This book is an examination of the puritanism of a series of divines, including Dering, Cartwright, Whitaker and Chaderton, all of whom passed through the University of Cambridge between 1560 and 1600. Dr Lake gives a detailed analysis of their careers and opinions. The personal and ideological links between them are established and in the process some idea of the range of opinions current among puritan divines in this period is built up. The aim of the work is to arrive, through this process of comparison and juxtaposition, at the kernel of shared attitudes and beliefs that justify the inclusion of all these men within a coherent puritan tradition.

Preface; 1. Introduction: Laurence Chaderton and the problem of puritanism; 2. Moderate beginnings: the case of Edward Dering; 3. Chaderton's puritanism: his presbyterianism; his role in the university; the balance of the moderate position; 4. The moderate puritan divine as anti-papal polemicist; 5. Thomas Cartwright: the search for the centre and the threat of separation; 6. William Whitaker's position as refracted through his anti-papal polemic; 7. Theory into practice: puritan practical divinity in the 1580s and 1590s; 8. William Whitaker at St John's: the puritan scholar as administrator; 9. The theological disputes of the 1590s: the opening shots; the Lambeth Articles: John Whitgift and Calvinism; the case of Peter Baro; 10. Conformity: Chaderton's response to the Hampton Court Conference; 11. William Bradshaw: moderation in extremity; 12. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.