30 hard points the Assembly navigated

Cruxes

A crux (Latin crux: cross, hard problem) is a point at which the Westminster Assembly had to choose, or deliberately refuse to choose, between live alternatives — and at which the confessional language of the Standards was forged. Each entry traces the question's background, the parties at the Assembly, the outcome, and the language adopted.

settled clear deliberate latitude alternative rejected mixed

I. ✦ Scripture · 2

The Canon and the Apocrypha August 1645 The Assembly drew a sharper line against the Apocrypha than Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Settled clearly Good and Necessary Consequence 1644–1645 How does Scripture warrant doctrines it does not explicitly state? Settled clearly

II. ✠ God & Decree · 4

The Order of the Decrees 1644–1645 Did God decree the election of particular persons before or after the fall? Settled with deliberate latitude The Extent of the Atonement January 1646 One of the Assembly's bruising sessions: Christ died for whom? Settled with deliberate latitude The Decree of Reprobation 1645 Does God positively decree the damnation of the reprobate, or merely pass them by? Settled clearly The Covenant of Redemption 1645–1647 Is there an eternal covenant between the Father and the Son for the elect? Mixed

III. ⊕ Covenant · 2

The Mosaic Covenant 1645–1646 Sinai: republication of the covenant of works, or administration of the covenant of grace? Settled clearly The Children of Believers and the Sign of the Covenant 1645 Who belongs in the visible covenant, and what is the sign? Settled clearly

IV. ☧ Christology · 2

The Imputation of Christ's Active Obedience August–October 1645 Is Christ’s law-keeping, as well as his suffering, imputed to the justified believer? Alternative rejected The Descent into Hell 1647 What does the Apostles’ Creed’s "descendit ad inferna" mean? Settled clearly

V. ✚ Soteriology · 3

Justification and the Antinomian Crisis 1643–1647 How do you secure sola fide without letting the law fall away? Alternative rejected Assurance: Of the Essence of Saving Faith? 1646–1647 Does every true believer have full assurance, or is assurance a separate gift? Settled clearly The Perseverance of the Saints 1646 Can the truly regenerate finally fall from grace? Alternative rejected

VI. ⚖ Law & Sanctification · 3

The Third Use of the Moral Law 1645–1646 Does the moral law remain the rule of life for the regenerate? Settled clearly The Strict Sabbath 1645 The Lord’s Day as the perpetual fourth commandment, kept holy whole-day. Settled clearly The Tripartite Division of the Law 1645 Moral, judicial, ceremonial — and what binds after Christ? Settled clearly

VII. ☩ Ecclesiology & Worship · 7

The Grand Debate over Polity October 1644 – January 1646 Presbyterian or Independent: who exercises the keys of the kingdom? Settled clearly The Erastian Question July 1645 – November 1645 Does ecclesiastical jurisdiction belong to the church or to the civil magistrate? Alternative rejected The Regulative Principle of Worship 1644–1645 Only what God commands may be done in worship. Settled clearly Sacramental Efficacy: Signs and Seals 1646 How sacraments confer grace without operating ex opere operato or being bare memorials. Settled clearly The Rouse Psalter and Metrical Psalmody 1643–1648 The metrical psalms that became the Scottish Psalter. Settled with deliberate latitude The Solemn League and Covenant August–September 1643 The Anglo-Scottish covenant that brought the Scots into the war and into the Assembly. Settled clearly The Self-Denying Ordinance and the New Model Army December 1644 – April 1645 The army reorganisation that empowered the Independent interest the Assembly’s Presbyterians had to negotiate with. Settled clearly

VIII. ⌛ Civil & Last Things · 7

The Magistrate and the Two Tables 1646; revised 1788 Is the civil magistrate the keeper of both tables of the Decalogue? Mixed The Pope as Antichrist 1646 The Westminster clause that the American 1788 revision dropped. Settled clearly Lawful Oaths 1646 May Christians take oaths? May the magistrate require them? Settled clearly Grounds of Divorce: Adultery and Wilful Desertion 1646 Two scriptural grounds for the dissolution of a true marriage. Settled clearly The Conscious Intermediate State 1647 No purgatory, no soul-sleep — the soul’s immediate conscious entry into heaven or judgement. Settled clearly The Final Judgment and the Last Things 1647 One final judgement, by Christ, with eternal consequences. Settled clearly The 1788 American Revision 1787–1788 (post-Assembly) How the American Presbyterians rewrote the magistrate chapters for a disestablished republic. Mixed