Richard Whitbourne, when describing the now-extinct great auk, spoke of its ability to "multiply so infinitly," and of God's gift of "the
innocency of so poore a creature, to become such an admirable instrument for the sustenation of man." RICHARD WHITBOURNE, A DISCOURSE AND DISCOVERY OF NEW-FOUND-LAND 9 (photo.
(71) Edwards Gangraena (1646) likewise complained that Baptist writers gave "swelling Titles to their books they set forth, as,
Innocency and Truth Triumphing together, as, Truth gloriously appearing, [and] The storming of Antichrist." (72) But Edwards had also identified the importance of Patient as an exemplar of this novel theology, and it was his career that was to provide Irish Baptists with the first comprehensive defense of their faith.
(99) Then, in the early months of 1646 and leading into the summer, the Leveller leaders published a plethora of pamphlets, beginning with Lilburne's
Innocency and Truth Justified (January).
My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him
innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.
But no sooner did he transgress, than instead of enjoying the boldness of
innocency, and the liberties of paradise, he sneaks away to hide himself....
He even seems to have tried to treat a case of Tourette's Syndrome in a patient who would "with perfect
innocency of mind, in lieu of such combinations of elements as that, or good, or when, and a thousand others equally indispensable to the construction of the simplest sentences, pronounce sounds that had the semblance of such shocking words, as the pen must not write, nor the ear of modesty listen to" (Results of Experience 39).
Epitaphs to dead children, fashionably inscribed on Gothic headstones, increasingly asserted the doctrine of innocence, and the hope that somehow the deceased were still alive and in good health: Sweet
innocency's form lies here Lamented by his Parents dear Who hopes at last in Endless joy To meet again thier [sic] lovely Boy.(39)
14; John Goodwin, Truth and
innocency triumphing together (London, 1648), pp.
his life; but, by the goodness of God, his own
innocency and courage,
"Let none then hereafter secure themselves in personal
innocency or rest in actual purity from the sins of the times," Fairclough proclaimed.
