Description
Book SynopsisThis book is based on a story. Its main protagonists are a London clergyman, Stephen Denison, and a lay sectmaster and prophet, John Etherington. The dispute between the two men blew up in the mid-1620s, but its reverberations can be traced back to the 1590s and continued to 1640.
Through Denison the book analyses the tensions and contradictions within the ''religion of protestants'' that dominated great swathes of the early Stuart church. Through Etherington, it eavesdrops on a London puritan underground that has remained largely hidden from view and which, while it was related to, indeed, parasitic upon, was not coterminous with, the order and orthodoxy-centred puritanism of Stephen Denison.
By placing the Denison/Etherington dispute in its multiple contexts, the book becomes a study of puritan theology and intra-puritan theological dispute; of lay clerical relations and of the politics of the parish; and thus of the social history of parish and puritan religion in L
Trade Review
'This is a fascinating and very important book on conflicts and their resolution (or attempted resolution) within early Stuart London Puritanism. It has vital things to say about the complexity and contradictory potentials within Puritanism divinity and Puritan milieux. It challenges a variety of simple notions about Puritanism as either consensual/establishment/mainstream or extremist/unpopular, by analyzing a series of conflicts, encounters, and juxtapositions amongst London Puritans. At its heart are remarkable individuals vividly portrayed - the aggressive and paranoid Puritan minister Stephen Denison and the perhaps heretical box-maker Etherington.' Professor Paul Seaver, Stanford University
Table of Contents
List of figures
Acknowledgements
Part 1 – Stephen Denison
1. Introduction: the occasion
2. The puritanism of Stephen Denison: i. doctrinal and pietistic underpinnings
3. The puritanism of Stephen Denison: ii. ecclesiastical forms and political consequences
Part 2 – John Etherington
4. Denison and Etherington or was John Etherington a familist?
5. Another pair of initials? T.L., H.N. and the ideological formation of the young Etherington
6. What Etherington really thought: the 1620s
Part 3 – The London puritan scene
7. The London puritan underground
8. William Chibald and the strange case of ‘A trial of faith’
9. Doctrinal dispute and damage limitation in the London puritan community
Part 4 – Denison and Etherington again
10. Heading for the high ground: Denison and Etherington on order, authority and orthodoxy
11. The Laudian style and the politics of the parish-pump
12. Retrospective: Denison and Etherington position themselves for posterity
13. Conclusion
Index
