Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Note on quotation, citation, and abbreviations
- Synopsis of apocalyptic scripture
- Introduction
- 1 Conventions in Restoration apocalyptic interpretation
- 2 The apocalypse, radicalism, and reaction in the early Restoration
- 3 The apocalypse and moderate nonconformity
- 4 The Anglican apocalypse
- 5 The Popish Plot and apocalyptic expectation
- 6 Apocalyptic thought and the Revolution of 1688–1689
- 7 Conclusion: the apocalypse to 1700
- Bibliography
- Index
- STUDIES IN MODERN BRITISH RELIGIOUS HISTORY
2 - The apocalypse, radicalism, and reaction in the early Restoration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Note on quotation, citation, and abbreviations
- Synopsis of apocalyptic scripture
- Introduction
- 1 Conventions in Restoration apocalyptic interpretation
- 2 The apocalypse, radicalism, and reaction in the early Restoration
- 3 The apocalypse and moderate nonconformity
- 4 The Anglican apocalypse
- 5 The Popish Plot and apocalyptic expectation
- 6 Apocalyptic thought and the Revolution of 1688–1689
- 7 Conclusion: the apocalypse to 1700
- Bibliography
- Index
- STUDIES IN MODERN BRITISH RELIGIOUS HISTORY
Summary
The principal contentions of this book are that apocalyptic thought remained as means of understanding the political and ecclesiastical circumstances of later seventeenth-century England, and that, at least until the settlement of the Revolution of 1688–1689, those civil and religious circumstances were dominated by confessional concerns that also continued from the first half of the century. In asserting these things, it demonstrates that a wide variety of authors with diverse attitudes toward the affairs of church and state used such prophetic beliefs to explain events and circumstances during the Restoration. In part, this refutes the idea that apocalyptic convictions existed entirely on the margins of English society, valid only as a voice of militant opposition to monarchical government and the Church of England.
However, it is also apparent that the persistence of apocalyptic ideas in the later seventeenth century challenges the strict separation of historical studies of England into pre- and post-1660 political, religious, and intellectual processes. As Richard Greaves states in his initial volume on the perseverance of radicalism during the Restoration, the effects of twenty years ‘of unprecedented political, social, and religious upheaval could not be eradicated by mere revival of kingly rule, the resurrection of the House of Lords, and the return of the state church to its prelatical overlords’. Applying this argument to apocalyptic thought, accomplishment of the restoration of the king and episcopal government did not suspend the employment of prophetic interpretation to the changed political and religious circumstances in England.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Revelation RestoredThe Apocalypse in Later Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 67 - 90Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011