Oliver O’Donovan, The Problem of Self-Love in St. Augustine

Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006.

Summary: O’Donovan carefully discusses the theological tensions and developments in Augustine’s efforts to understand the biblical and natural revelation on the two great commandments. (The problem is balancing the love of God, self, and neighbor.) Augustine comes to a Christian eudemonistic solution in contrast to Thomas and Abelard. A helpful early work by O’Donovan that sets the foundation for his later works like “Common Objects of Love.”

Mark A. Yarhouse, Homosexuality and the Christian: A Guide for Parents, Pastors, and Friends

Bethany House, 2010.

Summary: Yarhouse explicitly rejects homosexual activity as sin while finding many aspects of homosexual practice social constructions. He divides the homosexual experience into three tiers: same-sex attraction, homosexual orientation (long-term same-sex attraction accepted as a personal norm), gay identity (a cultural construction of self and group identification).  He argues that while “same sex attraction” can be independent of behavior, orientation and gay identity requires cognitive acquiescence and maintenance.

He challenges both the church and those who would like to obey the Bible yet who experience same sex attraction to focus on finding orientation and identity in Jesus Christ. This is especially the case, because the cause or causes of same sex attraction are not clear: nature and nurture both appear to play a role. Since individuals give different significance to internal (nature) and external (nurture) stimuli and events, a single cause or set of causes for same sex attraction may never be found.

Because gay identity is a social construction, the gay community has created a script of self-discovery which conforms to the popular belief policies of modernity. As a person explores the conflicts created by same sex-attraction, the gay community offers them a prepackaged, attractive explanation, which justifies and romanticizes their experience and desires. Yarhouse would like the church to offer a script which focuses on finding one’s identity in Christ while recognizing the lasting implications of same sex attraction.

Benefits: An extremely helpful consideration of the social construction called homosexuality or gay identity. He establishes a broad and scientifically informed argument to defend this position. He is biblically informed and very aware of the persuasive and attractive nature of the gay community’s script to entice those with same-sex attraction into their community.

Excellent resource for everyone who needs to consider these issues carefully.

Detriments: Weak on the negative physical, psychological, and spiritual impact of acting out same-sex attractions and creating gay identity. Sexually active gay males are especially at risk for bowel infections and diseases, destruction of the sphincter, STDs, and depression. While depression can be linked to adverse social responses, the physical trauma and diseases are intrinsic to how same sex attraction is acted out by the gay community. Further, the negative spiritual ramifications of centering self-identify on something forbidden by God cannot be under estimated.

Philip Aubrey, Mr Secretary Thurloe: Cromwell’s Secretary of State—1652-1660

London: The Athlone Press, 1990, 247 pgs. 

Summary: A concise consideration of the history and activity of John Thurloe (1616-1668), a Puritan lawyer and member of parliament, who became Secretary of State successively under the Rump Parliament, the Nominated Assembly, the Protectorate of Oliver and then Richard Cromwell, brought back as Secretary under Monck, and did some work for the restored Charles the II. 

His position as Secretary of State and Postmaster General also led to him being the head of domestic and international intelligence collection through both agents and the interception and monitor of the mail. Thurloe also had code breakers. For instance mathematician and pastor John Wallis (1616-1703), who helped develop infinitesimal calculus and the infinity sign, seems to have broken some of the codes “after supper” as a favor for friends (28). 

His success in intelligence gathering can be drawn from the following narrative:

The Duke of Richmond was given leave by the Protectorate government to go abroad, but only on the condition that he did not see his cousin Charles Stuart. In order to keep his undertaking, their meeting took place in the dark. When, on his return, he told Cromwell that he had not seen Charles, the Protector exclaimed that it was no wonder, since the candles had been put out (103). 

The Secretary was a personal friend of Oliver Cromwell and provided intelligence and counsel to the Cromwells on international and domestic affairs. He managed to hide his papers sufficiently well to allude discover until decades after his death from natural causes.

He appears to have been an Independent or what we would call a Congregationalist and sat under the preaching of John Owen. 

Benefits/Detriments: Mr Secretary Thurloe was written by a former British naval officer with connections to the intelligence services. The book is a bit dry for non-specialists, but a fascinating read for those interested in thinking through how a godly and thoughtful Christian interacts with the exigencies of government service. 

