La sensibilidad intercultural

Those who attacked 'odious' Presbyterians claimed to want to see them burn in the heat of their own zeal. The substance of these attacks spoke to political and religious positions, but the rhetoric was also expressive of deep antipathies. So, the concerted attack on 'Presbyterianism' in 1661 can be seen as an example of how published texts expressed feelings, revealed emotional identities and described the mood of the period. From this perspective, it is possible to observe emotion as a factor that characterised historical groups and historical moments, and published text as a medium through which it was often articulated.

But the relationship between text and emotion was also performative. The sort of rhetoric described in Chapter One represented strong feelings and provoked emotional reactions (as Baxter's bitter commentary shows). By so doing, it actively conditioned the historical circumstances, reflecting and shaping norms of feeling that characterised identities. The concept of affective culture suggested here represents the coalescence of the contexts of emotional community with the operative agency of an emotional regime: a dynamic function in which emotional identity and expression both shaped, and were moulded by, agencies which included published text. The aim of the next two chapters is to argue that text performed to shape such identities, and that the controlling use of language and narrative was meant to condition cognitions and emotional dispositions. This chapter begins to develop this argument, that connects affective culture and the performativity of text, by examining the nature of a contested and emotive vocabulary.1 It establishes a basis for further analysis by examining vocabulary as a constituent part of an affective script. The intention here is to identify characteristic examples of a performative lexicon and to explore their significance. It may not be possible to recreate the feelings of people in the past but, as Alexandra Walsham says, 'by exploring their semantics and grammar we can learn something about the religious and cultural environments by which they were shaped and

1 _{Carl Zimmer discusses how the philosopher Joshua Greene used an MRI scanner to}

observe social institutionalism: emotionally charged words caused part of the brain to flare up. Social institutionalism holds that 'Most of the time, moral judgments occur in the hidden world of unconscious emotional intuitions.' Carl Zimmer, Soul Made Flesh: The Discovery of the Brain-and How It Changed the World (New York, 2005), pp. 290-5, p. 291.

constructed.'2

A recognition of the empirical difficulty of ascribing a positivist attribution of fact to historical research generally, and emotions history in particular, serves to emphasise the role of language used by past actors. It is important to recognise the importance of language as an historical agency and to understand it in context. No irony is intended in the assertion that the words people use are often our best clue to their motivations, intentions, cognitions and emotions.3 Quentin Skinner's concept of a cultural lexicon is useful here, and provides a theme for this chapter.4 Skinner tells us that in order to understand the actions and impulses of people in the past 'we are bound to make reference to the prevailing moral language of the society in which they are acting. This language...will figure not as an epiphenomenon of their projects, but as one of the determinants of their behaviour.'5 He explains that, 'we employ our language not merely to communicate information but at the same time to claim authority for our utterances, to arouse the emotions of our interlocutors, to create boundaries of inclusion and exclusion and to engage in many other exercises of social control'.6

Sometimes, as the discussion in this chapter will show, the cultural lexicon reflected contested interpretations and dispositions. At other times, the co-existence of an alternative semantic was indicative of a range of opposing, or parallel conceptual norms. Although the exact relationship between words and the acquisition of concepts is complex, and a matter of some debate, cognitions and conceptual acuities are indicated by the presence of an analogous vocabulary. Quentin Skinner affirms that

The surest sign that a group or society has entered into the self-conscious possession of a new concept is that a corresponding vocabulary will be

2 _{Walsham, 'Providentialism and Emotion', in Spinks and Zika, Disaster, p. 22.} 3 _{NB. I am rejecting the extremes of the deconstructionist position (associated with de}

Saussure, and developed in absolute terms by Derrida) that 'Man does not use language to transmit his thoughts, but that what he thinks is determined by language', as Georg G. Iggers explains this position. However, I will argue that, contingent upon context, language is a factor that performs to shape cognition and emotion. For a lucid discussion of the 'linguistic turn' in historiography see Iggers, Historiography, pp. 118- 33, quotation p. 120.

4 _{See Quentin Skinner, 'The Idea of a Cultural Lexicon', Visions of Politics, vol. 1}

(Cambridge, 2002), pp. 158-174.

