By the time of the Calvinist Reformation, the cities of Holland had established a very long tradition of social provision for the poor in the civic community. Calvinists however intended to care for their own church members, who were by definition 'within the household of faith', through the deaconate, a confessional relief agency. This book examines the relationship between municipal and ecclesiastical relief agencies in the six chief cities of Holland - Dordrecht, Haarlem, Delft, Leiden, Amsterdam and Gouda - from the public establishment of the Reformed Church in 1572 to the aftermath of the Synod of Dort. The author argues that the conflict between charitable organizations reveal competing conceptions of Christian community that came to the fore as a result of the Dutch Reformation. This is the first comparative study of poor relief in Holland, which contributes to our understanding of the Reformation throughout Europe.

John Calvin's American Legacy explores the ways Calvin and the Calvinist tradition have influenced American life. Though there are books that trace the role Calvin and Calvinism have played in the national narrative, they tend to focus, as books, on particular topics and time periods. This work, divided into three sections, is the first to present studies that, taken together, represent the breadth of Calvinism's impact in the United States. In addition, each section moves chronologically, ranging from colonial times to the twenty-first century. After a brief introduction focused on the life of Calvin and some of the problems involved in how he is viewed and studied, the volume moves into the first section - "Calvin, Calvinism, and American Society- which looks at the economics of the Colonial period, Calvin and the American identity, and the evidence for Calvin's influence on American democracy. The book's second section examines theology, addressing the relationship between Jonathan Edwards's church practice and Calvin's, the Calvinist theological tradition in the nineteenth century, how Calvin came to be understood in the historiography of Williston Walker and Perry Miller, and Calvin's influence on some of the theologies of the twentieth century. The third section, "John Calvin, Calvinism, and American Letters,looks at Calvinism's influence on such writers as Samson Occom, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Max Weber, Mark Twain, and John Updike. Altogether, this volume demonstrates the wide-ranging impact of Calvin's thinking throughout American history and society.

On 1 July 1523, Johann van den Esschen and Hendrik Voes, two Augustinian friars from Antwerp, were burned on the Grand Plaza in Brussels, thereby becoming the first victims of the Reformation. Despite being well-known, the event barely registers in most Reformation histories. By tracing its origins and examining the impact of the executions on Martin Luther, on the Reformed Augustinian world, and on the early Reformation in the Low Countries and the German speaking lands, this study definitively demonstrates that the burnings were in fact the denouement of broader trends within Late Medieval Reformed Augustinianism, as well as a watershed in the early Reformation. In doing so, it also reveals the central role played by the Augustinian friars of Lower Germany in shaping both the content and spread of the early Reformation, as well as Wittenberg's influence on the events leading up to these first executions.

Dutch society has enjoyed a reputation, or notoriety, for permissiveness since the sixteenth century. The Dutch Republic in the Golden Age was the only society that tolerated religious dissenters of all persuasions in early modern Europe. Paradoxically, it was committed to a strictly Calvinist public Church and also to the preservation of religious plurality. R. Po-chia Hsia and Henk van Nierop have brought together a group of leading historians from the U.K., the U.S. and the Netherlands. Their outstanding essays probe the history and myth of Dutch religious toleration.

This book is the first modern intellectual biography of the Scottish theologian and political theorist Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600-1661). Its main purpose is to provide a thorough discussion of Rutherford's religious and political ideas, and their role in the ideology of the Scottish Covenanters whose rebellion against Charles I marked the beginning of the British troubles in the mid-seventeenth century. The book also constitutes an important multidisciplinary case study in the Calvinist and Puritan traditions.

Richard Hooker has long been viewed as one of England's great theological and political writers. When he died, however, at the end of the sixteenth century, his writings had proved to be something of a damp squib. This book examines, against the background of the political and religious crises of the seventeenth century, how he came to rise from comparative obscurity to be regarded as a universal authority. It will be seen how an unintended alliance of Reformed Protestants, suspicious of Hooker, and Catholics, anxious to exploit his perceived sympathies, led to his establishment as a distinctive, well-regarded English writer. Whilst the boundaries of Hooker's comprehensiveness have expanded and contracted in response to particular situations, the belief that he is an important writer has remained remarkably constant ever since.

