¹ The classic modern text in this field is Haller, William, Liberty and reformation in the puritan revolution (New York, 1955)Google Scholar.

² Jordan, W. K., The development of religious toleration in England (4 vols., Cambridge, MA, 1932-1940).Google Scholar Instructive in this regard is Goldie, Mark, ‘The theory of religious intolerance in restoration England’, in Grell, Ole Peter, Israel, Jonathan and Tyacke, Nicholas (eds.) From persecution to toleration: the glorious revolution and religion in England (Oxford, 1991), pp. 331–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ A late entrant in this field was Aylmer, G. E., The struggle for the constitution: England in the seventeenth century (London, 1963)Google Scholar.

⁴ This view of the revisionists is very ably summarized in Cust, Richard and Hughes, Ann, ‘Introduction: after revisionism’, in Cust, and Hughes, (eds.), Conflict in early Stuart England: studies in religion and politics 1603–1642 (Hariow, 1989), pp. 1–46.Google Scholar The arch-revisionist, in terms or arguing for consensus rather than conflict, has become Kishlansky, Mark, see his ‘The emergence of adversary politics in the Long Parliament’, Journal of Modern History, XLIX (1977), 617–40,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Parliamentary selection (London, 1986)Google Scholar.

⁵ For urgings, from different quarters, in the same direction see Hexter, J.H., ‘Power struggle, parliament and liberty in early Stuart England’, Journal of Modern History, L (1978), 1–50Google Scholar; ‘The birth of modern freedom’, TLS, 21 Jan. 1983; Sommerville, J. P., Politics and ideology in England, 1603–1640 (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Cust and Hughes (eds.), Conflict.

⁶ The phrases cited here are from , Cust and , Hughes, ‘Introduction’, p. 37Google Scholar.

⁷ Zagorin, Perez, Rebels and rulers, 1500–1660 (2 vols., Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

⁸ Russell, Conrad, The causes of the English Civil War (Oxford, 1990), ch. 2Google Scholar.

⁹ Compare Kevin Sharpe's emphasis on ‘tensions and ambivalences within a body of shared beliefs’ (Politics and ideas in early Sttutrt England: essays and studies (London, 1989), p. 286).Google Scholar A parallel confusion seems to bedevil the argument over ‘the social calculus’ of early modern England. It is not enough to show insolence and insubordination as if this disproved the existence of vertical bonds of obligation and deference, any more than the evidence of snobbishness and a sense of inferiority might invalidate a society of horizontal or class bonding. People negotiate along lines of social contact which are important to them and which are assumed to be ‘natura as well as across them. Such negotiation carries with it the possibility of dispute. Cf. Phillips, John A., ‘The social calculus: deference and defiance in later Georgian England’, Albion, XXI, 3 (1989), 426–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Clark, J. C. D., ‘England's ancient regime as a confessional state‘, Albion, XXI, 3 (1989), 450–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ See Richardson, R. C. and Ridden, G. M. (eds.), Freedom and the English revolution: essays in history and literature (Manchester, 1986)Google Scholar and the works of J. H. Hexter cited in n. 5 above.

¹¹ Merrill, J. S., ‘The religious context of the English Civil War’, TRHS, 5th ter. XXXIV (1984), 155–78Google Scholar;, Morrill, ‘The attack on the Church of England in the Long Parliament, 1640–49’, in Beales, D. and Best, G. (eds.), History, society and the churches (London, 1985), pp. 105–24Google Scholar;, Morrill, ‘Sir William Brereton and England's wars of religion’, Journal of British Studies, XXIV (1985), 311–32Google Scholar.

¹² Howell, Roger Jr, ‘Cromwell and English liberty’, in Richardson, and Ridden, (eds.), Freedom and the English revolution, p. 25Google Scholar.