Thurloe’s life reminds me of an epithet on worn a tombstone in a forgotten cemetery: “He lived as he was a Christian.” The closing paragraph of the book summarizes it well:

In an age when the tenure of any office under the crown or the republic was looked upon by many as personal service to the monarch or Protector, by others as a licence to extract fees and by a few as a right to income in return for minimal exertion, Thurloe saw his role quite plainly as service to the public and to the nation as a whole. His achievement lay in his devotion to his duty to God and Man as he saw it, in his single-minded pursuit of efficiency in administration and of godliness in living. There was nothing hypocritical about the expressed desire of the Puritan leaders to carry out the will of God. Thurloe could lay down his burden in the knowledge that he had done his very best for God, his nation and his family (226). 

John Owen, Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers; the Necessity, Nature, and Means of It; with Resolution of Sundry Cases of Conscience Thereunto Belonging

In The Works of John Owen, vol. 6, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1967, pgs. 1-86.

Summary: John Owen (1616-1683) is the prince of Puritans. His works are often dense, but decidedly evangelical and desire “universal obedience” to our Lord Jesus. Of the Mortification of Sin is a wholesome, practical, and academically sound consideration and development of the biblical doctrine of the mortification of sin.

Owen presents the argument from Romans 8:13, “If you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body ye shall live,” that “The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin” (7).

This is necessary because while saving grace can never die, sanctifying grace must be renewed through the means of grace. “The vigour, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.” (9).

He argues the following: we are told several things in Scripture which indicate that sanctifying grace must be renewed. The first is 2 Peter 3:18, “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” And then 2 Corinthians 4:16, “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

These verses inform us that while our salvation is complete (Rom. 8:1), our sanctification is one of gaining, not grace as an object, but grace as an effect of walking with the Spirit of God, and from 2 Corinthians 4:15, Owen speaks of “renewing grace” (47).

Grace in the Reformed view is the activity of the Spirit of God, and whole salvation is monergistic, sanctification requires active cooperation. Thus, “by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body.”

The war is against the residual flesh or the power of indwelling sins are “the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul (1 Pet. 2:11). Christians by not mortifying sin, suppress the Spirit, quench his work, and walk contrary to him. And in so doing, empowers sin. The person who is fully given over to sin was never saved, but the born-again believer entangled in the trap of sin declines both in his power and peace.

Fundamental to the Christian walk is the Spirit’s power and peace or strength and comfort:

Strength and comfort, and power and peach, in our walking with God, are the things of our desires. Were any of us asked seriously what it is that troubles us, we must refer it to one of these heads:—either we want strength or power, vigour and life in our obedience, in our walking with God; or we want peace, comfort, and consolation therein. . . . Now, all these do much depend on a constant course of mortification (21).

The spiritual things that we most need are most threatened by allowing indwelling sin within our hearts. Further, the Bible speaks of grace dying, “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.” (Rev. 3:2). For those not born again drawing grace is stops prior to regeneration, but for the believer the sanctifying grace may grow desperately weaker until he repents and turns again to Jesus.

Owen then goes on and works through the practical means by which we mortify sin by giving us nine directions. (1.) Consider the dangerous symptoms of any lust. (2.) Get a clear sense of the guilt of sin, the danger of judicial hardening, temporal correction, loss of peace and strength, and the evil of grieving the Spirit, wounding yourself, losing your usefulness. (3.) Load the conscience with guilt. (4.) Striver for a vehement desire for deliverance. (5.) Consider the weakness of your natural temperament. (6.) Work to limit the occasions and advantages of the sin. (7.) Attack the sin in the first movements. (8.) Think on the excellency and majesty of God. (9.) Find your peace only in agreement with God’s word.

Even with these suggestions Owen argues that work of mortifying must be acting on faith in Christ through cooperation with the Spirit.

“Set faith at work on Christ for the killing of thy sin. His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin-sick souls” (79). We achieve this by considering “the provision which is laid up in Jesus Christ” (Ibid.) by prayerfully expecting relief from our sin and help from Christ.

