ABSTRACT
Christopher Hill in his preface to his book Change and Continuity in Seventeenth Century England, quotes with approval the French Historian, R. Mandrou on 'the crucial significance of the English Revolution'. He quotes: The leading political power of Europe in the first decades of the eighteenth century is also the society which has broken with traditional principles, rejected divine-right monarchy, absolutism and arbitrary government. England has overcome the internal crises of the seventeenth century and represents not only a specific political force, but also another sort of society, victorious because different. Christopher Hill seems to let the anachronistic concern of egalitarianism sway his judgement in such matters, and his thesis is therefore selective. Social issues were seen in the context of theological grounding, and any radical critique of religion, law and medicine, was by way of viewing their validity or otherwise within the framework of God's economy for creation, humanity and nations.