¹³ Scott, Jonathan, ‘England's troubles: exhuming the popish plot’, in Harris, Tim, Seaward, Paul and Goldie, Mark (eds.), The politics of religion in restoration England (Oxford, 1990), pp. 107–31Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Lamont, William, ‘Pamphleteering, the protestant consensus and the English revolution’, in Richardson, and Ridden, (eds.), Freedom and the English revolution, pp. 77–92,Google Scholar see especially pp. 77, 79, 82, 89. Lamont acknowledges C. H. George as the first modern critic of the ‘puritanism and liberty’ identification. See George, C. H., ‘Puritanism as history and historiography’, Past and Present, XLI (1968), 77–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Lamont's earlier commentary on this: Past and Present, XLIV (1969), 133–46Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Haller, William (ed.), Tracts on liberty in the puritan revolution 1636–1647 (3 vols., New York, 1965), 1, 1–5Google Scholar.

¹⁶ The now classic statement of this is Hill, Christopher, The world turned upside down: radical ideas during the English revolution (Harmondsworth, 1975).Google Scholar See also , Hill, ‘Winstanley and freedom’ in Richardson, and Ridden, (eds.), Freedom and the English revolution pp. 151–168Google Scholar;Lindley, Keith, ’London and popular freedom in the 1640s’, in ibid. pp. 111–50Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Lamont appears (perhaps not in self-contradiction) to embrace both the decline and the revival of Calvinism hypotheses. Lamont, William M., Godly rule: politics and religion 1603–1660 (London, 1969), pp. 124–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 167, 174. It should perhaps be noted that we have no systematic histories of the development of either Calvinist or Arminian thought in the 1640s and 1650s.

¹⁸ , Lamont, Godly rule; ‘Pamphleteering’; Marginal Prynne (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Richard Baxter and the millennium (London, 1979)Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Spufford, Margaret, ‘Puritanism and social control?’, in Fletcher, Anthony and Stevenson, John (eds.), Order and disorder in early modern England (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 41–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ George, ‘Puritanism as history and historiography’.

²¹ E.g. Christopher Hill, ‘History and denominational history’, in Hill, Christopher, Collected essays (3 vols., Brighton, 1984-1986), n, 4Google Scholar; see also Davis, J. C., ‘Fear, myth and furore: reappraising the “Ranters”’, Past and Present, CXXIX (1990), 1–27Google Scholar;, Davis, ‘Puritanism and revolution: themes, categories, methods and conclusions’, The Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), 693–704Google Scholar(also reprinted in ibid, xxxiv (1991), 479–90).

²² Underhill, Edward Bean (ed.), Records of the churches of Christ, gathered at Fenstanton, Warboys and Hexham 1644–1720 (The Hanserd Knollys Society, London, 1854), pp. 21, 42, 43, 46–7, 59, 73, 76, 89–90, 99, 172–4, 176, 184–6Google Scholar.

²³ The operated irrespective of gender, except in one critical sense: it was always men who did the boundary patrolling. Ibid. pp. 12, 14, 40, 44–5, 97, 244–5.

²⁴ E.g. ibid. P. 107.

²⁵ Ibid. p. 73. On the use of die ‘Ranter’ label in this way see , Davis, Fear, myth and history: the ranters and the historians (Cambridge, 1986); ‘Fear, myth and furore’Google Scholar.

²⁶ , Hill, ‘Winstanley and freedom’, p. 152Google Scholar.

²⁷ Winstanley, ‘The law of freedom’, in Sabine, G. H. (ed.), The works of Gerrard Winstanley with an appendix of documents relating to the Digger movement (New York, 1941), p. 519. Winstanley's italicsGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ For examples see Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (ed.), The constitutional documents of the puritan revolution, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1906), pp. 156Google Scholar, 205, 206, 261, 262, 269, 286, 291, 307, 327, 328, 333, 357, 359, 372, 374, 375, 385. Compare , Hobbes: ‘Againe, if we take Liberty, for an exception from Lawes it is no lesse absurd for men to demand as they doe, that Liberty, by which all other men may be masters of their lives’, Tuck, Richard (ed.), Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (Cambridge, 1991), p. 147.Google Scholar Note also John Wildman's recommendation of ‘that excellent maxim melius sub iniquissima lege, quam sub equissimo arbttro vivere: it is better to live under a rigorous and unjust law, than an arbitrary government, though just’ (England's miserie and remedie (1645) in Wootton, David (ed.), Divine right and democracy: an anthology of political writings in Stuart England (Harmondsworth, 1986), p. 278). See alsoGoogle ScholarWarr, John, The corruption of the lawes of England soberly discovered (1649) in ibid, pp. 149, 150, 152, 158. After the restoration it may well be that competing and partisan views of liberty obliged men to see its reference point as natural rather than civil law. The story is complex but remains in essence a religious one. See,Google ScholarHarris, Tim, ‘“Lives, liberties and estates”: rhetorics of liberty in the reign of Charles II’, in Harris, , Seaward, and Goldie, (eds.), Politics 0f religion in restoration England, pp. 217–41.Google Scholar

