An atlas of the Reformed & Puritan faith
Grace, by the book.
Start with what the Reformers believed — the five solas, the great confessions, God's sovereign election — then follow it through the people, places and books that carried it from Wittenberg to New England.
Choose a reading depth at the top: Intro for newcomers, Study for church and classroom, Deep for sources and debates.
I · Doctrine
The five solas
Five Latin slogans that summarise the Reformation's answers on authority and salvation. Select one.
The phrases come from the Reformers' writings, but grouping them as a set of five is a later summary.Wikipedia
II · Doctrine
Confessions explorer
Reformed churches summarised the Bible's teaching in confessions and catechisms. Pick a document, or compare where each one treats a doctrine.
Section numbers refer to the standard English editions. “Not addressed” means the document has no dedicated section on that topic.
III · Doctrine
Election: chosen in Christ
1 In plain words
The Bible says God chose a people for himself “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). Reformed churches teach that this choice rests on God's mercy alone, not on anything he saw in us beforehand. Election is meant to humble believers and comfort them: the salvation that began with God will be finished by God (Romans 8:29–30).
2 What the confessions teach
- Unconditional. God chose “out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works” as a condition (Westminster Confession 3.5). Faith is the fruit of election, not its cause (Canons of Dort 1.9).
- In Christ. The elect are chosen in Christ and given to him to be saved (Belgic Confession 16; Canons of Dort 1.7).
- Through means. God who chose the end also appointed the means: the preaching of the gospel, faith and repentance (Westminster 3.6). So the gospel is to be offered to all.
- Handled with care. Dort warns against prying into God's secret will and says assurance comes by noticing the fruits of election — faith, sorrow for sin, love for God (Canons 1.12–13).
Reformed (Dort, 1619)
Election is unconditional; grace effectively brings the elect to faith; true believers persevere.
Remonstrant (1610)
Election is based on foreseen faith; grace can be resisted; perseverance was left an open question.
Sources: Canons of Dort (CRCNA) · Britannica: Arminianism
3 Deeper study
- Key texts: Romans 8:28–39; Romans 9–11; Ephesians 1:3–14; John 6:37–44; 2 Thessalonians 2:13–14.
- Order of decrees. Reformed theologians debated whether God's decree to elect is logically prior to the decree to permit the fall (supralapsarian) or follows it (infralapsarian). Dort and Westminster did not settle this.
- Calvin: Institutes 3.21–24 treats election and urges that it be studied only within Scripture's limits.
- Further reading: Owen, The Death of Death; Perkins, A Golden Chaine; Turretin, Institutes, topic 4.
Read: Calvin's Institutes (CCEL) · Supra- and infralapsarianism · Westminster Confession (OPC)
Download summaries
Two printable summaries on unconditional election.
October 31 · Reformation Day
Ninety-five questions on a church door.
In 1517 Martin Luther, an Augustinian priest and theologian at Wittenberg, wrote 95 short propositions in Latin for an academic debate on indulgences. Tradition says he posted them on the door of the Castle Church on October 31. He sent a copy to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, asking him to stop the preaching of the indulgence seller Johann Tetzel.
Luther did not mean to leave the Church, and he did not hand the theses to the public. Others translated them into German and printed them, and within a few weeks they were known across Germany. Lutherans and other Protestants now keep October 31 as Reformation Day.
“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ [Matthew 4:17], he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Thesis 1
IV · History
Interactive timeline
Drag the scrubber, use the arrow keys, or select a year. Each event lights up its place on the map below.
V · Geography
Where it happened
Select a city to see what happened there. The New England inset shows where the Puritan story crossed the Atlantic.
VI · People
Reformers & Puritans
Select a portrait to turn the card. Filter by era.
Portraits: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
VII · The Puritans
Reforming England, then a new world
The Puritans were English Protestants of the late 16th and 17th centuries who believed the Church of England's reformation under Elizabeth I had stopped halfway. They wanted worship, church government and everyday life shaped more closely by Scripture.Wikipedia
Their theology was Reformed; their great strength was “practical divinity” — preaching and writing that applied doctrine to conscience, family, work and prayer. Some stayed in the national church, some separated, and many sailed for New England in the 1630s.
- 1559 Elizabethan Settlement leaves many reformers dissatisfied.
- 1630s Great Migration to Massachusetts Bay.
- 1643–53 Westminster Assembly.
- 1662 Great Ejection of about 2,000 ministers.
- 1689 Act of Toleration gives Dissenters freedom of worship.
Sabbath & Word
Plain, expository preaching and the Lord's Day kept for worship.
Family religion
Household worship and catechising, as Baxter urged in The Reformed Pastor.
Conscience
Close self-examination and pastoral “cases of conscience,” pioneered by Perkins.
Covenant
Covenant theology framed God's dealings with his people and their churches.
VIII · Scotland
The Scottish Reformation
How Scotland broke with Rome in 1560 and built a Presbyterian, Reformed kirk, with the people, places and dates behind it.
