A Conflict of Wills. The Seventeenth-Century Diarist Isaac Archer and His Father

Abstract

Isaac Archer (1641-1700) was a godly man, an Anglican minister, a good father to his nine children and the son of a possessive father. The order in which his life roles are listed here is not random. For a considerable part of his life he kept a diary in which he recorded the many struggles with his sinful nature and presented himself as a man whose priority was to submit to the will of God. His humbleness was frequently and most painfully tested in the context of his parenthood, but it was the challenges that he faced in the relationship with his own father that seemed to have had the greatest impact on his spiritual as well as daily life. This article is a portrait of this very turbulent relationship between a seventeenth-century adult son and his strong-willed father.