Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1588-1689

"The book examines what toleration means now and meant then, explaining why some early modern thinkers supported persecution and how a growing number came to advocate toleration. Introduced with a survey of concepts and theory, the book then studies the practice of toleration at the time of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts, the Puritan Revolution and the Restoration. The seventeenth century emerges as a turning point after which, for the first time, a good Christian society also had to be a tolerant one." "Persecution and Toleration is a critical addition to the study of early modern Britain and to religious and political history."--Jacket.