John Calvin, a beacon for the Puritans, is spotlighted in this volume of Puritan Papers, originally presented on the 400th anniversary of the Reformer's death. J. I. Packer writes on Calvin as "a servant of the Word," and O. R. Johnston on Calvin the man. Additional chapters treat Calvin's doctrine of God, his Institutes, and sixteenth-century Geneva.

Other biographical chapters feature George Whitefield (by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones) and Charles Haddon Spurgeon (by D. M. Whyte). In addition, Packer writes on the Puritan approach to worship, Iain Murray on "things indifferent," and Lloyd-Jones on John Owen's view of schism.