A central tenet of Reformed theology was the doctrine of justification by imputed righteousness: the faithful are not saved on account of their own righteousness, but purely by the gracious decision of God to ‘impute’ or ‘account’ the perfect righteousness of his Son unto them. While this doctrine was a popular target for broader anti-Calvinist criticism, this chapter demonstrates that Whichcote, Cudworth, More and Smith challenged the Reformed doctrine by producing an explicitly Platonic account of justification on which believers are rendered acceptable to God by deification (i.e. by direct, internal conformity to and participation in the nature of God). This model of justification is distinctive, even against the wider background of English anti-Calvinism, and provides one of the strongest indications of the close philosophical alignment of Whichcote, More, Cudworth and Smith. As the present chapter will demonstrate, to their Calvinist critics such as Anthony Tuckney, it was the Cambridge Platonists’ views about justification that constituted their most egregious departure from Reformed doctrine and that most clearly unmasked the ‘Platonic’ character of their thought.

Dante’s distinctive political theology lies behind two of the most startling surprises of his otherworldly vision, in relation to previous traditions both popular and learned about the afterlife. First, of the approximately 300 characters in Dante’s otherworld, 84 are pagans, and 51 of these are located in a region entirely of Dante’s own invention: the limbo of the virtuous pagans. Second is Dante depiction of contemporary popes, at least four of whom are allotted a place in hell.

This chapter addresses the political dimension of Dante’s ethical thought. Where scholars have tended to emphasise ‘the fundamental difference’ between the ethical–political theories expounded in the Monarchia and the Commedia, this chapter demonstrates their fundamental unity. No less than his Latin prose treatise in three books, Dante’s vernacular poem in three canticles was potent propaganda for the Imperial faction in Italy, and a controversial manifesto for the radical reform of the Roman Church.