In so doing we must “Act faith peculiarly upon the death, the death blood, and cross of Christ, that is on Christ as crucified and slain. Mortification of sin is peculiarly from the death of Christ” (83). Our Lord Jesus died to destroy sin, and so it is an especial concern for him. We then “act faith on the death of Christ, and that under these two notions,—first, In expectation of power; secondly, In endeavours for conformity” (85).

Finally, we must so act in reliance on the Spirit of God, because the Spirit “clearly and fully convinces the heart of evil,” (85). “The Spirit alone reveals unto us the fullness of Christ for our relief. . .The Spirit alone reveals unto us the fullness of Christ for our relief. . .The Spirit alone establishes the heart in expectation of relief from Christ. . . The Spirit alone brings the cross of Christ into our hearts with its sin-killing power; for by the Spirit we are baptized into the death of Christ. . .The Spirit is the author and finisher of our sanctification; gives new supplies and influences of grace for holiness and sanctification, when the contrary principle is weakened and abated. . . [And] in all the soul’s address to God in this condition, it hath the supportment from the Spirit” (86).

Detriments: Owen is strong spiritual and academic tea. He cannot be skimmed and his vocabulary is arcane. While I agree strongly with his conclusions on the importance of universal obedience as the intended outcome of our sanctification and his means of mortification, if you find yourself overwhelmed by the spiritual burdens suggested by Owen, by all means read Luther.

Benefits: This is the biblical way of personal sanctification. The way is narrow, the air bracing, the struggle real. O but to join our Christ in “the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you” (9).

Samuel Miller, Thoughts on Public Prayer

Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1985 reprint 1849, 306 pgs.

Summary: Samuel Miller (1769-1850), one of the founding professors of Princeton, was a godly and strident Presbyterian. The book lays out the history and theological development of public and cooperate prayer. Miller is adamantly against Roman Catholic forms of prayer and Protestant liturgies. 

Chapter 2 covers the history of public prayer. It includes the explanation as to why many churches are designed so that worshipers face east. The Septuagint translated the Hebrew word for Branch in Zechariah 6:12 with a word “strictly speaking. . .applied to the rising and appearance of the sun, and by metonymy, it is applied to the East, because the sun rises in the East” (87).

The habit of closing eyes in prayer was known in Origen’s day (c. 185-254): “We learn also from Origen, that ministers in his day were accustomed in public prayer, to officiate with closed eyes. . . ‘Closing,’ says he, ‘the eyes of the body, but lifting up those of the mind.’” (63) [Cf. Contra Celsum, Lib. viii.]

He also makes the somewhat suspect argument that, “Thus it is inconvertibly evident that, for the first three hundred years after Christ, standing in public prayer was the only posture allowed, on the Lord’s day, to the mass of Christian worshipers, who were in a state of union with the Church” (125). And, “The posture of sitting in public prayer has no countenance either from Scripture, from reason, or from respectable usage, in any part of the Church’s history” (127). 

Chapter 3 covers the arguments for set and normative forms of written prayers in the church. This chapter is of historical interest only as extemporaneous prayers are now allowed in the vast majority of Protestant communions. 

Chapters 4-6, Frequent Faults of Public Prayer, Characteristics of a Good Public Prayer, The Best Means Attaining Excellence in Conducting Public Prayer. These three chapters are the marrow of contemporary usage. His advice is rich, warm, practical, and evangelical. He makes careful use of the distinction of the gift of prayer and the spirit of prayer. 

Benefits/Detriments: The last three chapters are of wholesome interest to those responsible for public prayer. They are also summarized in Ligon Duncan’s modern edition of A Method for Prayer: Freedom in the Face of God by Matthew Henry as an appendix. Recommended for pastors with a historical bent. 

Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity

Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1983, 316 pgs.

Summary: Thomas Watson (c. 1620 – 1686) was a Puritan, non-conformist, and godly preacher who co-pastored with Stephen  Charnock  (1628–1680). He preached a series of sermons on the Westminster Shorter Catechism which were then published after he is death as A Body of Practical Divinity.   

Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) with the principal of his Pastors’ College, George Rogers, republished the work as the basic systematic theology of his college with an appendix on believer’s baptism. Banner of Truth republished the theology in three volumes: A Body of Divinity, The Ten Commandments, and The Lord’s Prayer. 

