Blown by the Spirit

This study explores the intersection of politics, religious thought, and religious culture in pre-revolutionary England, using hitherto unknown or overlooked manuscript and printed material to reconstruct and contextualize a forgotten but highly significant antinomian religious subculture that evolved at the margins of the early 17th-century puritan community. By reconstructing this story, "Blown by the Spirit" offers a major revision of current understanding of Puritanism and the puritan community. In the process, the author illuminates the obscure and tangled question of the origins of civil-war radicalism, thereby helping to explain the course, consequences, and ultimate failure of the English revolution.