Hobbes's Leviathan is arguably the most brilliant and influential political treatise ever written in English, and it certainly stands as the first major work of English political philosophy embedded in an encyclopaedic corpus. But it has long awaited an authoritative English critical edition and was until recently rarely read in its entirety. Even in Germany, where pioneering bibliographical work on Hobbes's texts was undertaken by Ferdinand Tönnies, an important political theorist in his own right, Hobbes was mostly read in an abridged edition that omitted the last two books, which comprise more than half the length of the original work. These two books, 'Of a Christian Commonwealth' and 'Of the Kingdom of Darkness', are important sources for Hobbes's theology, and were very controversial in his day. Recent critical debate suggests that they are now again controversial.

In Leviathan Hobbes gave institutional sanction to the principle on which the great schism created by the Protestant Reformation was decided: cuius regio eius religio; it was up to the godly prince to decide religious orthodoxy. On this principle, the peace of Westphalia of 1648, which closed half a century of religious wars and marked the creation of the modern international system of states, was founded. Sect and schism are persistent topoi of Hobbes's works, beginning with his 1645 debate with Bishop Bramhall in Paris, conducted under the auspices of the Earl of Newcastle but published only in 1654, and dominating his works of the 1660s, written when Hobbes was himself under threat of indictment for blasphemy and possible heresy.

Astell's Life and Works

Mary Astell was born in a century in which Great Britain had experienced a civil war, a regicide, the (successful) attempt to exclude an heir to the throne on religious grounds, a constitutional revolution and two changes of dynasty. By her day it was already a landscape politically divided between the Whigs, generally pro-Parliament and pro-religious toleration, and the Tories, generally pro-king and anti-religious toleration, respectively. It was a century that saw the passing of a Bill of Rights, a Toleration Act and the consolidation of a constitutional monarchy that recognized specified civil rights in a path-breaking way. The Bill of Rights Act of 1689, together with the Toleration Act of the same year, promoting limited religious toleration, and the Triennial Act of 1694, which ensured regular elections and prevented the king from dissolving Parliament at will, represented major constitutional reforms that were the enduring achievement of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. These developments took place in an environment of strong politicking, personal intrigue, pamphlet warfare and an ideological climate that embraced a relatively wide spectrum of society. It was an environment in which, like the Restoration, women writers were to find a niche as novelists, dramatists and, in Astell's case, political pamphleteers. The seventeenth century had seen the flourishing of important philosophical schools that also claimed female adherents, both in England and on the Continent.

Arminianism. The doctrines of Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), Dutch Reformed student of the Genevan Calvinist Theodore Beza (1519–1605), as formulated by his followers in the Remonstrance of 1610, had made the following modifications to Calvinist doctrine: Christ died for all men, not just the elect; his saving mission is God's most important work on earth; the individual is involved in his/her own salvation through free will; consequently, through dereliction of duty, the individual may fail to be saved. Aimed at the heart of Calvinist doctrines of predestination of the elect, Arminianism was publicly debated at the Sydnod of Dort of 1618–19, summoned to condemn it. Arminian doctrines were declared inadmissible or heretical, and the Arminians were given the choice of recantation or exile. Although they were viewed as radical reformers, their advocates were also leaders of the established church, such as Archbishop William Laud. However, this did not prevent them from being accused of popery. Laud, who stressed the importance of church ceremony, was thought to be a Roman sympathiser.

Atterbury, Francis (1662–1732), Tory Bishop of Rochester, was made chaplain to King William and Queen Mary even though he was regarded as controversial for his opposition to state ascendancy over the church and his strong advocacy of the rights of the clergy. Queen Anne made him her chaplain in ordinary and, in 1704, Dean of Carlisle. Atterbury had been an active participant in the lower-house convocation assemblies, and he soon became almost as prominent in the House of Lords.