The Reformation: A Handbook (T. M. Lindsay)

The Reformation

A Handbook

First published in 1882, Lindsay’s Hand Book on the Reformation is still one of the best summaries of that 16th-century period available. Understanding the Reformation to be a revival of the Christian faith, author T.M. Lindsay maintains that it cannot be successfully described unless this, its essential character, is kept distinctly in view.

Here is a thrilling record of the triumph of the gospel in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Scotland and England. The final section of the book explains the principles that governed the whole movement.

“A condensed, scholarly account of the religious upheaval of the 16th century. Where d’Aubigne would be too bulky, this volume will be acceptable, and the condensation is not a mutilation. The chapter on the principles of the Reformation, and the chronological summary at the end, are very valuable features of the book. It has our heartiest commendation.”  — Charles Spurgeon

Divided Into Four Major Parts

• The German Reformation, Leading the Establishment of the Lutheran Churches
• The Swiss Reformation, Leading to the Establishment of the Reformed Churches
• The Anglican Reformation
• The Principles of the Reformation

About the Author

Thomas Martin Lindsay was ordained in 1872 as Professor of Church History at the Free Church College, Glasgow, where he continued until his death in 1914, since 1902 having been Principal of what had become the United Free College.

Lindsay was born in 1843 in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, a pastor’s son, and studied at Glasgow and Edinburgh, where he was assistant to Professor A. C. Fraser. Apart from a probationary period assisting Robert Candlish at Free St George’s, Edinburgh, he had no experience of pastoral ministry.

His wife was a daughter of Alexander Murray Dunlop, advocate and later MP for Greenock, who drew up the Claim of Right (1842) prior to the Disruption and was legal adviser to the Free Church of Scotland. Lindsay obtained a DD from Glasgow and an LLD from St Andrews (1906).