Apocalypse How?: Baptist Movements During the English Revolution"A study of the relation between religion and political thought during the English Revolution, Mark R. Bell's Apocalypse How? challenges early historical interpretations that portray the Baptists as politically inactive. This reexamination demonstrates that Baptists were close to the secular radicals who became known as the Levellers and to the more religious revolutionaries known as the Fifth Monarchists. The reintegration of the religious and political aspects of their thought reveals the Baptist movements to have been capable of generating support for both radical groups." "Bell discusses the transformation of Baptists from an aggressively critical sect to one more accomodating to its larger culture. Bell identifies this development with two changes in the Baptists' views of the end time. The first of these was an overall decline in eschatological enthusiasm during the 1640s, while the second was the way apocalyptic language among Baptists gradually came to refer more to endorsing society than to transforming it. This engaging study is a solid contribution to the historiography of the earliest Baptists and of religion in England during the tumultuous seventeenth century."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Contents
13 | |
23 | |
33 | |
53 | |
55 | |
Definition and Development The Particular Baptist Confession of 1644 and 1646 | 73 |
Uneasy Alliances Baptists and Levellers | 97 |
Responsible Men and Resistant Saints The Emergence of Baptist Leadership and Organization | 121 |
Unorthodox Baptists | 161 |
Fifth Monarchists and Baptists | 163 |
SeventhDay Baptists | 205 |
Fifth Monarchist SeventhDay Baptists and Thomas Tillams Palatinate Apocalypse | 229 |
Reflections before the End of Things | 255 |
Selected Bibliography | 263 |
Index | 289 |
Further Afield Particular Baptists Beyond London | 135 |
Common terms and phrases
Anabaptists Antichrist Antichristian apocalyptic apocalypticism army Association Records B. R. White Babylon Baptist churches Baptist congregations Baptist Historical Society Baptist Quarterly baptized Beast believed believer's baptism Burrage called Anabaptists Capp Chamberlen Christian Churches of Christ communion Confession of Faith Cromwell Declaration doctrine Early English Dissenters Edwards England English Baptists English Dissenters eschatology Fifth Monarchists Gangraena godly Hanserd Knollys hath Helwys Henry Jessey Hexham History idem Independent Baptist infant baptism inter-congregational Ireland Jessey's Jews King Jesus Kingdom letter Levellers liberty Lilburne London leaders Lord main Baptist movements meeting millenarian millennium Monarchy observance Palatinate Parliament Particular Baptists passim Paul Hobson persecution Peter Chamberlen petition Pooley preach Protectorate published Puritan Reformation religious Revelation Richard Overton Richardson Sabbatarian saints Samuel Richardson Saturday Sabbath Separatist seventeenth century seventh Seventh-Day Baptists seventh-day Sabbath Smyth Spilsbury theological Thomas Collier Thomas Tillam Thurloe tion Traske University Press Venner William Kiffin
Popular passages
Page 54 - For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
Page 30 - For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good.
Page 236 - Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein : Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice Before the LORD : for HE cometh, For HE cometh to judge the earth : HE shall judge the world with righteousness, And the people with his truth.
Page 34 - Lord had touched with heavenly zeal for his truth, they shook off this yoke of anti-Christian bondage, and as the Lord's free people, joined themselves (by a covenant of the Lord) into a church estate, in the fellowship of the gospel, to walk in all his ways, made known, or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavors, whatsoever it should cost them, the Lord assisting them.
Page 13 - And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Page 40 - ... made by the king, our lord the king can require no more: for men's religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the king shall not answer for it, neither may the king be judge between God and man.
Page 138 - And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep : for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
Page 40 - ... for men's religion to God is betwixt God and themselves; the king shall not answer for it, neither may the king be judge between God and man. Let them be heretics, Turks, Jews or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure (p.