Science Religion And Politics In Restoration England

A new perspective on the interaction of science, religion and politics in Restoration England, based on discussion of Cumberland's De legibus naturae. Richard Cumberland is one of the seventeenth century's most interesting political theorists. His masterpiece, the De legibus naturae(1672), has rarely been examined on its own terms, but by tracing the political, religiousand intellectual circumstances of the composition of this puzzling work, and showing its importance as a critique of Thomas Hobbes, author of the Leviathan, Dr Parkin demonstrates how Cumberland created a new political andethical theory which absorbed and neutralised many of Hobbes's insights. He also examines the science of the Royal Society as a basis for Cumberland's natural law theory and its influence on such thinkers as Samuel Pufendorf and John Locke. Overall, the book provides an important new perspective on the interaction of science, religion and politics in Restoration England. Dr JON PARKIN teaches in the Department of History at King's College, London.

This book, first published in 1981, provides a systematic assessment of the social relations of Restoration science. On the basis of a detailed analysis of the early history of the Royal Society, Professor Hunter examines the key issues concerning the role of science in late seventeenth-century England.

This book traces the relationship between Anglicanism and science in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Cambridge.

The British state between the mid-seventeenth century to the early twentieth century was essentially a Christian state. Christianity permeated society, defining the rites of passage - baptism, first communion, marriage and burial - that shaped individual lives, providing a sense of continuity between past, present and future generations, and informing social institutions and voluntary associations. Yet this religious conception of state and society was also the source of conflict. The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 brought limited toleration for Protestant Dissenters, who felt unable to worship in the established Church, and there were challenges to faith raised by biblical and historical scholarship, science, moral questioning and social dislocations and unrest. This book brings together a distinguished team of authors who explore the interactions of religion, politics and culture that shaped and defined modern Britain. They consider expressions of civic consciousness in the expanding towns and cities, the growth of Welsh national identity, movements for popular education and temperance reform, and the influence of organised sport, popular journalism, and historical writing in defining national life. Most importantly, the contributors highlight the vital role of religious faith and religious institutions in the understanding of the modern British state.

The position of English monarchs as supreme governors of the Church of England profoundly affected early modern politics and religion. This innovative book explores how tensions in church-state relations created by Henry VIII's Reformation continued to influence relationships between the crown, Parliament and common law during the Restoration, a distinct phase in England's 'long Reformation'. Debates about the powers of kings and parliaments, the treatment of Dissenters and emerging concepts of toleration were viewed through a Reformation prism where legitimacy depended on godly status. This book discusses how the institutional, legal and ideological framework of supremacy perpetuated the language of godly kingship after 1660 and how supremacy was complicated by the ambivalent Tudor legacy. It was manipulated by not only Anglicans, but also tolerant kings and intolerant parliaments, Catholics, Dissenters and radicals like Thomas Hobbes. Invented to uphold the religious and political establishments, supremacy paradoxically ended up subverting them.

Monstrous births, rains of blood, apparitions of battles in the sky - people in early modern England found all of these events to carry important religious and political meanings. In An age of wonders, available in paperback for the first time, William E. Burns explores the process by which these events became religiously and politically insignificant in the Restoration period. The story involves the establishment of early modern science, the shift from 'enthusiastic' to reasonable religion, and the fierce political combat between the Whigs and the Tories.This historical study is based on close readings of a variety of primary sources, both print and manuscript. Burns claims that prodigies lost their religious meaning and became subjects of scientific enquiry as a result of political struggles, first by the supporters of the restored monarchy and the Church of England against Protestant dissenters, and then by the Whig defenders of the Revolution of 1688 against the Tories and the Jacobites.By integrating religious and political history with the history of science, An age of wonders will be of great use to those working in the field of early modern history.

To understand our current world crises, it is essential to study the origins of the systems and institutions we now take for granted. This book takes a novel approach to charting intellectual, scientific, and philosophical histories alongside the development of the international legal order by studying the philosophy and theology of the Scientific Revolution and its impact on European natural law, political liberalism, and political economy. Starting from analysis of the work of Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle and John Locke on natural law, the author incorporates a holistic approach that encompasses global matters beyond the foundational matters of treaties and diplomacy. The monograph promotes a sustainable transformation of international law in the context of related philosophy, history, and theology. Tackling issues such as nature, money, necessities, human nature, secularism, and epistemology which underlie natural lawyers' thinking, Dr García-Salmones explains their enduring relevance for international legal studies today.

Thomas Hobbes, one of the most important figures in the history of political philosophy, is still widely regarded as a predominantly secular thinker. Yet a great deal of his political thought was motivated by the need to address problems of a distinctively religious nature. This is the first collection of essays dedicated to the complex and rich intersections between Hobbes's political and religious thought. Written by experts in the field, the volume opens up new directions for thinking about his treatment of religion as a political phenomenon and the political dimensions of his engagement with Christian doctrines and their history. The chapters investigate his strategies for showing how his provocative political positions could be accepted by different religious audiences for whom fidelity to religious texts was of crucial importance, while also considering the legacy of his ideas and examining their relevance for contemporary concerns. Some chapters do so by pursuing mainly historical inquiries about the motives and circumstances of Hobbes's writings, while others reconstruct the logic of his arguments and test their philosophical coherence. They thus offer wide-ranging and sometimes conflicting assessments of Hobbes's ideas, yet they all demonstrate how closely intertwined his political and religious preoccupations are and thereby showcase how this perspective can help us to better understand his thought.