This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people's experience of religion, showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but a strong and vigorous tradition. For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period. "A mighty and momentous book: a book to be read and re-read, pondered and revered; a subtle, profound book written with passion and eloquence, and with masterly control."--J. J. Scarisbrick, The Tablet "Revisionist history at its most imaginative and exciting. . . . [An] astonishing and magnificent piece of work."--Edward T. Oakes, Commonweal "A magnificent scholarly achievement, a compelling read, and not a page too long to defend a thesis which will provoke passionate debate."--Patricia Morison, Financial Times "Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated."--Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books Winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award

Altars are powerful symbols, fraught with meaning, but during the early modern period they became a religious battleground. Attacked by reformers in the mid-sixteenth century because of their allegedly idolatrous associations with the Catholic sacrifice of the mass, a hundred years later they served to divide Protestants due to their re-introduction by Archbishop Laud and his associates as part of a counter-reforming programme. Moreover, having subsequently been removed by the victorious puritans, they gradually came back after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. This book explores these developments, over a 150 year period, and recaptures the experience of the ordinary parishioner in this crucial period of religious change. Far from being the passive recipients of changes imposed from above, the laity are revealed as actively engaged from the early days of the Reformation, as zealous iconoclasts or their Catholic opponents - a division later translated into competing protestant views. Altars Restored integrates the worlds of theological debate, church politics and government, and parish practice and belief, which are often studied in isolation from one another. It draws from hitherto largely untapped sources, notably the surviving artefactual evidence comprising communion tables and rails, fonts, images in stained glass, paintings and plates, and examines the riches of local parish records - especially churchwardens' accounts. The result is a richly textured study of religious change at both local and national level.

There are Godly altars and satanic altars. There are gates of Godly blessings, and there are gates of curses and spiritual attacks. Also, there are Godly covenants as well as satanic and ungodly covenants. Many of the things that you see and experience in your life and ministry are because of existing altars, spiritual gates, and covenants - positive or negative, known or unknown. Altars may be raised to bless or curse, promote or pull down a person or a group of people, and to enhance a cause or to frustrate it. Spiritual gates may manifest by strange occurrences in someone's life. But no matter how it may manifest, if the person involved settles the issue with repentance, renunciation, prayer, and speaking forth the Word of God, the devil will bow and his works will be destroyed.

As we will see in this book, an altar is a technology for communicating and teleporting between two realms. It is a mystery that is replete all over the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. Before the Law, the revelation of altars existed, and in the Law, altars existed. We also see altars in the New Testament, and even in the Book of Revelation. The revelation of altars is thus key to spiritual power, and this is why the people of the occult world and the kingdom of Satan do not joke with it. Unfortunately, the church that should be the custodian of the revelation of altars has since lost its principles. Churches now have stages instead of altars. This is sad. In the past, kings and other great leaders revered the church. It was the Queen of Scotland that said, 'I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe’. Where is the Lord God of Elijah who fought the prophets of Baal after repairing the altar of God? Where is the Lord God of Moses who brought Israel out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea. Where is the God of Joshua who caused time to stand still? As a church and as individuals, if we would see the power of God as of old, we must learn again the principle of altars. We must set our hearts to understand sacrifice, the blood of Jesus, and the power of prayer. We must understand how to set up an altar and learn how to shut and open portals in the realm of the spirit through the technology of altars. We must also learn how to legalize and criminalize altars, and how to furnish our altars with blood. We must not be ignorant of the impact of family altars and the altars through which we are attacked as the Body of Christ. We must align our heart altar with heaven's altar to bring heaven's power to the earth as only the power of God can do the work of God. In this book, I will share with you many deep secrets, many of which will be new to you. I advise you to take time to meditate and research for yourself. The Lord has trusted me with so much revelation for our day, and not only have I taught these, I have seen the results and testimonies abound. This is why in the appendix of this book, I have shared testimonies from some of the people who have practiced the revelation published in this book because the results cannot lie. I pray for you that as you read, you will receive insights by the power of the Holy Ghost. God bless you!