Hunter Powell has provided an important and groundbreaking study of church power during a period of intense political and religious turmoil in seventeenth-century England. During the English Civil War, Parliament rejected the authority of the established Church of England. It was not long, however, before they were struggling themselves with the problem of the nature and implementation of church authority. If church power was not embedded within the monarchy or the episcopal hierarchy, then where did it come from and what would sustain the unity of the Christian church in England? Powell specifically focuses on a group of dissenters, Thomas Goodwin, Jeremiah Burroughs, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, and William Bridge, who became known as “the Dissenting Brethren,” and later, simply as the “Apologists.” This was a group of congregational ministers who went to Holland as exiles in the late 1630s. After their return and during the meeting of the Westminster Assembly, this group of men published a tract entitled the Apologeticall Narration, thus giving them their name. According to Powell: “No group in the history of the Puritan Revolution had a more disproportionate impact on the course of events than this vocal minority” (3).

Powell's book looks at the years 1638 to 1644 and focuses on debates over church power and authority. He locates these debates as part of “reformed scholastic humanism, rooted first and foremost in the Scriptures” and carefully examines how theology deeply influenced the seemingly irreconcilable ecclesiological divisions during these years (245). Too often, according to Powell, historians have seen debates about church structure as somehow disconnected from theology. Especially important, for the Apologists and others who debated church power, were two passages in the Gospel of Matthew: Matthew 16:15–19 (Christ gives Peter the keys) and Matthew 18:17–18 (Christ's instructions for how to deal with heterodoxy). It is perhaps surprising to witness the importance of Peter's keys to the development of Protestant theology, but while denying all claims of papal supremacy, Protestants also sought biblical support for clerical authority. Perhaps the most helpful aspect of Powell's study is his thorough demonstration of the wide diversity and complexity of views about church power during these years. These debates were not simply a divide between presbyterian and independent factions at the Westminster Assembly. Powell takes the time to explore the thinking of individual participants and the specific historic contexts and influences that shaped their views. While the intricacies of the debates are sometimes difficult to follow now, Powell demonstrates that, in order to understand the history, we do need to do the hard work of investigating how these people read the Bible and how their theological views shaped their views of church structure, authority, and power.

The first two chapters of the book set the historical and historiographical context. These chapters are followed by a chapter on the beginnings of the Westminster Assembly. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 examine three different perspectives on ecclesiology during the first half of 1644. The seventh chapter looks at how these three perspectives came together in the Westminster Assembly debates and demonstrates that the participants and views do not fit into the predefined categories that historians have often assigned for them. The final chapter looks at attempts to find accommodation among the wide variety of ecclesiological perspectives and at the role of the Apologists in the failure of these attempts. In making his case, Powell uses letters, various unpublished materials, published treatises, and pamphlets produced by the Apologists and others who played significant roles in the debates. Powell argues that historians have focused too much attention on a number of inflammatory pamphlets related to the debates about church power and that were not written by members of the Westminster Assembly or of major significance to the outcome of the debates. Instead, Powell focuses on the pamphlets that were influential in the debates themselves. This book also pays attention to the international context, which included the larger transnational reformed tradition in both Europe and New England. Powell is particularly interested in the influential role played by John Cotton from New England.

When dealing with intellectual and religious history, it is always a difficult task to thoroughly investigate the intricacies of the philosophical and theological argumentation while also locating that discourse within the relevant personal, national, and international historical contexts. Powell has admirably succeeded in doing so, and the result is an eminently valuable book that consciously avoids oversimplification and seeks to recognize the diversity and complexity of the individual actors and the debates they were involved in. The downside of such a detailed study, if there is one, is the narrow focus: in this case, a study of a particular group of interlocutors on one subject (ecclesiology) during three episodes in a six-year span and an emphasis on a few aspects and texts within that one subject. Yet, while the focus of this book is deliberately limited, the significance is substantial. Not only does this study look at a critical topic at a critical point in time that scholars and students should take into account for any understanding of later ecclesiological developments in England, but it should also serve as a valuable model for other works of religious history. Powell, in the introduction and conclusion, makes very strong claims for both the importance of this study and for the inadequacy of previous work on the topic. While Powell successfully details and explains the debate over church power and structure during these years, there is perhaps an overemphasis on the failures of previous scholarship. In sum, this is an interesting, informative, and important study of a critical topic in the religious history of sixteenth-century England.