²⁹ Cf. Ashhurst, William, Reasons against agreement (1648), p. 2Google Scholar;Cokayne, William, The foundations of freedom vindicated (1649), To the ReaderGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Thompson, William, England's freedome, souidier's rights (1647)Google Scholar in Wolfe, Don M. (ed.), Leveller manifestoes of the puritan revolution (n.p., 1967).Google Scholar For the same sentiments From a different direction see M[ichael] H[awkes], The right of dominion and property of liberty, whether natural civil or religious (1656), chs. n, IV and p. 107Google Scholar.

³¹ Lilburne, John, The legall fundamentall liberties of the people of England revived, asserted and vindicated (1649)Google Scholar in Haller, William and Davies, Godfrey (eds.), The leveller tracts 1647–1653 (Gloucester, MA, 1965), pp. 400–33Google Scholar.

³² Ibid. pp. 422, 432–3; Gardiner, (ed.). Constitutional documents, pp. 375, 377Google Scholar.

³³ Pennington, Isaac Jr, The fundamental right, safety and liberty of the people (1651),Google Scholar To the present parliament of England.

³⁴ Pennington, Isaac Jr, Divine essays (1654), pp. 22, 63–5.Google Scholar Cf. ibid.The fundamental right, safety and liberty of the people, A3. ‘Man cannot be free in himself, nor free from himself (while self is in him, it will make him selfish.) and while it is so, others under or within his reach cannot be free.’

³⁵ Sterry, Peter, The teachings of Christ (1648), pp. 14, 23–33Google Scholar.

³⁶ Prynne, William, The substance of a speech, 3rd edn (1649), p. 76.Google Scholar This work is misdated by Lamont to 1641 (Godly rule, p. 161).

³⁷ Walwyn, William, The power of love (1643), p. 39.Google ScholarCf. , Pennington, Divine essays, p. 81.Google Scholar We have no ‘Liberty not to love God, or to neglect any Duty of Love, Holiness and Obedience’.

³⁸ Goodwin, John, The triers tried (1657), p. 18.Google ScholarCf. Overton, Richard, An appeale (1647)Google Scholar in Wolfe, (ed.). Leveller manifestoes, p. 163Google Scholar;Walwyn, William, A helpe to the right understanding of a discourse concerning independency (1644), p. 4.Google Scholar For such limited self-propriety as a source of arguments in favour of toleration see Davis, J. C., ‘The levellers and Christianity’, in Manning, B. S. (ed.). Politics, religion and the civil war (London, 1973), pp. 242–3Google Scholar.

