“We are in strange hands, and things are come to a strange passe” Argument and Rhetoric Against Heresy in Thomas Edwards’s Gangraena [1646]

T he English Civil Wars of the 1640s and the paper battles that preceded and accompanied them involved deeds and words too strange for sensible history. Those who undertook to write such a history of heresy, then, had to do so not merely to make sense to their contemporaries but more so for a posterity that would view their unprecedented age with horror and disbelief. Such was the aim of the London heresiographer, Thomas Edwards (1593–1647), a prominent spokesman for the Presbyterian orthodoxy during the mid-1640s. Edwards was determined for “the benefit both of the present and succeeding generations, to write an Historical) narration of all the Proceedings and ways of the English Sectaries.” 2 The result was Gangraena: or A Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errours, Heresies, Blasphemies and pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England in these last four years (1646). In what follows I shall parse from Edwards’s text some of the major orthodox objections he advanced against heresy, and rely in part upon what struck responsive chords with sympathetic and critical contemporaneous readers. My hope thereby is to provide a robust heuristic schema of mid-century Presbyterian argument and rhetoric against heresy. 3 These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.