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Puritanism
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English and early American history, especially in the Protectorate in Great Britain, and the earlier settlement of New England. Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's religious toleration of certain practices associated with the Catholic Church. They formed and identified with various religious groups advocating greater purity of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and corporate piety. Puritans adopted a covenant theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists (as were many of their earlier opponents). In church polity, Puritans were divided between supporters of episcopal, presbyterian ...
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Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divine grace, the priesthood of all believers, and the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The five solae, five ''solae'' summarize the basic theological beliefs of mainstream Protestantism. Protestants follow the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began in the 16th century with the goal of reforming the Catholic Church from perceived Criticism of the Catholic Church, errors, abuses, and discrepancies. The Reformation began in the Holy Roman Empire in 1517, when Martin Luther published his ''Ninety-five Theses'' as a reaction against abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church, which purported to offer the remission of the Purgatory, temporal ...
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Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was a council of Divinity (academic discipline), divines (theologians) and members of the English Parliament appointed from 1643 to 1653 to restructure the Church of England. Several Scots also attended, and the Assembly's work was adopted by the Church of Scotland. As many as 121 ministers were called to the Assembly, with nineteen others added later to replace those who did not attend or could no longer attend. It produced a new Form of Presbyterial Church Government, Form of Church Government, a Westminster Confession of Faith, Confession of Faith or statement of belief, two catechisms or manuals for religious instruction (Westminster Shorter Catechism, Shorter and Westminster Larger Catechism, Larger), and a liturgical manual, the ''Directory for Public Worship'', for the Churches of England and Scotland. The Confession and catechisms were adopted as doctrinal standards in the Church of Scotland and other Presbyterian churches, where they ...
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English Dissenters
English Dissenters or English Separatists were Protestants who separated from the Church of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters and founded their own churches, educational institutions and communities. They tended to see the established church as too Catholic, but did not agree on what should be done about it. Some Dissenters emigrated to the New World, especially to the Thirteen Colonies and Canada. Brownists founded the Plymouth Colony. The English Dissenters played a pivotal role in the religious development of the United States and greatly diversified the religious landscape. They originally agitated for a wide-reaching Protestant Reformation of the established Church of England, and they flourished during the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell. King James I had said "no bishop, no king", emphasising the role of the clergy in justifying royal legitimacy. Cromwell capitalised on that phrase, abol ...
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Congregational Church
Congregationalism (also Congregational Churches or Congregationalist Churches) is a Reformed Christian (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs. These principles are enshrined in the Cambridge Platform (1648) and the Savoy Declaration (1658), Congregationalist confessions of faith. The Congregationalist Churches are a continuity of the theological tradition upheld by the Puritans. Their genesis was through the work of Congregationalist divines Robert Browne, Henry Barrowe, and John Greenwood. In the United Kingdom, the Puritan Reformation of the Church of England laid the foundation for such churches. In England, early Congregationalists were called '' Separatists'' or '' Independents'' to distinguish them from the similarly Calvinistic Presbyterians, whose churches embraced a polity based on the governance of elders; this commitment ...
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English Reformation
The English Reformation began in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away first from the authority of the pope and bishops Oath_of_Supremacy, over the King and then from some doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Reformation: various religious and political movements that affected both the practice of Christianity in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe and relations between church and state. The English Reformation began as more of a political affair than a theological dispute. In 1527 Henry VIII requested an annulment of his marriage, but Pope Clement VII refused. In response, the English Reformation Parliament, Reformation Parliament (1529–1536) passed laws abolishing papal authority in England and declared Henry to be Supreme Head of the Church of England, head of the Church of England. Final authority in doctrinal disputes now rested with the monarch. Though a religious traditionalist hims ...
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Gathered Church
Under Charles I of England, Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church. After the First English Civil War political power was held by various factions of Puritans. The trials and executions of William Laud and then King Charles were decisive moves shaping British history. While in the short term Puritan power was consolidated by the Parliamentary armed forces and Oliver Cromwell, in the same years, the argument for theocracy failed to convince enough of the various groupings, and there was no Puritan religious settlement to match Cromwell's gradual assumption of dictatorial powers. The distinctive formulation of Reformed theology in the Westminster Assembly would prove to be it ...
