What explains the rapid growth of state power in early modern Europe? While most scholars have pointed to the impact of military or capitalist revolutions, Philip S. Gorski argues instead for the importance of a disciplinary revolution unleashed by the Reformation. By refining and diffusing a variety of disciplinary techniques and strategies, such as communal surveillance, control through incarceration and bureaucratic office-holding, Calvin and his followers created an infrastructure of religious governance and social control that served as a model for the rest of Europe -and the world. Gorski shows, for instance, how Calvinist-inspired social discipline contributed to the governance and pacification of Dutch society and to the rationalization and centralization of the Prussian state. He also compares religious and social disciplining as practiced by Calvinists, Lutherans and Catholics and finds that Calvinists took the disciplinary revolution much farther and faster, which helps explain the greater political strength of the Calvinist states. Written with clarity and vigour, "The Disciplinary Revolution" should be seen as a major work in European history, political science, social theory and religion.

This original look at the French Reformation pits immovable object--the French appellate courts or parlements--against irresistible force--the most dynamic forms of the Protestant Reformation. Without the slightest hesitation, the high courts of Renaissance France opposed these religious innovators. By 1540, the French monarchy had largely removed the prosecution of heresy from ecclesiastical courts and handed it to the parlements. Heresy trials and executions escalated dramatically. But within twenty years, the irresistible force had overcome the immovable object: the prosecution of Protestant heresy, by then unworkable, was abandoned by French appellate courts.

Until now no one has investigated systematically the judicial history of the French Reformation. William Monter has examined the myriad encounters between Protestants and judges in French parlements, extracting information from abundant but unindexed registers of official criminal decisions both in Paris and in provincial capitals, and identifying more than 425 prisoners condemned to death for heresy by French courts between 1523 and 1560. He notes the ways in which Protestants resisted the French judicial system even before the religious wars, and sets their story within the context of heresy prosecutions elsewhere in Reformation Europe, and within the long-term history of French criminal justice.

The Vigilant God by Horton Davies, a non-conformist minister who taught in the Religion Department of Princeton University and attended church regularly, is a reconsideration of the belief that God is still active in history. It is a reassessment of the theology of Providence in the thought of four major Christian theologians (Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Barth) and of their views on predestination, theodicy, and free will, leading the author to consider the role it might have for the future of humanity. The book starts with a sketch of the biblical sources relating to Providence, predestination, election, and reprobation. Davies sees Augustine's doctrine of Providence and his view of evil as privatio boni, as greatly influenced by Plato and his followers. He dwells on Aquinas the man, his life and his character, open to Aristotle and his Jewish and Arab commentators, before plunging into the structure of his encyclopedic thought and works. Davies appreciates Calvin's regard for Scripture as a means of illumination of the Spirit, but rejects the pastor's views on predestination as tyrannical and unjust, and believes that Barth's positive insistence on God's universal mercy is necessary against the horrors perpetrated in the twentieth century.

This new edition of the Christian classic includes an introduction from Sinclair Ferguson From the introduction: Thomas Boston never sought a prominent congregation or pulpit. He knew that, at the end of the day, the only thing that makes a pulpit lastingly prominent is the manner in which God's word is preached from it in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The Beauties of Boston is a book that has been treasured by many Christians in past generations. It is full of rich gospel truth and health-giving spiritual prescriptions. Part of its 'beauty' is that while a big book it is not really a long book, but a series of smaller and manageable passages that will - as The Marrow of Modern Divinity did for Boston himself - stimulate thought, enhance understanding of the gospel, point us to Christ, and strengthen both mind and spirit in the knowledge and service of God. Thomas Boston was born at Duns in Berwickshire in 1676. After studying in Edinburgh, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Duns and Chirnside in 1697. Shortly afterwards, he published his first book, A Soliloquy on The Art of Man-fishing, based on the words of Jesus in Matthew 4:19, 'Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.' In 1699, he became the minister of the small congregation in a village called Simprin, located quite close to his birthplace. He was there until 1707 when he became minister in Ettrick, and he would serve there until his death in 1732. The collected writings of Boston are found in twelve volumes, and from them the selections in The Beauties of Boston were selected by the editor. Boston's best-known book is Human Nature in Its Fourfold State. It was published in his lifetime, as were two others books by him: a Collection of Sermons and an edition of the Marrow of Modern Divinity which he annotated. After his death, several volumes of his writings were published, including his View of the Covenant of Works and of Grace, The Christian Life, A Body of Divinity, and The Crook in The Lot.

