Systematic Theology: A Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion

Brown's systematic theology was first published in 1782 at the request of theological students. In seven books, it covers the traditional topics of revelation, God, man, Christ, personal salvation, and the church. It contains more than 26,000 proof texts and numerous exegetical insights along with a consistent covenantal emphasis, experiential depth, and compelling applications. Brown's style is methodological, including numerous divisions and sub-points to aid students, and his content is full of evangelical piety. This single volume of Reformed systematic theology is rich with content and an indispensable tool for students, pastors, and professors of theology. This edition with the modern introduction on the life and writings of John Brown of Haddington was first copublished with Christian Focus Publications in 2002, and is here reprinted in 2015. The introduction is copyright © 2002 by Reformation Heritage Books. The facsimile reprint of Brown's book is taken from A Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion (London: Wm. Baynes, 1817). Review: John Brown stands in continuity with both the Puritan and Dutch Reformed writers of the seventeenth century who assumed that theology was both a contemplative and a practical discipline and who assumed that the definition of Christian doctrine ought to build on exegesis and issue in praxis. All in all, this is a welcome reprint of a classic work, representative of a late eighteenth-century heir of the orthodox tradition of Puritan and Reformed theology. --Richard A. Muller Of John Brown of Haddington Dr. William Blaikie says that he towered above his fellows. Dr. David Wright describes him as having the makings of a universal scholar. His biographer calls him one of the best remembered names in the Scottish theology of the eighteenth century. Yet today the name of John Brown is all but forgotten, notwithstanding his stature as one of the foremost teachers of covenantal Calvinism in the history of Scottish theology. All the more welcome, then, is this publication of Brown's Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion , his systematics. He pours both his vast learning and his deep piety into this overview, and now a new generation of covenantal theologians can sit at Brown's feet. I congratulate the publishers on the resurrection of this important work and wish it a wide circulation. --Iain D. Campbell, pastor of Point Free Church, Isle of Lewis, Scotland