"This book traces the development of the puritan theology of 'last things', qualifying the existing historical narrative. Exploring an alternative canon - those writers highlighted by their contemporaries as influential figures in the millenarian discourse - it traces the use and abuse of eschatology throughout the three kingdoms, emphasising the complex interplay of radically diverse writers. The book takes eschatological writers in chronological order of importance, contextualising such giants as John Foxe, James Ussher, John Milton and John Bunyan by juxtaposing them with the theological situation their works exposed - the interpretations of the Geneva Bible, the ecclesiological polemics of the Covenanters, and the conversion narratives of the Interregnum radicals. Puritan millenarianism is shown to be a formative factor in the development of a distinctly puritan historiography, conflicting doctrines of church order, and a radical view of the self. The puritan literary project is shown to be nothing less than a sustained attempt to grasp the transcendent."--BOOK JACKET.