Fantastic primer on doctrine in life
I’ve read this book three times during officer candidate training in my PCA church. Macleod is consistently devotional, looking at how doctrines should confound us (such as how Christians can sin while in union with Christ!) or raise our hearts to love Jesus. “The chapters on proofs for Jesus’ deity and the Trinity are solid, and the chapters on justification, the atonement, and faith are wonderful.
I do have a few criticisms: there’s no chapter on the attributes of God, and the arguments for Presbyterian government and paedobaptism could be greatly strengthened. Second, the back cover makes it seem like this book is a commentary on the Westminster Confrssion, but it hardly references it at all (even though the astute reader will see it in the background of his theology and structure).
I’m now a Baptist but still find this a very devotional and profitable book. Even as I’m flipping through it again the number of notes, underlined phrases, and ideas that have shaped my own theology fill the pages.
