The title is not going to set the world on fire, but it’s nevertheless a very good book: The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity 1689-1765.
The book was written by Peter Toon (1939-2009) and first published in
1967; it includes a preface by the ubiquitous J.I. Packer. This is a
scholarly, densely footnoted, technical little tome. But it contains
simple, valuable lessons. Packer says, “The story is a cautionary tale
with timely lessons for those who seek a revival of Reformed
Christianity to-day” (8).
I see three lessons, given in increasing order of importance.
1. Toon shows, as Ken Stewart has more recently, that the Reformed faith is not completely uniform.
This isn’t to say there’s not a basic continuity from Calvin to Beza to
the Puritans to Old Princeton to the present day. But at many points in
Reformed history it’s not been neat or clear what the Reformed position is. Keep Reading...
No comments:
Post a Comment