The puritan John Goodwin and episcopalian Henry Hammond displayed remarkable fecundity and sophistication in their diverse formulations of Arminian soteriology. Considered as representatives of broader intellectual trends, these divines provide some important insights regarding the shape of English Arminianism during the 1650s.

Firstly, English Arminians utilized a wide range of intellectual sources and displayed surprising levels of catholicity. Both Goodwin and Hammond drew upon the early modern synthesis of patristic, medieval and Reformation sources, along with the methodologies of scholasticism and Renaissance humanism. Their works cited a wide range of intellectual sources, which as van Asselt notes, did not equate to being ‘eclectic’ but was an intentional display of catholicity and orthodoxy. Regarding post-Reformation sources, for tactical reasons Goodwin largely appealed to luminaries from the Reformed tradition, whereas Hammond sought the patronage of anti-Calvinist episcopalians. However, as a puritan, Goodwin also borrowed openly from Catholic sources, including Iberian neo-Scholastics. In Redemption Redeemed, Goodwin drew on the ‘acute’ insights of the Franciscan bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo, Francisco D’Arriba, and liberally cited his Operis Conciliatorii, Gratiae et Liberi Arbitrii (1622). In Triumviri, Goodwin defended himself against the attacks of Henry Jeanes by citing several ‘Schoolmen and Papists’, including D’Arriba, Aquinas and the Jesuit Francisco Suarez. Ironically, Goodwin assumed Suarez to be a credible reference in his debate with a fellow puritan and concluded, ‘if Mr. Jeanes be of Suarez minde … he is of mine also’.

This open recourse to post-Reformation Catholic scholastics serves as a corrective to common assumptions that English puritans, unlike ‘Anglicans’, only appropriated Protestant sources. In fact, whilst Goodwin openly cited Suarez, it was Hammond who appeared to disguise him as John Overall. Consequently, ‘the dividing line is not to be drawn between Reformed or Protestant and Catholic, but between different positions, which can be found in both Protestant and Catholic theologians’. The sources and arguments deployed by Goodwin and Hammond spanned the length and breadth of the Western tradition as they consciously situated themselves with regard to Augustine and other shared reference points within medieval and early modern traditions.