Sir Henry Vane, Theologian: A Study in Seventeenth-century Religious and Political Discourse

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Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1997 - Religion - 370 pages
This volume is an inquiry into the theological and political writings of the English statesmen Sir Henry Vane the younger (1613-62), and is the first comprehensive study to be published on Vane's writings. Well-known to students of history as a leading political figure during the English Civil War and beyond, Vane is presented in this book as a formidable and articulate thinker. Author David Parnham sees Vane as a fascinating occupant of the rich intellectual world of the mid-seventeenth century. He provides a thorough analysis of Vane's complex religious and political tracts, and obliges readers to reconsider the prevailing consensus that Vane was too elusive and incoherent a writer to be capable of fruitful scholarly treatment. A central commitment of this study is that a sensitive consideration of Vane's variegated modes of expression will show him to be a theorist and exegete of considerable historical interest.
 

Contents

Commonplace Themes The Political and the Theological
15
The Mystique Critics Scholars and a Dissenting Disciple
51
Approaches to Theological Utterance Strategic Considerations
66
The Spiritual Hermeneutic
103
The Spiritual and the Allegorical
152
Trinity Mediator and the Origins of Revelation
177
Federal Theology and the Rhetoric of Dissent
211
Conclusion
265
Notes
270
Bibliography
338
Index
361
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