Heaven Upon Earth

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Part 1 - JOSEPH MEDE IN CONTEXT

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 18-18

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   2. Introduction

      Pages 1-6

   3. Biography

      Pages 7-16

   4. Crypto-Papists, Anti-Calvinists and the Antichrist

      Pages 19-35

   5. Joseph Mede and the Cambridge Platonists

      Pages 37-64

   6. Protestant Irenicism and the Millennium: Mede and the 65 Hartlib Circle

      Pages 65-85

3. Part 2 - THE ROOTS OF MEDE'S APOCALYPTIC THOUGHT

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 88-88

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   2. The Origins of the Clavis Apocalyptica: A Millenarian Conversion

      Pages 89-107

   3. Millenarians, The Church Fathers and Jewish Rabbis

      Pages 109-137

4. Part 3 - THE LEGACY OF JOSEPH MEDE

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 140-140

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   2. An English Millenarian Legacy

      Pages 141-174

   3. Colonial North America: The Puritan Errand Revised

      Pages 175-209

   4. The Continental Millenarian Tradition

      Pages 211-244

   5. Conclusion: Revising British Millenarianism

      Pages 245-249

5. Back Matter

   Pages 251-290

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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).

• Apocalypse
• Apocalypticism
• Eschatology
• Hartlib circle
• Isaac Newton
• Jerusalem
• Joseph Mede
• Millenarianism
• Plato
• Revolution
• apocalyptic
• hermeneutics
• individual
• seventeenth century

• Westminster Theological Seminary, USA

  Jeffrey K. Jue

Policies and ethics