Calvinism among Seventeenth-Century English Puritans

This chapter considers the broad historical and intellectual developments that contributed to the ‘crisis of Calvinism’ in seventeenth-century England and examines how the Puritans responded and adapted to those changes. Put simply, they could abandon, moderate, or defend Calvinism. The specific example of John Owen and Richard Baxter is used to illustrate some of the mechanisms at work in this process of adaptation. Alarmed by growing Arminianism and Socinianism, Owen tried to shore up Calvinism; alarmed by Antinomianism, Baxter modified his Calvinism to incorporate a place for conditions and human agency in the process of salvation. An abbreviated survey of each man’s career will demonstrate how personal experience and historical contingency can shape doctrinal perspectives, and how they played a part in the decline of Calvinism even among the English Puritans.