Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England

Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England
Author: Martin I.J. Griffin Jr
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 225
Release: 1992-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004246819

The Latitudinarians, a group of prominent clergymen in the late seventeenth-century Church of England, were articulate opponents of Anglicanism's intellectual foes. Against the challenges of Hobbism, Spinozism, Deism, scepticism, and Roman Catholicism, they presented a body of thought emphasizing reason in religion and practical morality over credal speculation. Their theology was designed to combat 'practical atheism' and their sermons stressed that the chief design of Christianity was 'to make men good.' They advocated an alliance of religion and science, and were early participants in the Royal Society. In preaching, they developed a simpler sermon style influential for English prose. As an important part of the Anglican Church at the time of the Glorious Revolution, they helped in drafting the Revolution Settlement, the seedbed, in Macaulay's words, of subsequent personal liberties. This definition and analysis of Latitudinarianism was completed by the late Martin Griffin in 1962 and has been updated since his death in 1988 by Professor Richard H. Popkin.

The English Church in the Seventeenth Century (Classic Reprint)

The English Church in the Seventeenth Century (Classic Reprint)
Author: C. Sydney Carter
Publisher: Forgotten Books
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2017-12-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780484338448

Excerpt from The English Church in the Seventeenth Century Thus, when Elizabeth required the clergy to wear the surplice,2 which could not reasonably be considered as symbolical of any corrupt doctrine, the Puritans persistently refused to conform. They objected also to the reverent attitude of kneeling at Communion, to the sign of the cross in baptism, and the ring in marriage. They had, however, no quarrel with the doctrinal views of the Reformers, and although some of them favoured a Presbyterian rather than an Episcopal form of Church government, the vast majority were content to serve under the latter. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Church of England and Christian Antiquity

The Church of England and Christian Antiquity
Author: Jean-Louis Quantin
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2009-02-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191565342

Today, the statement that Anglicans are fond of the Fathers and keen on patristic studies looks like a platitude. Like many platitudes, it is much less obvious than one might think. Indeed, it has a long and complex history. Jean-Louis Quantin shows how, between the Reformation and the last years of the Restoration, the rationale behind the Church of England's reliance on the Fathers as authorities on doctrinal controversies, changed significantly. Elizabethan divines, exactly like their Reformed counterparts on the Continent, used the Church Fathers to vindicate the Reformation from Roman Catholic charges of novelty, but firmly rejected the authority of tradition. They stressed that, on all questions controverted, there was simply no consensus of the Fathers. Beginning with the 'avant-garde conformists' of early Stuart England, the reference to antiquity became more and more prominent in the construction of a new confessional identity, in contradistinction both to Rome and to Continental Protestants, which, by 1680, may fairly be called 'Anglican'. English divines now gave to patristics the very highest of missions. In that late age of Christianity - so the idea ran - now that charisms had been withdrawn and miracles had ceased, the exploration of ancient texts was the only reliable route to truth. As the identity of the Church of England was thus redefined, its past was reinvented. This appeal to the Fathers boosted the self-confidence of the English clergy and helped them to surmount the crises of the 1650s and 1680s. But it also undermined the orthodoxy that it was supposed to support.

Church Life

Church Life
Author: Michael Davies
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2019-05-16
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0191067474

Church Life: Pastors, Congregations, and the Experience of Dissent in Seventeenth-Century England addresses the rich, complex, and varied nature of 'church life' experienced by England's Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians during the seventeenth century. Spanning the period from the English Revolution to the Glorious Revolution, and beyond, the contributors examine the social, political, and religious character of England's 'gathered' churches and reformed parishes: how pastors and their congregations interacted; how Dissenters related to their meetings as religious communities; and what the experience of church life was like for ordinary members as well as their ministers, including notably John Owen and Richard Baxter alongside less well-known figures, such as Ebenezer Chandler. Moving beyond the religious experience of the solitary individual, often exemplified by conversion, Church Life redefines the experience of Dissent, concentrating instead on the collective concerns of a communally-centred church life through a wide spectrum of issues: from questions of liberty and pastoral reform to matters of church discipline and respectability. With a substantial introduction that puts into context the key concepts of 'church life' and the 'Dissenting experience', the contributors offer fresh ways of understanding Protestant Dissent in seventeenth-century England: through differences in ecclesiology and pastoral theory, and via the buildings in which Dissent was nurtured to the building-up of Dissent during periods of civil war, persecution, and revolution. They draw on a broad range of printed and archival materials: from the minutes of the Westminster Assembly to the manuscript church books of early Dissenting congregations.

