Letter to the English Churchman on High Churchmen and Puritans

Dear Sir,

The Rev. John J. Harding's review of 'Wesley and Men who Followed' (EC 7631) was balanced and highly commendable. If I may, I would like to contribute a bit to the whole issue of hyper-Calvinism versus genuine Calvinism. It is one of the greatest ironies of historical theology that the specific doctrinal view on the salvific will of God in relation to the non-elect as held by the 'high churchmen' in the Elizabethan Church and the Caroline divines would come to be shared by the successors of the puritan separatists. Both the 'popish' churchmen and puritans shared a common pastoral concern, including the need to combat antinomianism (a perversion of Reformation theology).

In due time however, the dogmatic significance of the decretive (i.e. predestinating or secret) will of God (based on His foreknowledge) - as understood within puritan circles - would be diminished in favour of His preceptive (i.e. revelatory/revealed) will. The latter term was to be redefined - due to Amyraldian influences within 17th century mainstream Calvinism - and hence misused to mean a divine intention or optative will, co-existing alongside the eternal and unchangeable predestinating will in the essence of the Three Hypostases.

Already such a notion of a two-fold will of God is to be found in Richard Hooker who was no father of 'Anglo-Catholicism' and whose ceremonial views were mild by the standards of Caroline divinity. Churchmen like him represented - at the height of the Predestinarian Consensus of the Reformed English Church during the Elizabethan period - the 'fringe' or minority whereas the disciplinarian archbishop, John Whitgift clearly belonged to the mainstream alongside the moderate puritan William Perkins. Toplady in his 'Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England', though prejudiced against the pre-1662 Laudians (influenced by the account of Peter Heylyn the polemicist), nevertheless was correct in his overall historical assessment which identifies one of the distinctive features of the Lambeth Articles (1595) as positing the desire of God to save only the elect.

The spectrum of theological views within the Church of England was to change drastically with the accession of James 1, with sacramental-minded churchmen like John Overall who were more inclined towards the non-Reformed Protestants, i.e. Lutherans (by then heading in a scholastic direction: essentially, post-Luther Lutheranism as embodied by Lutheran Orthodoxy subsided into a single predestinarian theology) gaining prominence (in tandem with the rise of Reformed scholasticism in Continental Europe which consolidated the double predestinarian system commonly associated with John Calvin). The ecumenical endeavours of the Presbyterian-born King James 1 had already eroded the so-called rigid Calvinism of the mainstream within the Church. More concessions in the interest of reconciliation with the Lutherans at the Synod of Dordt, including also accommodating the views of the Bremen churches - on the sufficiency of the atonement - muddied the theological waters of English Calvinism.

The Caroline divines, notwithstanding the liberal appropriation of medieval scholastic and even Tridentine terminology to express their sacramental theology were mostly single predestinarians and upheld justification by faith alone, in stark contrast to John Wesley (the 18th century high churchman) who despite puritan upbringing denied election (never mind reprobation), conceived justification as purely acquittal from guilt (declarative minus imputation) and was known to have denied the perseverance of the saints (contradicting Articles 11, 16 and 17), in common with Roman Catholicism. Such heterodoxy does not fall, historically speaking - within the broad spectrum of classical Protestantism, notwithstanding Wesley's evangelistic reputation and therefore any ecclesiastical relations with Arminian churches must derogate from the traditional Reformed policy as formulated at the holy ecumenical synod of Dordt (1617-1618).