Puritanism & Liberty

First published in England in 1938, Puritanism and Liberty has won wide recognition in its field. Centering on the Debates regarding the Constitution in the years 1647-49, it exhibits many of the main principles involved in the Puritan revolution, and especially those springing from Puritan religious thought, sentiment, and experience.The book contains a new editing of the famous Putney Debates in the Council of the Army in 1647, whose subject is political liberty, and of the Whitehall Debates in the Council of Officers in 1648-49, one of whose principal subjects is religious tolerance. Careful editing has produced a text at once completely faithful to the manuscript and readily understandable by the general reader.In the Debates we have the actual words of Cromwell and Ireton, of officers and common soldiers, of Puritan divines, and of leaders of the Levellers (Lilburne, Overton, and Wildman) as they were uttered in heated argument. The Debates are followed by selections from over fifty pamphlets and other contemporary documents which present the historical context of the discussions or elucidate their leading principles.In the Supplementary Documents we can peruse the relevant principles of Calvin and Luther (in the form in which the Puritans read them), of Milton and Roger Williams, of John Goodwin, William Dell and other Puritan ministers, of Overton and the Levellers, and Winstanley and the Diggers. All this amounts to a comprehensive and fascinating exhibition of the Puritan mind in action.