Richard Coppin

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Richard Coppin was a seventeenth century English political and religious writer, and prolific radical pamphleteer and preacher.

Contents

[edit] Late 1640s to late 1650s

He was an Anglican clergyman, until 1648,[1] or possibly a lay preacher from Berkshire with little formal education.[2] He is known as an associate of Abiezer Coppe, who wrote an introduction to Coppin’s 1649 Divine Teachings. Christopher Hill[3] considers that Coppe took most of his theology from Coppin.

He was constantly in trouble, well documented in pamphlets, arising from the 1650 Blasphemy Act.[4] The authorities treated him leniently in the period 1651 to 1651.[5]

A debate he had at Burford, Oxfordshire in 1651 was recorded by his counterpart on the side of orthodoxy, John Osborne, vicar of Bampton.[6][7]

He was imprisoned in December 1655 as a Ranter,[8] a term which is now contested in historiography,[9] after a disputation in Rochester Cathedral. Thomas Kelsey, one of Cromwell's major-generals then based at Dover, took a harder line with Coppin than previously,[8] imposing six months in jail. He defended himself, writing from Maidstone Prison a pamphlet A Blow at the Serpent. Another account was that of Walter Rosewell, pushed out as vicar at Chatham, Kent in 1649,[10] in The serpents subtilty discovered.[11]

Coppin's work provoked Edward Garland, vicar at Hartclip (Hartlip, Kent), to reply in kind in 1657,[12] accusing Coppin of heresies. The pamphlet exchange was extended by Coppin's Michael opposing the dragon (1659).

[edit] Works

  • Divine Teachings (1649)
  • The Exaltation of All Things in Christ (1649)
  • Man's Righteousnesse Examined (1652)
  • Saul Smitten for not Smiting Amalek (1653)
  • A Man-Child Born (1654)
  • Truths testimony and a testimony of truths (1655)
  • A Blow at the Serpent (1656)
  • Crux Christi (1657)
  • Michael opposing the dragon (1659)

[edit] Views

He believed in universal salvation,[13][14] the possibility of return to the state before the Fall of Man,[15] and the equality of women.[16]. He treated the Fall and Last Judgment as allegories,[17] and was dismissive of the established church[18] and universities.[19]

He is sometimes presented as a ‘moderate’ Ranter,[20] or philosopher of Ranterism.[21] Christopher Hill shaded his opinion to ‘near-Ranter’.

[edit] Notes and References

  1. ^ [[Christopher Hill|Hill, Christopher]] (1984). The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, p. 220. ISBN 0140137327. 
  2. ^ McDowell, Nicolas (2003). The English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion, and Revolution, 1630-1660. Oxford University Press, USA, pp. 18 onwards. ISBN 0199260515. 
  3. ^ Hill, Christopher (1985). The Experience of Defeat. Puffin, p. 43. ISBN 0140552030. 
  4. ^ Hill, Christopher (1991). A Nation of Change and Novelty: Radical Politics, Religion and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England : 'England That Nation of Change and Novelty'. Routledge, p. 177. ISBN 0415048338. 
  5. ^ Hill, Christopher (1984). The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, p. 208. ISBN 0140137327. 
  6. ^ Osborne, John (1651). The world to come, or The mysterie of the resurrection opened: in a discourse at Burford in the county of Oxon, upon Acts 24.15.. James Moxon. 
  7. ^ Hill, Christopher (1991). A Nation of Change and Novelty: Radical Politics, Religion and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England : 'England That Nation of Change and Novelty'. Routledge, p. 182. ISBN 0415048338. 
  8. ^ a b Thomas Kelsey, Major-General, d.c.1680.
  9. ^ Davis, J.C. (2002). Fear, Myth and History: The Ranters and the Historians. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521894190. 
  10. ^ Parishes Chatham.
  11. ^ Rosewell, Walter (1656). The serpents subtilty discovered, or a true relation of what passed in the cathedrall church of Rochester, between divers ministers and Richard Coppin : to prevent credulity to the false representation of the said discourse published by the said R. Coppin from Maidstone goale.. Printed by A.M. for Jos. Cranford, at the Kings Head in St Pauls Church-yard. 
  12. ^ Garland, Edward. An answer to a printed book, falsely intituled, A blow at the serpent : It being truly a blow of the serpent, lately published by one Richard Coppin.. printed for Philemon Stephens in St. Pauls Church Yeard. 
  13. ^ Hill, Christopher (1979). Milton and the English Revolution. Penguin, p. 275. ISBN 0140050663. 
  14. ^ Bauckham, Richard (September), “Universalism: a historical survey”, Themelios: 47-54, <http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/article_universalism_bauckham.html> 
  15. ^ Hill, Christopher (1979). Milton and the English Revolution. Penguin, p. 313. ISBN 0140050663. 
  16. ^ Hill, Christopher (1991). A Nation of Change and Novelty: Radical Politics, Religion and Literature in Seventeenth-Century England : 'England That Nation of Change and Novelty'. Routledge, p. 198. ISBN 0415048338. 
  17. ^ Hill, Christopher (1984). The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, p. 221. ISBN 0140137327. 
  18. ^ Hill, World Upside Down, p. 222.
  19. ^ Hill, Christopher (1984). The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Penguin, p. 303. ISBN 0140137327. 
  20. ^ Vaneigem, Raoul (1993). La Resistance au Christianisme: Les heresies des origines au XVIIIe siecle (The Resistance to Christianity: The Heresies at the Origins of the 18th Century). Editions Artheme Fayard. ISBN 2213030405. 
  21. ^ Freidman, Jerome (1987). Blasphemy, Immorality, and Anarchy: The Ranters and the English Revolution. Ohio University Press, Chapter 2. ISBN 0821408615.