In Volume 4, The Age of the Reformation, Old focuses on changes in preaching due to the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation. This is the pivotal volume in Old's project, covering as it does not only what the Reformers and Counter-Reformers preached but also their reform of preaching itself. Old traces the main events and people involved in the development of preaching at this time— Luther, Calvin, Thomas of Villanova, Francis Xavier, William Perkins, John Donne, Johann Gerhard, Jacques Bossuet, and many more—while also giving due attention to how preaching was itself an act of worship.
“Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, the three bishops who led the Reformation in its first phase, were men of deep faith and firmly committed to the reform of the Church.” (Page 135)
“First, Puritanism had a high sense of the sovereignty of God” (Page 253)
“Another gift of public speaking Calvin had in the highest degree was clarity of thought and expression.” (Page 129)
“One of the strong points of Calvin’s preaching was his constant concern for application.” (Page 130)
“As early as 1522 William Tyndale saw the need of a fresh translation along the lines of Christian humanist scholarship.208 Tyndale’s vision was broader and more profound than Wycliffe’s; the Wycliffe Bible had not been a fresh translation from the Greek and Hebrew, but rather a translation of the Latin Vulgate.” (Page 137)
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Glenn Crouch
2/21/2017
Stephen Steele
3/22/2014