Age Of The Reformation

Hughes Oliphant Old’s survey of preaching throughout the history of the Christian church has been heralded as a monumental achievement. This fourth volume of Old’s history brings the story of preaching up through the Protestant Reformation to the end of the seventeenth century.

This is the pivotal volume in Old’s project because it covers not only what the Reformers preached but also their reform of preaching itself. Luther made a clear break with the preaching traditions of the Middle Ages, while figures like Bucer and Calvin developed a strong expository approach to preaching. Old traces the main events and people involved in the development of distinctly Protestant forms of preaching, giving due attention to how and in what sense preaching was itself an act of worship.