A Brief History of English Puritanism and the Westminster Assembly, Part 3

At the turn of the 17th century a liberalizing trend began in the Calvinistic Dutch church, more or less instigated by the writings of James Arminius. For about fifteen years a controversy over doctrine brewed in Holland and this spilled over into England; those who wanted to modify Calvinism in the direction of Arminius's teachings were called the Remonstrant party because they issued a series of "remonstrances" or points of difference with Calvinist soteriology. Although the movement was temporarily suppressed in Holland after the Synod of Dort in 1619, Arminianism found some traction in England and tended to encourage those who sought greater rapport with Rome.

Elizabeth I died childless; her heir was James VI of Scotland, the son of her former rival, Mary Queen of Scots, a man raised in Presbyterian Scotland but with very un-Presbyterian scruples. He developed a concept of the divine right of kings. Episcopacy (church government by bishops) was more compatible with his preferred system of secular government, hence he came to favor a more Roman Catholic expression of the church. "No bishop, no king," was his thought. James vigorously opposed the type of thorough reform proposed by the Puritans. He attempted to exercise absolute authority without regard to Parliament (increasingly a center of Puritan thought and activity) and promoted disregard for Sabbath observance and in general encouraged a moral laxity that outraged the Puritans. His son Charles I inherited the father's absolutist views and even more openly favored Romanism. His chief lieutenant was William Laud, whom he appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, the senior prelate of the English church. Laud was an Anglo-Catholic bigot who in very heavy-handed fashion attempted to blot out Calvinistic Presbyterian influences by enforcing religious uniformity and rigidity. Arminian sympathies within Church of England clergy encouraged all this. But when Charles and Laud attempted to force conformity on the Scottish church a rebellion occurred, with resort to arms to defend threatened liberties.

For the first decade of his reign, Charles had ruled without Parliament but had to call it back into session eventually to get money with which to fight the Scots. However, Parliament was sympathetic to the Scottish cause and opposed Charles and his bishops. War soon broke out between king and Parliament, a war eventually won by Parliament's army led by Oliver Cromwell. The king was deposed and beheaded in 1649. England temporarily became a parliamentary republic.

Tomorrow: The Westminster Assembly and aftermath