A study of evangelical soteriology. Includes critiques of proponents of various "gospels": Purpose gospel (Rick Warren, Kerry Shook, Gotlife.org); Puzzling gospel (Billy Graham, Bible colleges, Leonard Sweet); Prosperity gospel (Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, Kirbyjon Caldwell); Pluralistic gospel (Clark Pinnock, John Sanders); Performance gospel (John F. MacArthur, Bill Bright, D. James Kennedy, David Wells, James Montgomery Boice, R.C. Sproul, John Piper); Promise-only gospel (Zane Hodges, Bob Wilkin).

This is the first of two volumes, now covering the heads of religious houses in England and Wales from the tenth-century reform to the death of Edward III, 940–1377. This first volume, by the great master of monastic history, Dom David Knowles, aided by Christopher Brooke and Vera London, was published first in 1972 and was quickly recognised as a major work of reference, noted for its mastery of accurate detail. It has now been brought up to date with substantial addenda and corrigenda by Christopher Brooke. The 1972 volume covers the period 940–1216, and comprises fully documented, critical lists of monastic superiors, with succinct biographical details. It is an essential foundation for all prosopographical study of the religious history of the period; and the precise chronology that it underpins is invaluable for dating innumerable undated documents. As such, the book is a fundamental tool of medieval research.

This is the last volume published by Swedenborg, and contains the crowning resume of all he had previously been expounding. It is here condensed into a "universal theology." But it is not mere repetition. Its style is more comprehensive; its argument is a new combination of philosophy and doctrine; its form and its illustrations are to a large extent new. In addition to this, it contains a last section upon the previous Churches, or Dispensations, that have hitherto governed on this earth, and the New Church or New Dispensation which was then being established, the doctrines of which it was Swedenborg's mission to teach. The Lord, the Word, Creation, Redemption, the Christian Life, the Sacraments, are all treated of fully and cogently, and given an interpretation that is both spiritual and rational.