Dissenting Theology from the 1720s to the 1840s

2019 ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
David Bebbington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Baptist Churches ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Creation ◽  
John Brown ◽  
Forward Looking

Scottish Dissent included the Reformed Presbyterians, who upheld the covenants, the Secession, both Burghers and Antiburghers, who also looked back to the seventeenth century, and the Relief Church, which was forward-looking. The Secession branches split around 1800 over New Light, the majority effectively adopting religious toleration. John Dick and John Brown were distinguished Secession theologians. Non-Presbyterian Dissenters included the Glasites, with their Sandemanian view of faith, the Old Scots Independents, the Bereans and the Scotch Baptists, all principled Independents. The Haldane brothers launched a new evangelistic movement that led to the creation of many Independent and Baptist churches, and their associate Greville Ewing forged a Congregational Union. A number of other groups added to the diversity of Scottish Dissent. Drawing on the Westminster Confession, the various bodies were influenced by the Enlightenment and by the Evangelical Revival.

Orthodox Radicals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Baptist Identity ◽  
Ongoing Project

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.

Disembedding the Marketplace

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corey Tazzara
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Commodity Markets ◽  
Central Mediterranean ◽  
Economic Position ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Free Port

Chapter 5 examines the creation of the classic free port, which taxed only for commercial services. The latter half of the seventeenth century inaugurated an age of conscious experimentation in economic policy. Amidst intensified commercial competition throughout the central Mediterranean, the Medici regime launched a panel of interventions aimed at improving the grand duchy’s economic position. For Livorno, this program culminated in the reform of 1676, which eliminated import/export duties and simplified collection procedures. This reform constituted an important moment in the development of commodity markets and secured Livorno’s role in brokering trade between northwestern Europe, Italy, and the Levant.

Biblical Philology and Hermeneutical Debate in the Dutch Republic in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Held Back

Spinoza’s time was rife with conflicts. Historians tend to structure these by grouping two opposing forces: progressive Cartesio-Cocceian-liberals versus conservative Aristotelian-Voetian-Orangists. Moderately enlightened progressives, so the story goes, endorsed notions such as human dignity, toleration, freedom of opinion, but shied away from radicalism, held back by the conservative counterforce. Yet the drift was supposed to be inevitably towards the Enlightenment. This chapter tries to capture theological conflicts in the Dutch Republic of the Early Enlightenment in a triangular scheme, that covers a wider range of conflicting interests. Its corners are constituted by ‘dogmatism’ (Dordrecht orthodoxy), ‘scripturalism’ (Cocceianism), and ‘rationalism’ (theology inspired by Cartesianism, Spinozism, or any other brand of new philosophy). Dogmatics and rationalists battled in terms of philosophy, whereas the scripturalists and their respective opponents fought each other rather in the field of biblical scholarship. This multilateral conflict within Dutch Calvinism made the ideal of a unified church untenable.

Quakers, Christ, and the Enlightenment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine Pennington
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Baruch Spinoza ◽  
Intellectual Engagement ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Henry More ◽  
Central Belief

The Quakers were by far the most successful of the radical religious groups to emerge from the turbulence of the mid-seventeenth century—and their survival into the present day was largely facilitated by the transformation of the movement during its first fifty years. What began as a loose network of charismatic travelling preachers was, by the start of the eighteenth century, a well-organized and international religious machine. This shift is usually explained in terms of a desire to avoid persecution, but Quakers, Christ and the Enlightenment argues instead for the importance of theological factors as the major impetus for change. In the first sustained account of the theological motivations guiding the development of seventeenth-century Quakerism, the volume explores the Quakers’ positive intellectual engagement with those outside the movement to offer a significant reassessment of the causal factors determining the development of early Quakerism. Tracing the Quakers’ engagement with such luminaries as Baruch Spinoza, Henry More, John Locke, and John Norris, the volume unveils the Quakers’ concerted attempts to bolster their theological reputation through the refinement of their central belief in the ‘inward Christ’, or ‘the Light within’. In doing so, the study challenges persistent stereotypes of early modern radicalism as anti-intellectual and ill-educated—and indeed, as defined either by ‘rationalist’ or ‘spiritualist’ excess. Rather, the theological concerns of the Quakers and their interlocutors point to a crisis of Christology weaving through the intellectual milieu of the seventeenth century, which has long been underestimated as significant fuel for the emerging Enlightenment

The Album De Colbert: The Image of Shipbuilding

2021 ◽  
Vol 163 (A3) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Corradi
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Shipbuilding Industry ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The Album de Colbert compiled by an anonymous author in the second half of the seventeenth century is among the most important illustrated testimonies of the art of shipbuilding. Probably commissioned by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Minister of Finance and Minister of the Navy of the kingdom of France, the Album was composed to make Louis XIV understand the complexity of shipbuilding. It was also made to support the creation of a navy with the ambition of being competitive with the Royal Navy and with the intent of modernising and expanding the French shipbuilding industry. The fifty plates that make up this illustrated treatise unravel the story of the construction of a first-rank 80-gun line vessel, from the laying of the keel to the launch. It is a unique document that has no contemporaries or precursors because it is not a didactic collection of boats, like the previous treaties that had a completely different methodological approach, more technical-descriptive than illustrative, but it wants to go beyond the scientific treatise. Its purpose was instead to measure itself with representation, showing through the strength of drawing and images the peculiar aspects of the reality of shipbuilding, using iconography as a means of transmitting knowledge related to the world of shipyards and shipbuilding in the 17th century.

scholarly journals Voilà pourquoi je ne suis pas ‘ontologue’

1970 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Paul Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Ontological Difference ◽  
The Creation

The word “ontology” has no meaning outside the context in which it was created. When it was invented, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the word 'metaphysics' already existed. So the creation of “ontology” had to express a distance with respect to tradition. “Metaphysics” had its roots in Aristotle and his search, his impossible search, for a first principle. This project is taken up again by “ontology” but this time by limiting the Aristotelian intention to the area of univocal formality, while Aristotle had situated himself within the order of dialectical investigation. Current phenomenology tries to re-actualize the Aristotelian intention by emphasizing ontological difference and analogy, while analytic philosophy remains firmly within the tradition of modern ontology.

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