A historical study of the most influential and important Protestant group in Northern Ireland - the Ulster Presbyterians. Andrew R. Holmes argues that to understand Ulster Presbyterianism is to begin to understand the character of Ulster Protestantism more generally and the relationship between religion and identity in present-day Northern Ireland. He examines the various components of public and private religiosity and how these were influenced by religious concerns, economic and social changes, and cultural developments. He takes the religious beliefs and practices of the laity seriously in their own right, and thus allows for a better understanding of the Presbyterian community more generally.

This book returns to the true nature of the gospel, justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. Fundamental to the book's argument is a rejection of the biblical truth and the faithful heritage of the gospel. By tracing the development of Reformation theology in Luther and Calvin, the giants in the American Great Awakening and the Korean revivals are brought up for analysis: Jonathan Edwards, Timothy Dwight, Sun-Ju Kil, Ik-Doo Kim, Yong-Do Lee, and Sung-Bong Lee. Paul ChulHong Kang makes clear what can be at stake not merely for academic theologians but for all Christians -- the gospel itself.

This is the first modern intellectual biography of the Scottish Covenanters' great theorist Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600-61). The central focus is on Rutherford's political thought and his major treatise, Lex, Rex, written in 1644 as a justification of the Covenanters' resistance to King Charles I. The book demonstrates that while Lex, Rex provided a careful synthesis of natural-law theory and biblical politics, Rutherford's Old Testament vision of a purged and covenanted nation ultimately subverted his commitment to the politics of natural reason. The book also discusses a wide range of other topics, including scholasticism and humanism, Calvinist theology, Presbyterian ecclesiology, Rutherford's close relationships with women and his fervent spirituality. It will therefore be of considerable interest to a range of scholars and students working on Scottish and English history, Calvinism and Puritanism, and early modern political thought.

This edition brings together for the first time key texts representing the writings of the medieval English mystics. The texts have been newly edited from early manuscripts, and are supplemented with textual and explanatory notes and a glossary. The book focuses on five major authors, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, the anonymous author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Dame Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe. Shorter works are presented whole, where possible, and accompanied by extracts from the mystics' longer works; extracts from contemporary translations into English are also included to illustrate the reception of European mystical texts in later medieval England. Overall, this volume makes accessible some of the finest writing by English contemplatives and visionaries of the Middle Ages.

Balmer examines the clash of Dutch and English cultures in colonial New York and New Jersey and charts the decline of a European culture in North America. He shows that the combination of political intrigue, English cultural imperialism and internal socioeconomic tensions eventually drove the Dutch away from their hereditary customs, language and culture. After Leisler's Rebellion in 1689, the Dutch Reformed Church divided, largely along socioeconomic lines, into an orthodox camp, anchored in New York City, and a pietist faction whose stronghold lay in rural areas, especially northern New Jersey. Balmer argues that the divisions in the Dutch Reformed Church persisted into the Revolutionary era and that the religious alignments of the Dutch in the middle of the eighteenth century provide the most accurate predictors of political sympathies during the American Revolution.

In 1539, Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto, Bishop of Carpentras, addressed a letter to the magistrates and citizens of Geneva, asking them to return to the Roman Catholic faith. John Calvin replied to Sadoleto, defending the adoption of the Protestant reforms. Sadoleto's letter and Calvin's reply constitute one of the most interesting exchanges of Roman Catholic/Protestant views during the Reformationand an excellent introduction to the great religious controversy of the sixteenth century. These statements are not in vacuo of a Roman Catholic and Protestant position. They were drafted in the midst of the religious conflict that was then dividing Europe. And they reflect too the temperaments and personal histories of the men who wrote them. Sadoleto's letter has an irenic approach, an emphasis on the unity and peace of the Church, highly characteristic of the Christian Humanism he represented. Calvin's reply is in part a personal defense, an apologia pro vita sua, that records his own religious experience. And its taut, comprehensive argument is characteristic of the disciplined and logical mind of the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Faith and Slavery in the Presbyterian Diaspora considers how, in areas as diverse as the New Hebrides, Scotland, the United States, and East Central Africa, men's and women's shared Presbyterian faith conditioned their interpretations of and interactions with the institution of chattel slavery. The chapters highlight how Presbyterians' reactions to slavery -which ranged from abolitionism, to indifference, to support-reflected their considered application of the principles of the Reformed Tradition to the institution. Consequently, this collection reveals how the particular ways in which Presbyterians framed the Reformed Tradition made slavery an especially problematic and fraught issue for adherents to the faith. Faith and Slavery, by situating slavery at the nexus of Presbyterian theology and practice, offers a fresh perspective on the relationship between religion and slavery. It reverses the all too common assumption that religion primarily served to buttress existing views on slavery, by illustrating how groups' and individuals reactions to slavery emerged from their understanding of the Presbyterian faith. The collection's geographic reach-encompassing the experiences of people from Europe, Africa, America, and the Pacific-filtered through the lens of Presbyterianism also highlights the global dimensions of slavery and the debates surrounding it. The institution and the challenges it presented, Faith and Slavery stresses, reflected less the peculiar conditions of a particular place and time, than the broader human condition as people attempt to understand and shape their world.

