Introduction

Abstract

Evangelicals reprised the biblical trope of the “one thing needful” (the unum necessarium) but emphasized singular devotion not in the context of cloister or vestry but in the wider world. This book gives an account of this dynamic spirituality in the new social space of a modernizing society where the traditional bonds of ancien régime society were weakening. It describes the emergence of evangelical spirituality but views devotion, culture, and ideas all together. Evangelical devotion appeared alongside the rise of Modernity, the Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution, and in the midst of a shift from the authority of the ancients to that of the moderns. Evangelical devotion is therefore examined in relation to the key cultural domains of science, law, and art, and the leading intellectual discourses of natural and moral philosophy. The leading subjects and sources for the book and the content of each chapter are also briefly introduced.