³⁹ Penn, William, The great case of liberty of conscience once more briefly debated and defended (1671)Google Scholar in Whiting, C. E., Studies in English Puritanism from the restoration to the revolution 1660–1688 (London, 1931, PP 139–40Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Firth, C. H. (ed.), The Clarke papers (4 vols., 1891–1901)Google Scholar, Camden Society New Series, XLIX, LIV, LX, LXII; vol. n, pp. 117–18, 120. If this is an argument about liberty, it is an argument about the liberty of God to use his mediate instruments as He wills. It is a difficult argument to answer because countering it seems to impugn God's liberty or honour. Given its premises one cannot use contract argument - beyond a certain point – without developing an apparently impious, secularist, possessive individualism. Hence the possibility of a contemporary sense that Hobbes was an antinomian. Hence also Henry Ireton's difficulties at Whitehall. See ibid. pp. 123–3. On Hobbes in this context see Wallace, Dewey D. Jr., Puritans and predestination: grace in English protestant theology 1525–1695 (Chapel Hill, 1982), pp. 124–5.Google Scholar Glenn Burgess in a recent and persuasive paper has argued ihat it is because Hobbes could conceive of human autonomy that he could be an absolutist; ‘Hobbes amongst the radicals: theories of liberty in the English revolution’. I am grateful to the author for a copy of this unpublished typescript. See also Damrosch, Leopold Jr., ‘Hobbes as reformation theologian: implications of the free-will controversy’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XL (1979), 339–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In Leviathan, ch. 45, Hobbes sees liberty, in this sense as forfeited by those who admit God‘s providence. All religious believers - presumably the great man of his contemporaries ‘are God's slaves’. See Skinner, Quentin, ‘Thomas Hobbes on the proper signification of liberty, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5 Series 40 (1990), 126, 148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Tuck, Richard (ed.), Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan (Cambridge, 1991), p. 147Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Case, Thomas, Spiritual whoredom discovered (1647), p. 34Google Scholar.

⁴² Vines, Richard, The impostures of seducing teachers discovered (1644)Google Scholar quoted in Haller, William, Liberty and reformation in the puritan revolution (New York, 1955), p. 125Google Scholar.

⁴³ , Sterry, Teachings of Christ, p. 21.Google Scholar See also Owen, John, God's work in founding Zion (1656)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Cf. Pinto, Vivian de Sola, Peter Sterry: platomist and puritan 1613–1673: a biographical and critical study with passages selected from his writings (Cambridge, 1934), p. 105Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Bacon, R., The labyrinth the kingdom's in (1649).Google Scholar On die sin of Achan see Worden, Blair, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the sin of Achan’, in Beales, Derek and Best, Geoffrey (eds.), History, society and the churches (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 125–45Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ Clarlson, Laurence, The lost sheepfound (1660)Google Scholar;, Davis, Fear, myth and history, pp. 66–73Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ A word for God is reprinted as pp. 1–11 of William Sedgewick, Animadversions upon a letter and paper, first sent to his Highness by certain gentlemen and others in Wales (1656).

⁴⁸ , Sedgewick, Animadversions, pp. 17, 25, 47Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Ibid. pp. 51–4.

⁵⁰ Kendall, R. T., Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Oxford, 1979),Google Scholar especially pp. 72, 105, 119, 172.

⁵¹ Cf. Morrill, John, ‘The church in England, 1642–9’, in Morrill, (ed.), Reactions to the English Civil War 1642–1649 (London, 1983), pp. 89–114Google Scholar.

⁵² See , Huntley, Taylor, pp. 34–55Google Scholar.

⁵³ On Calvin see Tawney, R. H., Religion and the rise of capitalism (Harmondsworth, 1938), p. 124.Google Scholar On the Grand Remonstrance, Gardiner, (ed.), Constitutional documents, p. 229Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ An interesting alternative case study is provided by Ian Gentle's work on the Chidleys. Radical proponents of leveller ideas they are also distinguished by their demands for godly discipline in their campaigns against bells, cathedrals, Christmas and adult baptism (Gentles, Ian, ‘London levellers in the English revolution: the Chidleys and their circle’, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XXIX (1978), 281–309CrossRefGoogle Scholar). We should see Katherine Chidley's insistence that the husband's authority over his wife could not extend to her conscience, since she had to submit that to a higher authority, in the same light. Fraser, Antonia, The weaker vessel: woman's lot in seventeenth century England (London, 1985), p. 278Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Pennington, The fundamental right, To the present parliament.