A fundamental part of understanding one's ancestors is knowing when they were born, how long they lived, and when they died. Here in The Genesis Genealogies lies that crucial core information about the forebears of Christianity. Rev. Abraham Park has meticulously analyzed the information in The Book of Genesis. Taking the explicit date references in Genesis and performing math calculations forward and backward in time, he builds a complete chronological Biblical timeline from Adam to the Exodus, including the duration of construction of Noah's ark. With this Bible study of the cornerstone text of The Old Testament, we can more deeply understand the layers of meanings that Genesis offers. The Genesis Genealogies is a must-have for every Church Library. This title is part of The History of Redemption series which includes: Book 1: The Genesis Genealogies Book 2: The Covenant of the Torch Book 3: The Unquenchable Lamp of the Covenant Book 4: God's Profound and Mysterious Providence Book 5: The Promise of the Eternal Covenant

John Chavis had a profound impact upon the history of North Carolina, the life of African Americans, and the course of religion in America. Born in 1763, Chavis fought in the American Revolution and studied at Princeton, becoming the first black person ordained as a missionary minister in the Presbyterian church. Many of those who learned from his teachings were white, and many of the students in his Latin grammar school were the sons of prominent North Carolinians. His lifelong relationship with his students created connections with some of the most powerful individuals of the nineteenth century, and his religious writings can still stir the soul more than 150 years after his death. Chavis's story illustrates the power of faith, intelligence, and determination to overcome the precariousness of life for a free black man in this era. This account of Chavis's life, the result of research by one of his descendants, presents a thorough examination of his life, his work, and the world in which he lived. Also included is the full text of John Chavis's Letter Upon the Doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement of Christ (1837), long considered lost by many of his biographers.

This book examines the disputes about the eucharist that were carried out in the popular press in 16th-century France. Christopher Elwood's focus is on the way in which power is symbolized in eucharistic doctrine, and how representations of power in the context of theological discussion influenced understandings of power in other spheres of life. By concentrating on writings that were accessible to and likely to be read by a popular, lay audience, Elwood seeks to discover what ideas concerning the eucharist were actually conveyed to readers. His central argument is that the Calvinist eucharistic theory propounded in the 16th century included a way of construing power and the relation between the sacred and society that contributed in a very significant way to the ideological, social, and political unrest that characterized the Reformation period.

Scripture Politics examines the central role played by Ulster Presbyterians in the birth of Irish republicanism. Drawing on recent trends in British and American historiography, as well as a wide range of Irish primary sources, Ian McBride charts the development of Presbyterian politics between the War of American Independence and the rebellion of 1798. McBride begins by tracing the emergence of a radical sub-culture in the north of Ireland, showing how traditions of religious dissent underpinned oppositional politics. He goes on to explore the impact of American independence in Ulster, and shows how the mobilization of the Volunteers and the reform agitation of the 1780s anticipated the ideology and organization of the United Irish movement. He describes how, in the wake of the French Revolution, Ulster Presbyterians sought to create a new Irish nation in their own image, and reveals the confessional allegiances which shaped the 1798 rebellion. Above all, this innovative and original book uncovers the close relationship between theological disputes and political theory, recreating a distinctive intellectual tradition whose contribution to republican thought has often been misunderstood. _

Longfield explores a bitter theological controversy that wracked the Presbyterian Church in the 1920s and 30s. By examining the lives and thought of six of the major protagonists he seeks to provide a fuller understanding of the religious and cultural issues in the struggle.

