This word, besides its well-known social application to meetings for purposes of conviviality or gaiety, is a term by which important political and ecclesiastical bodies have become known in history and jurisprudence. The original use of the term is in the French Assemblée. It is applied in early history to those Assemblées du Champ de Mars, or Assemblées de Mai, of which the historical notices are so uncertain that they are not clearly distinguishable from the meetings of the States General or great vassals of the crown. On the occasion of the meeting of the States General in 1789, a memorable use was made of this dubiety of expression, and the term National Assembly was applied to the assemblage, when the third estate or commons revolutionized its character by resolving to sit and act whether they were joined by the other orders or not. Of the history of this body a full account will be found under the head of FRANCE.

The application of the term Assemblée in France to the meetings of the clergy, elsewhere generally called councils, is evidently the source of its transference to Scotland, through Knox's intercourse with Calvin. The General Assembly thus became the fixed designation of the supreme collective council, legislative and judicial, of the Scottish Church. The first Assembly, when the system was of course but imperfectly developed, was held in 1561. In the subsequent ecclesiastical contests, of which an account will be found under the head of SCOTLAND, it was the object of the Presbyterian party, in opposition to the Episcopalian party and the crown, to vest a supreme and independent authority over ecclesiastical affairs in the General Assembly. In the memorable Assembly held at Glasgow in 1638, this supremacy was for a time accomplished; and after having abolished the Episcopal hierarchy, the body continued to sit and act after it had been required by royal authority to dissolve. It was the principle of Cromwell's government to tolerate the various Protestant communities in their worship and ordinances, but not to permit any of them to assemble in deliberative bodies. Those who vindicate his policy hold, that when ecclesiastical disputes are merely local, the influence of the victorious majority in one place is neutralized by the superiority of its opponents in another; while, if they were permitted to meet and fight pitched battles, the stronger party would crush or drive out the weaker. During the Commonwealth, this view was in some measure confirmed by the existence in Scotland of two opposite clerical parties, which, though denouncing each other, never afforded an opportunity by meeting in assembly for a critical trial of strength. At the Restoration, the suppression of the Assembly was continued on different grounds. Along with the inferior church judicatories, it was restored at the Revolution. William III., however, and his advisers, by no means admitted the claims of entire independence of the state claimed for the church, and more than once a contest appeared inevitable. He was accustomed to convene and dismiss the Assembly at his pleasure. At all times the Scottish church has denied this power to the royal prerogative, but methods were found for avoiding a discussion of the point. It came to be the practice for the Assembly to meet and separate on certain established days; and by a device adopted soon after the Revolution, the royal commissioner, in the name of the sovereign, adjourns the Assembly on its last stated day of meeting to the stated day for recommencing; and the elected moderator, without appearing to notice this proceeding, makes identically the same adjournment, solemnly proclaiming it in the name of "the Lord Jesus Christ," as the Head of the Church. The Assembly consists of representatives, clerical and lay, from the several presbyteries of the church, and of a few other members. It is a general characteristic feature, that the clergy are always the majority. When the Free Church separated from the Establishment in 1843, it constituted a General Assembly on the same principles; and, being a voluntary church, has not of course been embarrassed by any questions with the crown. The several bodies of dissenters from the Church of Scotland, who became combined together as the United Presbyterian Church, give the name of Synod to the general aggregate body of their members, corresponding with the General Assembly in the other Scottish Presbyterian bodies.

The Westminster Assembly of divines was a memorable and important adoption for a short period in England of the Scottish system. It was the creature of that remarkable influence exercised by the Scottish party ere the Independents and the army had asserted their preponderance. It followed the victories of the Scottish arms, and those exhortations of the covenanting preachers in London which obtained so much attention and popularity in the eventful epoch of the conflict between the parliament and the crown. In the negotiations conducted at Oxford in 1643, one of the bills to which the royal sanction was demanded, was termed "A bill for calling an assembly of learned and godly divines and others to be consulted with by the parliament, for the settlement of the government and liturgy of the Church of England, and for vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the said church from false aspersions and interpretations." The measure was at length passed as an ordinance by the authority of parliament. From the commencement, indications of the growing power of the Independents is perceptible in the cautious jealousy of the parliament, which required the assembly to inquire and report to the legislature, instead of conferring on it independent powers. The Assembly nominally sat for five years; but for some time before it was extinguished by Cromwell, it lost the confidence and co-operation of parliament. It consisted of 121 clergymen and certain lay assessors. From that peculiar union with Scotland manifested in the adoption of the Scottish Covenant as the Solemn League and Covenant of the two nations, some Scottish members were admitted as representatives of the General Assembly, and exercised a predominant influence on the deliberations. Of the documents adopted by them, one, the Directory of Worship, received the nominal assent of the English parliament. The Confession of Faith was received with some modifications. Both these documents, however, along with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, were received into the Church of Scotland, and have since remained unaltered, as "agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with the assistance of commissioners from the Church of Scotland, as a part of the covenanted uniformity in religion betwixt the churches of Christ in the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland."