Reformed theology in the Church of England

In the years after the English Reformation the Church of England was part of Reformed Christianity.^[1]

Archbishop John Whitgift of Canterbury, a prominent Calvinist

39 Articles

During the reign of Edward VI, Henry VIII's son, the Forty-two Articles were written in 1552 under the direction of the Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who was moderately Calvinist.^[2] It was in this document that Calvinist thought reached the zenith of its influence in the English Church. These articles were never put into action, owing to Edward VI's death and the reversion of the English Church to Catholicism under Henry VIII's elder daughter, Mary I. The Elizabethan Thirty-Nine Articles affirmed a number of Calvinist views,^[3] although also borrowing some Lutheran language.^[4]

Puritans

As with Lutheranism, the Church of England retained more elements of Catholicism such as bishops and vestments, than any other part of the Reformed world.^[5] It was thus sometimes being called "but halfly Reformed" or a middle way between Lutheranism and Reformed Christianity, being closer liturgically to the former and theologically aligned with the latter.^[6] Beginning in the 17th century, Anglicanism broadened to the extent that Reformed theology is no longer the sole dominant theology of Anglicanism.^[7]

There was a Puritan reaction within Anglicanism that although in the reign of Elizabeth I aimed mostly at perceived retained Catholic practices in worship (many of which were in Cathedrals), although there was also some opposition to Bishops.

The Stuarts

When James I, who was already king of Presbyterian Scotland and raised a Calvinist, arrived in London to take become King of England, the Puritan clergy presented him with the Millenary Petition, allegedly signed by a thousand English clergy, to abolish items such as wedding rings as "outward badges of Popish errours".^[8][9] James, however, equated English Puritans with Scottish Presbyterians and, after banning religious petitions, told the Hampton Court Conference of 1604 that he preferred the status quo^[10] with the monarch ruling the church through the bishops saying that if bishops were put out of power, "I know what would become of my supremacy, No bishop, no King. When I mean to live under a presbytery I will go to Scotland again.^[11]

During the reign of Charles I (1625–1649), Calvinist influence within the Church of England became closely associated with the Puritans, who opposed the rise of Laudianism and what they regarded as a drift toward Arminianism and Catholic practices, with both petitions and riots.^[12] Many Calvinist clergy and laypeople supported the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War, and under Puritan dominance the Westminster Assembly (1643–1653) produced the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is still treated as a systematic statement of Reformed Christianity by Calvinist churches, intended to replace the Thirty-nine Articles. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the Act of Uniformity 1662 reimposed episcopal governance and the Book of Common Prayer, leading to the ejection of around 2,000 Calvinist-leaning ministers from the national church in the event known as the Great Ejection.