A great deal has recently been written about Jonathan Edwards. Most of it, however, does not make central Edwards's own intention to speak truth about God and the human situation; his systematic theological intention is regarded merely as an historical phenomenon. In this book, Robert Jenson provides a different sort of interpretation, asking not only, "Why was Edwards great?" but also, "Was Edwards right?" As a student of the ideas of Newton and Locke, Jenson argues, Edwards was very much a figure of the Enlightenment; but unlike most other Americans, he was also a discerning critic of it, and was able to use Enlightenment thought in his theology without yielding to its mechanistic and individualistic tendencies. Alone among Christian thinkers of the Enlightenment, Edwards conceived an authentically Christian piety and a creative theology not in spite of Newton and Locke but by virtue of them. Jenson sees Edwards's understanding as a radical corrective to what commitment to the Enlightenment brought about in American life, religious and otherwise. Perhaps, Jenson proposes, recovery of Edwards's vision might make the mutual determination of American culture and American Christianity more fruitful than it has yet been.

One of the supreme masterpieces of Romantic fiction and Scottish literature, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a terrifying tale of murder and amorality, and of one man's descent into madness and despair. James Hogg's sardonic novel follows a young man who, falling under the spell of a mysterious stranger who bears an uncanny likeness to himself, embarks on a career as a serial murderer. The memoirs are presented by a narrator whose attempts to explain the story only succeed in intensifying its more baffling and bizarre aspects. Is the young man the victim of a psychotic delusion, or has he been tempted by the devil to wage war against God's enemies? The authoritative and lively introduction by Ian Duncan covers the full range of historical and religious themes and contexts, offers a richer and more accurate consideration of the novel's relation to Romantic fiction than found elsewhere, and sheds new light on the novel's treatment of fanaticism. Copious notes identify the novel's historical, biblical, theological, and literary allusions.
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This is a masterful historical portrait of the whole movement of Calvinism for general readers and scholars alike.

Professor Bouwsma studies the theologian John Calvin as a way to bring into focus the cultural, psychological, and intellectual problems of the sixteenth century. He argues that Calvin represents an historical moment of transition from traditional modes of philosophical and religious thought to modern ones. Beginning with a description of the traditional culture of Calvin's time, and of the moralism which exerted such a powerful hold over medieval thought, he goes on to identify the crucial issue in this transition as the ability of a culture to manage the anxiety of existence. Medieval society, by creating simplified polarities such as Good and Evil, he argues, was conspicuously successful in performing this task. Finally Bouwsma provides a critical analysis of this medieval philosophy, and explains the significance of Calvin's concept of a "New Order" in providing an ethical system which no longer relied upon these established views of the world.

Puritan Family and Community in the English Atlantic World examines the dynamics of marriage, family and community life during the "Great Migration" through the microhistorical study of one puritan family in 1638 Rhode Island. Through studying the Verin family, a group of English non-conformists who took part in the "Great Migration", this book examines differing approaches within puritanism towards critical issues of the age, including liberty of conscience, marriage, family, female agency, domestic violence, and the role of civil government in responding to these developments. Like other nonconformists who challenged the established Church of England, the Verins faced important personal dilemmas brought on by the dictates of their conscience even after emigrating. A violent marital dispute between Jane and her husband Joshua divided the Providence community and resulted, for the first time in the English-speaking colonies, in a woman's right to a liberty of conscience independent of her husband being upheld. Through biographical sketches of the founders of Providence and engaging with puritan ministerial and prescriptive literature and female-authored petitions and pamphlets, this book illustrates how women saw their place in the world and considers the exercise of female agency in the early modern era. Connecting migration studies, family and community studies, religious studies, and political philosophy, Puritan Family and Community in the English Atlantic World will be of great interest to scholars of the English Atlantic World, American religious history, gender and violence, the history of New England, and the history of family.