I’m about half way through Robert Letham’s recently published book The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its Theology in Historical Context. This is the third book in The Westminster Assembly and the Reformed Faith series edited by Carl Trueman. It is so good! This should be required reading for every officer in the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition. On the catholicity of the divines Letham writes:

All the Reformers, including Calvin, and the later Reformed orthodox operated in the context of their inheritance from the late Middle Ages. To understand them, it is necessary to have a grasp of the scholastic method, and of the history of medieval exegesis. The Assembly’s Reformed context establishes its Catholic credentials, for the Reformers were at odds, not with the Catholic tradition, but with its immediate representatives. Evidence abounds from Luther, Calvin, and their contemporaries. This is abundantly demonstrated from the minutes [of the Westminster Assembly], where the records we have show beyond the slightest doubt that every theological question was debated from the foundation of biblical exegesis, in dialogue with the history of exegesis reaching back to the early days of the church. So pervasive is the focus on biblical exegesis that it would be futile here to list the texts on which the debate turned–the evidence is literally overwhelming. However, it was not carried on in isolation; it took place self-consciously as part of the great tradition of the church (96-97, emphasis added).