Title Page R.J. Pederson
Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/22159 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation Author: Pederson, Randall James Title: Unity in diversity : English puritans and the puritan reformation, 1603-1689 Issue Date: 2013-11-07 Chapter 5 Tobias Crisp (1600-1642/3) 5.1 Introduction In this chapter, we will assess the “radical” Puritan Tobias Crisp, whose life and thought illustrates both unitas and diversitas within Puritanism.1 As a representative of the antinomian strain, his teachings and emphasis on non-introspective piety illuminate internal tendencies within Puritanism to come up with an alternative to the precisianist strain.2 Within the literature, Crisp has been called “an antecedent of the Ranters,” “the great champion of antinomianism,” the “arch-Antinomian” and “a stimulator of religious controversy.”3 In his own time, Crisp was accused of both “Antinomianisme” and “Libertinisme,” the latter title of which he fully embraced because, for Crisp, at the heart of the theological debate that characterized his ministry was one’s freedom (libertas fidelium) in Christ,4 and the attainment of assurance.5 Crisp remains one of the most 1 As we saw in Chapter 1, identifying a Puritan as either “orthodox” or “radical” is not always easy, nor are the terms always mutually exclusive. As with Rous, Crisp typifies elements of Reformed orthodoxy and more “radical” notions associated with antinomianism. 2 David Como, “Crisp, Tobias (1600-1643),” in Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia, ed. Francis J. Bremer and Tom Webster (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 1:64; Victor L.
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