Conclusion:
Conclusion:
Truth and consequences
In the seventeenth-century Anglophone world, theological and historical conditions pressured identity towards a stable, religiously confirmed articulation and then aimed to hold religious affiliation to a congruence with nationhood. Despite these forces, the period ended not with a triumphant reintegration of the Protestant body ecclesiastical-political, but with the failure to reconfigure a comprehensive Protestant state church. Even so, a new way of thinking about the meaning of one’s life took hold. Personal conscience was recognized as an unimpeachable arbiter of authentic selfhood, but with a zone of authority that would be increasingly circumscribed. The destabilizing force of the radically religious was a strong catalyst for the rewriting of social contracts among related cultures. First-person witnessing became an integral element in the writing of history of nonconformity. As a precursor to the novel, it also provided a strong template for narrative forms.
Keywords: seventeenth-century Anglophone world, conscience, toleration, comprehension, precursor to the novel, history of nonconformity
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