About AskReformation

AskReformation is a free library of Reformation and Puritan writings that you can read, search and ask questions of. It holds 2,151 works by 107 authors, about 136 million words in all, from Luther and Calvin to Owen, Bunyan, Baxter and Edwards, each transcribed from an early printing. An AI assistant answers questions from these books, and every quotation it gives is checked against the page.

The library

Every text is a transcription of an early printed book, keyed page by page by the Text Creation Partnership (TCP) from Early English Books Online (EEBO-TCP) and Evans Early American Imprints (Evans-TCP). The transcriptions are dedicated to the public domain (CC0) and the books are centuries out of copyright, so you can use them freely. Sources and licensing explains where the texts come from, what the transcribers' marks mean and how to cite a passage.

You can:

• browse the library by tradition, or go through every author in order of date;
• open any work at its title page and read it section by section, with the printed page numbers beside the text;
• search the full text of every work: modern spelling finds old spelling, so "love" finds "loue";
• check a quotation attributed to a Reformer or Puritan: the library finds where it was printed and shows, word by word, how it differs from the page, with no AI involved;
• read articles on what the Reformers and Puritans actually wrote, with every quotation checked.

The assistant

Ask a question in plain English, about a doctrine, a verse, a book or a quotation. The assistant searches the full texts, reads the relevant passages in context and then answers, with each step shown as it happens.

• Quotations are checked. Each quotation in an answer is compared word for word with the printed page, and anything that doesn't match is flagged.
• Claims are cited. Every claim links to the passage it came from, with the work, edition and page, so you can read it in context.
• Two modes. Quick gives fast answers from a focused search. Deep study thinks longer and reads more before answering.

The assistant is for questions about theology, church history, the Bible, and the lives and writings of the Reformers and Puritans. It politely declines unrelated requests.

Answers are written by an AI model, and it can still misread a passage, summarise it unfairly or miss something important. Treat an answer as a guide to the sources, not a replacement for reading them, and not as pastoral, theological, legal or professional advice. If an answer is wrong, press Not helpful (the thumbs-down under the answer), or tell us.

The model is provided by DeepSeek: to answer a question, the text of the conversation is sent to DeepSeek's API, so please don't include personal or sensitive information in your questions. The privacy policy explains what is sent, what we keep and how to delete it.

Modern spelling

The books were printed before English spelling settled, so a page may read "vnto", "loue" and "sinne". The site shows library text in modern spelling by default: "unto", "love", "sin".

It is a respelling, never a rewording. The words stay the author's, so "doth", "thou" and "ensample" stay; only the spelling changes. Switch to Original wherever you read a text to see the page as printed, with the transcribers' marks. Quotations are always checked against the printed text, not the modern spelling.

Most of the respelling is done by rules and a table of old spellings. Words that can be read two ways, such as "yt" (that or it) or "sonne" (son or sun), are settled in their passage by an AI model, and each answer is checked against the readings the word can have.

The Bible

The site includes the King James Version in the Oxford text of 1769, which is in the public domain. Scripture references in the library's books, in answers and in articles link to it: hover over one to read the verses, or click it to read them beside the page. Each verse has its own link, with the passages in the library that cite it.

The books cite many translations, so the verses shown beside a reference are the KJV's, not necessarily the words the author quoted. Read the Bible.

Use it in your own AI assistant

The same library is available as a free connector: an MCP server that Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code and other assistants can use. Add one web address and your assistant can search these books, read them in order and check quotations before it quotes them. It needs no account or key.

Connect your assistant, or read the connector reference. What the connector receives and keeps is set out in the connector privacy statement.

Free to use

AskReformation is free. Searching, reading and checking quotations need no account. You can ask the assistant 3 questions without an account, and as many as you need for study with a free one, within the limits in the fair use policy. A free account also keeps your conversations until you delete them, and your place, bookmarks and highlights in the reader.

The terms of use cover the rest.

Get in touch

For corrections, help with the connector, or questions about your account, see contact or write to hello@askreformation.com.