On The Religious Toleration In Early Modern England(1603-1660)

Religious toleration is a form of religious freedom in the early modern,which includes both thought and practice.The discussion on religious toleration in modern times began with the Renaissance in Europe and reached its climax during the reformation.Since Henry VIII's reformation,the English rulers have used the church of England to unite the people's faith,adopted a hostile attitude towards those who do not follow it,and persecuted a few heretics.At the beginning of the 17^th century,the rule of the Stuart dynasty brought the domestic tension,even the civil war between the royal party and the parliamentary army.During the war,the chaotic religious situation in England made all parties start to calm down and re-examine the religious issue,thus further proposing religious toleration.During the period of Long Parliament,the convening of the Westminster Assembly,the Whitehall Debates and the publication of a large number of polemical pamphlets,which made the issue of religious toleration fully discussed and widely concerned by all sectors of the society.This debate on religious toleration provides a direct reference for Cromwell's religious policy and promotes the development of freedom of religious belief in Britain.The paper is divided into introduction,text and conclusion,and the text includes four chapters.The first chapter describes the origin of modern toleration and the background of the emergence of religious toleration in Britain in the early 17th century.The germination of tolerance attitude is closely related to the opposition to persecution of religious heresy,on this basis,the moderate religious view of Christian humanists gradually developed into the thought of religious toleration.The second chapter expounds the religious tolerance thoughts of different sectarians in Britain,including the Puritan tolerance of the Independents,the freedom of belief of the Baptists and the national toleration of the Erastianism,and tries to analyze their theoretical basis.The third chapter discusses the practice of religious toleration in Britain.Under the influence of religious toleration,the rulers carried out a series of religious toleration policies to pursue the balance of power among different sects.The fourth chapter analyzes the characteristics and influence of religious toleration in Britain.The thought of religious toleration preceded the practice of toleration,and although the two were intertwined,they did not develop simultaneously.The practice of religious toleration depended to some extent on the king's own tendency of tolerance.In a word,religious toleration had a profound impact on the development of politics and ideology in modern Britain.As a ruling tool,tolerance policy effectively maintained the stability of political rule,and the spread of toleration thought also promoted the development of modern liberal thought in a certain sense.