The Bible and Reason is organized around actual topics of theological controversy from 1660 to 1700: what it means to say that Scripture is true, how Scripture and polity are related, how to conceive the canon of the Scripture, and how to understand challenges to the rational theology in question. Based on the writings of John Tillotson, Edward Stillingfleet, Isaac Barrow, and Robert South, Gerard Reedy's book integrates their theories with the ideas and practices of John Dryden, John Locke, Edward Hyde, the earl of Clarendon, and other contemporary writers and contrasts this traditional scriptural interpretation with the new rationalism of Thomas Hobbes, Spinoza, John Toland, and Richard Simon. In contrast with the Puritan tradition, the Anglican establishment sponsored Scripture reading based not on the Inner Light, but on a public verification of interpretation, a "rational" method seen in the several proofs Anglicans proposed for the truth of Scripture, in their responses to some assessments of the integrity of Scripture, and in their argument with anti-Trinitarians. The Bible and Reason is of interest to scholars in seventeenth-century English literature and philosophy, historians of the Bible and modern religion, and researchers in intellectual history.

Robert South (1634-1716) was one of the great Anglican writers and preachers of his age. A contemporary of Dryden and Locke, he faced the profound political and philosophical changes taking place at the beginning of the Enlightenment in England. With the interdependence of Church and State forcing a conjunction of religious and political issues, South's life and work as a preacher show him reacting to changes in civil and ecclesiastical polity over the course of his active public life. Gerard Reedy's book, the first major study of South, makes a strong case for the importance of his sermons, their complexity, beauty and wit, and their place in the history of post-Restoration English literature. Discussing sermons of South which deal with his theory of politics, language, the sacrament and mystery, Reedy reintroduces us to a lively and seminal master of prose, politics and theology in the late Stuart era.

Theology and Literature in the Age of Johnson: Resisting Secularism contains seventeen essays exploring the complex relationships between literary intentions and theological concerns of authors writing in the second half of the eighteenth century. The diversity of literary forms and subjects, from Fielding and Richardson to Burke and Wollstonecraft, is matched by a diversity of approaches and theologies. To argue that the age "resisted secularism" is by no means to argue that resistance was blindly doctrinal or rigidly uniform. The many ways secularism could be resisted is the subject of the collection.

Robert South (1634-1716) was one of the great Anglican writers and preachers of his age. A contemporary of Dryden and Locke, he faced the profound political and philosophical changes taking place at the beginning of the Enlightenment in England. With the interdependence of Church and State forcing a conjunction of religious and political issues, South's life and work as a preacher show him reacting to changes in civil and ecclesiastical polity over the course of his active public life. Gerard Reedy's book, the first major study of South, makes a strong case for the importance of his sermons, their complexity, beauty and wit, and their place in the history of post-Restoration English literature. Discussing sermons of South which deal with his theory of politics, language, the sacrament and mystery, Reedy reintroduces us to a lively and seminal master of prose, politics and theology in the late Stuart era.