Charles R. Lightner

Having published the first major part of The Hidden Bones Apocalypse I am turning back for a while to my Golden Rule ethics project.

I reviewed Jeffrey Wattles’ book on The Golden Rule, as a first step back into that subject, and I was drawn to the early Christian texts on the subject that he cites. Four major treatments of the Rule were written in 17th century England. I decided to look beyond Wattles’ description of those to see what the actual texts looked like.

The first of the four was a text by John Goodman, who was rector of a church in Hampshire. He called his 1688 work “The Golden Rule: The Royal Law of Equity Explained.” I found that Goodman raised some very interesting and important points; some points that I found naive; and some ideas that I found disturbing. But the language and style of the 17th century churchman are difficult. I found myself searching the dictionary for clarification of usage from his time. And I did that so frequently that it occurred to me that the community of those interested in the Golden Rule would benefit from an edition of the book rewritten in modern English. So, I have spent a few weeks creating a version of Goodman’s book that presents both the text as he wrote it and a version that is lightly edited and rewritten to be more readily understood by, and more valuable to, the modern reader. One of the advantages that this edition offers is a Glossary of about 200 words whose definitions are taken from the 18th century dictionary of Samuel Johnson.

I have published the edition with Goodman’s original text, my rewritten version, and the Glossary, as a Kindle e-book. A paperback version will be available shortly.