5 _{Skinner, Politics, p. 174.} 6 _{Skinner, Politics, p. 5.}

developed, a vocabulary which can then be used to pick out and discuss the concept in question with consistency.7

However, the meaning of words was never absolute, and an analysis of vocabulary needs to take account of both context and the use of a modifying vocabulary of emotive descriptors. The comparative approach taken in this chapter helps to facilitate an understanding of the emotional quality of the vocabulary of religious discourse in relativistic terms. 'Instead of imposing modern (or postmodern) categories upon past agents', the aim is to situate the mentality and outlook of Clarke's emotional community amongst alternative communities and sub-communities by cross- referencing and comparing the lexical range and nuance employed, revealing affective cultural proclivities and gradations, and contextually 'seeing things their way'.8

The first section spotlights one illustration of this battleground vocabulary, focusing upon the emotive conception of 'zeal'. Different representations of 'zeal', as an attribute and as an accusation, are discussed in terms that help to show how vocabulary was emotive and contested, and how its usage marked and shaped how different identities employed a different norm. This is followed, in the second part, by an analysis of themes, key conceptual words and emotive modifiers in Clarke's major collections of biography, comparing these with other examples representative of both sectarian and Episcopalian persuasions. Vocabulary was often emotionally reflective, emotionally formative, or both. So, expanding on the relationship between culture, text and affect, this chapter argues that the identification of comparative cultural lexicons will help to describe not merely the outline of separate emotional communities but the emotive and performative nature of their discursive vocabularies.

7 _{Skinner, Politics, p. 160.}

8 _{J. Coffey and A. Chapman, 'Introduction: Intellectual History and the Return of}

Religion', in Chapman, Coffey and Gregory, Seeing Things Their Way-Intellectual History and the Return of Religion (Notre Dame, 2009), pp. 1-23, pp. 1-2. 'Seeing things their way' is also taken from Quentin Skinner, who makes the case that historians must try to understand the point of view of past agents, in their own terms - a contextualist approach. Indeed, placing texts in context is vital in helping to obviate the scepticism of literary theorists like Jacques Derrida. However, Skinner remains secular in his method, whereas religious ideas should perhaps be treated in the same terms as political and philosophical ideas because they 'are at least as important to understanding the general course of history'. Coffey and Chapman, 'Introduction', in Seeing Things, p. 15.

I - Being Earnest

In Aerius Redivivus, or, History of the Presbyterians (published posthumously in 1670), Samuel Clarke's contemporary, the fiercely anti-puritan Royalist Peter Heylyn (1599–1662), made frequent disparaging reference to those he described as 'zealous brethren'.9 For Heylyn, puritan zeal conjured a vision of madness, combining religious error with civil disorder and breakdown. It served Heylyn's purpose to deploy a stereotype of puritan zeal to attack his Presbyterian opponents. Indeed, 'zeal' had long been established as a familiar focus for such acerbic, and judgemental attacks. Thus, for example, in 1614, Ben Jonson was able to choose precisely this stereotypical trait as the subject of satire to denote the puritan identity of the meddling, hypocritical and sanctimonious character 'Zeal-of-the-Land Busy', confident of audience recognition.10 In The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Robert Burton (1577-1640) equated religious zeal with stupidity, fear, and hypocrisy. Accusing the puritan ministry of demagoguery, he cast their congregations as 'so many sheep' who 'knock their breasts, turne up their eyes [and] pretend zeale'.11 By the end of the century these continuities had found a sharper focus. For example, in The Hind and the Panther (1687), John Dryden identified Presbyterians specifically as 'Wolfish' and, like Heylyn, targeted their 'pestilential zeal'.12 But in 1683, asserting an alternative construction of the concept, a certain 'Lover of Moderation', writing anonymously in support of the Independent John Owen, protested the right to be 'zealous for Moderation'.13

9 _{Peter Heylyn, Aerius Redivivus, or, The History of the Presbyterians (Oxford, 1670).}

Aerius redivivus, or Aerius reborn, is a satirical reference linking Presbyterians to Aerius of Pontus, a fourth century priest, who taught that bishops and priests had no special sacred character which separated them from other believers. His followers were associated with the Arian heresy of the early Church. See E.A. Livingstone, ed. F. L. Cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1997), p. 23. For Heylyn's role as a polemicist see Anthony Milton, Laudian and Royalist Polemic in Seventeenth-Century England: The Career and Writings of Peter Heylyn (Manchester, 2007).

10 _{Ben Jonson, Bartholomew Fair (1614). See Douglas Duncan (ed.), Ben Jonson,} Bartholomew Fair, (Edinburgh, 1972). See discussion by Patrick Collinson in 'Antipuritanism', Coffey and Lim, Puritanism, pp. 19-33.

