The Redeemed Captive Returning To Zion A Faithful History Of Remarkable Occurrences In The Captivity And Deliverance Of J W Drawn Up By Himself Whereto There Is Annexed A Sermon Preached By Him Upon His Return At The Lecture In Boston Dec 5 1706 On Luk 8 39 Third Edition As Also An Appendix Containing An Account Of Those Taken Captive At Deerfield Feb 29 1703 4 And Of The Mischief Done By The Enemy In Deerfield From The Beginning Of Its Settlement To The Death Of The Rev Mr W In 1729 With A Conclusion To The Whole By The Rev Mr Williams And The Rev Mr Prince

1.i THE HISTORY OF BRITISHAPOCALYPTICTHOUGHT The study of early modern Britain between the Reformation of the 1530s and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of the 1640s has undergone a series of historiographical revisions. The dramatic events during that century were marked by a religious struggle that produced a Protestant nation, divided internally, yet clearly opposed to Rome. Likewise the political environment instilled a sense of responsible awareness regarding the administration of the realm and the defense 1 of constitutional liberty. Whig Historians from the nineteenth century described 2 these changes as a “Puritan Revolution.” Essentially this was England’s inevitable 3 march towards enlightenment as a result t of religious and political maturation. Subsequent Marxist historians attributed these radical changes to socio-economic 4 factors. Britain was witnessing the decline of the medieval feudal system and the rise of a new capitalist class. Both of these early views claimed that brewing social, political and economic unrest culminated in extreme radical action. More recently, beginning in the 1980s, new studies appeared that began to challenge these old assumptions. Relying on careful archival research, many of these studies discarded the former conception of this period as “revolutionary”, instead 5 arguing that the Reformation was in fact a gradual and unpopular process. In 1 Margo Todd (ed.) Reformation to Revolution: Politics and Religion in Early Modern England (London and New York, 1995), p. 1. 2 S. R. Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution (London, 1876).

The Rise of the Mediaeval Church; And Its Influence on the Civilization of Western Europe from the First to the Thirteenth Century, a classical book, has been considered essential throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.