Chapter 2 - Providence in Early Modern England

Summary

The doctrine of providence traditionally has shaped how Christians view nature. In early modern English Protestant thought the doctrine enveloped natural causality and deployed it in a variety of ways, with God’s government of the created order often believed to occur through the operation of natural causes. To grasp how natural causality was perceived at the time we must therefore appreciate the broader providential context within which naturally caused phenomena were located. This chapter looks at how English Protestants understood some of the main categories used to expound providence, including creation, conservation, concurrence, government,and ordinary and special providence. These categories appear in one form or another in the texts discussed in later chapters.