Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660-1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation

Dewey Wallace tells the story of several prominent English Calvinist actors and thinkers in the first generations after the beginning of the Restoration. He seeks to overturn conventional clichés about Calvinism: that it was anti-mystical, that it allowed no scope for the ''ancient theology''
that characterized much of Renaissance learning, that its piety was harshly predestinarian, that it was uninterested in natural theology, and that it had been purged from the established church by the end of the seventeenth century.

In the midst of conflicts between Church and Dissent and the intellectual challenges of the dawning age of Enlightenment, Calvinist individuals and groups dealt with deism, anti-Trinitarianism, and scoffing atheism--usually understood as godlessness--by choosing different emphases in their defense
and promotion of Calvinist piety and theology. Wallace shows that in each case, there was not only persistence in an earlier Calvinist trajectory, but also a transformation of the Calvinist heritage into a new mode of thinking and acting. The different paths taken illustrate the rich variety of
English Calvinism in the period.

This study presents description and analysis of the mystical Calvinism of Peter Sterry, the hermeticist Calvinism of Theophilus Gale, the evangelical Calvinism of Joseph Alleine and the circle that promoted his legacy, the natural theology of the moderate Calvinist Presbyterians Richard Baxter,
William Bates, and John Howe, and the Church of England Calvinism of John Edwards. Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660-1714 illuminates the religious and intellectual history of the era between the Reformation and modernity, offering fascinating insight into the development of Calvinism and also into
English Puritanism as it transitioned into Dissent.


Author: Dewey D. Wallace
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 05/30/2011
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.40lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780199744831

About the Author

Dewey D. Wallace, Jr. grew up in California, earned his Ph.D. at Princeton University, and has taught at George Washington University since 1963. He has published books and articles on British and American religious history, with a particular interest in the English Reformation, Puritanism, and the
seventeenth century, including Puritans and Predestinaton: Grace in English Protestant Theology, 1525-1695.

This title is not returnable