The Westminster Assembly has been celebrated on various occasions. The Presbyterian Church, US, devoted lectures to it at its General Assembly in Charlotte in 1897 (in remembrance of the 250th anniversary of the closing of the Westminster Assembly). Robert L. Dabney, among others gave an address. Later, the faculty of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia produced a very fine symposium on important aspects of the Westminster Assembly (its doctrine of Scripture) in 1943 in The Infallible Word. This was to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the convening of the Assembly in Westminster Abbey.

In neither of those excellent collections of memorial lectures, would anyone have seriously thought of dealing with the question: is mysticism to be found in the Westminster standards and in its general tradition? So why am I dealing with such a subject today?