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Justification VindicatedImputed righteousnessJUSTIFICATION VINDICATED Robert Traill was a Church of Scotland minister who, because of the circumstances of his time (the persecution of the Covenanters), spent the greater part of his ministry among Presbyterians and Independents in England. During the neonomian controversy at the end of the 17th century, he published a book entitled Vindication of the Protestant Doctrine concerning Justification from the Unjust Charge of Antinomianism (1692). It is that book which has now been republished under the title Justification Vindicated. Traill's concern in this short book is to defend the orthodox doctrine of justification against the antinomians on the one side, represented by Tobias Crisp (the republication of whose works in 1690 was probably the occasion for Traill's writing of this book), and the neonomians on the other hand. He emphasises that justification is by faith, he stresses the imputed righteousness of Christ and he sets the matter in the context of the covenant theology. This is an interesting little book, given its historical context but it is not at all clear why it should be thought to be valuable for the present day. The publisher calls the book 'masterful' in the introduction but this is seriously to overstate the case. Readers today will find the language dated and they will largely be unfamiliar with the writings (Crisp, Baxter and others) and historical circumstances which occasioned it. Indeed, even the general aspects of the doctrine of justification which can be drawn from the book are not particularly well argued or well presented. It is, however, an interesting treatise for those interested in historical theology. The publisher tries to make the book sound relevant by mentioning in the introduction the recent Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue on justification and the Evangelicals and Catholics Together debate. The need to reaffirm the biblical and Reformation doctrine of justification for today is important but it is not particularly furthered by this volume. Having already published James Buchanan and John Owen on justification, if the publisher felt the need to address the issue of justification in a short paperback, with specific reference to these modern debates, Sinclair Ferguson, Ian Hamilton or Derek Thomas should have been commissioned to write it. Professor A.T.B. McGowan, © Evangelicals Now - November 2002 |