A Collection of Ranter Writings: Spiritual Liberty and Sexual Freedom in the English Revolution
Nigel Smith, John Carey
Language: English
Pages: 283
ISBN: 2:00286808
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Author note: Forward by John Carey
Publish Year note: First published September 10th 2013
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The Ranters - like the Levellers and the Diggers - were a group of religious libertarians who flourished during the English Civil War (1642–1651), a period of social and religious turmoil which saw, in the words of the historian Christopher Hill, 'the world turned upside down'.
A Collection of Ranter Writings is the most notable attempt to anthologise the key Ranter writings, bringing together some of the most remarkable, visionary and unforgettable texts. The subjects range from the limits to pleasure and divine right, to social justice and collective action.
The Ranters have intrigued and captivated generations of scholars and philosophers. This carefully curated collection will be of great interest to historians, philosophers and all those trying to understand past radical traditions.
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Here views were developed and exchanged in the very different circumstances that then prevailed.8 There were notorious instances of extravagant Protestant prophecy before 1600, even to the extent of an attempted coup in church and state.9 Neither was sex outside marriage and in the name of religion invented in 1648: it was a phenomenon that had been alarmingly observed in early separatist communities and had a longer history in Europe.10 The force of the critique of ‘left wing’ history has been.
Of life enter into thee, Thou wouldst runne before the Lord, and out-runne thy selfe, and runne upon a rock, For it is set on purpose, as one,——And as a stumbling-stone to some,—even to those who know Christ after the Flesh (only). But happy they, who are in the Inside of them, Nothing can harme them. And in them there is no occasion of stumbling. To the Lord I leave you all, (Deare hearts) and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up. The word of the Lord is precious in these.
His own will, knowledg, wisdom and understanding; that is t become or made a fool, that he might be made wise, can understand this, and this ensuing Treatise. Wherein are some sweet secrets, and secret sweets, And u apples of gold in pictures of silver. To the (nominal) Author is given w the tongue of the learned, though he x knoweth not letters. y He speaks as he hath received, and in many things as the Oracles of God, and z the Wisdom of God in a mystery. 65 (In which two-fold Obliquity is no.
Or a version of a faith. This usually means commitment to some kind of revised social order, and along the way, protest may be linked with a utopian vision of the future. But there are other kinds of protest that refuse the above. Their force arises from such deep unhappiness with the present predicament that it is driven by a need for immediate, forceful rejection of the customs and ways of prevailing conditions because those old ways are merely a compromised way of getting by. They won’t do,.
Hearts then roars it out, and saith, what shall we do, we shall perish: and then cry out, why, because you have lost your God. I know it by the experiment I have made upon many of you, I see how ye can turn Seperatist Church men, baptise none but your holy fleshly seed, or none but such that believe, nay condemn all this as carnal, and talk of living holy in the Spirit, and all well enough till this voice sounds in your ears, Go and sell all thou hast, and come and follow me, who am numbered.