BOOK REVIEW: Bioethical Issues: Understanding and Responding to the Culture of Death by John Ling [Leominster: Day One, 2014], 312pp, $20.00/£10.00, ISBN 978 1 84625 427 7. Dr. John Ling, the author of Bioethical Issues: Understanding and Responding to the Culture of Death, has sat at my feet on Sundays for over 38 years. A […]

A review by Rt Revd Dr J Barry Shucksmith of Confessing the Faith: A Reader’s Guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith by Chad Van Dixhoorn.1 The Westminster Assembly took place in 1643 – a synod appointed by the Long Parliament to reform the English Church. Parliament issued an ordinance to allow the Westminster Assembly, […]

It is always refreshing when you come across an accessible, edifying book on Scripture. Sinclair Ferguson’s From the Mouth of God: Trusting, Reading, and Applying the Bible1 is an easy-to-read, straightforward guide to understanding and profitably using God’s Word. But Ferguson doesn’t leap right into the specifics of biblical interpretation. He knows our attempt to […]

‘a handsome volume … those who want a straight read of the mature theology of Calvin have their needs met in this translation’ – Paul Helm on Robert White’s new translation of Institutes of the Christian Religion. In the Notes below are links to selected online reviews of Banner titles, posted September – December 2014. […]

BOOK REVIEW: Calvinism: A History by D. G. Hart [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013], 339pp, $40.00/£25.00, ISBN 978 0 30014 879 4. Professor Darryl Hart has taken the plunge. A specialist in the history of twentieth-century American evangelicalism, especially Presby­terianism, he has a string of impressive publications to his credit such as Defending the […]

I’m really enjoying the 1541 Institutes,1 and have now reached around page 160. I had been working through him at a fairly fast pace, but came down with a really bad dose of tonsillitis last week, and spent a few days in bed with a high temperature. It’s so frustrating to have time off and […]

A review by Paul Helm of Robert White’s English translation of the 1541 French edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, published by the Trust in 2014.1 Not only is there the much-publicized question of Calvin and the Calvinists,2 there is also that of Calvin’s development. How did Calvin himself become a ‘Calvinist’? The […]

A review article on An Able and Faithful Ministry: Samuel Miller and the Pastoral Office, by James M. Garretson, published by Reformation Heritage Books (2014), clothbound, 440 pp, $35.00/£18.99, ISBN 9781601782984. The page references in the text are to this volume. Miller was the second professor appointed to Princeton Theological Seminary, in 1813. He and […]

BOOK REVIEW: Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, by John M. Frame [Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2013], 1280 pages, hardback, $49.99 list, ISBN: 978 1 59638 217 6. John Frame, a former OPC (and now PCA) minister, who is currently a professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, has written a long-anticipated systematic […]

A review by Roy Middleton of Pleading for a Reformation Vision: The Life and Selected Writings of William Childs Robinson (1897-1982).1 William Childs Robinson was a minister of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States. This was the Church formed in 1861 by men like J H Thornwell and R L Dabney. He was […]

I like to read a book about the Bible every year. Although I’m often reading what I already know, I still find it deeply beneficial to regularly remind myself what the Bible really is, how it came to be, and how I should read and interpret it. That’s especially true in a day when the […]

These two volumes1 contain a splendid collection of 70 addresses, essays, and articles by faculty and friends of Old Princeton, the theological seminary before its reorganisation in 1929. They show that it was more than a bastion of orthodoxy; it was the cradle for evangelism, mission, and pastoral work. As James Garretson remarks, ‘The Princetonians’ […]

BOOK REVIEW: Christ our Life, by Michael Reeves [Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2014], 112 pages, paperback, £9.99, ISBN 978 1 84227 758 4. In Christ our Life Michael Reeves follows up his widely appreciated treatment of the doctrine of the Trinity, The Good God, with a volume which presents a brief yet wide-ranging portrait of Reformed […]

‘Dripping with doctrine yet easy to follow, with apt illustration and rich vocabulary, this book can be placed in the hands of the newest believer or the oldest saint for their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.’ – Bob Thomas on the Trust’s new paperback of Spurgeon’s sermons, Christ’s Glorious Achievements. In the Notes below […]

This1 is a glorious book on a glorious subject. The prince of preachers Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) outlines seven great achievements that Jesus Christ won for us. Christ, he explains, is the end of the law, the conqueror of Satan, the overcomer of the world, the maker of all things new, the spoiler of principalities and […]