In this interesting and thought-provoking volume, Steven Matthews presents the reader with an alternative Francis Bacon to the thinker variously described as atheist, Puritan, or cynical, Machiavellian manipulator of religion. Critics are as divided on Bacon's confessional leanings as they are unanimous on his desire to keep religion and natural philosophy separate, a consensus Matthews challenges, suggesting that its roots lie in a misreading of Bacon's use of Matthew xxii.29, ‘ye err, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God’. Theology and science in the thought of Francis Bacon argues that, for Bacon, philosophy and theology were less to be kept separate than were mutually interdependent. Matthews suggests that the English Reformation led to the development of idiosyncratic belief systems amongst the intellectual elite as it encouraged a doctrinal diversity not found on the continent: it was in this atmosphere that Bacon developed both his theology and his Instauration philosophy. Bacon drew from patristic sources, probably under the influence of his friend and confidant Lancelot Andrewes, and followed Irenaeus in viewing the Instauration not only as part of the ‘divine act of restoration’ (p. 52), but as an age in which human agency and divine power would meet in one – the human agency represented and theorised in his great intellectual project, the Instauratio magna. This feature of Bacon's Instauration, mankind's having the free will and agency to engage with the divine, necessitated a move away from the Calvinism of his youth: Matthews traces this movement through two theological works, the Meditationes sacrae and the Confession of faith, making a persuasive case for Bacon's thought gradually becoming irreconcilable with that of the Reformed Church. For Bacon, Scripture did not have a single interpretation, but provided a ‘basic theological principle, which could then be extended to the instauration’ (p. 78). This fluidity of thought allowed Bacon to interpret Genesis iii.19 as both blessing and curse, and Daniel xii.4 as evidence that the long-prophesied Instauration was taking place in his own age. Paying close attention to both Bacon's use of Scripture and his patristic influences, Matthews explores several areas in which his theology and philosophy were inextricably linked, including the creation, the fall, the way to salvation and the specific features of the Age of Instauration. Largely persuasive, the book is not free from error: Matthews perhaps struggles with Bacon's distinctive uses of the term Instauratio; he somewhat unfairly describes Novum organum as largely ‘a summary of points made in The Advancement of Learning’; and the final chapter might have found a better home expanded into a discrete journal article. These criticisms are, however, relatively minor, and fail to compromise the wider argument. Theology and science in the thought of Francis Bacon presents a persuasive explanation of the connection between theology and philosophy in Bacon's thought, one which ought finally to put to rest the idea that, for Bacon, they were to remain forever separate.