This is a pioneering study of philosophy in the English and Welsh Dissenting academies and Nonconformist theological colleges from the Toleration Act of 1689 to 1920. The author discusses the place of philosophy in the curriculum and the philosophical works published by tutors, professors, and alumni, among them Isaac Watts, Henry Grove, Richard Price, James Martineau, and Robert Mackintosh. It is shown that particular attention was paid to natural theology, moral philosophy, and apologetics, and some of the ideas propounded are of continuing interest. This important book will interest historians of philosophy, of the Church, and of education.

What is the Gospel, and how is it to be commended? This question encapsulates the running theme of this collection of papers. In five essays Professor Sell discusses some Puritans, Cambridge Platonists, Quakers, and critics of deism and pantheism who sought to articulate the Gospel in the intellectual environment in which they had been set. Their underlying concerns are of continuing relevance in current ecumenical discussion, as are questions of doctrinal change and development, the subjects of two further papers. A paper on spirituality echoes some of the concerns of the Separatists, Platonists, and Quakers, but views them in relation to the widespread interest in the topic at the present time. Two papers concern the ways in which the Gospel is shared in ecumenical circles, with special reference to the Holy Spirit, ecclesiology, and the Reformed contribution to interconfessional discussion. A bibliographical survey of Reformed theology in twentieth-century Britain shows the range of interest within one ecclesiastical tradition, while such wider issues as contextual theology, inclusivism, and the peril of sectarianism are discussed in a further paper. The book concludes with an attempt to answer the question, what is involved in proclaiming the Gospel of reconciliation today?

'Where Christian apologetics are concerned, is Locke to be endorsed, repaired, modified, or forsaken?' The diverse answers given to this question by the eighteenth-century divines form the complex subject of this book, which offers the first detailed account of his influence upon the religious thinkers of the eighteenth century. The work is based upon a thorough search of relevant materials, many of them scarce and widely dispersed. But the question is still relevant three centuries after Locke's death, and Professor Sell's objective in this volume is not only historical. From this study of the reception of Locke by the divines there emerge pressing questions about method, reason, faith, revelation, and authority which need to be addressed by those who would attempt Christian apologetics as Christianity's third millennium approaches. Although this book stands in its own right, it can also be read as a companion volume to the author's Philosophical Idealism and Christian Belief (University of Wales Press, 1995). Together, the two books represent soundings taken in important Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment intellectual traditions. The question whether an apologetic method may be found which avoids the pitfalls exposed both by the examination of Locke and the idealists, and which circumvents latter-day embargoes upon Christian apologetics, will be addressed in a third and final volume.