ABSTRACT
The rigid doctrine of predestination that developed from Augustine through to John Calvin and Theodore Beza met with strident opposition in the person and works of Jacob Arminius (1559–1609). Arminius’s ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ outlined a different approach to predestination and argued that the Augustinian-Calvinist formulation was neither a biblically nor historically accurate expression of God’s decree. Arminius’s works were disseminated widely and found fertile soil in England where similar anti-Calvinist dissent had already fomented. The foundational documents of the English Reformation therefore sought to accommodate the rival factions of ‘Calvinism’ and ‘Arminianism.’ The result was a state-church to which both convicted Calvinists and ardent Arminians could be faithful; not without disputing and discord amongst the rival groups, however. At the time of George Whitefield and John Wesley, predestination was a doctrine with a kind of ‘sanctioned dispute’ within the church. These conditions created the possibility of developing rival societies within the same ecclesiastical body, but with widely divergent interpretations of predestination.