A Body of Divinity book is divided into sections following the order of the catechism and extends to question 38, “What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?”  Each section begins with a statement of the subject being considered—i.e. “Christ the Mediator of the Covenant—a proof text, biblical explanation, theological development, responses to critiques, and then uses.

Uses are applications of the doctrine to the life of Christians: 

Admire the glory of this Mediator: he is God-man, he is coessentially glorious with the Father. . . . If Christ be the God-man in one person, then look unto Jesus Christ alone for salvation. . . .Admire the love of Christ our mediator (165-167).

Thomas Watson’s command of English and his use of biblical analogies to illustrate theological truth is sublime. His rhetorical skills used to illuminate the meaning of Scripture and defend the faith is a gift of God to his church. 

In general Watson represents mainstream Reformed thought as expressed by the Westminster rubrics. Yet, he does bring some theological nuances to the table that I’d like to highlight.

He allows for a common grace participation in the atonement for the unsaved:

Are they redeemed that are unreconciled to God, who hate God and his people (as the vine and the laurel have an antipathy), who do all they can to disparage holiness. Are they redeemed who are unreconciled? Christ has purchased a reprieve for these; but a sinner may have a reprieve, and yet go to hell. John v. 6. (213). 

He appears to teach traducianism as the means by which original sin is transmitted:

Adam’s sin is ours by propagation. Not only is the guilt of Adam’s sin imputed to us, but the depravity and corruption of his nature is transmitted to us, as poison carried from the fountain to the cistern (143). 

Traducianism is the doctrine that our parents’ bodies and souls are given to us in the act of procreation, and thus we inherit original sin. Creationism, the soul is created ex nihilo by God at conception, is more common outside of Lutheran circles.   

Please note that Spurgeon’s recommendation of the entire book included the following caveat left out of the Banner of Truth edition:

As it would be uncandid to suppress any part of an author’s opinion, the chapter on Infant Baptism remains as it came from his pen; but our conscience could not allow us to issue it without inserting a statement of our own views as an appendix. We trust this method will commend itself to all; we knew not what fairer and more honest course to pursue [A Body of Divinity (reprint, Solid Ground Christian Books, 2016, London: Passmore and Albaster, 1878), v.]

Spurgeon’s words reflect better on himself than on the Banner of Truth editors who left out the above from Spurgeon’s approbations. 

Benefits/Detriments: A Body of Divinity is an absolute jewel of an introduction to Reformed theology, wholesome Christian doctrine, and as an example of homiletics for doctrinal instruction. 

The language could be somewhat obscure for moderns, but well worth the effort of overcoming. It does not deal directly with the skepticism of our age, problems caused by liberalism, or the natural sciences. 

Excellent resource for high school students and pastors. Recommended as a part of Christian school or home school curriculum. Please keep in mind this was intended and remains a wholesome introduction for layman and early divinity students. 

Baruch Maoz, Come, Let Us Reason Together: The Unity of Jews and Gentiles in the Church, 3rd edition.

Phillipsburg: P and R Publishing, 2012, pgs. 254

Summary: A friendly critique of Messianic Judaism by Baruch Maoz, former pastor of Grace and Truth Congregation near Tel Aviv, Israel. Strongly recommended by John MacArthur. 

Maoz converted from Judaism to Christianity as a young man and became a pastor. His basic critique of Messianic Judaism is that they are attempting to incorporate rabbinical tradition as a normative means of evangelism and sanctification for Christians of Jewish extraction.  To make his case, Maoz suggests a distinction between being Jewish and Judaism. Judaism is following the rabbinical tradition and Jewishness is a national or cultural identification:

[T]he movement has confused cultural mores with religious duties, insisted upon maintaining the Jewishness of its adherents by degrees of obedience to rabbinic religious dictum, and according the rabbis a legitimacy to which they have no right. Attributing to the rabbis the authority to determine what constitutes Jewishness, Messianics have undermined their own position because the rabbis have determined that faith in Jesus exceeds the boundaries of Jewishness (185). 

