Choice Review

Coffey's book constitutes an enthusiastic investigation of an unattractive subject. Samuel Rutherford was a leading apologist of the Scottish Covenanters, who first opposed the rule of Charles I, joined with the Parliamentarians, and then broke with Oliver Cromwell and the English Puritans when it seemed that the "fissiparous pluralism" endorsed by the Protectorate would lead to religious subjectivism. Coffey's account of Rutherford's intellectual development emphasizes how his classical education (which was the source of the contractual theory of government outlined in his best-known treatise, Lex Rex) clashed with "religious discourses derived from the Old Testament." In short, Rutherford defended resistance against kings and even Parliaments that opposed "godliness"--and he was eager to persecute those he identified as the ungodly. Although Coffey maintains that Rutherford has been a major influence on both political theory and later religious movements (including that led by the American fundamentalist Francis Schaeffer), it is evident that Rutherford ended up on the ash-heap of history. Graduate and faculty. D. R. Bisson Belmont University