THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF SAMUEL RICHARDSON

Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist

by Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar

An investigation into English religious and philosophical thought during the first half of the eighteenth century focussing on Samuel Richardson, on his second novel Clarissa but especially on his third and last novel Sir Charles Grandison, which he considered to be his magnum opus. It will show that ultimately Richardson's goal was to convey a message of love and universal harmony deduced from the ideas of the mystically inclined George Cheyne, a Newtonian physician and Behmenist, and the theologian William Law, as well as directly and indirectly from the system of the seventeenth-century German theosopher Jacob Boehme.



To the Table of Contents



To the Short Introduction



To The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson



To the Short Summary in Dutch



To The Controversy between William Law and John Wesley
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