Ecclesiastical Biography; or Lives of Eminent Men, Connected with the History of Religion in England; From the Commencement of the Reformation to the Revolution, Vol. V

Christopher Wordsworth, youngest brother of the romantic poet William Wordsworth, sifted through the archives at the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth with a view to collecting biographical sketches that would inspire Christians to grow in their faith. The fruit of his labor is the six-volume Ecclesiastical Biography; or Lives of Eminent Men, Connected with the History of Religion in England; from the Commencement of the Reformation to the Revolution. Through selection and editing, Wordsworth created a “narrative of grand particulars” of carefully chosen biographies, some of them unpublished, of men who represent key events or beliefs in the development of Christianity in Britain during the period between the Reformation and the 1688 Revolution. The stories are meant to give Christians a model of faithfulness in the midst of suffering, a model of the willingness to face adversity for the sake of truth. At the same time, the stories do not hide the faults of the characters, reminding the reader that everyone is capable of sin when they rely on their own strength. Volume five contains biographies of Sir Henry Wotton, Nicholas Ferrar, Bishop Hall, Dr. Henry Hammond, Bishop Sanderson, and Richard Baxter.