Religious Currents and Cross-Currents: Essays on Early Modern Protestantism and the Protestant Enlightenment

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BRILL, 1999 - 284 pages
The religious history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Protestantism was marked by a twofold movement. On the one hand there were attempts to consolidate and, if necessary, to reaffirm the heritage of the Reformation; on the other hand, we meet a growing critical evaluation of the legacy of mainstream orthodox thought, which could lead to a process of gradual renewal and reorientation, but also to forms of more radical and controversial criticism. Conservative as well as critical tendencies can be discerned in the religious landscape on both sides of the North Sea. In spite of differences in the historical framework and spiritual culture, the developments in Great-Britain and on the Continent often present remarkable parallels, and the water of the North Sea was not too deep for creative interaction. This volume contains a number of essays which deal with various aspects of English and Dutch church history and theology in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Special attention is given to the problems surrounding the Calvinist doctrine of predestination; to English Puritanism and its impact on the Netherlands; to Jewish-Christian relations and polemics in the seventeenth century; to seventeenth-century millenarianism, in particular in the circle of the Cambridge Platonists; to the attitute of Dutch Reformed theologians to the Church of England, to eighteenth-century English and Dutch orientalist studies and to the development of enlightened ideas in the circles of English and Dutch Protestantism.

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Contents

Chapter One The Synod of Dort in the Balance
1
Chapter Two Sir Thomas Browne and the Synod of Dort
19
Chapter Three The English Puritan Francis Rous and
25
Chapter Four ProtoProtestants? The Image of the Karaites
43
Appendix John Covels Letter on the Karaites 1677
57
Chapter Five Menasseh Ben Israel Henry More
65
Chapter Seven Grotius Views on Antichrist and Apocalyptic
103
The contrary thoughts
117
Chapter Eleven Dutch Calvinism and the Church of England
163
Chapter Twelve The Idea of the PreExistence of the Soul
183
Chapter Fourteen Orthodoxy Rationalism and the World
213
Chapter Fifteen The Leiden Professors of the Schultens Family
231
Chapter Sixteen Theology in Franeker and Leiden in
253
Bibliography 19871998
269
Select Index of Subjects
283
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About the author (1999)

Johannes van den Berg, D.Th., emeritus Professor of Church History, born 1922 (Rotterdam), Reformed minister 1947-1959, Professor at the Free University Amsterdam (1959-1976), at Leiden University (1976-1987). Has published on 17th, 18th and 19th century church history. Special fields of interest: Anglo-Dutch ecclesiastical and theological relations, predestinarianism; Jewish-Christian relations and polemics; millenarianism; Protestant Enlightenment.

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