A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life, by Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, Reformation Heritage Books, 2012. 344 pp. Reviewed by Adam M. Kuehner.

Samuel Rutherford once quipped that the Westminster Divines authored two catechisms (one Larger and one Shorter) because they found it “very difficult… to dress up milk and meat both in one dish.” Having read all 60 chapters of A Puritan Theology, this reviewer believes its authors succeeded in setting before God’s people milk and meat in one beautifully designed, well-bound, carefully edited volume.

Organized under the traditional heads of systematic theology, this work is essentially a theological primer on 17th-Century Puritanism for a diverse 21st-Century audience. Some chapters read like scholarly journal articles, others like treatises on practical piety, and still others have all the sizzle of a fiery evangelistic sermon. For instance, the final heading of Chapter 32 reads: “Conclusion: Reject the World’s Pig Food and Be Christ’s Willing Slave.” Those seeking basic, practical teaching will appreciate “The Puritans on Demons” (chap. 13), “The Blood of Christ in Puritan Piety” (chap. 23), “Thomas Goodwin on Christ’s Beautiful Heart” (chap. 25), “The Puritans on Coming to Christ, Living in Christ, and Adoption” (chap. 32-34), and “Puritan Prayers for World Missions” (chap. 47).

More advanced readers will enjoy “Stephen Charnock on the Attributes of God” (chap. 4), “The Puritans on the Trinity” (chap. 5), “The Puritans on the Covenant of Redemption, Covenant of Grace, and Old and New Covenants” (chaps. 15-17), “The Puritans on Covenant Conditions and Law and Gospel” (chaps. 19-20), “Puritan Prepatory Grace” (chap. 28), “The Puritans on the Third Use of the Law” (chap. 35), “John Owen on the Christian Sabbath and Worship” (chap. 41), and “The Puritans on Preaching” (chaps. 42-43).

All readers should drink deeply of the last eight chapters, which promote a distinctively Reformed and Puritan approach to living the Christian life.

Like any uninspired volume, A Puritan Theology is not without a few minor weaknesses; namely: 1.) At times, historical theology is emphasized at the expense of specific scriptural arguments. 2.) There is an over-reliance on brilliant Congregationalist theologians Thomas Goodwin and John Owen, even where other Puritans demonstrated greater influence or expertise, such as on church government (cf. Westminster Assembly) and the book of Revelation (cf. James Durham, Matthew Poole). 3.) Chapter 21 asserts that “Christ learned about His messianic calling through reading the Scriptures” (p. 344) and that Owen’s Christology has a “Nestorian feel” (p. 348). Might not the Puritan doctrine of Christ’s two natures have been more carefully worded? 4.) By including chapters like “Thomas Goodwin’s Christological Supralapsarianism” and excluding a formal exposition of the ten commandments, this work left some weightier matters of Puritanism sadly neglected.

With that said, A Puritan Theology is the most enlightening, edifying, and value-added theological volume of the 21st Century. Its glowing references to the Psalms (and to psalm singing) are a delight to behold. Its presentation of the Puritans’ Christ-centered, heavenly-minded, world-transforming outlook serves as a much-needed wakeup call for all of us. In such culturally dark days as these, few things are better suited to fuel our perseverance than a nice tall glass of the Puritan hope: “[T]he Puritans always had before them the glorious hope of better days. They did not live in the cold and stale vacuum of defeat. Rather, even as the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, so they, who had suffered violence, were motivated in society, church, and personal piety by the overwhelming conviction that King Jesus had conquered sin and death and would continue to do so. That fueled their passions and ignited their ministries. Whatever lot they were given in this life was to be lived with an eye toward future glory” (p. 787).

Families in the Ark: Surmounting the Great Earthquake Disaster in Eastern Japan, testimonies by the Abe family, reviewed by Charles Leach.

