Edward Reynolds

This is the biography of Edward Reynolds (1599-1676), a Presbyterian clergyman in the Church of England in the seventeenth century. He distinguished himself as a popular preacher who participated in the struggle to redefine the national church during the century after Henry VIII withdrew England from Roman Catholicism. He represented the attempt to have Calvinistic preaching and church order represented as legitimate options over against Anglo Catholic ritualism in the new church. He did not succeed, but was appointed Bishop of Norwich, where he functioned as a moderate voice within the church. He was known as the Pride of the Presbyterians, and was the author of a Treatise on the Passions of the Soul of Man and a number of volumes of sermons delivered to many leaders of the nation. He was a central figure in the development of the Westminster Confession of Faith and selected prayers within the Book of Common Prayer.