The fracturing church

The two decades before the Civil War (1642-1649) were a time of multiple religious views in England. The Church of England had been increasingly Calvinistic in its doctrine and practices since the turn of the 17th century. With Archbishop William Laud (1633-1645) this changed. Calvinist doctrine and worship were challenged by Laud’s Arminianism.

Arminianism was nothing new in England. Since the Reformation there had been a minority of dissenters in England, generally called Lutherans, who did not hold Calvinist doctrine; by Laud’s time they had been given a name Arminian after the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (d. 1609). The political power needed to alter the course for Arminians came with the succession of Charles I (1625-1649), and the final change occurred with Archbishop Laud. Laud started to reform the Church according to Arminian ideas.

Despite differences in doctrine and worship between Calvinists and Arminians, the Church remained fairly united. The controversy between the two sides was expressed mainly in the political field. In Parliament, the question was among other things about the governing of the Church, which also created factions among the Calvinists who were now called Puritans by the Laudian side. This in part led to the Civil War, when for a while Calvinism was once again dominant.

However, a growing number of people were leaving the Church and forming their own separate congregations, at first in secret and later more openly. One option was offered from the early 1640s onward by the Baptists. Operating in England in two different and rivalling groups, the Particular Baptists and the General Baptists, they gained growing support. Both groups were essentially Calvinist in their doctrine, but General Baptists rejected the orthodox Calvinist view that Christ died to save only the pre-Elected few for the belief in the potential of all to be saved, thus offering a real alternative to Puritanism.

Dissatisfaction with existing forms of worship drove people into religious seeking. Seekers had tried all existing forms of worship within the Church, but had not found what they were looking for. During the Civil War, when official control was looser, religious seeking was very common throughout the country, but especially in the North. Seekers would form loose congregations or wander from group to group, trying to find solutions to their religious troubles.

The multitude of groups with the same background meant that actual differences between sects were not always obvious. Some differences diminished or disappeared as people moved from one sect to another or when groups merged together. On the other hand, the members of the sects came from various social backgrounds and had different political interests and attitudes, making it difficult to establish coherence within a sect.

Consequently, it was not always easy for people outside the sects to distinguish the different groups. The two groups of English Baptists, for instance, differed in their doctrine and their church ordinances, but most contemporaries failed to recognise the distinction. Thus the sects were thought to be the same and were treated as such, especially by legislators and Justices.

For the members of a given sect, however, it was essential to define their group as apart from others. Peoples’ souls were at stake, and each group felt it to be their responsibility to show others the right way – their way – to redemption.

A catalogue of the sects in England, 1647.