The Puritan Millennium: Literature and Theology, 1550-1682

by Crawford Gribben

Puritanism was an intensely eschatological movement. From the beginnings of the movement, Puritan writers developed eschatological interests in distinct contexts and often for conflicting purposes. Their reformist agenda emphasised their eschatological hopes. In a series of readings of texts by John Foxe, James Ussher, George Gillespie, John Rogers, John Milton and John Bunyan, this book provides an interdisciplinary exploration of Puritan thinking about the last things.

Genres: History, Survival

318 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

A cultural and literary historian whose work concentrates on the development and dissemination of religious ideas, Crawford Gribben is Professor of History at Queen's University, Belfast.

Reviews

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

His point is to demonstrate that the Puritan expectations were unreal and led to the demise of the Puritan movement. What betrayed them was associated with millenarianism. They were foolish to historicise Scripture opportunistically, and naively continued in the trajectory of self-serving interpretation, extrapolating it into the future, fueling expectations which circumstances then betrayed. It is a continual pattern with millenarianism, as he has demonstrated elsewhere.

He's especially rough on Bunyan, but I think instructive.