Este libro es un intento de articular el contenido de una cosmovisin bblica y su significado para nuestras vidas a medida que buscamos ser obedientes a las Escrituras. Las ideas que componen esta cosmovisin provienen de una larga tradicin de reflexin cristiana sobre las Escrituras y sobre una perspectiva global acerca del mundo. Son parte de una tradicin arraigada en las Escrituras mismas. Ha tenido como sus representantes ms prominentes a los padres de la iglesia Ireneo y Agustn, y a los reformadores Tyndale y Calvino. A esta cosmovisin de formacin escritural se le conoce a veces como "reformacional" porque alude a la Reforma protestante, la que descubri con frescura la enseanza bblica concerniente a la profundidad y al alcance del pecado y de la redencin. El deseo de vivir slo por medio de la Escritura, en vez de hacerlo colocndola al lado de la tradicin, es el sello de los reformadores. Seguimos sus pasos al hacer este nfasis y al desear una continua reforma, al desear ser re-formados por las Escrituras continuamente (ver Hch. 17:11, Ro. 12:2), en vez de vivir segn tradiciones que no han sido examinadas.

A faithful examination of the role of John Calvin in the execution of Michael Servetus. The execution of Michael Servetus (1511-53) is one of the most debated events in the life of John Calvin (1509-1564). It has left an indelible stain on Calvin's reputation, and unfortunately, the retelling of the story is often dependent on the historian's relationship to Calvinism. Jonathan Moorhead here seeks to give a faithful narrative of the role of John Calvin in the execution of Michael Servetus. He examines the life of Servetus, with emphasis given to his education, publications, and relationship with John Calvin. Moorhead also gives attention to the role of Calvin in Servetus' arrests, trials, and execution. Understanding the extent of Calvin's power in Geneva at the time of the trial is critical to understanding the events, as is the context of executing heretics throughout history, and in particular, in the 16th Century. This book will challenge readers to think critically about the ethics of telling history, the standards of properly judging previous generations, and the benefits of this study for the building up of the Body of Christ. Servetus' Education and Publications Servetus' Arrest and Escape from Vienne The Authority of John Calvin Servtus' Arrest, Trial and Execution in Geneva Final Considerations Conclusion

Anna Maria van Schurman was widely regarded as the most erudite woman in seventeenth-century Europe. As "the Star of Utrecht," she was active in a network of learning that included the most renowned scholars of her time. Known for her extensive learning and her defense of the education of women, she was the first woman to sit in on lectures at a university in the Netherlands and to advocate that women be admitted into universities. She was proficient in fourteen languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, Persian, Samaritan, and Ethiopian, as well as several vernacular European languages. This volume presents in translation a remarkable collection of her letters and poems-many of which were previously unpublished-that span almost four decades of her life, from 1631 to 1669.

Irish Presbyterians and the Shaping of Western Pennsylvania, 1770-1830 is a historical study examining the religious culture of Irish immigrants in the early years of America. Despite fractious relations among competing sects, many immigrants shared a vision of a renewed Ireland in which their versions of Presbyterianism could flourish free from the domination of landlords and established church. In the process, they created the institutional foundations for western Pennsylvanian Presbyterian churches. Rural Presbyterian Irish church elders emphasized community and ethnoreligious group solidarity in supervising congregants' morality. Improved transportation and the greater reach of the market eliminated near-subsistence local economies and hastened the demise of religious traditions brought from Ireland. Gilmore contends that ritual and daily religious practice, as understood and carried out by migrant generations, were abandoned or altered by American-born generations in the context of major economic change.

