Abbreviations.- Acknowledgements.- Illustration.- Introduction.- The History of British Apocalyptic Thought.- Joseph Mede and English Millenarianism.- Leading Questions.- Biography.- Joseph Mede: A Biography.- Early Years (1586-1602).- University Years (1602-1610).- Fellow at Christ's College (1610-1638).- The Scholar.- Correspondence.- Conclusion.- Joseph Mede in Context.- Crypto-papists, Anti-Calvinists and the Antichrist.- Millenarianism and the English Revolution.- Crypto-Papists.- Anti-Calvinists.- Antichrist.- Conclusion.- Joseph Mede and the Cambridge Platonists.- Mede and the Cambridge Platonists.- Co-Residents in Cambridge.- The Platonis Mede?- Theological Connections: Anti-Calvinists.- Theological Connections: The Doctrine of Justification.- Theological Connections: Theologia Naturalis.- Conclusion.- Protestant Irenicism and the Millennium: Mede and the Hartlib Circle.- Protestant Irenicism and the Millennium.- Dury, Hartlib and the Church of England.- The Leipzig Colloquy: The Standard for Irenicism.- Dury, Hartlib and Mede on Protestant Unification.- Irenicism and Millenarianism.- Conclusion.- The Roots of Mede's Apocalyptic Thought.- The Origins of the Clavis Apocalyptica: A Millenarian Conversian.- The Origins of the Clavis Apocalyptica.- The Non-Millenarian Mede.- Dating The Apostacy of the Latter Times and Mede's Conversion.- Synchronizing the Apocalypse: The Source for Mede's Conversion.- Conclusion.- Millenarians, The Church Fathers and Jewish Rabbis.- Millenarians and the Church Fathers.- The Canonicity of the Apocalypse and Patristic Authority.- The First Resurrection.- The Nature of the Millennium.- The Conflagration and the Renovation of the World.- The Millennium and the Day of Judgment.- Conclusion.- An English Millenarian Legacy.-English Millenarianism.- Early Challenges to Millenarianism.- Challenges from Hugo Grotius, Henry Hammond and Richard Baxter.- Henry More and the Apocalypse.- Debating the Millennium: Thomas Beverley and Richard Baxter.- Drue Cressner and the ''New Way''.- Isaac Newton and William Whiston: A Continuing Legacy.- Conclusion: English Millenarianism Revised.- Colonial North America: The Puritan Errand Revised.- The Puritan Errand into the Wilderness.- The First Generation.- New England: Gog and Magog or New Jerusalem?- The National Conversion of the Jews.- Israel and Old Testament Hermeneutics.- Conclusion.- The Continental Millenarian Tradition.- The Continent.- Initial Contact: Ludovicus de Dieu and Daniel van Laren.- British Refugees: English Congregationalists and Scottish Presbyterians.- Anti-Millenarian Responses from the Dutch Universities.- The Dutch Legacy.- Conclusion.- Conclusion: Revising British Millenarianism.- Select Bibliography.- Index.

1.i THE HISTORY OF BRITISHAPOCALYPTICTHOUGHT The study of early modern Britain between the Reformation of the 1530s and the Wars of the Three Kingdoms of the 1640s has undergone a series of historiographical revisions. The dramatic events during that century were marked by a religious struggle that produced a Protestant nation, divided internally, yet clearly opposed to Rome. Likewise the political environment instilled a sense of responsible awareness regarding the administration of the realm and the defense 1 of constitutional liberty. Whig Historians from the nineteenth century described 2 these changes as a "Puritan Revolution." Essentially this was England's inevitable 3 march towards enlightenment as a result t of religious and political maturation. Subsequent Marxist historians attributed these radical changes to socio-economic 4 factors. Britain was witnessing the decline of the medieval feudal system and the rise of a new capitalist class. Both of these early views claimed that brewing social, political and economic unrest culminated in extreme radical action. More recently, beginning in the 1980s, new studies appeared that began to challenge these old assumptions. Relying on careful archival research, many of these studies discarded the former conception of this period as "revolutionary", instead 5 arguing that the Reformation was in fact a gradual and unpopular process. In 1 Margo Todd (ed.) Reformation to Revolution: Politics and Religion in Early Modern England (London and New York, 1995), p. 1. 2 S. R. Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution (London, 1876).