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Peace, Toleration and Decay

Author: Martin Sutherland

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2007-01-01

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1597527912

Traditional approaches to early Nonconformity have divided its history at the Toleration Act of 1689. The intellectual history of the movement has largely focused on the ideas of Richard Baxter and John Locke. These conventions prevent a full understanding of the disunity and decline of the movement in the early eighteenth century. Continuities across the period and the gradual emergence of themes which would feed into Evangelicalism have been obscured. The rich theological dynamics of Dissent cannot be appreciated without detailed reference to the thought of other contemporary leaders. Among the most important was John Howe (1630-1705). Howe's career stretched from Cromwell to Queen Anne. His irenic ecclesiology shaped the response to toleration and influenced key leaders in the decades following his death. Crucial shifts in Nonconformist thinking may be traced in his writings and those of his successors, such as Calamy, Watts, and Doddridge. As a result, the significance of the division at Salters' Hall in 1719 becomes clearer. This study reexamines a neglected strand of Nonconformist thought and proposes a new understanding of later Stuart Dissent. The distinct characteristics of the movement are freshly defined and Dissent is situated in historical continuity between Puritanism and early Evangelicalism. The monograph thus provides a scholarly reinterpretation of an important group in a crucial period of English history. The themes that emerge inform the wider study of English ecclesiology and political theory under the Tudors and Stuarts.

James Owen and the Defense of Moderate Nonconformity

Author: Jason Matossian

Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Published: 2022-01-17

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 3647560480

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The period of Revolution and Toleration in England was filled with rapid change, political uncertainty, and ecclesiastical volatility. Still recovering from the strife of Civil War and a divisive Restoration, the relationship between the Church of England and Nonconformists remained deeply strained. Although Dissenters were granted the right to gather for worship under Toleration, their legitimacy was regularly challenged. Within this context, a variety of significant controversies arose in which James Owen, a Welsh Presbyterian minister, played a prominent role and was a leading voice for moderate Nonconformity. Along with a group of moderate Nonconformist friends like Edmund Calamy, Philip and Matthew Henry, and Francis Tallents, Owen defended a version of Protestant ecumenism. This was a theological conviction that (1) the unity of the Protestant Church was indispensable and (2) this unity was to be found in agreement on essential doctrines, not in sharing ecclesiastical structures. Owen, along with his associates, defended the Dissenters' separation from the Church of England as biblically sanctioned and at the same time emphasized that such separation was not schismatic. Owen's clear, biblically articulate, and historically informed writing made his contribution to the period of Toleration significant and influential.

Andrew Fuller’s Theology of Revival

Author: Ryan Rindels

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2021-01-21

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1725282887

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Revival is the arguable heartbeat of evangelical Christianity. Though a theologically diverse and globally diffused phenomenon, evangelicalism originated in a distinctly Calvinistic milieu. Many Puritans in the seventeenth century, "evangelicals before the revivals," emphasized the work of the Holy Spirit, including the importance of personal conversion. Unlike theologically Arminian proponents of revival such as Charles G. Finney, many Puritans and early evangelicals believed and taught that the absolute sovereignty of God was compatible with human responsibility. Calvinistic Baptists in the early eighteenth century who rejected this tension declined numerically, yet a new generation of pastors led their denomination through this impasse. Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) defended Reformed doctrine in the Particular Baptist tradition while emphasizing the importance of human response in his preaching, writing, and fundraising for the Baptist Missionary Society. The fruit of Fuller's ministry included growth of churches in England, conversions among people groups in the Global South, and the preservation of Reformed theology in a challenging Enlightenment context.

Milton & Toleration

Author: Sharon Achinstein

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2007-08-02

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 0191537837

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Locating John Milton's works in national and international contexts, and applying a variety of approaches from literary to historical, philosophical, and postcolonial, Milton and Toleration offers a wide-ranging exploration of how Milton's visions of tolerance reveal deeper movements in the history of the imagination. Milton is often enlisted in stories about the rise of toleration: his advocacy of open debate in defending press freedoms, his condemnation of persecution, and his criticism of ecclesiastical and political hierarchies have long been read as milestones on the road to toleration. However, there is also an intolerant Milton, whose defence of religious liberty reached only as far as Protestants. This book of sixteen essays by leading scholars analyses tolerance in Milton's poetry and prose, examining the literary means by which tolerance was questioned, observed, and became an object of meditation. Organized in three parts, 'Revising Whig Accounts,' 'Philosophical Engagements,' 'Poetry and Rhetoric,' the contributors, including leading Milton scholars from the USA, Canada, and the UK, address central toleration issues including heresy, violence, imperialism, republicanism, Catholicism, Islam, church community, liberalism, libertinism, natural law, legal theory, and equity. A pan-European perspective is presented through analysis of Milton's engagement with key figures and radical groups. All of Milton's major works are given an airing, including prose and poetry, and the book suggests that Milton's writings are a significant medium through which to explore the making of modern ideas of tolerance.

