Like all reference works, ‘Meet the Puritans’ will need to be updated again to reflect future publications, but for now, the Church and academy can count themselves blessed to have such a comprehensive work. Due to denominational distinctives, some Christians may differ with Puritanism on secondary or tertiary matters, but they can nevertheless say with Spurgeon, “It would do [everyone] … good to read more Puritan theology, and have the opportunity of stocking their libraries better.”

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Puritans sought to purge Roman Catholic vestiges from the Church of England to make it more Protestant. They agreed with much of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, but objected to the Church’s use of crucifixes, graven images, episcopal polity, ornate clerical vestments, the liturgical calendar, the sign of the cross in baptism, the elevation of the host, and kneeling to receive the Lord’s Supper. Their attempts to purify the Anglican Church ultimately failed, leading to the growth of dissenting denominations in Old and New England.

Their writings, however, especially on Reformed and experiential piety, were valued beyond their own lifetimes. Individual titles like Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, Thomas Watson’s A Body of Divinity, and William Gurnall’s The Christian in Complete Armour saw numerous printings, but none compared with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. John Flavel’s works were published five times in the eighteenth century and three in the nineteenth century, influencing men such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Andrew Bonar, and Archibald Alexander. Richard Baxter’s Practical Works were also very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, being published in three different editions.

The works of several other Puritans were published in the nineteenth century. Thomas Tegg released The Works of William Bridge in 1845, Johnstone & Hunter produced William Goold’s Works of John Owen from 1850 to 1855, and W. G. Blackie & Son published George Offor’s Works of John Bunyan in 1850s and 60s. The Nichol family conducted the most ambitious printing of the Puritans in the Victorian Era. At the encouragement of Charles H. Spurgeon, James Nichol, the father, started work on a Series of Standard Divines, which was slated to include the works of Thomas Goodwin, Richard Sibbes, Stephen Charnock, Thomas Adams, Thomas Manton, Edwards Reynolds, Thomas Brooks, and David Clarkson. Nichol passed away in 1861, but James, the son, completed the project throughout the next two decades.

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