The Crisis of British Protestantism: Church Power in the Puritan Revolution, 1638–44 . By

These are exciting times in which to be a scholar of the dynamics of religious reformation in mid-17th century England (and in the wider British Isles). The publication in 2012 of the minutes and collected papers of the Westminster Assembly, edited across five volumes by Chad van Dixhoorn, is surely one of the most ambitious pieces of early modern transcription and editing attempted in recent times, and has opened to researchers the debates of the Assembly’s divines as they attempted to determine the future course of England’s religious doctrine and worship.(1) Judging by the online discussions within Reformed Protestant circles, van Dixhoorn’s work has achieved the kind of tangible research impact of which most of us can only dream. On top of van Dixhoorn’s volumes, we are keenly awaiting new works by Anthony Milton and Elliot Vernon which will shed further light on the often tangled, but always interesting, religious history of this turbulent period.