Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the findings of the book and briefly discusses how Baxter’s relation to mechanical philosophy relates to later nonconformist and Puritan tradition. Although Baxter’s response to mechanical philosophy included Cartesianism, he gave greater weight to Pierre Gassendi’s Christian Epicureanism than theologians in the Netherlands, and this fact points to the importance of Gassendi’s philosophy in seventeenth-century England. Baxter’s negative response to the philosophy of Descartes and Gassendi points to an important discontinuity in early modern Puritanism and nonconformity. Later theological leaders working in this tradition such as Isaac Watts, Philip Doddridge, and Jonathan Edwards were far more favorable toward mechanical philosophy. This discontinuity highlights the variegated nature of the larger Puritan and Reformed tradition.