This is a fascinating window into the seventeenth century, being a study based on the diary of a clergyman who lived through the tensions leading to the Civil War, the war itself in both phases, the beheading of the king, the rule under Cromwell, the Restoration of Charles II, and the Act of Uniformity. Macfarlane is more interested in the economic and social aspects than he is in the eccesiastical and theological. Thus we are told very little about what the diary reveals concerning many of the polity and doctrinal matters of the time except that Josselin was not unhappy over the beheading of Laud nor in giving up the Prayer Book. He read with apparent favor Hooker, Bellarmine(!), Cotton, Vossius (Voss), and especially the Bible. He managed to retain his living through all changes until his death in 1683 although it is not apparent how he managed to do so under the Act of Uniformity. "There is not a single direct reference to hell or to damnation (in the diary). It thus seems that a Puritan clergyman, who might have been expected to use heaven and hell as threats or inducements to himself and his congregation, showed the most tepid interest in both" (p. 168). The modern idea of a Puritan is seriously qualified by this portrait based on a careful study of a full and intimate diary. As to his sermons he "probably helped a number of his listeners by dealing with such personal and directly-felt problems" (p. 25). However, he had to be more than 20 years old in 1640 (p. 81) if he was born in 1617 (p. 15). Otherwise this is an extremely careful and industrious examination of an important diary dealing with such varied topics as Josselin's views concerning the generation gap, servants, pain, marriage, and dreams.
In dealing with one of the tribe of Smith, the words of William Bolitho will apply: ".. . all family trees lose themselves among the Smiths. If ants have names for each other, they must use a tiny equivalent for Smith." Richard Davis seeks to resolve this identity crisis by relating his protagonist to a mighty force in English politics, namely, the Dissenting interest. William Smith might be characterized as a humanitarian with a difference. A Pittite M.P. for Norwich, and one of the Dissenting Deputies, he was chiefly concerned with the removing of dissenting disabilities and primarily the Test and Corporation Acts. By his untiring efforts, parliamentary and other, he achieved the goals for which he. had worked before his death. As a friend and neighbor of Wilberforce at Clapham, he was also deeply involved in the movement for the abolition of the slave trade. Yet two circumstances soon divided him from his friends in "that holy village and its hallowed vicinity" on most issues other than the slave trade. They were his progress from his natal Independency to Unitarianism and his renunciation of Toryism in favor of Fox and the Whigs over the question of the French Revolution. It is not the following of Fox that astonishes us; rather, it is the complete acceptance of this wealthy wholesale grocer into that close corporation, the Whig leadership, and his subsequent position as a principal Whig spokesman in the Commons. The style of this book is clear and readable. There are occasional infelicities; for example, "He had a foot in several camps, which allowed him considerable maneuverability." Little wonder since he would appear to possess something more than bipedality! On the whole, however, the affection of the author for his subject and that subject's worth come through to the reader with considerable force. Wichita State University , LEWIS A-DRAIXE Yesterday's Radicals: A Study of the Affinity between Unitarianism and Broad Church Anglicanism in the Nineteenth Century. By DENNIS G. WIGMORE-BEDDOWES. Cambridge and London: James Clarke and Co., 1971. 182 pp. £2.10.
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