⁵⁶ See the second collect for peace in the Order for Morning Prayer, The Book of Common Prayer. Cf. Sprigge, Joshua and Clarke, Captain at the Whitehall debates. Firth, (ed.), Clarke papers, II, 87, 93–5Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ Exodus, 7.16Google Scholar(see also 8.20, 9.11, 9.13, 10.3 and variants at 3.18, 5.1). The motif of Cromwell as Moses reinforced the use of these texts in the 1650s. The heart searching of that decade is not so much about liberation as an end in itself, as about service with liberation as a purely preliminary, an enabling step.

⁵⁸ For an example ofthe text's use see Pennington, Fundamental right, To the present parliament.

⁵⁹ [Woodward, Hezekiah], Christmas Day (1656), pp. 19–20, 25Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ Nuttall, G. F., The puritan spirit: essays and addresses (London, 1967), p. 116Google Scholar;Woodhouse, A. S. P. (ed.), Puritanism and liberty, 2nd edn (London, 1950), pp. 67–8Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Firth, C. H. and Rait, R. S. (eds.), Acts and ordinances of the interregnum (3 vols., London, 1911), 1, 913–14Google Scholar.

⁶² Ibid. 1, 1133–4.

⁶³ Marjorie Reeves has pointed out that, in medieval millennial thought, sub gratia meant under the dynamic, providential-millennial activity or Christ. ‘The development or apocalyptic thought: medieval attitudes’, in Patrides, C. A. and Wittreich, Joseph (eds.), The apocalypse in English renaissance thought and literature (Manchester, 1984), p. 41.Google Scholar As an indication oT the widespread nature of providentialist beliefs see Spurr, John, ‘Virtue, religion and government: the Anglican uses of providence’, in Harris, , Seaward, and Goldie, (eds.), Politics of religion in restoration England, pp. 29–47Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Walwyn, William, A pearle in a dounghill (1646),Google Scholar in Morton, A. L. (ed.), Freedom in arms: a selection of leveller writings (London, 1975), p. 81Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ , Gardiner, Constitutional documents, p. 334. My emphasisGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁶ Cf. Davis, J. C., Utopia and the ideal society: a study of English Utopian writing 1516–1700 (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 178–9.Google Scholar Subjection remains a prerequisite of civil and familial order for Winstanley; see ‘The law of freedom’, in Sabine, (ed.), Works, pp. 507, 515Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ For Vane's views on conscience see Judson, Margaret, The political thought of Sir Henry Vans the younger (Philadelphia, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Harris, Paul, ‘Young Sir Henry Vane's arguments for freedom of conscience’, Political Science, XL, 1 (1988), 34–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘A digger hymn of 1650’, cited in Richardson, R. C. and Ridden, G. M., ‘Introduction’, in Richardson, and Ridden, (eds.). Freedom and the English revolution, p. 3Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ Sprigge, Joshua at the Whitehall debates. Firth, (ed.), Clarke papers, II, 84–7.Google Scholar The quotation comes from p. 87.

⁶⁹ Philip Nye at Whitehall, ibid. 11, 119–20.

⁷⁰ Goodwin, John, Anti-cavalierisme (1642), p. 8Google Scholar.

⁷¹ See, for example, A[spinwall], W[illiam]Thunder from heaven (1655)Google Scholar;The work of the age (1655)Google Scholar.

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⁷³ , Anon., Certain quaeres (1648). pp. 37.Google Scholar The argument is also used against the adoption of any constitution in 1648–9, specifically The agreement of the people at Whitehall. See Firth, (ed.), Clarke papers, II, 84–7, 108, 123–4Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ See, for example, Tillinghast, John, Generation uork (1653Google Scholar;Rogers, John, Sagrir (1653)Google Scholar and Dod (1653); Canne, John, A voue from the temple, 1653Google Scholar; and A second voyce (1653).

⁷⁵ Feake, Christopher, ^{A beam of light shining in the midst of much darkness and confusion} (1659), pp. 53–9Google Scholar.

