[xzins]

This is new to me....I thought you all were always proud of Cromwell.

Good factoid for the day.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

This is new to me....I thought you all were always proud of Cromwell. Good factoid for the day.

My feelings towards Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell are ambivalent.

On the one hand, Cromwell was instrumental in ending the Arminian Reign of Terror promulgated by the Jesuit-Arminian Archbishop Laud, a dark and vicious period of English history during which Royalist Arminians murdered and persecuted Calvinist Christians throughout the British Isles so ruthlessly that many British Calvinists fled the motherland for the American Colonies (which, providentially, ultimately resulted in "The Presbyterian Rebellion" in the Colonies -- i.e., the American Revolution and the founding of our United States of America).

I will reserve in advance that I'm certainly not saying that all Arminians seek to instigate a Jesuit-friendly Reign of Terror against Calvinist Christians, or that such a motivation is a necessary component of Arminian theonomy; but I will state that, historically, Archbishop Laud's brand of Jesuit-supported Arminianism in Great Britain directly advanced such horrors -- in other words, it is what the Arminians ACTUALLY DID, when they had the Political Power to do so -- and I think it Right that Cromwell and his associates finally tried and executed the malevolent and hate-filled Archbishop Laud for his genocidal Arminian "Crimes against Humanity" (to use a modern, Nuremberg-inspired phrase).

Ergo, I will never deny Lord Protector Cromwell his rightful place in the history of Christian Liberty, for helping to overthrow the British Arminian Reign of Terror.

On the other hand, Oliver Cromwell, "the Great Independent", rejected the Presbyterian-Conciliar (i.e., "republican") form of Church Governance recommended by John Calvin, in favor of the Independent-Congregational form of Governance (i.e., "democratic"). To Cromwell, the Presbyterians were simply Useful Allies against the tyrannical Jesuit-Arminian-Royalist Complex of King Charles and Archbishop Laud.

And in rejecting the Conciliar Authority of Presbyterianism, Cromwell became a Law unto himself.

As I said... my feelings regarding Cromwell are ambivalent.