The Travail of Religious Liberty: Nine Biographical Studies

by Bainton, Roland Herbert

• ISBN13: 9781556358760
• ISBN10: 1556358768
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-09-01
• Publisher: Wipf & Stock Pub

Summary

The pages of history are filled with stories of men and women burned at the stake, exiled, and ostracized in the name of religion. Thus Roland Bainton explains the struggle within the Christian Church to achieve religious liberty by telling, in popular biographical style, nine stories of sincere people--both persecutors and persecuted--who took part in the struggle.Bainton's biographies begin with Thomas of Torquemada, instrument of the Roman Catholic Inquisition, and with John Calvin who active in the burning of Michael Servetus. He then covers how such persecution brought about the toleration controversy of the sixteenth century, when SZcaron;bastian Castellio struck his blow for religious liberty, when Hollander David Joris made a mystical approach to tolerance, and when Franciscan Bernardino Ochino believed in the cultivation of the inner life. Finally he concentrates on the champions of religious liberty in the 17th Century: John Milton, Roger Williams and John Locke.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 7
Preface	p. 9
Introduction	p. 13
Persecution: Catholic and Protestant
The Peak of Catholic Persecution: Thomas of Torquemada	p. 33
The Peak of Protestant Intolerance: John Calvin	p. 54
The Victim of Protestant Persecution: Michael Servetus	p. 72
The Toleration Controversy of the Sixteenth Century
The Remonstrator: Sebastien Castellio	p. 97
The Heretic as Hypocrite: David Joris	p. 125
The Heretic as Exile: Bernardino Ochino	p. 149
The Freedom of the Individual in the Seventeenth Century
The Bard of Speech Unbound: John Milton	p. 179
The Seeker: Roger Williams	p. 208
Apologist for the Act of Toleration: John Locke	p. 229
Reflections	p. 253
Sources	p. 261
Index	p. 266
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