(1689)

While the Independents and the Dissenting Brethren of Westminster were effective in developing and spreading a new tolerant attitude toward other faith-groups with their new denominational theory, this view of the church found only limited acceptance in England, where the Church of England still retained a favored position, even after the Act of Toleration in 1689 recognized the rights of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers to worship freely.

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The real architects of the denominational theory of the church were the seventeenth century Independents (Congregationalists) who represented the minority voice at the Westminster Assembly (1642-49). The majority at the Assembly held to Presbyterian principles and expressed these convictions classically in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in The Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms.

The Independents, however, who held to congregational principles, were keenly aware of the dangers of "dividing the godly Protestant party" in England so they looked for some way to express Christian unity even when Christians did not agree.

These Dissenting Brethren of Westminster articulated the denominational theory of the church in several fundamental truths: First, considering man's inability to always see the truth clearly, differences of opinion about the outward form of the church are inevitable. Second, even though these differences do not involve fundamentals of the faith, they are not matters of indifference.