Further, he points out that most Messianic congregations in the United States are majority Gentile and much of what is supposedly Jewish is an affectation: “A few Yiddish phrases, saying, Yeshua,” wearing Jewish religious garb, and a fascination with Jewish things is not enough to make one Jewish” (182). 

I remain as flummoxed as Pastor Maoz when Messianic Christians offer to expose my congregation to foreshadowings of Christ within the non-biblical traditions found in the rabbinical encrustations to the Passover meal:

We should not attach Christian significance to national custom. The rabbis who invented the afikoman were not inspired by the Spirit and no hint of Messiah is hidden in the afikoman (121). . . .It is invalid to intimate spiritual legitimacy to human inventions. Legitimacy implies authority, and if the authority of the rabbis is considered to be the will of God for the Jewish people and advantageous to non-Jews, why not submit to their authority when they affirm as they have for two millennia that Jesus is not the Messiah? (122). 

Benefits/Detriments: Overall I found the book helpful, but it feels a bit bloated and in need of either paring down or expanded with clearer organization. Functions best as a friendly critique of Messianic Judaism and goes a great distance questioning the supposed authenticity of the movement’s authority and insights among Gentile churches. 

Gregg R. Allison, Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment

Crossway, 2014, 493 pgs. 

Summary: A summation and chapter by chapter assessment of the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Dr. Gregg R. Allison, professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and former Cru missionary to Italy and Notre Dame university in Indiana.  

His basic analysis is founded on the fundamental difference between Roman Catholic and Protestants on the issue of nature-grace interdependence and the Christ-church interconnectedness. He draws this distinction from Leonardo De Chirico’s Evangelical Theological Perspectives on Post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism. 

The nature-grace interdependence allows grace within the Roman system to function as a spiritual substance that can be stored, traded, purchased, infused, and earned. Further, nature, including the human will, is considered receptive to grace without regeneration. The Christ-church interconnectedness allows the papal system to grant the attributes of deity to saints, clergy, and the church (Chapter 2). 

These two components taken together then provide a coherence to Roman Catholic theology which may be missed by more granule assessments. Behind transubstantiation, intercessions of the saints, purgatory, papal infallibility, and so forth are these two larger conceptions. 

Allison then works through the major sections of the Catechism providing a Protestant critique of the Roman system. He carefully demarcates between Baptist, Calvinist, Arminian, Covenantal, and Dispensational responses to Catholic doctrine. 

Benefits/Detriments: There are two wrongheaded forms of Catholic-Protestant dialogue; the first is when both parties pretend the differences are insignificant or logomachy and the second is that there is absolutely no common ground. Allison’s book strikes the golden and biblical mean between the two sides.  

It is my hope that the nature-grace interdependence and Christ-Church interconnectedness will become the starting point of all future ecumenical conversations with Rome. 

Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment should be read by all thoughtful Protestants interacting with Roman Catholics and is especially useful for those considering converting to Rome and counseling such. 

J. D. Douglas, Light in the North: The Story of the Scottish Covenanters

By Shane Walker

The Paternoster Press, 1964, pgs. 220

Summary: A brief overview and assessment of the history and theology of the Scottish Covenanters by J. D. Douglas (1923-2003), a Scotchman and former editor of “Christianity Today” under Carl F. H. Henry.

Douglas argues that the Presbyterians in Scotland, when faced with the absolutism of the political theory of divine right of the house of Stuart (James VI, Charles I, Charles II, James VII), adopted “the Divine Right of Presbytery” (60).  Divine right for both kings and churches—Rome or the Scottish Presbyter—establishes an earthly authority as a little god. As James VI wrote to his son, that God had made Charles I, “a little God to sit on his throne, and rule over other men” (17). This god cannot be disobeyed in its realm of authority. 

The house of Stuart held to an Erastian policy that the king was the absolute head of the state and the church. And they were wont to require their subjects take oaths like the Test Act of 1661:

I do affirm and swear, by this my solemn oath, that the king’s majesty is the only supreme governor of this realm, over all persons, and in all causes, as well as ecclesiastical as civil. . . .and do promise, that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the king’s majesty, his heirs and lawful successors; and, to my power, shall assist and defend all rights, jurisdictions, prerogatives, privileges, preeminenceis, and authorities belonging to the king’s majesty, his heirs and lawful successors. . . [nor will I in] any other manner of way whatsoever, to endeavor any change or alteration in the government, either in church or state, as it is now established by the laws of this kingdom (209).