Puritans did not find a life free from tyranny in the New World-they created it there. Massachusetts emerged a republic as they hammered out a vision of popular participation and limited government in church and state, spurred by Plymouth Pilgrims. Godly Republicanism underscores how pathbreaking yet rooted in puritanism's history the project was. Michael Winship takes us first to England, where he uncovers the roots of the puritans' republican ideals in the aspirations and struggles of Elizabethan Presbyterians. Faced with the twin tyrannies of Catholicism and the crown, Presbyterians turned to the ancient New Testament churches for guidance. What they discovered there-whether it existed or not-was a republican structure that suggested better models for governing than monarchy. The puritans took their ideals to Massachusetts, but they did not forge their godly republic alone. In this book, for the first time, the separatists' contentious, creative interaction with the puritans is given its due. Winship looks at the emergence of separatism and puritanism from shared origins in Elizabethan England, considers their split, and narrates the story of their reunion in Massachusetts. Out of the encounter between the separatist Plymouth Pilgrims and the puritans of Massachusetts Bay arose Massachusetts Congregationalism.

A daily Luther breviary for pastors and laity, for use in college, seminary, and university, and for reading at home; the book is suitable for Christian believers, inquirers, as well as for those interested in studying Reformation history. Martin Luther did not bequeath to us a system of theological thought, but his sermons, poetry, letters, and essays are all written with specific situations in mind. This book takes the same approach in dealing with topics. Twelve topics, spread over the months of the year, introduce the reader to Luther's theology. The selected readings from the Wittenberg reformer are translated into modern English and explained in everyday language. The passages from his writings have been selected with an eye to the Christian year and its festivals; at the same time they describe the nature and consequences of Luther's reformational insights. With the added benefit of a commentary on the selected Luther texts as well as on the art work for each month, this book promises to be not only a helpful and entertaining companion for the journey through the church year, but also a compendium of Luther's theology.

Long overshadowed by Luther and Calvin, Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) is one of the most important figures in the Protestant Reformation and had profound effect on Western church history. This book gives the most detailed English-language biographical treatment of Melanchthon to date, moving from his historical context and personal origins, through his childhood, education, and early career at Wittenberg during the dramatic events at the dawn of the Reformation (1497-1524). Establishing the deep geopolitical and religious context of Melanchthon's early life, the volume then follows Melanchthon to the great halls of humanist learning at Heidelberg and Tubingen, where his studies and teaching career began and his'faith was richly fostered. The pivotal moment comes in his appointment to the chair of Greek in Wittenberg where Melanchthon became a great ally and supporter of Martin Luther. Melanchthon's role as key player in the advocacy for reform expanded through his involvement in the Leipzig Disputation, his visible representation of the evangelical cause in Wittenberg during Luther's absence at Worms and the Wartburg, and his struggle with the radical wing. The volume closes by looking ahead to Melanchthon's contribution to the Augsburg Confession of 1530.

Most biographers of Luther are faced with a choice-focus on Luther's life or focus on his thought. The choice, though real, is false. Luther's thought was inextricably bound up with his life. In this short, engaging volume, Hans Schwarz succeeds in blending the two-creating a volume that introduces Luther's thought in the context of his life story. The book meets the need for a clear and concise introduction to the life and teachings of the great church reformer, Martin Luther. After a brief overview of his life, the book devotes chapters to Luther's thoughts on key areas of the Christian faith and life, including the knowledge of God, church and sacraments, the Scriptures, marriage and parenthood, and vocation. The author incorporates quotations from Luther's own writings to show how Luther's insights have relevance for all Christians today. With questions for reflection and discussion, the book can be used as a study resource for individuals, church groups, or college and seminary classes. For this revised edition, Schwarz has thoroughly reviewed the text and added important new sections on Luther and music, Luther and the economy, Luther and the Jews, and more.

Spanning the continents, three internationally respected theologians demonstrate how the thought and legacy of Martin Luther can serve in an ecumenical and interfaith context as a resource for a radical critique of global economics and culture. Lutheran Christianity originated in its own era of economic and cultural crisis. One of the great misinterpretations of Martin Luther has considered his heritage as fundamentally reactionary, seeking to preserve the political status quo. Instead, set free by the biblical message of liberation, this book wields Luther's theology to engage the reality of poverty, hunger, oppression, and ecological degradation caused by an imperial capitalism as the most urgent theological issues in the contemporary world. The volume demonstrates the liberating possibilities of theology done out of a biblical and Lutheran perspective for the economic and cultural crises facing the church in the present century.

