Anne Dunan-Page

Michael Davies

Joel Halcomb

Church Life: Pastors, Congregations, and the Experience of Dissent in Seventeenth-Century England addresses the rich, complex, and varied nature of "church life" experienced by England's Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians during the seventeenth century. Spanning the period fromthe English Revolution to the Glorious Revolution, and beyond, the contributors examine the social, political, and religious character of England's "gathered" churches and reformed parishes: how pastors and their congregations interacted; how Dissenters related to their meetings as religiouscommunities; and what the experience of church life was like for ordinary members as well as their ministers, including notably John Owen and Richard Baxter alongside less well-known figures, such as Ebenezer Chandler.Moving beyond the religious experience of the solitary individual, often exemplified by conversion, Church Life redefines the experience of Dissent, concentrating instead on the collective concerns of a communally-centred church life through a wide spectrum of issues: from questions of liberty andpastoral reform to matters of church discipline and respectability. With a substantial introduction that puts into context the key concepts of "church life" and the "Dissenting experience", the contributors offer fresh ways of understanding Protestant Dissent in seventeenth-century England: throughdifferences in ecclesiology and pastoral theory, and via the buildings in which Dissent was nurtured to the building-up of Dissent during periods of civil war, persecution, and revolution. They draw on a broad range of printed and archival materials: from the minutes of the Westminster Assembly tothe manuscript church books of early Dissenting congregations.

Pastors, Congregations, and the Experience of Dissent in Seventeenth-Century England

Church Life

Beth Lynch

Roger L'Estrange (1616-1704) was one of the most remarkable, significant and colourful figures in seventeenth-century England. This collection of essays by leading scholars of the period highlights the instrumental role he played in the shaping of the political, literary, and print cultures of the Restoration period. Taking an interdisciplinary approach the volume covers all the major aspects of his career, as well as situating them in their broader historical and literary context. By examining his career in this way the book offers insights that will prove of worth to political, social, religious and cultural historians, as well as those interested in seventeenth-century literary and book history.

Roger L'Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture

A comprehensive introduction to Bunyan's life and works, examining their place in the broader context of seventeenth-century history and literature.

The Cambridge Companion to Bunyan

Awarded the 2007 National Research Prize SAES/AEFA. This study is a reappraisal of John Bunyan in the light of the dissenting religious culture of the late-seventeenth century. Charges of schism and fanaticism were repeatedly levelled against Bunyan, both from within the dissenting community and without, but far from being chastened by these accusations, Bunyan responded with a religious discourse marked by a rhetoric of excess. The focus of this book is therefore upon Bunyan's overwhelming spiritual experiences, especially the representation of torment, in his literary and polemical works. The believers' suffering was an obsessive concern of dissenting ministers, even to the point where their writings are often remembered today for little else. Hitherto, most scholars have termed all the mental states that they invoke 'despair', but this simplifies the experiences at issue. A wealth of contemporary material helps to restore the nuances of seventeenth-century physical and spiritual conditions, from enthusiasm to melancholy and madness; from fear to desertion and sloth. These chapters explore fresh ways in which this subtle typology of torment and its extreme manifestations form the core of the literary expression of Restoration dissent, challenging Bunyan to represent spiritual equilibrium as the ultimate quest of the earthly pilgrimage.

Anne Dunan-Page

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