⁷⁶ Feake, Christopher, The oppressed close prisoner in Windsor-Castle (1655), pp. 2–3, 10–11, 14–15Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ [Cook, John], Monarchy no creature of Gods making (Waterford, 1651).Google Scholar For Cook's providentialism see also Unum necessarium (1648), p. 11Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ A compleate collection of the lives speeches private passages, letters and prayers of those persons lately executed (1661), pp. 55–6.Google Scholar Harrison justified his actions as service to ‘a good Lord’; Carcw his as bearing witness to ‘the true Magistracy, that Magistracy that is in the Word of the Lord8. Colonel Axtell insisted that the Bible ‘hath the whole cause in it’. Ibid. pp. 21, 37, 169.

⁷⁹ Coppin, Richard, A hint of the glorious mystery of divine teachings (1649), p. 2Google Scholar;Saul smitten for not smiting amalek (1653), p. 6, 17–18Google Scholar;A man-child born (1654), p. 114Google Scholar.

⁸⁰ Worden, Blair (ed.), Edmund Ludlow: a voyce from the watch tower: part five: 1660-1662, Camden Fourth Series, 21: Royal Historical Society (London, 1978), p. p169Google Scholar.

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⁸² E.g. Birch, Thomas (ed.), A collection of the state papers of John Thurloe, Esq. (7 vols., London, 1742),Google Scholar II, 113–14; III, 483; IV, 382, 688; V, 270; VII, 57–8; Spittlehouse, John, The first addresses (1653), p. 4Google Scholar;Trapnel, Anna, The cry of a stone (1654), pp. 6, 10–11, 19, 52, 54, 69Google Scholar;Evans, Arise, The voice of the iron rod (1655)Google Scholar;, Evans, The euroclydon winde (1654)Google Scholar;Moore, John, Protection proclaimed (1655)Google Scholar;Nayler, James, To thee Oliver Cromwell (1655), p. 7Google Scholar;Burroughes, Edward, Good counsel (1659).Google Scholar See also, as an example of other obituary tributes, that in the Commonwealth mercury (1658)Google Scholar.

⁸³ Worden, Blair, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the sin of Achan’, in Beales, Derek and Best, Geoffrey (eds.), History, society and the churches (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 125–45Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ Abbott, Wilbur Cortex (ed.), The writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwell (4 vols., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1937–1947).Google Scholar For examples, 1, 533–5, 719; II, 165, 190, 235, 273, 283–7, 483; III, 7, 53; IV, 45–6, 473. Cf. Paul, R. S., The Lord Protector: religion and politics in the life 0f Oliver Cromwell (London, 1955), p. 392Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Abbott, (ed), Writings and speeches, II, 325Google Scholar.

⁸⁶ Eliot, John, Tears of repentance (1653),Google Scholar To His Excellency The Lord General Cromwell.

⁸⁷ Capp, Bernard, ‘The political dimension of apocalyptic thought’, in Patrides, and Wittreich, (eds.), The apocalypse, p. 106Google Scholar.

⁸⁸ Cf. Hunt, William, ‘Spectral origins of the English revolution: legitimation crisis in early Stuart England’, in Eley, Geoff and Hunt, William (eds.). Reviving the English revolution: reflections and elaborations on the work of Christopher Hill (London, 1988), pp. 305–32Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ Milton, John, ‘On being arrived at twenty-three year of age’, in Beeching, H. C. (ed.), The English poems of John Milton (London, 1946), p. 9Google Scholar.

⁹⁰ Cherniak, Warren L., ‘Christian liberty in Marvell and Milton’, in Richardson, and Ridden, (eds), Freedom and the English revolution, pp. 52,Google Scholar 54, 62. The quotation on p. 54 is from Milton's An apology (1642)Google Scholar.

⁹¹ Sterry, The spirits conviction, Epistle Dedicatory.

⁹² Quoted in Cook, Sarah Gibbard, ‘The Cromweilian Independents and the Cromwellian constitutions’. Church History, XLVI, 3 (1977), 351Google Scholar.

⁹³ Dell, William, The crucified and quickened Christian (n.d., 1650?), pp. 23–4Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ E.g., Chillenden, Edmond, Preaching without ordination (1647),Google Scholar To the Nationall Synod or Aitembly; Walwyn, William, The Power of Love (1643).Google Scholar Toleration is, of course, always perceived u a second best to the ultimate unity of Christ's will.