11 _{Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (Oxford, 1621), p. 28.}

12 _{John Dryden (1631-1700), The Hind and the Panther: A Poem, in Three Parts}

(London, 1687), p 9. NB. Dryden had converted to Catholicism and attacked the singular characteristics of all Protestant denominations.

13 _{By a Lover of Moderation, Moderation a Vertue (London, 1683), sig. Av. (NB.}

Meanwhile, Quakers were concerned that religious zeal was insincere when divorced from an active spirit of engagement with the world. This can be observed in the writings of George Fox the Younger (d. 1661) both in his understanding of zeal and in his usage of a more general emotive vocabulary, discussed later in this chapter.14 Zeal was thus a multi-valenced concept used as part of an emotional rhetoric of right and wrong, but also as a dynamic terminology which conveyed emotion as a direct prompt to action. Zeal represented disputed cultural paradigms; it was a term loaded with significance and purpose. This was the contested context in which Clarke wrote about the piety of his subjects, and attempted not merely to mark out a distinctive construction of the rationality of godly zeal but to model and shape it. For Clarke, the right kind of zeal was aspirational and a significant part of the broader canon of 'rational affections' to be cultivated among the godly.

Zeal, and its interpretation, was a frequent theme in puritan culture, and has often been considered as a defining characteristic of the 'hotter sort of Protestant'.15 As we have seen, historians like Alec Ryrie have stressed the importance of religious fervour to Protestant forms of piety.16 Emotional intensity and spiritual engagement characterised the way puritan literature expressed a concept of zeal. In The Marrow of the Oracles of God (1630), Nicholas Byfield (1578/9–1622) explained the central importance of a proper understanding of zeal as the vital element of passion and desire which gave religious piety its meaning: 'The first thing required in the manner of every holy duty, is, Zeale. It is not enough that hee doe the duty, but he must doe it affectionately, bringing with him the stirring of the desires of his heart'.17 _{And it was}

the spiritual functionality of emotionality that Byfield emphasised. He continued, 'It

proponent of religious freedom for nonconformists, chaplain to Oliver Cromwell; he argued that separation from the Church of England was not schism. See Richard L. Greaves, 'John Owen, 1616-1683', ODNB.

14 _{NB. George Fox the Younger (d. 1661) not George Fox (1624–1691), founder of}

the Society of Friends. Richard L. Greaves, 'George Fox the Younger (d.1661)', ODNB. See George Fox (d. 1661), A Collection of the Several Books and Writings Given Forth by that Faithful Servant of God and his People George Fox the Younger (London, 1662).

15 _{Collinson, Elizabethan Puritan,p. 27.}

16 _{See Alec Ryrie in Being Protestant, pp. 70-6.}

17 _{Nicholas Byfield, The Marrow of the Oracles of God (London, 1630), p. 476.}

According to Bryan W. Ball, Nicholas Byfield was 'a puritan leader of some influence' who remained 'moderate on most contentious issues'. Bryan W. Ball, 'Nicholas Byfield (1578/9–1622)', ODNB. Clarke's Medulla Theologiæ references his work.

must not seeme evill to him to doe Gods worke; and in doing it, he must lift up his heart, so as hee performe it with all his might, and with all his soule.'18_{Such zeal was}

also encapsulated in Samuel Ward's (1577-1640) published sermon, A Coale From the Altar to Kindle the Holy Fire of Zeale, as proactively 'copied from [Ward's] mouth, and partly from [Ward's] notes' by Ambrose Wood in 1625 and later published.19 In A Treatise of the Affections William Fenner (c.1600–c.1640) described zeal as 'a high strain of all the affections, whereby the heart puts forth all its affections with might upon that which it absolutely affects'.20 He went on to elaborate, developing a metaphorical association with heat and degrees of temperature:'I say, zeal is a high measure of the affections...Every measure of heat in the water is not seething. No, seething hot is a high measure of heating.'21 The true zeal of the godly was 'seething hot', not 'lukewarm' or half-hearted. For Fenner, zeal applied to highly emotional states. He explained that if 'they zealously affect you...they highly affect you…zeal is a high measure of the affections.'22 Furthermore, he continued, 'It's good…to be zealously affected in a good thing…it's good to be zealous in love, or zealously angry...Sorrow for sin is good, and therefore it's good to be zealously affected with it.'23 In other words, zeal was a descriptor to be applied to a range of different emotions to suggest feelings of the greatest possible intensity and, where the object of such emotion represents that which is 'good', zeal was virtuous and aspirational. Fenner's metaphorical reference to heat was also reflected in the common usage of a lexicon of 'fervour' (whose etymological root is 'heat') to describe such zeal. Indeed, Byfield's analysis had emphasised an active enthusiasm, explaining that 'Zeale hath in it two distinct things, willingnesse and fervencie.'24 Daniel Dyke (d. 1614) had amplified these associations, describing zeal as an composite emotion to be 'added next to Desire to shew what kinds of desires these must bee, to wit, they should be fervent and

