Book Reviews

Ernest Kevan is best known as the founding principal of London Bible College, or London School of Theology as it is now called. He was also the author of a significant work on the Puritan theology of the law, entitled, The Grace of Law. Beyond those two facts, I don’t suppose many readers will know much […]

This1 is a second volume of sermons on Genesis which Calvin preached in St Peter’s Church to the citizens of Geneva, from 24 January to 15 May 1560. They are numbered 50 to 97 and, as was the case with the first volume,2 they are here translated into English for the first time by Dr Rob Roy […]

The city of Columbia was created the capital of South Carolina by the state legislature in 1786. It was intentionally located near the geographic centre of the state to provide citizens equitable access to their government institutions. The town was laid out two miles square with ten blocks per mile; the streets were built one […]

Pastor-Teachers of Old Princeton1 has been published to mark the 200th anniversary of Princeton Theological Seminary. It spans the years from the appointment of Archibald Alexander as the Seminary’s first Professor in 1812 to the death of B. B. Warfield in 1921. The book comprises a series of memorial addresses and articles in honour of […]

It is said that the best sermons make good listening but poor reading. Why then should we read a volume of sermons1 that were preached in the early 1660’s and in very different times to our own? Read on! The Lord Jesus warned that persecution would come from the unbelieving world (eg. John 15:18) and […]

‘a cracking set of volumes . . . beautiful to behold, excellent in their quality, and outstanding in their substance . . . pastorally sound, eminently practical, thoroughly Christ-centred, happily straightforward expository thoughts, ideal for private or family worship, stimulating for preachers, instructive for pastors, models of earnest simplicity.’ [Jeremy Walker enthuses about the new […]

This is a difficult book to categorize. It is not a commentary and yet it deals with the Joseph saga in its Biblical order (for the most part) and there is much detailed commentary on the text. It is not a fictional account of ‘Joseph and his brothers’, or even a fact/fictional re-telling. There is […]

A new book by John Calvin? Well, not exactly, but this1 is the first translation into English of Calvin’s 48 sermons on these ten chapters of Genesis. The sermons break off after Genesis 20:7 because a whole series of sermons on Genesis have been lost. Calvin expounds the biblical text for the benefit of ordinary […]

Pastor-Teachers of Old Princeton 1 In 1994 and 1996 respectively, the Banner of Truth Trust published two magnificent volumes on the faith, learning, and majestic testimony of Princeton Seminary.2 Professor Calhoun’s work was highly commended by a number of outstanding scholars, including Bruce M. Metzger, Collard Professor of New Testament Emeritus. Metzger wrote at the […]

The short answer to this question is ‘Yes’, says J. C. Ryle, the well known Church of England minister. In this small paperback, first published in 1877, he gives reason after reason why the Bible is truly the word of God. Written in a popular rather than academic style he outlines the internal evidence and […]

In the second half of the nineteenth century, C. H. Spurgeon so towered above English Calvinistic Baptists that other giants seemed to be much smaller, with one outcome being that they were quickly forgotten by subsequent generations. This was the case despite the great achievements connected to some of those men. One was Archibald G. […]

Here is a clarion call to Christians to hold fast to the true Gospel – that is that we are saved by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. The 8 chapters in the book have been taken from two works of the Victorian minister: Knots Untied and Home Truths. They cover subjects such as […]

Public worship is one of the areas where there is great confusion today. This little booklet by J. C. Ryle the Victorian Church of England minister and author brings much needed biblical thinking to the subject. He answers some basic questions such as: Why is it important for men and women to worship God? What […]

The Great Ejection 1662: Today’s Evangelicalism Rooted in Puritan Persecution By Gary Brady Darlington: Evangelical Press, September 2012 176 pages, paperback, £8.99 ISBN: 978 0 85234 802 4 2012 has been a year of achievement and celebration in the United Kingdom. Highlights of the year have undoubtedly been the centenary of the sinking of RMS […]

All I knew about Ernest Kevan before reading this book* was that he was the author of The Grace of Law (1964), a study of Puritan teaching on the place of God’s law in the Christian life (the published version of his doctoral thesis), but this useful account of his life introduced me to the […]