Editing Gilbert Burnet (section)

==''History of the Reformation''==
[[Image:HistoryRefEngTPVol11679.jpg|thumb|256px|Engraved Title page of the first volume of ''The History of the Reformation of the Church of England''.]]
In the mid-1670s, a French translation of [[Nicholas Sanders]]' {{lang|la|De origine et progressu schismatis Anglicani libri tres}} (1585) appeared. Sanders attacked the [[English Reformation]] as a political act carried on by a corrupt king. Several of Burnet's friends wished him to publish a rebuttal of the work, so in 1679 his first volume of ''The History of the Reformation of the Church of England'' was published. This covered the reign of [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]]; the second volume (1681) covered the reign of [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth]] and the [[Elizabethan Religious Settlement]]; the third volume (1715) consisted of corrections and additional material.<ref name="DNB2" /><ref name="Lowndes">{{cite book|last1=Lowndes|first1=William Thomas|title=The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature|date=1834|publisher=William Pickering|location=London|volume=1|pages=297–298}}</ref><ref name="Allibone">{{cite book|last1=Allibone|first1=Samuel Austin|title=A Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors|date=1870|publisher=J. B. Lippincott Company|location=Philadelphia|volume=1|pages=296}}</ref> His literary reputation was greatly enhanced by this publication. The [[Parliament of England]] voted thanks for Burnet after the publication of the first volume, and in 1680 the University of Oxford awarded Burnet the degree of Doctor of Divinity on the advice of [[William Sancroft]], Archbishop of Canterbury. For over a century this was the standard reference work in the field, although [[Catholics]] disputed some of its content.

;Initial publication of the three volumes of the ''History of the Reformation''<ref name="Lowndes" /><ref name="Allibone" />

These early editions of Gilbert Burnet's ''The History of the Reformation of the Church of England'' were all published in London:

* 1679 : first edition of Volume 1, that is, ''The First Part, of the Progress made in it during the Reign of K. Henry the VIII''. London: Richard Chiswell. 
* 1681 : second edition of Volume 1. London: Richard Chiswell. 
* 1681 : first edition of Volume 2, that is, ''The Second Part, of the Progress made in it till the Settlement of it in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths Reign''. London: Richard Chiswell.  
* 1683 : second edition of Volume 2. London: Richard Chiswell.
* 1714 : ''An Introduction to the Third Volume of The History of the Reformation of the Church of England''. London: John Churchill. 72 pages. The text of this ''Introduction'' was reprinted the following year in Volume 3.
* 1715 : first edition of Volume 3, that is, ''The Third Part. Being Supplement to the Two Volumes formerly publish'd''. London: John Churchill. 
* 1715 : fourth edition of Volume 1. London: Daniel Midwinter; and Benjamin Cowse.
* 1715 : fourth edition of Volume 2. London: Daniel Midwinter; and Benjamin Cowse.

Although a "fourth" edition was published in 1715 by Midwinter and by Cowse, a third edition of these volumes was neither prepared nor published by Burnet.