Puritan Mysticism and the Development of Liberalism

Abstract

The rise of the liberal spirit in seventeenth-century England is generally equated with the development of Locke's philosophy and the rationalism of English churchmen such as Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Sharpe. In tracing the emergence of this movement historians of thought have given adequate attention to such factors as the Cambridge Platonists, the earlier Latitudinarians, the impact of Newtonian science, and the general social, political, and economic conditions of the day. One factor has been overlooked. There were certain emphases or characteristics in the mystical element of Puritanism which also appeared later in the rise of the liberal spirit on the English scene. The usual treatment of this phase of the Puritan movement is to grant its fruitfulness in the economic and political spheres, but to consider it a peculiar aberration which is insignificant for subsequent developments in religious thought except for its issue in Quakerism.