Abstract
In Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland Aaron Clay Denlinger has brought together a team of scholars who have contributed fourteen lively essays examining Scottish theology from c.1560–1775. A central aim of this work is to challenge older scholarship that has perceived Scottish orthodoxy ‘as a series of fundamental deviations from the thought of Calvin’ (p. 2). In regard to this aim, the volume is largely successful.
The work is divided into three parts. The first contains six essays focused on ‘Early Reformed Orthodoxy (c.1560–c.1640)’. The second comprises five essays, examining ‘High Reformed Orthodoxy (c.1640–c.1690)’. The final part includes three essays on ‘Late Reformed Orthodoxy (c.1690 Onwards)’. Though these divisions are somewhat arbitrary, they serve as a helpful framework to guide the reader. Each of the essays serves as a case study in Scottish Reformed Orthodoxy. Amongst the topics examined are: Robert Baron’s hypothetical universalism; Samuel Rutherford’s stance on the divine origin of possibility and impossibility; and the similarity of John Brown of Wamphray’s doctrine of justification with Calvin’s.
One of the most interesting contributions is Donald John MacLean’s examination of John Knox’s doctrine of predestination, which debunks the ‘Knox versus the Knoxians’ hypothesis. Gerrit A. van den Brink’s essay on Alexander Comrie’s response to question twenty of the Heidelberg Catechism, in which he argues for the (somewhat unexpected) influence of John Cotton on Comrie’s theology, is also excellent. However, it is Guy Richard’s study of the Song of Songs as a ‘key’ to the reformation in Scotland that stands out. Richard persuasively argues that, despite far fewer works being published on Canticles in Scotland than in England, the Song of Songs was regarded as a key text for encapsulating reformed teaching and countering the ‘two-pronged attack’ of Roman Catholicism (Arminianism and episcopacy) against the kirk.
Overall, this is an excellent collection. The volume could perhaps have been enhanced by the addition of an afterword, but this does not detract from the quality of the individual essays. This volume successfully illuminates various aspects of Scottish Reformed Orthodoxy and demonstrates Scotland’s influence on Reformed Orthodoxy at large. It will undoubtedly serve as a key reference point for future discussions about theology in the early modern Scotland.