How Did The Rise Of Arminianism

Lake’s assertion that religious conflict in early Stuart England being the result of a pursuit of traditional conformity by the Puritans holds true to a large extent. It should not, however, go as far as to proclaim that there was no ‘rise of Arminianism’ as there was indeed an ostensible influx of Arminianism during the reign of Charles I. Arminianism did burgeoned under the policies of Charles I and innovations William Laud took with the Church. However, with or without the antagonistic ideological differences of Arminianism and Calvinism, there was always the constant seeking of reforms by the Puritans for a more traditional Church, to move as far away from Catholicism as possible. The introduction of Arminianism merely ‘created a politically
assertive Puritanism'. Hence, I would assert that while there was a definitely a rise in Arminianism, it was the very nature of the Puritans that resulted in the religious frictions of early Stuart England. The accession of James I in 1603 saw the Millenary Petition brought forward to his attention by the ‘Puritans’. Puritanism, at that time was seen as ‘either of a refusal to conform with the religious rites and ceremonies of the English Church, or as a Presbyterian rejection of church government by bishops’. The petition was sought for reforms, especially in the case of the Prayer Book. Evidently, despite the hopeful delusion that ‘Calvinist predestinarians ideas provided “a common and ameliorating bond” ’ , where everyone, regardless of religious slants, would accept the same practices advocated, that notion of a Calvinist consensus is instantly shattered when the Puritans started seeking for reforms in the direction of a more traditional form of Calvinism. A Calvinist consensus, to quote Peter Lake, ‘does not necessarily imply that all the English who regarded themselves as Protestant in the period before 1625 were explicitly Calvinist’. Amongst the Protestants were factions, some of them more willing than others to conform to the religious practices espoused by the Church. The presence of a section of nonconformists was a potential avenue for conflict, no matter how subdued and tolerant the Puritans claimed to be in term of their request for reforms. Moreover, the difference was not simply one that was divided in opinions on how popish the church practices were, that the conformist were more lenient in their accommodation of practices compared to their Puritan counterparts, who were strongly adverse to any semblance of Catholicism in their church. The conformists and the Puritans were, by nature, Calvinist. And while all Calvinists believed in the concept of predestination, the idea that everyone is predestined by god and divided into either elect or reprobate, divisions in the type of predestination that they adhered to could be observed. ‘Not everyone who acted outwardly in a similar way shared identical thought patterns’ . Just because they were practising Calvinist in no way meant that they read and understood predestination in the same way. This divergence of predestination was the key foundation for conflict, as predestination was the ‘one issue on which the most moderate and careerist of traditional Protestants found it hard to compromise.’ At this point, even without Arminianism to challenge the notion of predestination, the seeds for conflict could already be sowed by the Calvinist themselves through the differing takes on predestination. The two distinct branches of predestination that emerged were the experimental predestinarians and the credal predestinarians.
The former was very conscious in their efforts of identifying who amongst them is elected by god, believing that they could do so through a series of experiments. The credal predestinarians, however, ‘had no impulse to take the doctrine into the popular pulpit or to derive a view of the Christian community from it’. They did not and could not actively seek out other elects. What this suggests is that experimental predestinarians and their methods of determining the elects from the reprobates, could potentially lead to the destruction of the Church should they start to ostracise members that they deemed to be destined for hell. It implied that the experimental predestinarians, would end up distancing themselves from the church, unwilling to conform. The Calvinist themselves could not find common ground on the one belief that was supposed to bring them together. The cause of the religious conflicts were thus stemmed from the Puritans’ own pursuit of traditional conformity away from those that had becoming willing to conform. The influx of Arminianism merely channelled the religious distaste that the Puritans had into a political arena where the Puritans used their presence as an excuse to impose greater
reforms. Certainly, the crowning of Charles I did little to mitigate the religious conflict. The new monarch’s ‘religious views were characterized principally by a theological alternative to Calvinist predestinarianism.’ If under the Calvinist James I , the Puritans were already seeking for more reforms to impose a more traditional Calvinist church, having a king with Arminian tendencies would be an even greater source of conflict. Arminianism was an extension of Catholicism in practice, but the most prominent difference between Arminianism and Calvinism was that ‘the essence of Arminianism was a belief in God’s universal grace and the freewill of all men to obtain salvation’, which went against everything predestinarians preached. It was during this time as well, that the term Puritans evolved into an entity to include both the nonconformist and the conformist. Charles I’s marriage to Henrietta Marie, a French and more crucially, Catholic princess in 1624, while was financially driven, provided a cause of worry for the Calvinist in the church of England in the form of an apprehension that the new monarch might be influenced by Catholicism and as a result implement changes to the Church that were anti-Calvinist.
A series of actions and changes Charles I took such as placing the Arminian Richard Montagu under his own personal protection and empowerment and trust placed in William Laud only made it clearer that the monarch was sympathising with Arminianism. The attempted imposition of an Arminian prayer book in England and Scotland further fuelled fears that the Church would become increasingly Arminian. In 1633, Laud, who had just assumed the title of Archbishop of Canterbury months ago, managed to convince Charles I in establishing the ‘precedent that all parochial churches should follow the by then cathedral practice of placing communion table altar wise at the east end of chancels’ via the privy council. Such was the demonstration of popish practices that the Calvinists loathed. Hence, there was definitely a pronounced rise in Arminianism under Charles I and the extent of its impact on the religious frictions happening in early Stuart England should not be overlooked as it definitely created more tension and worry amongst the Calvinists. It was such extreme changes that radicalised Puritanism, bringing about a more wanton
pursuit for a traditional Calvinist Church, giving up any ideas of conforming or seeking the ‘ameliorating bond’. There was simply no place for any minor compromise as they saw it as an attack on their doctrine of predestination.