Scottish scholars and churchmen were reading Luther's ideas by the first half of the 16th century. In 1560 a group of Protestant nobles, the Lords of the Congregation, took control of government, and the Reformation Parliament approved a Protestant confession of faith and rejected the pope's authority. James VI's government formally ratified these acts in 1567.Wikipedia
John Knox led the new Church of Scotland, which took a Presbyterian structure and largely Calvinist doctrine. The Reformation brought major changes to Scottish education, art and worship.Wikipedia
- 1528 Patrick Hamilton is burned for heresy at St Andrews.src
- 1546 George Wishart is burned at St Andrews (1 March).src
- 1547 St Andrews Castle falls; Knox is sent to the French galleys.src
- 1559 Knox comes home and preaches at Perth (May). Riots follow.src
- 1560 Reformation Parliament and the Scots Confession.src
- 1567 Mary, Queen of Scots, abdicates and James VI becomes king.src
- 1572 Knox dies in Edinburgh (24 November).src
- 1578 The Second Book of Discipline, shaped by Andrew Melville.src
Key people
c. 1504–1528
Patrick Hamilton
An early Lutheran preacher and Scotland's first Protestant martyr. He was burned outside St Salvator's College, St Andrews.
Source ↗c. 1513–1546
George Wishart
A reformer who preached across Scotland. Cardinal David Beaton had him burned at St Andrews. Knox travelled with him and carried a sword in his defence.
Source ↗c. 1514–1572
John Knox
He served as a galley slave, then ministered in England and Geneva. He became the leader of the Scottish Reformation and minister of St Giles', Edinburgh, and helped write the Scots Confession.
Source ↗1542–1587
Mary, Queen of Scots
A Catholic queen who ruled a newly Protestant realm. She famously clashed with Knox. She was forced to abdicate in 1567 in favour of her infant son James.
Source ↗1545–1622
Andrew Melville
A scholar trained in Geneva who reformed the Scottish universities. He was the leading champion of Presbyterian church government over bishops.
Source ↗Key places
St Andrews
Scotland's church capital. Hamilton and Wishart were martyred here, and Knox was called to preach in the castle.
WikipediaPerth
Knox preached at St John's Kirk in May 1559, and the riot that followed started open revolt.
WikipediaGeneva
Knox pastored the English exile congregation here under Calvin's influence before he returned home.
WikipediaRecommended from Banner of Truth
History
The History of the Reformation in Scotland
John Knox
Knox's own account of his times, dictated to his secretaries between 1559 and 1571.
Banner of Truth ↗Set
The Works of John Knox
John Knox
The Scottish reformer's collected works, reissued to mark the 500th anniversary of his birth.
Banner of Truth ↗Devotional
The Select Practical Writings of John Knox
John Knox
Knox's treatise on prayer, his exposition of Psalm 6, and several of his letters.
Banner of Truth ↗Biography
The Scots Worthies
John Howie
Short biographies of Scotland's Christian heroes, from the 1520s to the "killing times" of the 1680s.
Banner of Truth ↗Overview
A Scottish Christian Heritage
Iain H. Murray
An introduction to Scotland's evangelical heritage and why it still matters today.
Banner of Truth ↗IX · Hymns
Hymns of the Reformation
Songs the Reformers wrote, sang, or commended to their churches, with a short history of each.
Wrote
Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
A Mighty Fortress Is Our God
Martin Luther
Luther wrote both the words and the tune between 1527 and 1529. The opening line paraphrases Psalm 46; the rest is largely his own. It has been translated into English at least seventy times; it is one of Luther's best-known hymns.
Source ↗Wrote
Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir
Out of the depths I cry to Thee
Martin Luther
Luther's paraphrase of Psalm 130, a psalm of repentance and grace. It came out in 1524 as one of the eight songs in the first Lutheran hymnal, the Achtliederbuch, and appeared in the Erfurt Enchiridion the same year.
Source ↗Sung
Es ist das Heil uns kommen her
Salvation unto us has come
Paul Speratus
Luther's co-worker Speratus wrote these 14 stanzas, a sung summary of justification by faith. They appeared in the same 1524 Achtliederbuch as Luther's own songs, set to a tune that was already known in the 1400s.
Source ↗Wrote
Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland
Savior of the nations, come
Martin Luther, after Ambrose
An Advent chorale of 1524 that turns Ambrose of Milan's Latin hymn Veni redemptor gentium into German. The melody is adapted from its plainchant. It was printed in the Erfurt Enchiridion of 1524, so the Reformers kept the old church's song and put it in the people's language.
Source ↗Wrote
Christ lag in Todesbanden
Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands
Martin Luther with Johann Walter
Luther's Easter hymn. He and Johann Walter based its text and melody on earlier examples. It was published in 1524 in the Erfurt Enchiridion and in Walter's choir hymnal, and Pachelbel, Bach, and Telemann later set it.
Source ↗Wrote
Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her
From heaven above to earth I come
Martin Luther
A Christmas hymn Luther wrote in 1534 about the Nativity. The melody it is usually sung to first appeared in a 1539 songbook and was probably also Luther's. It is still a classic carol.
Source ↗Recommended
The Genevan Psalter
Calvin's metrical psalms
John Calvin, Clément Marot, Théodore de Bèze
Calvin's churches sang mostly the Psalms themselves, rhymed in French. The first edition came out in 1539 under Calvin's supervision. Marot and later de Bèze versified the texts, and in 1562 a complete psalter covering all 150 psalms was issued. This is why it is also called the Huguenot Psalter.
Source ↗Sung
Old Hundredth
All people that on earth do dwell
Louis Bourgeois (tune) · William Kethe (words)
This tune from the Genevan Psalter, usually attributed to Louis Bourgeois, was first set to Psalm 134. Its name comes from William Kethe's English version of Psalm 100, which first appeared in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter of 1561.
Source ↗X · Books
The Reformed bookshelf
Pull a volume off the shelf to read about it and where to start. Filter by kind.
Select a spine.
XI · Learn
Guided paths & quiz
Pick a path, tick off each stop as you go (your progress stays on this device), then test yourself.