Cromwellian Calvinism

Abstract

When England’s Parliament rejected enforced Presbyterian conformity in 1648, it was because English Calvinism was never comfortable with elevating polity to a matter of confession. During the Interregnum (1649–1660) former Westminster divines (led by the now ascendant Congregationalists) sought to define orthodoxy for Oliver Cromwell’s state church. They tried repeatedly to strike a balance between enforcing confessional subscription for parish ministers, while still allowing a limited accommodation for those who could not or who would not submit—provided they did not preach or publish against those statements of faith. In the face of growing sectarianism, each confessional attempt saw an increasingly robust (and thus restrictive) Calvinism culminating in the last confession of the Puritan era, the Savoy Declaration.