Stephen Hampton, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. viii + 293. ISBN 978-0-19-953336-7 (hbk).

摘要

The period from the Restoration to the accession of the House of Hanover was theologically remarkable. It witnessed the decline of ‘old’ Puritanism and the separation of the salvation of the individual from the salvation of the whole of the ‘godly community’. It observed the last period of aggressively persecuting Anglicanism and the establishment of religious toleration in Britain. In this period the terms ‘High Church’ and ‘Low Church’ were coined. It also saw the collapse of Anglican ideas of passive obedience. Now Stephen Hampton, in this impressive book, argues that in the field of doctrine and ecclesiology historians have under estimated the position of the Calvinist Anglican tradition. Revising his doctoral thesis on Thomas Barlow, William Beveridge, John Edwards, John Pearson and Thomas Tully, Hampton seeks to restore what he calls the Anglican ‘Reformed’ tradition to its proper place in the history of the period. Hampton shows that, from J.C. Ryle to David Bebbington, historians have largely proclaimed the eighteenth century a Calvin-free period in Anglicanism. Those historians who concede the existence of Calvinism within the Church of England, like Nicholas Tyacke and John Spurr, have treated it as a marginal survival in universities or in the minds of a few inconsequential clergy. Hampton claims the reverse: many mainstream and influential bishops and clergy were of the ‘Reformed’ tradition, indeed Calvinists lurked under many beds in this period. They included such notable churchmen as Robert South, William Delaune, Henry Compton, William Beveridge, Seth Ward, Edward Reynolds, and even later figures such as Gilbert Burnet and William Nicolson.