ABSTRACT
But in the course of the Revolution some people found a third God, a God who - like the Holy Ghost - was to be found in every believer. And since it was difficult to ascertain who were true believers, this came to mean that God could be found in every man (and sometimes in every woman too). The full horrors of this doctrine were plumbed only in the 1640s; but worshippers of the second, Calvinist, God were aware of the existence of this third deity, and from the first tried to safeguard against his emergence. The Bible after all said many very remarkable things, and untutored readers of it might draw very remarkable conclusions. Arise Evans, a Welshman, tells us of the impact that coming to London made on his thinking. 'Afore I looked upon the Scripture as a history of things that passed in other countries, pertaining to other persons; but now I looked upon it as a mystery to be opened at this time, belonging also to us.' In Amos and Revelation he found descriptions of what was happening in revolutionary England. In Amos 9.1 the Lord said 'smite the lintel of the door, that the posts may shake': Evans thought this could only refer to Speaker Lenthall.1 But others used Biblical texts for more consciously subversive purposes.
