Dedicated to its co-editor, Christopher Durston, whose untimely death in 2005 was a great loss, this excellent collection offers much to both student and specialist. The eleven essays hang together well, constituting a fine and lasting tribute. Several address theological issues. In a stimulating and important contribution J. C. Davis explores contemporaries' engagement with a God who was both interventionist and ‘hyperactive’. To Puritans especially this was a ‘controlling’ God, with his human instruments readily disposable and expected to give unquestioning obedience. Cromwell saw his place in history in precisely these terms, expressed succinctly in his poignant letter to Oliver St John after the victory at Preston in 1648, and many of the regicides took a similar approach in making sense of the king's execution, or indeed their own. I have only two reservations about Davis's mostly persuasive argument. First, he speaks repeatedly of God's behaviour as ‘wilful’, which in modern usage conveys the sense of ‘perverse’ and ‘without regard to reason’ (OED). Divine providence might appear arbitrary and inconstant to mortals, but surely Puritans never doubted that God's final purpose was just and firm. This was an inscrutable rather than wilful deity. Second, contemporaries often remained confident about God's ultimate goals, whatever obstacles and disruptions he might set in their path. Thus Cromwell remained convinced that God approved his war against Spain, despite the providential disaster at Hispaniola; and most cavaliers trusted that God would one day restore monarchy, despite having allowed rebels and traitors to sweep it away. Davis's essay also offers a valuable corrective on Puritan ‘autobiographies’, such as John Bunyan's Grace abounding. For Bunyan and his readers, their purpose was to demonstrate not individual agency but the struggle to renounce one's own will in order to become wholly open to the divine. Elizabeth Clarke approaches theology from the different perspective of women's writings, some published but more often private reflections never intended for public view. As she shows, the women who did offer theological interpretations in print were just as disparate in outlook as their male contemporaries and, in Katherine Chidley's case, equally pugnacious; Mary Cary, less combative but even more radical, would have been an interesting addition to the group under scrutiny. John Coffey's essay provides a lucid introduction to the key issue of religious toleration. Coffey identifies three main strands: Presbyterian proponents of uniformity, conservative tolerationists (like Cromwell) willing to offer toleration within certain limits, and miscellaneous radicals who denied the magistrate's right to meddle at all with freedom of religious belief or worship, in a few cases demanding freedom even for atheists. Mark Bell contributes a similarly useful overview of the early Baptists, tracing their origins and diverse strands (Particular, General, Seventh-Day), and the troubled relations of the Particular Baptists with both Levellers and Fifth Monarchists.

A second group of essays explores the national Church and those outside it. Most important is Ann Hughes's positive and generally convincing reassessment of the national Church. The Church of the 1650s was flexible and highly responsive to local preferences and, as Protector, Cromwell frequently used his immense patronage to endorse local choices. Hughes sees the Cromwellian Triers as energetic and efficient, the Ejectors as generally fair, and augmentations and the uniting or dividing of parishes as a serious attempt to tackle long-standing problems of church finance. As she acknowledges, this is a rather one-sided account, and there is nothing here on vexed issues such as access to the sacraments. The sacraments do feature in Elliot Vernon's equally upbeat account of the Presbyterians. Challenging Derek Hirst, Vernon sees Puritan hand-wringing as little more than a trope, and presents a picture of vigorous Presbyterian evangelising, catechising and parish discipline. While this is a useful corrective, it overstates the revisionist case. The minutes of the London Provincial Assembly, for example, on which Vernon draws, show that its aspirations were only rarely translated into effective action. Turning to the Catholics, Bill Sheils shows how those who had fought for the king fared worst in the years that followed, while non-combatant families were often protected by their Protestant and even Puritan neighbours. The most striking development was the emergence of the Blackloist group of secular priests, willing to explore the possibility of an accommodation with the Cromwellian government. Had Cromwell lived longer, and continued to mellow, it is conceivable that an arrangement might have emerged allowing Catholic priests to exercise a form of pastoral ministry, if not to proselytise. Judith Maltby's essay on the formation of ‘Anglicanism’, which has appeared in a different form elsewhere, traces the continuing popular attachment to prayer-book services and the festive calendar. Though the deprived bishops provided little leadership, these two strands played a key part in the emergence of a self-conscious Anglicanism after the Restoration.

A final group of essays explores local aspects. Jacqueline Eales surveys religious diversity in Kent, and the impact of divisive figures such as Richard Culmer and Richard Coppin. Beverly Adams focuses on the Quakers of Hertford, emphasising their defiance in the face of persecution. The Hertford Quakers drew on their sense of both spiritual authority and civic liberty to challenge the courts, and exploited every legal loophole. The final word should go to Christopher Durston. His judicious study of the Lord's Day surveys the theological debates and parliamentary legislation before moving on to the difficult issue of enforcement. He concludes that embargoes on work, travel and sports were indeed widely enforced, while acknowledging the numerous acts of defiance and evasion. Levels of church attendance are another matter, yet to be fully explored, for it was far easier to suppress secular pursuits than to enforce religious observance. Durston cites a French observer who described the English sabbath as ‘preaching and sitting still on Sundays’, and, as preachers repeatedly complained, many chose to sit at home or in the alehouse rather than in church.