John Mason and his Religion: An Enthusiastic Millenarian in late Seventeenth-Century England

Abstract

Almond examines the religion of John Mason, late seventeenth-century Anglican minister, millenarian and visionary. He argues that John Mason's millenarian religion demonstrates the mingling of high scholarly traditions of apocalypticism-those of Joseph Mede and Johann Heinrich Alsted especially-with plebeian modes of millenarian enthusiasm. John Mason exemplifies at the end of the seventeenth century what Nicholas McDowell has discerned in its middle years, namely, that religious radicalism may be generated from the 'top down' as well as from below. The religion of John Mason also provides further evidence of the ongoing importance of millenarian themes at the dissenting edges of the English church after the Revolution of 1688-1689. The apocalypticism of John Mason is further evidence that, 'apocalyptic thought had survived the change in radical fortunes after the decades of the mid-century and was readily adapted to explain the Restoration civil and ecclesiastical context'.