Giles Firmin and the Transatlantic Puritan Tradition

Author: Jonathan Warren Pagán

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-08-17

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9004430059

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A book on the life and writings of Giles Firmin (1613/14–1697), situating him in the intellectual milieu of late seventeenth century puritanism.

Philip Doddridge and the Shaping of Evangelical Dissent

Author: Robert Strivens

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-03

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1317081242

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Evangelical Dissent in the early eighteenth century had to address a variety of intellectual challenges. How reliable was the Bible? Was traditional Christian teaching about God, humanity, sin and salvation true? What was the role of reason in the Christian faith? Philip Doddridge (1702-51) pastored a sizeable evangelical congregation in Northampton, England, and ran a training academy for Dissenters which prepared men for pastoral ministry. Philip Doddridge and the Shaping of Evangelical Dissent examines his theology and philosophy in the context of these and other issues of his day and explores the leadership that he provided in evangelical Dissent in the first half of the eighteenth century. Offering a fresh look at Doddridge’s thought, the book provides a criticial examination of the accepted view that Doddridge was influenced in his thinking primarily by Richard Baxter and John Locke. Exploring the influence of other streams of thought, from John Owen and other Puritan writers to Samuel Clarke and Isaac Watts, as well as interaction with contemporaries in Dissent, the book shows Doddridge to be a leader in, and shaper of, an evangelical Dissent which was essentially Calvinistic in its theology, adapted to the contours and culture of its times.

Enlightening enthusiasm

Author: Lionel Laborie

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2015-10-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1784996637

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In the early modern period, the term ‘enthusiasm’ was a smear word used to discredit the dissenters of the radical Reformation as dangerous religious fanatics. In England, the term gained prominence from the Civil War period and throughout the eighteenth century. Anglican ministers and the proponents of the Enlightenment used it more widely against Paracelsian chemists, experimental philosophers, religious dissenters and divines, astrologers or anyone claiming superior knowledge. But who exactly were these enthusiasts? What did they believe in and what impact did they have on their contemporaries? This book concentrates on the notorious case of the French Prophets as the epitome of religious enthusiasm in early Enlightenment England. Based on new archival research, it retraces the formation, development and evolution of their movement and sheds new light on key contemporary issues such as millenarianism, censorship and the press, blasphemy, dissent and toleration, and madness.

John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity

Author: Tim Cooper

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-06

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1317110463

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John Owen (1616-1683) and Richard Baxter (1615-1691) were both pivotal figures in shaping the nonconformist landscape of Restoration England. Yet despite having much in common, they found themselves taking opposite sides in several important debates, and their relationship was marked by acute strain and mutual dislike. By comparing and contrasting the parallel careers of these two men, this book not only distils the essence of their differing theology, it also offers a broader understanding of the formation of English nonconformity. Placing these two figures in the context of earlier events, experience and differences, it argues that Restoration nonconformity was hampered by their strained personal relationship, which had its roots in their contrasting experiences of the English Civil War. This study thus contributes to historiography that explores the continuities across seventeenth-century England, rather than seeing a divide at 1660. It illustrates the way in which personality and experience shaped the development of wider movements.

Insular Christianity

Author: Robert Armstrong

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2024-06-04

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1526183773

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This collection of essays on the alternative establishments which both Presbyterians and Catholics attempted to create in Britain and Ireland offers a dynamic new perspective on the evolution of post-reformation religious communities. Deriving from the Insular Christianity project in Dublin, the book combines essays by some of the leading scholars in the field with work by brilliant and upcoming researchers. The contributions, all of which were commissioned, range from synoptic essays which fill in gaps in the existing historiography to tightly coherent research essays that break new ground with regard to a series of central institutional and intellectual issues and problems. This is a book which will appeal to all those interested in the religious history of early modern Britain and Ireland.

John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity

Author: Dr Tim Cooper

Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Published: 2013-07-28

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1409482650

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John Owen (1616–1683) and Richard Baxter (1615–1691) were both pivotal figures in shaping the nonconformist landscape of Restoration England. Yet despite having much in common, they found themselves taking opposite sides in several important debates, and their relationship was marked by acute strain and mutual dislike. By comparing and contrasting the parallel careers of these two men, this book not only distils the essence of their differing theology, it also offers a broader understanding of the formation of English nonconformity. Placing these two figures in the context of earlier events, experience and differences, it argues that Restoration nonconformity was hampered by their strained personal relationship, which had its roots in their contrasting experiences of the English Civil War. This study thus contributes to historiography that explores the continuities across seventeenth-century England, rather than seeing a divide at 1660. It illustrates the way in which personality and experience shaped the development of wider movements.