5The Institutes of the Christian Religion is Calvin's single most important work. Yet, as many who have purchased an English translation of the final Latin edition of 1559 know only too well, the sheer size of the work and the proliferation of technical details and polemical themes do not make for easy reading. It has left many wishing for an edition that avoided such things but yet kept intact the very heart and soul of Calvin's teaching.

Such an edition is now available, and it is not the work of an editor or an abridger, but of Calvin himself.