpose was to overwhelm the Royalists, who in 1643 seemed in a strong position to win the English Civil War. An alliance between Parliament and the Scots was first proposed by John Pym early in 1643. Parliament was anxious to secure military help from Scotland in order to counter Royalist victories in England. The Convention of Estates in Edinburgh favoured the alliance after the discovery of the Earl of Antrim 's conspiracy to bring over an Irish Catholic army to support a projected uprising of Scottish Royalists. However, the Covenanters regarded the alliance principally as a religious union of the two nations. They hoped to unite the churches of Sc

This 1646 allegorical broadside shows the two houses of Parliament and the Westminster Assembly on an ark on a sea in which royalists drown. An accompanying poem calls the three the "Trinity of State". [12]   Source: Wikipedia By David Plant - Posted at  The BCW Project : The Westminster Assembly The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament during the English Civil War to discuss reform of the Church of England. A reforming synod was first proposed in the Grand Remonstrance of November 1641. A bill authorising an Assembly was passed by both Houses of Parliament in June 1642 but King Charles withheld his assent. A year later, with King and Parliament openly at war, Parliament passed an ordinance on 12 June 1643 calling the Assembly under its own authority. Despite a royal proclamation prohibiting its meeting, the Assembly first convened on 1 July 1643 at the Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey, later moving to the Abbey's Jer