By A.T.B. McGowan
Paternoster Press. 228 pages. £19.95
ISBN 0 94 606 859 3
This book belongs to the series 'Rutherford Studies in Historical Theology' and represents the fruit of Dr. McGowan's doctoral research on Thomas Boston, the Scottish minister of the late 17th/early 18th centuries. It is a sound piece of work and goes a long way towards dispelling the popular mythology which often demonises Reformed theology after Calvin.
In chapters which deal, among other things, with Boston on covenant, Christ, justification, sanctification and assurance, Dr. McGowan reveals Boston as one who combined vigorous theology with heartfelt godliness and a profound concern for his congregation.
Though written as a PhD, the work is not overly technical and should be accessible to those unfamiliar with the detailed scholarly arguments about the theology of the period.
Of special importance are the sections on atonement and assurance which point to the various fallacies involved in the arguments of those who characterise federal theology as oppressively legalistic. Predestination and particular atonement guarantee salvation and do not undercut evangelism; and the concept of covenant articulates the whole scheme of salvation, from the eternal intention of the Triune God to save right down to the believer's loving response to God's grace. It does not necessarily represent a soul-crushing return to legal obedience. Furthermore, Dr. McGowan demonstrates that all of the various issues raised, from predestination to assurance, stand as a coherent whole - to tinker with one part of the scheme requires the modification of the whole.
For this reviewer, the real significance of the work lies in the portrait it gives of what is surely the biblical model of ministry. In Boston, we have a man who saw no opposition between theology and learning and the practical outworking of his own Christian life and his care for his people. As Dr. McGowan so eloquently describes him, Boston was 'one of the finest examples of what is nowadays a rare (if not endangered) species, namely the theologian who never leaves the parish, and who carries on his theological work as an integral part of the ministry of the Word.'
At a time when evangelicalism is so often 'dumbing down' on the pretexts of making itself relevant, seeker-sensitive, or whatever, and when any attempt to place theology somewhere near the centre of corporate church life is seen as divisive or elitist, it is good to be reminded that ministerial success was more often than not built on the back of thoughtful theological reflection, and not the latest chorus book. Boston's parish was scarcely a ghetto of intellectuals and the educated - and yet his thorough theological reading and his profoundly theological ministry had a tremendous impact. His ministry was theological, not therapeutic. If nothing else, this book should make us pray for the return of minister-theologians such as Boston. In fact, it would appear that in Dr. McGowan we are already have one - we should ask the Lord to give us more.