In two dozen short biographies of John Calvin's friends including some who turned into enemies Machiel A. van den Berg paints an intimate portrait of the great Reformer's life and circle that most of us have never seen. / In these pages we accompany Calvin from his early boyhood in Noyon to his student days in Paris and Orleans, to his pastorate in and exile from Geneva, all the way to his deathbed. We meet his famous Reformer friends, such as Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Theodore Beza, and John Knox, but also friends whose names are more obscure: his cousin Pierre Robert Olivtan, the first translator of the Bible into French; Ren de France of French royalty; Laurent de Normandie, the mayor of Noyon who later escaped to Geneva; Pierre Viret, his best friend of all; and Idelette van Buren, his beloved wife during their brief but blissful marriage. / Calvin may be known as a scholar who preferred his study to imperial and ecclesiastical politics, but he was also a rebel of faith against the papacy, which controlled most of Europe and had a price on the heads of all "reform-minded" citizens, especially their leaders. Allegiances to Rome were constantly in flux in the empires of Europe as were the lives and welfare of dissenters and Calvins life was full of perilous risks, political intrigue, much harried travel, and many relocations. / Peppered with quotations from Calvin's voluminous letters, Friends of Calvin abounds with secret court relationships, love affairs, death threats, poisonings, and narrow midnight escapes from the pursuing authorities showing a full-blooded and dangerous side of the bookish Reformer's life. Readers of these colorful narratives will come to see how much Calvins friends influenced his life and thought.

Traditionally known as le Refuge, the Huguenot diaspora is one of the most important dispersions of a religious minority in early modern Europe. This migration led to the exodus of nearly two hundred thousand Protestants out of France in 1685 at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Memory and Identity offers a comparative perspective on this event and its repercussions by an international group of historians. This collection is the first look at the Huguenot diaspora in a broad Atlantic context rather than as a narrowly European or Colonial American phenomenon and sheds new light on the Protestant experience both in and outside of France. The volume explains why some Huguenots chose to emigrate instead of being assimilated by the dominant Catholic group, while others recanted their faith and remained in France. Revealing how minority status at home affected the creation of refugee communities outside France, scholars trace the Huguenots' eventual integration into different host societies. Comparing Huguenot diasporic experiences on both sides of the Atlantic, essays focus on Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, British North America, the French Caribbean, New France, and Dutch South Africa. Finally, several essays study the long-term impact of the Revocation and of le Refuge in examining nineteenth-century Huguenot memory in France and in the diaspora and the maintenance of a Huguenot identity.

Eight Irish-American historians explore the changing transatlantic character of Ulster Presbyterianism in the 18th and 19th centuries. - Mark G. Spencer (Brock U), Peter Gilmore (Carnegie Mellon U), Katherine Brown (Mary Baldwin College) & David A. Wilson (U Toronto) examine the role of Ulster Presbyterians in the United Irish movement on both sides of the Atlantic - Patrick Griffin (Ohio U) compares and contrasts the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 in Pennsylvania with the Defender movement in Ireland - Kerby Miller (U Missouri) analyzes class conflict and the origins of Unionist hegemony in early 19th-century Ulster - Kevin James (Guelph U) explores the social underpinnings and political consequences of the Ulster Revival of 1859 - David W. Miller (Carnegie Mellon U) provides a broad-ranging assessment of evangelical traditions in Scotland, Ulster and the United States

Student-friendly intro to one of America's most fascinating theological minds. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) has long been recognized as one of the preeminent thinkers in the early Enlightenment and a major figure in the history of American Christianity. In this accessible one-volume text, leading Edwards experts Oliver Crisp and Kyle Strobel introduce readers to the formi-dable mind of Jonathan Edwards as they survey key theological and philosophical themes in his thought, including his doctrine of the Trinity, his philosophical theology of God and creation, and his understanding of the atonement and salvation. More than two centuries after his death, theologians and historians alike are finding the larger-than-life Edwards more interesting than ever. Crisp and Strobel's concise yet comprehensive guide will help new students of this influential eighteenth-century revivalist preacher begin to understand why.

From current day sectarianism to the Free Church, religion has had a dominant effect upon society in Scotland for centuries. In this topical and thought-provoking book, Callum Brown examines the role of religion in the making of modern Scottish society. Tackling important contemporary themes such as the role of the Kirk in national identity and the growth of secularisation, he explains the history of Catholicism, Presbyterianism and Episcopalism over the last 250 years in an accessible and readable way.