18 _{Byfield, Marrow.}

19 _{Samuel Ward, A Coale From the Altar to Kindle the Holy Fire of Zeale (London,}

1627), sig. A2 r. NB. Samuel Ward (1577-1640), puritan preacher at Ipswich, not to be confused with Samuel Ward (1572–1643), theologian, Fellow of Sidney Sussex, Cambridge, contributor to the King James translation of the Bible, 1611.

20 _{William Fenner (c.1600–c.1640), A Treatise of the Affections (London, 1650), p.}

118. Clarke borrowed extensively from the source in Medulla Theologiæ (1659).

21 _{Fenner, Affections, pp. 118-9.} 22 _{Fenner, Affections, p. 119.} 23 _{Fenner, Affections, p. 119.} 24 _{Byfield, The Marrow, p. 476.}

zealous desires…as fire hath lightnesse whereby it aspires to the highest place, so it hath also heat to consume that which should hinder his ascent.'25 _{In his Treatise of the} Passions (1640) Edward Reynolds also applied a binary construction, stating that 'Zeale is a compounded affection, or a mixture of Love and Anger...as we see in Christ, whose zeale or holy anger whipped away the buyers and sellers out of the Temple.'26 In this view, zeal could present as a form of 'holy anger' that reinforced faith and emboldened the believer to righteous deeds. In all these conceptualisations the language of 'zeal' was the language of powerful emotion and of vigorous personal commitment.

Unfortunately, an aspiration to attain zeal, or to be zealous, carried with it connotations of fanaticism or insincerity. Puritans like Nicholas Byfield understood these concerns and created an entire taxonomy of the wrong sort of zeal:

Let it not be a pretended zeale...Nor a superstitious zeale...Nor a passionate zeale...Nor a malitious zeale... Nor a contentious zeale...Nor a secure zeale...Nor an idle zeale...Nor an overcurious zeale...Or a bitter zeale...Or an ignorant bold zeale...Or lastly a selfe conceited zeale.27

This was more than a list of the pitfalls of religious zeal. It demanded a highly self- critical form of introspection. Byfield expected the godly to be proactive: 'Let it not be', he says.

In the mid-century, Independents like John Goodwin, came to distrust displays of religious zeal that were not derived from an authentic experience of the saving grace of God, often described in terms of reason and knowledge.28 _{Goodwin wished, 'That}

they had the zeale of God; but this zeale of theirs not being according to knowledge, in the prosecution of it, they neither pleased God, and were contrary to all men…God regards no mans zeale without knowledge'.29 For Goodwin genuine zeal was part of a spiritual imperative that could not be feigned or imitated. Similarly, John Price, a

25 _{Daniel Dyke, Two Treatises. The One, of Repentance, The Other, of Christs} Temptations (London, 1616), p. 135.

26 _{Edward Reynolds, A Treatise of the Passions and Faculties of the Soul of Man}

(London 1640), p. 106.

27 _{Nicholas Byfield, An Exposition Upon The Epistle To The Colossians (London,}

1615), p. 194.

28 _{Tai Liu, 'John Goodwin (c.1594–1665)', ODNB. Goodwin was an independent, free}

thinking supporter of toleration. See Coffey, Goodwin.

29 _{John Goodwin, Theomachia; or The Grand Imprudence of Men Running the Hazard} of Fighting Against God (Henry Overton, London,1644), pp. 18-19.

member of Goodwin's Independent congregation, criticised 'the guilded species of their zeal for God and Jesus Christ,' when attacking the Presbyterian Sion College Conclave in 1648.30 These reproaches came from inside the puritan community, and the zeal described and censured here marked an emotional boundary; it was 'their' zeal, affected, specious and inappropriate.

Later on, misdirected zeal, sincere or otherwise, provided the fulcrum of an assault which revealed considerable resentment and antipathy. Writing in 1657, Robert Sanderson (1587–1663) criticised 'Our anti-Ceremonian Brethren'who 'style themselves, as by a kind of peculiarity, The Godly'.31 He complained,

doth not their zeal even against Popery it self…of late years, and since most of the Pulpits are in their possession, seem to abate; at leastwise in comparison of