A Great Expectation Eschatological Thought In English Protestantism To 1660

This book offers the first detailed examination of the life and works of biblical commentator Thomas Brightman (1562-1607), analysing his influential eschatological commentaries and their impact on both conservative and radical writers in early modern England. It examines in detail the hermeneutic strategies used by Brightman and argues that his method centred on the dual axes of a Jewish restoration to Palestine and the construction of a strong English national identity. This book suggests that Brightman’s use of conservative modes of “literal” exegesis led him to new interpretations which had a major impact on early modern English eschatology. A radically historicised mode of exegesis sought to provide interpretations of the Old Testament that would have made sense to their original readers, leading Brightman and those who followed him to argue for the physical restoration of the Jews to the Holy Land. In doing so, the standard Reformed identification of Old Testament Israel with elect Christians was denied. This book traces the evolution of the controversial idea that Israel and the church both had separate unfulfilled scriptural promises in early modern England and shows how early modern exegetes sought to re-construct a distinctly English Christian identity through reading their nation into prophecy. In examining Brightman’s hermeneutic strategies and their influence, this book argues for important links between a “literal” hermeneutic, ideas of Jewish restoration and national identity construction in early modern England. Its central arguments will be of interest to all those researching the history of biblical interpretation, the role of religion in constructing national identity and the background to the later development of Christian Zionism. This important study provides a new examination of Thomas Brightman's hermeneutical method, particularly his ideas on the restoration of the Jews. The author's thorough analysis of Brightman's approach also has more general and wider implications for understanding the development of English apocalyptic interpretation into the later seventeenth-century.' - Dr Warren Johnston, Associate Professor of History, Algoma University. Andrew Crome's ground-breaking study of Thomas Brightman offers a new and sometimes surprising account of the development of millennial thinking in and beyond early modern England. This masterly account demonstrates the extent to which an emerging Zionism supported an emerging English nationalism, while outlining the historical roots of some of the most important of contemporary geopolitical themes." - Professor Crawford Gribben, Professor of Early Modern British History, Queen's University Belfast. This important study provides a new examination of Thomas Brightman's hermeneutical method, particularly his ideas on the restoration of the Jews. The author's thorough analysis of Brightman's approach also has more general and wider implications for understanding the development of English apocalyptic interpretation into the later seventeenth-century.' - Dr Warren Johnston, Associate Professor of History, Algoma University.

Responding to God’s outcry for us and seeking answers for what we must do to get out of her by examining the history of God’s salvation using Biblical scriptures and hundreds of unrevealed classic books from the last 500 years.

This book explores the ideological origins of the Puritan migration to and experience in America.

In the study of Christian eschatological thought, virtually no attention has been given to past interpretations of the biblical phrase the new heavens and earth. John Duff uncovers the interpretations of this phrase that were extant in seventeenth-century England. These interpretations fall into two basic camps—those that understood the phrase metaphorically and those that understood the phrase literally.Some English divines believed the new heavens and earth referred to the new age of the gospel that commenced in the first century CE. At that time, God flung open the doors of salvation to Gentiles while at the same time bringing judgment to the Jewish nation for its failure to recognize and embrace Jesus as Messiah. This epic transition was fittingly described as a new heavens and earth.A second group of English interpreters believed the phrase stood for a yet future time when the political and religious circumstances of the world would change for the betterment of the church for one thousand years. The new heavens and earth stood for a future millennium in which Christ would establish his reign over the world prior to the day of resurrection and final judgment. Theologians who accepted a literal understanding believed the new heavens and earth described the renovation of the physical creation at the final judgment. Among this group, differences of opinion existed with respect to how much of the world would need cleansing, what creatures would be restored and of what use would a renovated world serve. The idea that the earth, and not heaven, would be the final abode of the saints emerged among a few obscure writers.

Prophecy and millennial speculation are often seen as having played a key role in early European engagements with the new world, from Columbus’s use of the predictions of Joachim of Fiore, to the puritan ‘Errand into the Wilderness’. Yet examinations of such ideas have sometimes presumed an overly simplistic application of these beliefs in the lives of those who held to them. This book explores the way in which prophecy and eschatological ideas influenced poets, politicians, theologians, and ordinary people in the Atlantic world from the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century. Chapters cover topics ranging from messianic claimants to the Portuguese crown to popular prophetic almanacs in eighteenth-century New England; from eschatological ideas in the poetry of George Herbert and Anne Bradstreet, to the prophetic speculation surrounding the Evangelical revivals. It highlights the ways in which prophecy and eschatology played a key role in the early modern Atlantic world.