' … a richly nuanced study of forms and practices of clerical sociability that helped to define Puritanism and shape its response to the changing conditions of the Caroline Church … [Webster] is a new voice in the field of Puritan studies and one that promises to be an important one'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History

• Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. Society, Clerical Conference and the Church of England: 1. Clerical education and the household seminary; 2. Profitable conferences and the settlement of godly ministers; 3. Fasting and prayer; 4. Clerical associations and the Church of England; Part II. The Godly Ministry: Piety and Practice: 5. The image of a godly minister; 6. Religiosity and sociability; Part III. 'These Uncomfortable Times': Conformity and the Godly Ministers 1628–38: 7. Thomas Hooker and the conformity debate; 8. Trajectories of response to Laudianism; 9. The ecclesiastical courts and the Essex visitation of 1631; 10. Juxon, Wren and the implementation of Laudianism; 11. The diocese of Peterborough: a see of conflict; 12. The metropolitical visitation of Essex and the strategies of evasion; Part IV. 'These Dangerous Times': The Puritan Diaspora 1631–42; 13. John Dury and the godly ministers; 14. Choices of suffering and flight; 15. The 'non-separating Congregationalists' and Massachusetts; 16. Thomas Hooker and the Amesians; 17. Alternative ecclesiologists to 1642; 18. Conclusion.