‘Pelagian and Popish opinions’: William Barrett

While those who wished for further reform did not have everything their own way, Cambridge was unquestionably in the grip of a self-consciously godly group. This group shared a commitment to a reformed orthodoxy that was tolerant of some variety of expression and they all hated Rome and all her works. They longed for a greater purity of faith and looked to continental reformed theologians like Calvin, Beza and Zanchius for guidance. Whatever their differences of opinion they fixed their attention on the doctrines of assurance and perseverance. Theology was not just an academic discipline for them, it was the study of how we might be saved, and the first concern of the faithful. It mattered to them fundamentally to know their place in God's scheme of things and they craved certainty. A man like Lancelot Andrewes, who suggested a different stress and a different practice, was unusual and isolated. Cambridge knew what orthodoxy was and the arbiters of opinion were confident. Then, on 29 April 1595, William Barrett, the chaplain of Caius, put the cat among the pigeons.

Barrett's fame rests on a sermon preached in Great St Mary's. The sermon was an attack on the doctrine of assurance. Assurance teaches that God's decrees are sure and transparent. If God elects you to salvation it is no secret, you can know that you are elect and rejoice. Barrett argued that no one could be certain of ‘the time to come’ and that salvation and reprobation rested not upon solid and secure divine decrees but on the more fickle foundations of human holiness or sinfulness, sin being ‘the true, proper and first cause of reprobation’. The idea that the elect could be confident of their status was characterised by Barrett as both proud and impious. He pressed the point, recognising that if no one could be certain of their election, no one could be sure that their sins were forgiven. Forgiveness, he argued, was an article of faith, but not something ‘belonging to this man nor to that man’. There was no secure and superior faith.

Thus far the preacher had merely provided a vigorous critique of the prevailing theological conversation. Rashly, Barrett then heaped insult on injury by accusing Calvin of arrogance and by attacking Peter Martyr, Beza, Zanchius, Junius and others, describing them as ‘Calvinists’.