Abstract
This article offers a re-examination of the concept of Erastianism as an explanatory tool in discussions of church and state. It focuses in particular on three texts – by Pierre du Moulin, Thomas Cobbet and John Milton – that took up the question of the nature of civil power in the sphere of religion. Based on this, the article argues that the term ‘Erastianism’ obscures the complexity and nuance of arguments about religious politics in the civil war period. It concludes by suggesting that we should instead consider these debates as contributions to discourse on civil religion.
Highlights
This article offers a re-examination of the concept of Erastianism as an explanatory tool in discussions of church and state
It focuses in particular on three texts – by Pierre du Moulin, Thomas Cobbet and John Milton – that took up the question of the nature of civil power in the sphere of religion
Religious dissent manifested itself as political opposition, and it is a matter of broad agreement that religion shaped the political character of the English civil war
Summary
Kingship in Restoration England: the Politics of the Royal Supremacy, 1660–88 (Cambridge, 2011); and E. The Constitutionalist Revolution: an Essay on the History of England, 1450–1642 (Cambridge, 2006), p. N. Figgis and the history of political thought in Cambridge’, in Cambridge Minds, ed. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, ii: the Age of Reformation (Cambridge, 1978), pp. Church and State in Early Modern England, 1509–1640 (Oxford, 1990), p. A. Orr, Treason and the State: Law, Politics and Ideology in the English Civil War (Cambridge, 2002), pp. Political Thought and History: Essays on Theory and Method (Cambridge, 2009), ch. Louis Du Moulin, The power of the Christian magistrate in sacred things (1650), p
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