LAUSR

This study explores what happens to the radical aspects of the Quaker movement from the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 to 1700. How much of a change or indeed continuity was there in Quaker practices and missionary activity? Using several machine-readable corpora, eschatological prophecy material is interrogated to uncover potential changes of focus and rhetoric. Findings from exhortatory discursive discourses in the 1650s and 1660s are compared to a range of Quaker texts published in the later years of the century, specifically through the lens of “repent” language and other speech acts of warning and persuading. Diachronic comparisons of key lexis are analysed to uncover elements of change and continuity. The article concludes that after the 1660s, far from withering away, Quaker writing continued to include eschatological tracts and pamphlets, but these genre types sit alongside both the burgeoning collection of fierce doctrinal dispute material and more restrained treatises defending important principles and practices of Quaker faith.