This volume of The Age of the Puritans (late 16th century and 17th century) begins with Theodore Beza's 1575 catechism, brief and simple enough to be learned by children. William Perkins preaches a sermon on a life centred on 'Christ crucified', Pierre du Moulin, the Huguenot, on suffering as a Christian and Richard Sibbes on 1 Peter 4:18. John Owen gives his oppinion on how dissenters should consider their own excommunication. Richard Sibbes preaches sermons on 1 Peter 4:17-19 and Philippians 1:23-24. Thomas Cartwright's preface to the Admonition to the parliament was a petitionary address to the two houses of parliament, humbly submitting to them the great need of reforming the church, furnishing a detail of what the puritans wished to see reformed and exhibiting the obvious occasion of the sufferings inflicted upon worthy ministers of Jesus Christ. William Fulke preaches on 2 Samuel 24:1, William Perkins summarises the positive and negative implications of the 10 commandments, Edward Fisher asks whether it is appropriate for someone to be barred from the Lord's Supper and the implications of an affirmative answer. Then come an exchange between Pierre du Moulin and Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, a Protestant and Roman Catholic in France. Giovanni Diodati writes from Geneva to England during the First English Civil War, Queen Elizabeth I of England gives her view of transubstantiation in verse and then a brief letter from Church of England Bishop John Jewel to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester about Jewel's answer to Thomas Harding's (1516–1572) book against the Church of England. Theodore Beza responds to those who say that the plague is not infectious because it is sent by God and who say it is wrong to flee from the plague. An appendix to Lambert Daneau's commentary on 1 Timothy discusses church government and discipline and the volume closes with Beza's second speech to the prelates of France at the Colloquy of Poissy after controversy about his statements about the Lord's Supper.
(Summary by InTheDesert using PD sources)
Other volumes in this series:The Age of the Puritans Vol. 1The Age of the Puritans Vol. 3
