"What has by convention been called John Lightfoots journal is in fact a four-volume series of journals, the first of which has never been published. The journals are presented here in their entirety for the first time. John Lightfoots journals cover a period in the authors life when he was a member of the famous assembly of divines meeting in Westminster Abbey. The Westminster assembly (1643-53) was comprised of approximately thirty members of parliament and 120 ministers. By the outbreak of the war in England in 1642, a majority in the Long Parliament had come to see it as its duty to renovate the Church of England, both bringing it into line with a more biblical code and up to date with the best Reformed Churches. Aspects of this transformation (chiefly the work of demolition) the Lords and Commons were willing to direct themselves. But while ready to dismantle aspects of church life and ministry, neither house of parliament was eager to create a new design for the church. It is for that reason that the Long Parliament formed their assembly of divines, a kind of ecclesiastical architectural service to which it could contract the task of planning a remodelled church.

Narratives of the assemblys history were already in progress while the gathering was still meeting and were advanced in the years following. Members of the assembly allowed themselves to speculate about the legacy that the gathering might one day enjoy and were attentive to the way in which their own contributions were recorded by the synods scribes. The scribe himself polished rough drafts of his minutes, and Robert Baillie, one of the Scottish Commissioners who later joined the body, mentioned to a friend that he recorded all these our debates, private and publick and added that most of all the Assemblie wrytes, likening it to people taking notes of preached sermons. Baillies comment indicates that there were other Lightfoots-perhaps many divines who wrote their own accounts of the assemblys proceedings. His colleague, George Gillespie, recorded his own version of some of the debates; Thomas Thorowgood, Thomas Goodwin, and John Wallis did as well. Quite possibly other such journals have survived and will yet be uncovered. But the point is that any number of participants created their own accounts of those years in the assembly, each for a readership and a purpose beyond the assembly itself. Centuries later surviving documentation of the synods sessions is painfully uneven.

Lightfoots own journals exemplify this uneven coverage of events, for his daily notes span only the period from July 1643 to December 1644, even though he continued to play an active part in the gatherings work into the 1650s. The body of this volume contains the full text of the surviving journals, accompanied by interpretive introductions for each session and editorial notation throughout. This brief introduction sets in context the authors life prior to and during the Westminster assembly and suggests that a study of these journals will lead to a revision of traditional characterizations of Lightfoot as a clergyman of the church of England uninterested in reform. It also summarizes important ways in which the journals supplement other accounts of the Westminster assemblys work before discussing the careful composition, potential audience, and chequered transmission of the journals"--.