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Calvinists
Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism, is a major branch of Protestantism that began during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. In the modern day, it is largely represented by the Continental Reformed Christian, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Waldensians traditions, as well as parts of the Methodist, Anglican (known as "Episcopal" in some regions) and Baptist traditions. Reformed theology emphasizes the authority of the Bible and the sovereignty of God, as well as covenant theology, a framework for understanding the Bible based on God's covenants with people. Reformed churches emphasize simplicity in worship. Several forms of ecclesiastical polity are exercised by Reformed churches, including presbyterian, congregational, and some episcopal. Articulated by John Calvin, the Reformed faith holds to a spiritual (pneumatic) presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper. Emerging in the 16th century, the Reformed tradition developed over several generations, esp ...
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Covenant Theology
Covenant theology (also known as covenantalism, federal theology, or federalism) is a biblical theology, a conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall structure of the Bible. It is often distinguished from dispensational theology, a competing form of biblical theology. It uses the theological concept of a covenant as an organizing principle for Christian theology. The standard form of covenant theology views the history of God's dealings with mankind, from Creation to Fall to Redemption to Consummation, under the framework of three overarching theological covenants: those of redemption, of works, and of grace. Covenentalists call these three covenants "theological" because, though not explicitly presented as such in the Bible, they are thought of as theologically implicit, describing and summarizing a wealth of scriptural data. Historical Reformed systems of thought treat classical covenant theology not merely as a point of doctrine or ...
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Stuart Restoration
The Stuart Restoration was the reinstatement in May 1660 of the Stuart monarchy in Kingdom of England, England, Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland, and Kingdom of Ireland, Ireland. It replaced the Commonwealth of England, established in January 1649 after the execution of Charles I, with his son Charles II of England, Charles II. The Commonwealth of England had been governed by Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell and then his son Richard Cromwell. The term is also used to describe the reign of Charles II (1660–1685), and sometimes that of his younger brother King James II, James II (1685–1688). The Protectorate After Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector from 1658 to 1659, ceded power to the Rump Parliament, Charles Fleetwood and John Lambert (general), John Lambert then dominated government for a year. On 20 October 1659, George Monck, the governor of Scotland under the Cromwells, marched south with his army from Scotland to oppose Fleetwood and Lambert. Lambert's a ...
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First English Civil War
The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point between 1639 and 1653, while around 4% of the total population died from war-related causes. These figures illustrate the widespread impact of the conflict on society, and the bitterness it engendered as a result. Conflict over the role of Parliament and religious practice dated from the accession of James VI and I in 1603. These tensions culminated in the imposition of Personal Rule in 1629 by his son, Charles I, who recalled Parliament in April and November 1640. He hoped by doing so to obtain funding that would enable him to reverse his defeat by Scots Covenanters in the Bishops' Wars, but in return Parliament demanded a greater share in government than he was willing to concede. In its early stages, the vast majority on both sides s ...
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Church Of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, tradition, with foundational doctrines being contained in the ''Thirty-nine Articles'' and ''The Books of Homilies''. The Church traces its history to the Christian hierarchy recorded as existing in the Roman Britain, Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kingdom of Kent, Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Its members are called ''Anglicans''. In 1534, the Church of England renounced the authority of the Papacy under the direction of Henry VIII, beginning the English Reformation. The guiding theologian that shaped Anglican doctrine was the Reformer Thomas Cranmer, who developed the Church of England's liturgical text, the ''Book of Common Prayer''. Papal authority was Second Statute of ...
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Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Presbyterian'' is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that were formed during the English Civil War, 1642 to 1651. Presbyterian theology typically emphasises the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace through faith in Christ. Scotland ensured Presbyterian church government in the 1707 Acts of Union, which created the Kingdom of Great Britain. In fact, most Presbyterians in England have a Scottish connection. The Presbyterian denomination was also taken to North America, Australia, and New Zealand, mostly by Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants. Scotland's Presbyterian denominations hold to the Reformed theology of John Calvin and his ...
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