VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
I may be forgetting or overlooking something, but in all my time on the Puritan Board, I cannot recall any discussion of the Westminster Directory of Church Government. It is a different document than the Form of Presbyterian Church Government which has often been reprinted in collections of the Westminster Standards, but unlike the Form, the Directory has never been reprinted in the United States to my knowledge and not in the last 200 years or so, according to Wayne Spear. The full title is: A Directory for Church-Government, Church-Censures, and Ordination of Ministers. It was produced by the Westminster Assembly in 1645 (approved on July 4), a year after the former document, and is a valuable resource that is more comprehensive and is more "polished" (Spear) than its predecessor.
A.F. Mitchell provides an historical account of this document in The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards, pp. 257-268. He notes:
It is largely the work of Alexander Henderson, and partially based on his earlier work The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland (1641) as well as the disciplines of the French and Dutch Reformed Churches. It lead to the creation of the London provincial assembly. The English Parliament approved the Form rather than the Directory and due to the opposition of David Calderwood, the Directory was not approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; hence, this document, while a product of the Westminster Assembly, is little known today.
For those who are interested, it can be read in several places: (1) Wayne R. Spear, "The Westminster Assembly's Directory for Church Government," in Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, pp. 83-98; (2) at the Westminster Assembly Project website; and (3) in the 1764 edition of The Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, Directories, Form of Church Government, Discipline, &c. of Public Authority in the Church of Scotland.
A.F. Mitchell provides an historical account of this document in The Westminster Assembly: Its History and Standards, pp. 257-268. He notes:
It is practical and comprehensive, a storehouse of valuable counsels as to many things in government, and still more in discipline, not touched on in the propositions [i.e., Form of Church Government], and is well worthy of being studied by Presbyterian ministers still, who wish to do full justice to the system of government the Westminster Assembly sanctioned (p. 264).
It is largely the work of Alexander Henderson, and partially based on his earlier work The Government and Order of the Church of Scotland (1641) as well as the disciplines of the French and Dutch Reformed Churches. It lead to the creation of the London provincial assembly. The English Parliament approved the Form rather than the Directory and due to the opposition of David Calderwood, the Directory was not approved by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; hence, this document, while a product of the Westminster Assembly, is little known today.
For those who are interested, it can be read in several places: (1) Wayne R. Spear, "The Westminster Assembly's Directory for Church Government," in Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, pp. 83-98; (2) at the Westminster Assembly Project website; and (3) in the 1764 edition of The Confessions of Faith, Catechisms, Directories, Form of Church Government, Discipline, &c. of Public Authority in the Church of Scotland.