As defender of the faith and protector of his flock, at a time of great dissent on matters of theology and religious practice, Bunyan spent much of his energies on disputes, both in person and on the printed page. It was, indeed, such issues that had originally launched him into print in 1656-7 (see Volume I in this series). Six of Bunyan's controversial works, from a much later period of his life, are presented in the present volume. Bunyan directed the earliest of these works, A Defence of the Doctrine of Justification, by Faith (1672) at the latitudinarian rector Edward Fowler. A long-term dispute with some Baptists over open membership resulted in his A Confession of my Faith, and A Reason of my Practice (1672), Differences in Judgment About Water-Baptism, No Bar to Communion (1673) and Peaceable Principles and True (1674). Controversies concerning the status of women and the correct day for Sabbath observance led him to write A Case of Conscience Resolved (1683) and Questions About the Nature and Perpetuity of the Seventh-Day-Sabbath (1685). These polemical works display something of the rough and tumble world of the mechanick preachers of Bunyan's time. They add to our understanding of Bunyan's background, religious stance, and imaginative power and technique. They also reveal some of his personal human foibles.

A scholarly edition of The Miscellaneous Works of John Bunyan: Some Gospel Truths Opened; Vindication of "Some Gospel Truths Opened" and Few Sighs from Hell by T. L. Underwood and Roger Sharrock. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

This book presents writings produced by the Muggletonians---an unusual seventeenth-century English sect founded in 1652 by John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton. The volume draws on documents from a recently discovered Muggleton archive and rare seventeenth-century tracts. Among those included are Muggleton's autobiography, excerpts from works co-written by Muggleton and Reeve, letters, songs (including ones composed to celebrate Muggleton's release from prison), and miscellany.

The mid-seventeenth century saw both the expansion of the Baptist sect and the rise and growth of Quakerism. At first, the Quaker movement attracted some Baptist converts, but relations between the two groups soon grew hostile. Public disputes broke out and each group denounced the other in polemical tracts. Nevertheless in this book, Underwood contends that Quakers and Baptists had much in common with each other, as well as with the broader Puritan and Nonconformist tradition. By examining the Quaker/Baptist relationship in particular, Underwood seeks to understand where and why Quaker views diverged from English Protestantism in general and, in the process, to clarify early Quaker beliefs.