Best Books on the Reformation: 6 Classics About the Reformers
The best way into the Reformation is to have the story told well, and the best place to start is J. H. Merle d'Aubigné's History of the Reformation. It makes the people and the stakes come alive. Then read the Reformers' own sermons and the lives of the men who died for the gospel.
The Reformation of the sixteenth century was, at bottom, a recovery of the gospel. The Reformers taught that Scripture alone is the final authority over the church. Sinners are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, not by indulgences, penance or merit. Every believer has direct access to God through Christ. And the Bible belongs in ordinary people's hands, in their own language. Many of the men and women in these books were burned for saying so.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
Romans 1:17
Here are six of the best books on the Reformation in TheWay Library, all free to read: first the story, then the Reformers' own preaching and the lives of the martyrs.
The story of the Reformation
1. History of the Reformation in the Time of Calvin, by J. H. Merle d'Aubigné
The great nineteenth-century history, in eight volumes. Volume 1 tells Geneva's fight for liberty and ends with the conversion of the young Calvin; later volumes cover England, Scotland, France and beyond. D'Aubigné writes as a believer who sees God's hand in history, and he tells a story well.
Liberty has never been firmly established except among a people where the Word of God reigns.
History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol. 1, chapter 5
See Who Was Merle d'Aubigné? and our guide to his volumes, which explains which ones to read first. Read Volume 1.
The Reformers' own words
2. The Pulpit of the Reformation
A small collection of sermons by British Reformers: Hugh Latimer on judgment and two parables, John Knox on Isaiah 26, and John Welch on the last judgment. Latimer's homely, plain style shows why the common people heard him gladly.
As we die so we shall rise again.
The Pulpit of the Reformation, The Day of Judgment
Read The Pulpit of the Reformation.
Lives of the Reformers and martyrs
3. John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals, by James Stalker
A short life of Scotland's Reformer: his conversion under George Wishart, his years in the French galleys, exile in Geneva, and the Scottish Reformation of 1560. The second half explains Knox's convictions and the founding documents of the Scottish church.
It is the poignant and intolerable sense of sin that makes the soul cling to the cross of Christ.
John Knox: His Ideas and Ideals, His Religious Convictions
4. Light from Old Times, by J. C. Ryle
Ryle's portraits of English Reformers and martyrs: Wycliffe, then John Rogers, John Hooper, Rowland Taylor, Hugh Latimer, John Bradford and Nicholas Ridley, who died under Queen Mary. He explains plainly why they were burned and why it still matters.
Can death deprive us of Christ, which is all our comfort, our joy, and our life?
Light from Old Times, Nicholas Ridley: Bishop and Martyr
See Who Was J. C. Ryle? Read Light from Old Times.
5. Fox's Book of Martyrs
A popular edition of Foxe's famous book, abridged and extended by a later editor. Its chapters on the burnings under Queen Mary are the part most readers remember. Latimer's last words to Ridley at the stake are here.
Be of good cheer, Ridley; and play the man. We shall this day, by God's grace, light up such a candle in England, as, I trust, will never be put out.
Fox's Book of Martyrs, Persecutions in England During the Reign of Queen Mary
6. Down Through the Ages, by Frank E. Gaebelein
A short, popular history of how the Bible came into English, from Wycliffe through William Tyndale, who was strangled and burned for translating it, to the King James Bible. It shows the Reformation's cry for the Bible in the people's language. About an hour.
The people had tasted the water of life; no other fountain could quench their thirst.
Down Through the Ages, William Tyndale and His Followers
How to read these books
Start with d'Aubigné for the big story. Then pick up a single life: Stalker on Knox, or Ryle on the English martyrs. Read the sermons in The Pulpit of the Reformation to hear how these men actually preached, and finish with Down Through the Ages in an evening.
The Reformers' teaching on the church is in our guide to the best Christian books on the church, and their heirs are in the best Puritan books. For more lives of faith, see the best Christian biographies. More by d'Aubigné is on his author page.