English and Catholic

English and Catholic
Author: John D. Krugler
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 470
Release: 2008-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1421402009

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to be English and Catholic was to face persecution, financial penalties, and sometimes death. Yet some English Catholics prospered, reconciling their faith and loyalty to their country. Among the most prominent was George Calvert, a talented and ambitious man who successfully navigated the politics of court and became secretary of state under King James I. A conforming Protestant from the age of twelve, Calvert converted back to Catholicism when a political crisis forced him to resign his position in 1625. The king rewarded Calvert by naming him Baron of Baltimore in Ireland. Insulated by wealth, with the support of powerful friends, and no longer occupied with court business, Baltimore sought to exploit his land grants in Ireland and Newfoundland. Seeking to increase his own fortune and status while enlarging the king's dominions, he embarked on a series of colonial enterprises that eventually led to Maryland. The experiences of Calvert and his heirs foster our understanding of politics and faith in Jacobean England. They also point to one of the earliest codifications of religious liberty in America, for in founding Maryland, Calvert and his son Cecil envisioned a prosperous society based on freedom of conscience. In English and Catholic, John D. Krugler traces the development of the "Maryland Designe," the novel solution the Calverts devised to resolve the conflict of loyalty they faced as English Catholics. In doing so, Krugler places the founding and early history of Maryland in the context of pervasive anxieties in England over identity, allegiance, and conscience. Explaining the evolution of the Calvert vision, Krugler ties together three main aspects of George Calvert's career: his nationalism and enthusiasm for English imperialism; his aim to find fortune and fame; and his deepening sense of himself as a Catholic. Skillfully told here, the story of the Calverts' bold experiment in advancing freedom of conscience is also the story of the roots of American liberty.

Dutch Puritanism

Dutch Puritanism
Author: Keith L. Sprunger
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2016-10-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1532609329

Keith L. Sprunger is Oswald H. Wedel Professor of History Emeritus at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas. His main scholarly interests are seventeenth-century English and Dutch Puritanism, the history of printing, Mennonite history, oral history, and historic preservation. Publications include The Learned Doctor William Ames (1972), Dutch Puritanism (1982), Trumpets from the Tower (1994), and Bethel College of Kansas 1887-2012 (2012). He enjoys collecting antiquarian books and historical postcards.

Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England

Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England
Author: Randy Robertson
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2015-10-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0271036559

Censorship profoundly affected early modern writing. Censorship and Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England offers a detailed picture of early modern censorship and investigates the pressures that censorship exerted on seventeenth-century authors, printers, and publishers. In the 1600s, Britain witnessed a civil war, the judicial execution of a king, the restoration of his son, and an unremitting struggle among crown, parliament, and people for sovereignty and the right to define “liberty and property.” This battle, sometimes subtle, sometimes bloody, entailed a struggle for the control of language and representation. Robertson offers a richly detailed study of this “censorship contest” and of the craft that writers employed to outflank the licensers. He argues that for most parties, victory, not diplomacy or consensus, was the ultimate goal. This book differs from most recent works in analyzing both the mechanics of early modern censorship and the poetics that the licensing system produced—the forms and pressures of self-censorship. Among the issues that Robertson addresses in this book are the workings of the licensing machinery, the designs of art and obliquity under a regime of censorship, and the involutions of authorship attendant on anonymity.

The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century
Author: Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper
Publisher:
Total Pages: 480
Release: 1999
Genre: Enlightenment
ISBN:

The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century collects nine essays by Trevor-Roper on the themes of religion, the Reformation, and social change. As Trevor-Roper explains in his preface, "the crisis in government, society, and ideas which occurred, both in Europe and in England, between the Reformation and the middle of the seventeenth century" constituted the crucible for what "went down in the general social and intellectual revolution of the mid-seventeenth century." The Civil War, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution in England laid the institutional and intellectual foundations of the modern understanding of liberty, of which we are heirs and beneficiaries. Trevor-Roper's essays uncover new pathways to understanding this seminal time. In his longest essay, "The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," Trevor-Roper points out that "In England the most active phase of witch-hunting coincided with times of Puritan pressure--the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the period of the civil wars--and some very fanciful theories have been built on this coincidence. But ... the persecution of witches in England was trivial compared with the experience of the Continent and of Scotland. Therefore ... [one must examine] the craze as a whole, throughout Europe, and [seek] to relate its rise, frequency, and decline to the general intellectual and social movements of the time. . . ." Neither Catholic nor Protestant emerges unscathed from the examination to which Trevor-Roper subjects the era in which, from political and religious causes, the identification and extirpation of witches was a central event