The Presbyterians responded in kind requiring the kings and individual citizens to take similar oaths for their loyalty to the Presbyter in ecclesiastical affairs. Below is Charles’ promise of 1651:

I, Charles, King of Great Britain, etc., do assert and declare, by my solemn Oath, in the Presence of Almighty God, the Searcher of Hearts, my Allowance and Approbation of the National Covenant, and of the Solemn League and Covenant, above written, and faithfully oblige myself to prosecute the Ends thereof in my Station and Calling; and that I for Myself and Successors shall consent and agree to all Acts of Parliament enjoining the National Covenant and Solemn League and Covenant, and fully establishing Presbyterial Government. . . . (65).

These oaths and covenants on all parties were thought universally binding. The Scots martyr James Guthrie (1612 c.-1661), tells us: “These sacred and solemn public oaths of God, I believe can be loosed or dispensed with by no person or party, or power, upon earth, but are still binding upon these kingdoms and will be for ever hereafter” (188). 

The divine right of the presbyter combined with the binding oath then led to a particular hermeneutic of Scripture: Scotland and her kirk were now an Israel. (The theory seems to be that each nation was its own church/Israel.) And the pastors and preachers were allowed the power and language of the Old Testament prophets, while the perceived enemies of the kirk were to be meted the same punishment as the enemies of Israel in the Old Testament. 

To be assiduously fair, the Presbyterians attempted to be loyal to their kings when the king spoke within the realm of his authority and legally. But the “acknowledgement of the king’s supremacy over the Church meant transferring a prerogative from the Crown of Christ to the crown of Charles II” (103). 

They also held through Knox’s teaching and the English common law tradition that the kings’ powers were limited by national Parliaments. Further, “that while a people can subsist without a king, no king can exist without a people—thus the people are superior to their king” (51). 

At the same time, they expected the king, having agreed to the covenants, to enforce the church discipline decisions of the kirk. Something “outrageous ecclesiastically. . .is sinful civilly” (56). “False teachers . . . may justly be put to death” (Ibid.) 

The whole theory “strikes an unreal note, built as it is upon the assumption that the magistrate is himself a God-fearing man, that he, as it were, knows the rules, and has a due awareness of what is involved in being God’s vicegerent” (57). And the absolutism in calling human covenants Jesus’ covenants is both unbiblical and arrogant. As an exasperated Cromwell once said in response to “the unbending intellectual pride of the ministers. . . ‘in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken.’” (76). 

Further, when the king can accurately be described as, “A secularist, [who] shook off Presbyterianism as a viper, utilized Episcopacy as the as the readiest political tool, and finally put on Popery as a comfortable shroud to die in” (156), combining the Church and state was a vain hope. 

The two divine rights could obviously not coexist, and so the house of Stuart and the English and Scotch Presbyterians spent a century killing each other. The grossest abuses were found with the kings. But Christian martyrs were found on both sides. 

Benefits/Detriments:

When two godly men like Archbishop Robert Leighton (1613-1684) and Samuel Rutherford (1616-1661) at least tacitly agree that the other should be executed for his political ideals and understanding of church order, there must be a horrifying breakdown in their understanding of the Bible. And there is an element of this that can be traced to their mutual Calvinism. 

J. D. Douglas writes, “The horrible scruples felt by one section of the Covenanters against granting any quarter in the hour of victory may be traced to the mental habit of dividing mankind into servants of God and servants of the devil” (193).  And “. . .The Covenanters’ supreme conviction that their cause was right was illogically carried over to mean also that the course which they advocated was likewise right and justifiable” (190). And finally, at least in Scotland, “Arminians were the sole remnant who knew what liberty meant” (192).

We need to agree with above conclusions in part: the Arminian view of epistemology was based on human free will; and thus, religious convictions and conclusions could not be viewed as God’s revealed judgments. The Arminian pride of self was more fundamental but less politically dangerous in the days of the house of Stuart. Though the kings were as happy to slaughter Congregationalists, Quakers, Anabaptists, and Baptists and Presbyterians. 

