The story of the past is inevitably selective and this often results in some individuals being given, perhaps, undue prominence whilst other very significant figures end up being marginalised.
Accounts of later English Puritanism have often ended up focusing on the likes of Richard Baxter (1615–1691), John Bunyan (bap. 1628, d. 1688), and John Owen (1616–1683), leaving others, who in their day were highly significant, to almost disappear from the historian’s view.
William Bates
One of the positive trends in more recent accounts of the Reformation and post-Reformation periods is to bring to centre stage some of those who previously had been left waiting in the wings. The result is a new appreciation of the rich legacy that has come down to us and, in the case before us, a glimpse into how the Restoration church settlement might, so very easily, have been much more Presbyterian in nature.
