Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c. 1590-1640 (Oxford Historical Monographs)

About this book

Anti-Calvinists traces the rise of Arminianism from Elizabethan times and argues that the subsequent proscription of Calvinism in the 1620s was a major cause of the civil war that broke out in 1642. As Arminianism triumphed under Charles I it rekindled Puritan opposition to the established church. The theological dispute between Arminianism and Calvinism--Arminianism promoting the role of the sacraments and the grace they conferred and Calvinism focusing on the grace of predestination--assumed greater significance as a struggle for control of the church itself. A provocative reinterpretation of the divisions of the Church of England this work throws new light on the origins of the civil war and the role played by religious rivalry.