The Political Work of a Spiritual Text: Sarah Wight, Henry Jessey, and The exceeding Riches of Grace
This chapter investigates the political implications of women's involvement in sectarian writing in the later years of the 1640s. The material discussed — printed writings — carries the discussion of women's relationship to politics into the explicitly public terrain of religious and political controversy. The chapter investigates women's relationship to spiritual and political discourses in the context of the disputes among the army, Independents, Presbyterians, and Levellers in the late 1640s. The exceeding Riches of Grace makes public Sarah Wight's experience. Events caught up the members of the gathered churches of London, Bristol, and Wales and their associates in the army, but also drew in men and women of a very different religious and political complexion from the text's ‘relator’, Henry Jessey. The exceeding Riches of Grace unfolds the question of the nature of testimony, the meaning of grace for the Christian, and the nature of spiritual versus political claims and hierarchies.
Keywords: politics, women's involvement, sectarian writing, religious controversy, political controversy, spiritual discourses, political discourses, Sarah Wight, Henry Jessey
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .