Kirsten Macfarlane has given us a meticulously researched and documented account of lay pesons in seventeenth-century England – and America – who, with a strong interest in Scripture study, delved into technical questions of contemporary biblical scholarship. Macfarlane’s ‘microhistory of this community’ leads her to propose ‘a new vision of puritan culture and lay belief in the early modern Atlantic world’ (p. 3).

In her account, ‘puritan enthusiasm for religion extends far beyond the familiar sermon gadding, beyond the reading of catechisms, metrical psalms, and vernacular bibles, into the abstruse, polyglot concerns of learned biblical criticism’ (p. 3). We are pointed toward realising ‘previously unrecognized features of early modernity’ when

Macfarlane captures ‘an unusual moment in ecclesiastical history, when intellectually demanding biblical criticism appealed not only to the elite, but also to the wider public’ (p. 8). In short, the ‘reconstruction of one godly community’ tells ‘a new story about the engagement with abstruse biblical criticism by ordinary believers in England and New England’ (p. 8).

Central is the group of godly lay people who, in the first decade of the seventeenth century, began to gather in central London to share their keen interest in biblical scholarship. Their defining focus was the works of the Hebraist, Hugh Broughton (1548–1612), a preacher with ‘puritan’ proclivities. The group was to compile ‘extensive anthologies of Broughtoniana, which they circulated amongst themselves and occasionally submitted to the London press’. Women ‘played an important role as collectors’ (p. 12). These ‘Broughtonians’ splintered in the 1620s during Archbishop William Laud’s ‘anti-Puritanism’, with some staying in England while others emigrated to Massachusetts. The stories of each group are expertly told by Macfarlane.

Broughton was an engaging speaker, vehement in language, who brought forth the intellectual capabilities of his hearers. He lectured on ‘even the most technical matters of biblical chronology, genealogy, and Hebrew’ leading to ‘his chronological tract, A concent of Scripture (1588/9)’ (p. 23). Notes of his lectures circulated among interested hearers. His focus on chronological-genealogical matters led him to say that ‘of necessity the hystoryes of the Bible are to be learned; that none are fit to be Minister, that have not learned the Geneaologies’ (p. 25). He also proclaimed that whoever denied Broughton’s ‘answers to chronological-philological questions such as the day of Adam’s fall and the identity of Melchizedek was in effect denying “Christ to be the redeemer”’ (p. 25).

Macfarlane indicates that in the aftermath of Broughton’s death, his followers sought to track down details of his life and works, sparking their further ‘intense interest in complex and specialized biblical scholarship’ (p. 54). Their initial attraction to Broughton arose from ‘a sense that he was answering fundamental questions about the basic narratological and historical aspects of scripture which other authorities were ignoring, partly because they required confronting challenging technical problems’ (p. 54).

Broughtonians who stayed in England tried to further his works and interests, especially in biblical chronology. A physician-turned-minister, Roger Drake (1608–69), wrote a chronological pamphlet deeply indebted to Broughton. The topic was so important that Drake said, ‘“A great part of the Saints work and happiness in Heaven” would be this kind of “full opening” of chronology of the Bible’ (p. 72). But Macfarlane indicates that without the further spread of these ideas by passing them along to offspring, ‘the distinctive culture of the Broughtonians in London did not survive even a single generation’ (p. 75).

In New England, Broughton texts were disseminated through the efforts of Edward Holyoke and William Pynchon, whose families ‘formed a formidable dynasty and were the backbone of their communities’ (p. 77). Holyoke’s annotations of Broughton’s work became focused on enlarging spiritual benefits to ‘help the reader extract this devotional value from Broughton’s chronology and so increase their piety’ (p. 87). Holyoke prepared devotional readings on the six days of creation to ‘helpe to meditate of the works of the Lord God’ (p. 87). He sought to ‘summarise the spiritual profit offered by chronological calculation’ (p. 89). More broadly, says Macfarlane, Holyoke’s work ‘corroborates recent research emphasising the puritan circulation of seemingly private diaries, autobiography, and other kinds of self-writing as a social practice designed to sustain familial and communal faith’ (p. 91). Significantly: ‘The godliness of the Broughtonians in New England emphasized a learned devotion, or piety through erudition with Holyoke’s annotations advising the reader how to further their godliness through exercises and lessons inspired by Broughton’s intensive scholarship and hard historical-chronological labour’ (p. 91). This is a ‘strikingly different image of lay puritan piety to that which we usually identify as being sustained by devotional literature and “steady sellers” such as manuals of piety, guides to conversion, psalm books, sermons, vernacular Bibles, or almanacs’ (p. 91). ‘Affective meditation’, which Holyoke was encouraging, was ‘a practice with the aim of the using the text to quicken the heart’ (p. 92).

Macfarlane skilfully shifts to two chapters that are historical-theological in nature to show how the perspectives of Holyoke and Pynchon in New England on key questions in theology emerged from their experience in Jacobean London.

In ‘The synagogue and the Sabbath’, the writers delved into studies of the Sanhedrin and Synagogue. Pynchon believed ‘the Sanhedrin was a model for governance still binding on contemporary Christians’ (p. 134). They explored historic practices of both institutions which led each writer also to do research on precedents from Jewish practice for lay participation in biblical scholarship. The writers sought a universal education in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Pynchon used his ideas to provide what Macfarlane characterises as a ‘sophisticated if idiosyncratic account of the Christian sabbath’ (p. 13).

In ‘Controversy and covenant’, Macfarlane shows how Pynchon’s denial of some major tenets of Reformed orthodoxy emerged from the intellectual and social context of Broughtonism (p. 13). Pynchon strongly emphasised ‘the immutability of the covenant of grace across the testaments’ and that ‘Christ’s mediatorial sacrifice of atonement happened in exactly the same manner as Old Testament sacrifices’ (p. 163).

Macfarlane’s important and illuminating study helps counter some traditional pictures that have denied the existence of a ‘lay demand for erudition’ in early modernity (p. 189). If we look for this elsewhere too, she notes: ‘we might well find it, and in the process reveal a very different picture of what early modern people in every layer of society were capable of’ (p. 189).