Earthquake, tidal wave, and nuclear meltdown—the images of Japan’s suffering were etched into our memories with the disaster of Mar. 11, 2011. Families in the Ark is a collection of testimonials penned by members of three generations of the Abe (pronounced “Ah-bay”) family who survived the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Fukashima. RPCNA disaster relief funds supported the restoration of Katsue Abe’s printing press, which aided the distribution of Christian and Reformed publications in the affected area.

From the testimony of third-grader Yuko to that of her grandfather Abe, all are raw recollections of those who had been brought through the ordeal by a sovereign God. The elder Mr. Abe recalls watching on TV from a safe vantage point “a scene of unbelievable horror. The tsunami was surging along familiar streets, and cars were being carried along like matchboxes. For a while we just stood cowering and speechless, unable to believe our eyes. When I suddenly came to my senses, I thought, ‘Is the family safe? Is our house safe? Why should we be the only ones to be safe here?’”

As the family emerges from the initil shock, each recounts an awakening sense of God’s providential care. They testify to the importance of their newfound sense of community as refugees. They marvel at the kindness of Christian strangers who came from all over the world to help them rebuild.

Like the rainbow spanning the devastation pictured on the book’s cover, hope in God is the overriding theme of this collection of testimonies. Katsue Abe concludes, “I am not like Job, but I have lived up till now in the belief that God is faithful.… and with hope in my heart, I intend with my family to surmount this trial of the great earthquake disaster.” We trust that by God’s grace they will.

Trembling for the Ark of God: James Begg and the Free Church of Scotland, by James W. Campbell, Scottish Reformation Society, 2011. 134 pp. Reviewed by Adam M. Kuehner.

James Begg (1808-83) has been called “a champion of lost causes,” and for good reason. As a confessional minister in 19th-Century Scotland, there was nowhere for him to swim but upstream, against swift currents of doctrinal dilution. Today, as similar currents threaten to sweep the church into error, thoughtful Christians would do well to read James W. Campbell’s Trembling for the Ark of God.

Here are some of Begg’s most notable “lost causes”:

National Religion. Begg regarded church and state as “two co-equal powers each supreme in its own distinct province and neither having any authoritative control over the other” (p. 4). With the Covenanters, he confessed that “kings and governments of the earth are bound to acknowledge the supremacy of Christ, bound to acknowledge His Church, and, in proper circumstances, to endow that Church without enslaving it” (p. 50). Begg warned Scotland against following in the footsteps of “the Secularists of America” (p. 29).

Principled Unity. Begg longed for the day of “a comprehensive union, not on the ground of false principle and unworthy compromise, but on the basis of Scripture and in accordance with past attainments” (p. 24).

Affordable Housing. Seeing the myriads of working-class families forced to rent tiny, filthy, windowless apartments, Begg urged church and state to help families obtain modest, sanitary homes in which to raise their children (Ps. 127:3) and worship God (Matt. 6:6). Today there is still a housing development in Edinburgh bearing the name “Begg’s Buildings.”

Abolition of Seat Rents. Begg watched in horror as churches forced worshipers either to pay for their seats or to sit in a stigmatized “free section.” In protest, he campaigned “for rich and poor to meet together on the same terms, and enjoy the gospel without money” (p. 74).

Protestantism. As Roman Catholicism rapidly expanded in Scotland, Begg set his pen to work, refuting Rome’s errors, reminding Protestants of their need for unifying revival, and seeking to establish “missions to papists… in all the leading towns of Britain, and in every district of Ireland.”

Begg’s vision of confessional Reformed unity seems no less compelling (yet no more realistic) in our day than in his. How long it will remain a lost cause is difficult to say, but who can read the following excerpt without affirming it to be a good cause?

“Some time and sifting may still be necessary; but if, in a way thoroughly consistent and honouring to God’s truth, without which union is a conspiracy against truth, the scattered children of the Covenanters, the sons of Erskine, Gillespie, and Chalmers shall be brought to meet around a common centre, and in these days of trouble, and rebuke, and blasphemy, to blend their several protests into one broad standard uplifted on high, and emblazoned with Christ’s crown and covenant, Scotland may again become as glorious as in the days of old; nay, her latter end may become better than her beginning.”