ON BEING GOD'S ENGLISHMEN

BOOK REVIEW

THE BIBLE AND THE 17TH CENTURY ENGLISH REVOLUTION, CHRISTOPHER HILL, PENQUIN,NEW YORK, 1993


Although both the parliamentary and royalist sides in the English Revolution, the major revolutionary event of the 17th century, quoted the Bible, particularly the newer English versions, for every purpose from an account of the fall to the virtues of primitive communism that revolution cannot be properly understood except as a secular revolution. The first truly secular revolution of modern times. So why would the pre-eminent historian of the English Revolution, the late Christopher Hill, write a whole book about the influence of the Bible in that revolutionary period?

As been noted by more than one commentator there is sometimes a disconnect between the ideas in the air at any particular time and the way those ideas get fought out in political struggle. In this case secular ideas, or what would have passed as such to us, such as the questions of the divinity of the monarch, of social, political and economic redistribution and the nature of the new society (the second coming) were expressed in familiar religious terms. That being the case there is no better guide to understanding the significance of the mass of biblical literary articles produced in the period than Professor Hill. The only objection one can have is that he overloads his argument for the importance of the Bible in the social discourse of the times with more examples than necessary and with a certain redundancy and overlap in the subjects he looks at such as the importance of the garden (of Eden), the wilderness and the hedge in Biblical narrative, the concept of England as a chosen nation and the English as a chosen people and of the decisive weight of the Old Testament as a source of inspiration (and vengeance). However, this is only a minor objection.

In this expansive book Mr. Hill connects the wide spread use of the Bible with the revolution in printing bringing its message to the masses; the effects of the Protestant Reformation on individual responsibility for bible study and leading a moral life; various interpretations of Adam’s fall, the consequences of that fall and the possibilities for redemption; the theology of the divine right of kings and the concept of the man of blood exemplified by Charles I; the role of the priesthood of all believers that foreshadow a very modern concept of the validity of individual religious expression; radical interpretations of equality and primitive communism, particularly the work of Gerrard Winstanley ; the Puritan ethic and many more subjects of interests. Here Hill also uses his usual cast of characters that one has met in his other works including, Oliver Cromwell, Edmund Sexby, Hugh Peters, John Bunyan, the above-mentioned Gerrard Winstanley, Abiezer Coppe, the Levelers, the Ranters, the Quakers and the Fifth Monarchists. And seemingly threading through the whole narrative, John Milton. Take note and read on.