⁹⁵ , Nuttall, The Holy Spirit, p. 107Google Scholar;Reliquiae Baxlerianae, pp. 71, 77Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ An humity against disobedience and wylful rebellion (1570),Google Scholar in Wootton, (ed.), Divine right and democracy, p. 96Google Scholar.

⁹⁷ Burroughs, Jeremiah, Irenicum (1646).Google Scholar See Hudson, Winthrop S., ‘Denominationalism as a basis for ecumenicity: a seventeenth century conception’, Church History, XXIV (1955), 35, 38, 41Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Horton, Hur et al., The faithfull narrative (1654),Google Scholar To the Little Remnant of the Lamb, against the Beast and his Government. See also , Naylcr, To thee Oliver Cromwell, pp. 2, 7Google Scholar.

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¹⁰⁰ Capp, Bernard, The fifth monarchy men: a study in seventeenth-century English mUlenarianism (London, 1972), pp. 13–14Google Scholar.

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¹⁰⁴ Cf. Overton, Richard, An appeale (1647)Google Scholar in Wolfe, (ed.), Leveller manifestoes, pp. 158,Google Scholar 159, 160. For the emphasis on God's arbitrary, interventionist capacities on either side of the reformation divide see Cervantes, Fermando, ‘The devils of Queretaro: scepticism and credulity in late seventeenth-century Mexico’, Past and Present, CXXX (1991), 51–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁵ Hill, Christopher, ‘Occasional conformity’, in Knox, R. Buick (ed.), Reformation, conformity and dissent: essays in honour of Geoffrey Nuttall (London, 1977), p. 201Google Scholar;Yule, George, The Independents in the English Civil War (Cambridge and Melbourne, 1958), p. 73Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁶ E.g. John Goodwin at Whitehall in Woodhouse, (ed.), Puritanism and liberty, p. 196.Google Scholar Note also Goodwin's statement in Independency God's verity (1647)Google Scholar that ‘Independency…admitteth not of human prudence in church government’ (ibid. p. 186).

¹⁰⁷ Nuttall, Geoffrey F., Visible saints: the congregational way 1640–1660 (Oxford, 1957), pp. 54,60Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁸ The ancient bounds (1645),Google Scholar in Woodhouse, (ed.) Puritanism and liberty, p. p247Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ , Baxter, Reliquiae, p. 104Google Scholar.

¹¹⁰ J.N., Proh tempora! Pro mores (1654), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar See also Worden, Blair, ‘Toleration and the Cromwellian protectorate’, in Shiels, W. J. (ed.), Persecution and toleration: studies a church (Church History Society, Oxford, 1984), XXI, 199–233Google Scholar;, Lamont, ‘Pamphleteering’, in Richardson, and Ridden, (eds.), Freedom and the English revolution, pp. 77, 87, 89Google Scholar.

¹¹¹ The quotation is from Robinson, Henry, Liberty of conscience (1644),Google Scholar in Haller, (ed.), Tracts on Liberty, III, 115.Google Scholar Other illustrations may conveniently be found in this collection in: An apologeticall narration (1644), ibid, II, 3, 4, 22–3Google Scholar;Walwyn, William, The power of love (1643), ibid, 39, 43Google Scholar; , Walwyn, The compassionate samaritane (1644), ibid, III, 1–2, 5, 43, 53Google Scholar;Goodwin, John, OEMAXIA (1644), ibid, III, 3–58Google Scholar.

¹¹² , Walwyn, Power of love, p. 43.Google Scholar Cf. the Cromwellian limits of ‘the Royal law of love and Christian moderation’, to be found in the proclamation of 15 02 1655 prohibiting the disturbing of ministen, Abbott, (ed.), Writings and speeches, III, 626.Google Scholar See also Davis, ‘Cromwell's religion’.

¹¹³ A manifestation (1649)Google Scholar in Haller, and Davies, (eds.), Leveller tracts, pp. 276–84Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ Lilburne, John, The legall fundamentall liberties of the people of England (1649),Google Scholar in Davies, Haller (eds.), Leveller tracts, p. 20Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Lilburne, John, Strength out of weaknesse (1649), pp. 21–2Google Scholar.

