Consoler les consciences troublées : la compassion dans la guérison spirituelle puritaine, c. 1590-1640

This article aims to demonstrate the essential role of compassion in the puritan practice of spiritual healing, as it developed in England from the end of the reign of Elizabeth I to the end of the 1630s. While the pastoral care established by puritan divines to address the spiritual crises caused by soteriological anxiety has received some scholarly attention, the question of the emotional resources mobilised by spiritual consolers remains a neglected theme in existing scholarship. Yet, if spiritual comfort is a discursive exchange, the interaction it involves is not solely verbal but also encompasses a significant emotional dimension. In particular, the guides to the practice of spiritual comfort consistently identify compassion as an indispensable quality for the exercise of spiritual comfort: it allows the consoler to find the right balance between gentleness and firmness in their interaction with the afflicted; more generally, it contributes to creating a protective therapeutic environment, based on a relationship of trust and benevolence, within which the afflicted benefits from constant spiritual and emotional support.