I. Reason and Religion "Si on soumet tout a la raison, notre religion n'aura rien de mysterieux et de surnaturel; si on choque les principes de la raison, notre religion sera absurde et ridicule",l In this passage from his Pensees Pascal summarizes what is perhaps the most basic problem for the defender of the reasonableness of Christianity: the necessity of upholding beliefs which Reason is incapable of judging, while at the same time claiming that those beliefs are reasonable. Pascal does not state the problem in precisely these terms regarding the limits of Reason, yet it seems clear that the dilemma he is indicating involves the question of the relation of religious beliefs to the compass of Reason. He does not, however-at least in the passage cited-indicate that the problem is a question of either/or: either Reason and no Religion, or Religion and Irrationality. Rather, he seems to be simply stating what he perceives to be a simple matter of fact. If Reason is allowed to be the judge of all Religion, then all Religion must abandon any elements that are either contrary to reason or cannot be shown to be in accord with Reason. On the other hand, if Reason is not allowed to judge Religion at all, then Religion will be absurd and ridiculous.

History has not been kind to Symon Patrick. His fifty years of ministry spanned the closing years of Cromwell’s rule and the start of Queen Anne’s reign, and ranged from service as a Church of England minister in two fashionable London parishes to appointment as the “latitudinarian” Bishop of Ely. He influenced a major change in the character of the Established Church, as it moved from a confrontational fundamentalism to the broad tolerance that exists today. Patrick, recognised by his contemporaries as one of the three or four leading clergy of his generation, wrote over one hundred books that helped to define his Church, such as his pastoral work The Heart’s Ease, his devotional The Parable of the Pilgrim and his biting polemic against nonconformism, A Friendly Debate. This book assesses the significance and quality of Patrick’s contribution to the Church of England, carefully placing it against the background of the history and politics of the time and suggesting why his reputation faded after his death. Puritanism, Latitudinarianism, pilgrimage, women’s religion and spirituality, and prose style are all topics touched on here.

Harold Berman’s masterwork narrates the interaction of evolution and revolution in the development of Western law. This new volume explores two successive transformations of the Western legal tradition under the impact of the sixteenth-century German Reformation and the seventeenth-century English Revolution, with particular emphasis on Lutheran and Calvinist influences. Berman examines the far-reaching consequences of these apocalyptic political and social upheavals on the systems of legal philosophy, legal science, criminal law, civil and economic law, and social law in Germany and England and throughout Europe as a whole. Berman challenges both conventional approaches to legal history, which have neglected the religious foundations of Western legal systems, and standard social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the communitarian dimensions of early modern economic law, including corporation law and social welfare. Clearly written and cogently argued, this long-awaited, magisterial work is a major contribution to an understanding of the relationship of law to Western belief systems.

Details the impact of the critical-historical method on the thought and biblical interpretation of Jonathan Edwards

Harold Berman's masterwork narrates the interaction of evolution and revolution in the development of Western law. This new volume explores two successive transformations of the Western legal tradition under the impact of the sixteenth-century German Reformation and the seventeenth-century English Revolution, with particular emphasis on Lutheran and Calvinist influences. Berman examines the far-reaching consequences of these apocalyptic political and social upheavals on the systems of legal philosophy, legal science, criminal law, civil and economic law, and social law in Germany and England and throughout Europe as a whole. Berman challenges both conventional approaches to legal history, which have neglected the religious foundations of Western legal systems, and standard social theory, which has paid insufficient attention to the communitarian dimensions of early modern economic law, including corporation law and social welfare. Clearly written and cogently argued, this long-awaited, magisterial work is a major contribution to an understanding of the relationship of law to Western belief systems.