¹¹⁶ Lilburne, John, The just defence of John Lilburne (1653), p. 2.Google Scholar Lest it be thought that this is Lilburne in defeat, recall that in 1645 he saw ‘godly Discipline’ as the way to rid the country of lawyers and litigation (England6s birth right Justified (1645), p. 37)Google Scholar.

¹¹⁷ For one example amongst many see Walwyn, William, A helpe to the right understanding of a discourse concerning independency (1644), p. 4.Google Scholar See also Davis, J. C., ‘The levellers and Christianity’, in Manning, Brian (ed.), Politics, religion and the English Civil War (London, 1973), p. 243Google Scholar.

¹¹⁸ See, for example, An agreement of the free people of England (1649), p. 2.Google ScholarLilburne, John, The just defence (1653),Google Scholar in Wootton, (ed.), Divine right and democracy, p. 146Google Scholar.

¹¹⁹ Cf. , Lilburne, Legall fundamentall liberties, p. 75Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ , Anon., Tyranipocrit (1649), pp. 3, 9, 38–9Google Scholar.

¹²¹ , Milton, Second defence of the English people quoted in Gardiner, S. R., History of the commonwealth and protectorate 1649–56 (4 vols., New York, 1965), III, 169Google Scholar.

¹²² G[eorge] W[ither], The modem states-man (1653), p. 12Google Scholar and passim. See also p. 35, ‘take heed, I say, that you lose not your liberty in the noise you make for freedom, and whilst you crowd out Authority, you bring not Tyranny in on pick-back….’

¹²³ Richardson, Samuel, An apology for the present government (1654), p. 3Google Scholar.

¹²⁴ Fell, John, The interest of England stated (1659).Google Scholar

¹²⁵ Pocock, J. G. A., The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition (Princeton, 1975),Google Scholar Part 3. Radical scepticism, not of the existence of God so much as of our capacity to know his intentions, was one path to human autonomy but contemporaries found it hard to distinguish from atheism. See, for example, Burgess, ‘Hobbes amongst the radicals’.

¹²⁶ I am attempting to depict antiformalism and its relationship with issues of authority elsewhere. For some preliminary observations see Davis, ‘Cromwell's religion’. It may be that formality/hypocrisy, rather than authority, should be seen as die antithesis of liberty in this period. If Christian liberty is the whole-hearted pursuit of God's purpose, its antithesis is hypocrisy - performance without the whole heart. Hypocrisy comes close to formality - die raising of forms above substance. Cf. Milton: ‘Sacred things not performed sincerely… are no way acceptable to God in the outward formality’ ( Eikonoklastes (1649), p. xxviiGoogle Scholar). On hypocrisy see also Kaufmann, U. Milo, ‘Spiritual discerning: Bunyan and the mysteries of die divine will’, in Keeble, N. H. (ed.), John Bunyan: Omoentxcle and Parnassus: tercentenary essays (Oxford, 1988), pp. 173–6Google Scholar.

¹²⁷ Davis, ‘Cromwell's religion’.

¹²⁸ Cf. Coppin, Richard, Truths testimony (1655), pp. 142–4Google Scholar on the conventional observation that it was bad to have evil magistrates but worse to have none at all. Also Feake, Christopher et al., A faithdul diacovery (1655), pp. 39–40.Google Scholar ‘Our Intentions are not to countenance that Churlish private spirit found among men…’ Submission is required ‘to the Will of the Lord, who ordereth the Plenty and the Poverty, increasing and diminishing, high and low estate of Persons and Nations.’

¹²⁹ Davis, ‘The levellers and Christianity’.

¹³⁰ The extreme of formalistic responses to this may be found in various expressions of the utopian impulse. The most antiformalistic may be seen in the providentialism of the likes of Cromwell or in the active millennialism of Fifth Monarchism. There is no room for personal or denominational autonomy in this spectrum.