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.