Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689

<p>This fascinating work is the first overview of its subject to be published in over half a century. The issues it deals with are key to early modern political religious and cultural history.<br><br>The seventeenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of expanding and extended liberalism when superstition and received truth were overthrown. The book questions how far England moved towards becoming a liberal society at that time and whether or not the end of the century crowned a period of progress or if one set of intolerant orthodoxies had simply been replaced by another.<br><br>The book examines what toleration means now and meant then explaining why some early modern thinkers supported persecution and how a growing number came to advocate toleration. Introduced with a survey of concepts and theory the book then studies the practice of toleration at the time of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts the Puritan Revolution and the Restoration. The seventeenth century emerges as a turning point after which for the first time a good Christian society also had to be a tolerant one. <br><br>Persecution and Toleration is a critical addition to the study of early modern Britain and to religious and political history. </p>