Arminianism in the Church of England

Peter Baro was a Huguenot Calvinist, but also close to Niels Hemmingsen, who was in the Lutheran tradition of Philipp Melanchthon that was brought to Denmark by John Macalpine (Maccabeus); Baro preached conditional predestination. A theological controversy on his teaching at Cambridge was brought to a head by William Barret. The intervention by John Whitgift led to the delineation of the Church of England's reception of Calvinist purely theological teaching in the 1595 Lambeth Articles. The Articles followed recommendations of William Whitaker, and did not advance views on ritual or discipline.[2]

A dissident voice was Richard Thomson. But anti-Calvinism was closed down as far as discussion in print was concerned. Thomson was refused permission to print his Diatriba de amissione et intercisione gratiae, et justificationis later in the 1590s.[3]

The third of the Thirty-Nine Articles affirmed the Harrowing of Hell. Thomas Bilson preached in favour of a literal reading of this article before the queen and at Paul's Cross in 1597; ostensibly he was aiming at the Protestant Separatist objections to this view of the descensus or descent to hell of Christ as mentioned in the Apostles Creed. After a hostile reception at Paul's Cross, Bilson was set to work by the queen on his lengthy Survey of Christs Sufferings to argue the point.[4] In so doing he was emphasising a theological point at odds with the Genevan Catechism and Heidelberg Catechism, and so with some of the Reformed Churches, who followed Calvin's opinion that the descent was not literally meant but descriptive of Christ's sufferings on the cross.[5] Adam Hill had brought the point to prominence in The Defence of the Article (1592), against the Scottish presbyterian Alexander Hume.[6] The difference between literal or allegorical readings of the article remained divisive, with some figures of a moderate and conforming Puritan attitude such as Whitaker and Andrew Willet disagreeing with Bilson.[7]

Certain churchmen are now labelled by historians as "proto-Arminian". These include prominent bishops of the period around 1600: Lancelot Andrewes,[8] Thomas Dove,[9] and John Overall.[10] Theodore K. Rabb describes Edwin Sandys, a lay politician, as proto-Arminian.[11]

George Abbot suspected William Laud at an early stage of his career of anti-Calvinism; and attempted to block Laud's election as President of St John's College, Oxford. Laud, however, had supporters in the "moderate" group who would later emerge as the recognisable "Durham House" faction, around Richard Neile. The election of Laud was eventually allowed to stand by the king, after much intrigue.[12] Some other heads of houses showed close acquaintance with the Dutch Arminian literature: Jerome Beale, Samuel Brooke, Matthew Wren.[13]

Opponents of Conrad Vorstius, successor to Arminius, led by Sibrandus Lubbertus, communicated with George Abbot. King James issued a pamphlet against Vorstius in 1612; he also recruited Richard Sheldon and William Warmington to write against him.[14] Abbot had anti-Arminian works written, by Sebastian Benefield and Robert Abbot, his brother (In Ricardi Thomsoni Angli-Belgici diatribam, against Thomson); his reception in 1613 of Hugo Grotius, the leading Dutch Arminian intellectual, was chilly (unlike the king's).[15] James chose to back the Huguenot Pierre Du Moulin as a theologian to unify the French Protestants, an opponent of the Arminian Daniel Tilenus, and was successful by the synod at Alès in 1620 in his aims.[16]

The Elizabethan debate was at this time revisited, in the context of the overt religious conflicts and battle lines in the Netherlands. In 1613 Antonius Thysius published Scripta Anglicana, a collection of documents from the Cambridge disputes of the 1590s around Peter Baro.[17] This publication was directed against Remonstrant claims that they had backing from the Church of England's doctrinal formularies; it included works by Baro, Matthew Hutton, Laurence Chaderton, Robert Some, Andrew Willet, George Estye, Whittaker, and Johann Piscator. Johannes Arnoldi Corvinus then disputed the interpretation, and pointed out that King James I had refused to put the resulting Lambeth Articles on the same footing as the Thirty-Nine Articles.[18] Thomson's Diatriba, which had anticipated some arguments of Petrus Bertius in De sanctorum apostasia problemata duo (1610), was also finally published (Leiden, 1616), through the good offices of John Overall.[3]

In pursuit of wider aims of Protestant reconciliation (within Calvinism, and between Calvinists and Lutherans), James I both promoted the importance of the Synod of Dort (1618) by sending a learned delegation, and approved of its conclusions. He was prepared at that point to allow the Remonstrant (Arminian) teaching to be written off as a return of Pelagianism. On the other hand, James wished the Synod's conclusions to close down the debate on the specific theological points involved: particularly on predestination. As far as his own kingdom of England was concerned, he issued instructions via George Abbot in 1622 suggesting restrictions on preaching, on the topics involved, and a moderate approach.[19]

In 1624, a thitherto obscure Cambridge scholar, Richard Montagu, obtained royal permission to publish A New Gagg for an Old Goose. The book was framed as a rebuttal of a Catholic critique of the Church of England. In response, Montagu argued that the Calvinist positions objected to were held only by a small, Puritan minority in the Church of England, and that the majority of clergy in the Church of England rejected high Calvinism.

Laudianism, the programme of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to shape the Church of England in terms of liturgy, discipline, and polity, has only with difficulty been equated by historians with the operation of an actual Arminian faction in the Church of England. In the factional church disputes under Charles I, however, this was certainly a common accusation.

What has been called a "liberal" Arminianism, distinct from Laudianism, emerged in the 1630s in the circle around Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland.[22] Given the involvement in this group of clerics who would hold important bishoprics after 1660, most obviously Gilbert Sheldon, this strand of Arminianism has been seen as significant for the tradition of the Church of England in the longer term.

A writer of a previous generation, Richard Hooker, was used by Laudians to supply a basis for their arguments in debate, in particular with the king. His Ecclesiastical Polity supplied arguments on justification, less individualistic than the Calvinistic norm; and these were adopted by John Cosin in his Collection of Private Devotions.[23] On the other hand, modern scholars generally regard Hooker as a theologian within the internationalist Reformed mainstream.[24]

David Owen from Anglesey was one "proto-Arminian" who both advocated the divine right of kings, and regarded Hooker's works as supporting it. His works were brought back into print two decades after his death in 1623.[23][25] Of the two most notorious clerical supporters of royal prerogative of the reign of Charles I, Robert Sibthorpe at least had Arminian associations (with Owen and others in the diocese of Peterborough); while Roger Maynwaring did not.[26]