Hi Gang,

The works I have been using are super expensive, and I have had to get them on inter-library loan. First of all, there is Frank Manuel’s book (which costs over $240 used) called the Religion of Isaac Newton. Then there is a four volume set of which Volume III is the most important. It is: James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, eds., Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, Volume III: The Millenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts of Science, Politics and Everyday Anglo-American Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), 153-2. It is evidently still in print but one must, I understand, buy the entire set which runs around $140 if my memory serves me right.

One should not limit one’s study to Newton, however. Equally important are works dealing with Newton. Johann Heinrich Alsted (1558-1638), a German professor whose major work was written during the Thirty Years War and was translated into English during the English Civil War in the early 1640s when Parliament was at war with King Charles I by order of the Parliament. The same was true of Joseph Mede’s Clavis Apolcalyptica. These men were predecessors of Newton and are discussed at length in several articles in Volume III above. There is, however, a recently published translation to the Clavis (the Key to Revelation) that can be obtained rather cheaply from Amazon. I’m ordering it.

There are numerous other sources, but these are enough for a start. Yet before moving on, I would point you to two of the chapters in Volume III. One is S. Snobelen, “‘The Mystery of This Restitution of All Things’: Isaac Newton and the Return of the Jews,” and Reiner Smolinski, “Caveat Emptor: Pre- and Postmillennialism in the Late Reformation Period.”

Finally, let me say that before moving into this material, you should get some idea of Augustine of Hippo’s ideas that sank premillennialism for a thousand years and in one way or another is still alive in the major churches. Take a look at The City of God, Book XX, Chapters V-XVII.

I agree fully with Derek about Newton. He tried to keep his ideas secret, and was angry at William Whiston (his successor at Cambridge) for openly taking a stand against the Trinity. In many ways Whiston (who was also a top scholar both in Maths and science on one hand and biblical subjects on the other) was much better man than Newton. Newton behaved badly in a row with Leibniz over which one was responsible for discovering and developing calculus. When he became responsible for the Royal Mint, he really developed a mean streak.

Jim