The Evolution of George Hakewill?s Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, 1627-1637: Academic Contexts, and Some New Angles from Manuscripts

摘要

This article examines aspects of the genesis and textual evolution of George Hakewill’s celebrated Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, published in three ever-expanding editions in 1627, 1630, and 1635. Rather than comparing the three printed texts, however, this study instead focuses first on the political contexts of Hakewill’s work, and then on three extant manuscript witnesses to portions of his text. Two of these, Bodleian MSS Ashmole 1284 and 1510, demonstrate that Hakewill initially circulated in manuscript variant versions of the material he would eventually edit and add to the 1635 edition. Most importantly, British Library Sloane MS. 2168, an incomplete Latin translation of the Apologie, shows not only that Hakewill was independently developing a Latin translation of his work, but also that he continued to work on this Latin text after the publication of his final English edition. The two texts therefore diverge, with the Sloane manuscript representing the final expression of Hakewill’s text, a book that has hitherto been considered solely as an English, and a printed, work.