Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660–1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation contributes to studies on the development of Calvinism and Reformed Theology in the post-Reformation era and on later English Puritanism as it transitioned into Dissent. Beginning with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 and carrying the story into the early eighteenth century, it places theological developments in the context of the early Enlightenment and of conflict between Dissent and the Church of England. The book focuses on five individuals and groups who pursued different emphases in t ... More

Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660–1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation contributes to studies on the development of Calvinism and Reformed Theology in the post-Reformation era and on later English Puritanism as it transitioned into Dissent. Beginning with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 and carrying the story into the early eighteenth century, it places theological developments in the context of the early Enlightenment and of conflict between Dissent and the Church of England. The book focuses on five individuals and groups who pursued different emphases in their promotion of Calvinist piety and theology and who in the variety of their responses to challenges of their time raise questions about conventional interpretations of Calvinism in that period. After a first chapter that establishes context and framework, successive chapters describe and analyze the mystical Calvinism of Peter Sterry, the hermetist Calvinism of Theophilus Gale, the evangelical Calvinism of Joseph Alleine and his promoters, the Calvinist natural theology of Richard Baxter, William Bates, and John Howe, and the Church of England Calvinism of John Edwards. These different approaches taken together represent Calvinist variety; and in each case there was not only the persistence of an earlier Calvinist trajectory, but also transformation of the Reformed heritage into newer modes of thinking and acting. As a whole, the book illuminates the religious and intellectual history of the era between the Reformation and modernity.