The Calvinists’ knowledge of salvation was based on the election of God, this supported the belief among the Presbyterians that those who were not in their party were necessarily the enemies of God. As they extrapolated this false conclusion through their system and behavior, it led to horrifying intolerance, false-expectations, and martyrdom. 

The issue is not merely thinking of people as the enemies of God, but an over confidence and pride in the understanding. The responsibility here rests very much of the shoulders of the theologians and not the “simple honest souls, concerned only for the peace that passes all understanding” (119). 

Yet we must notice that the concern is not merely of the extrapolation of confidence in their understanding. The Bible does not provide the New Testament church a normative description of her relationship to the state. Prudential models are available in the Old Testament, but their application is dependent on the church recognizing herself as “those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion” (1 Pet. 1:1).

The moment that the church becomes the Church of Scotland or the universal church rather than “elect exiles of the Dispersion” scattered as local congregations, the lack of biblical warrant leads to greater and greater outrages. Milton’s famous words hold true, “New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large” (57).

Currently in the United State, Presbyterianism is national in ideal only and is essentially a form of church government for a series of lesser and greater collections of churches. The Presbyterianism of the Covenanters is a secular as well as churchly theory. A handful of the modern wee kirks hold to the theory. 

In many ways, Light in the North is a vindication of the Baptist principles of congregationalism and the separation of church and state. Hooker’s assertion in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (cf. review) that one can either be a congregationalist or an Episcopalian remains true at least in theory.  

Having said such, let us remember not the sin of the Covenanters nor their hubris, but their love for God as seen in the “Seraphic Song on the Scaffold”:

And now I leave off to speak any more to creatures, and begin my intercourse with God, which shall never be broken off. Farewell father and mother, friends and relations—farewell the world and all delights—farewell meat and drink—farewell, sun, moon, and stars—welcome God and Father—welcome sweet Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant—welcome blessed spirit of grace, and God of all consolation—welcome glory—welcome eternal life, and welcome death (115). 

Elizabeth Saintsbury, George MacDonald: A Short Life

Edinburgh: Canongate Publishing, 1987, 152 pgs.

Summary: A non-academic biography of the writer George MacDonald (1824-1905). MacDonald was a Scottish fiction writer whose works of Christian fantasy influenced C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton. He appears as the protagonist’s guide to heaven in Lewis’ The Great Divorce.  

The book traces MacDonald’s major geographic movements from birth to death, theological developments, friends and sources of revenue. There is very little critical engagement with his theological progress, but Saintsbury does explore contemporary influences of friends, artists, and pastors. The most unique effort is to coordinate the geography of his fiction canon with many of the places he lived.

MacDonald grew up Presbyterian, attempted becoming a Congregationalist pastor, was rejected because he taught universalism and the immortality of individual animals (57-58), and subsided into a doctrinally irregular membership in the Church of England (101). He expected that non-believers would die and be purged of their sins to join believers in heaven and placed the personal revelation of conscience above Scripture.

We read of his view of the Scripture:

MacDonald did not accept a fundamentalist view of the Bible. It is not the word that is inspired, else he maintained, it would be better written. . . .George MacDonald valued the Scripture as giving an account of the life of Jesus, but it was his own conscience or Christ dwelling in him that was his chief guide in living (134). 

Detriments/Benefits:

Ms. Saintsbury draws a shallow MacDonald. One who liked to play dress up, neglected his children, and seems obsessed with the salvation of animals. Speaking of a horse he wrote, “That a thing can love and be loved is the same as saying it is immortal, whatever partakes of the essence of God cannot die” (135).

The accuracy of Saintsbury's portrait may also be reflected in her aside to the reader: “like typical Victorian parents seem to have had no idea of limiting the size of their family” (92).  She is most sympathetic when MacDonald meets her more modern ideals. 

This is my first biography of MacDonald and I suspect others will be more interesting and accurate; however, her general picture seems to agree with the known facts of MacDonald. 

Recommended for students of Lewis and MacDonald, but please be wary of Saintsbury’s lack of theological precision and prim modernism.