Lane has taken a moment to answer my question here, and so I guess it is now my turn to respond.
This is the way the controversy is framed by our opponents, and there are some basic structural problems with it. They say that if you want to affirm the gospel in the way our Reformers fathers did, you have to affirm doctrines scotch, hotch, and potch. To which our argument in reply has been, yes, quite, but our Reformed fathers Smith, Jones, and Murphy denied scotch, Reformed fathers Johnson, Watson, and Williams denied hotch, and the Lutherans never heard of potch.
First, to this response, it is entirely beside the point to say that they denied scotch, hotch, and potch in a different way, or for different reasons than we in the FV do. The point is that they don’t affirm these doctrines, for whatever reason. And that means that the initial statement about explicit affirmation must not be accurate, and should be dropped.
Second, it is not at all clear to me that they did deny these doctrines for different reasons than I do because I learned many of my denials from them, along with their compelling reasons. You see, I, a Reformed newbie lo these many years ago, gathered them by gleaning carefully in my Banner of Truth sets that you people still publish for some reason.
Third, if you can infer orthodoxy and implicit affirmations by reading charitably between the lines of the old, dead guys, why not do the same with us?
Fourth, the only straightforward way for TRs to deal with the intractable facts of Reformed theological history is to argue heresy through chemical combinations. “Denials of scotch are within the pale. Denials of hotch are also. And denials of potch are equally okay, and intramural amity may still prevail. But when you deny scotch, hotch and potch, all together, the results are a denial of the gospel.” This is at least a possibility, but it is the kind of the thing that would have to be demonstrated. And by demonstrated, by the way, I do not mean to the satisfaction of a stacked committee.
Fifth, if there is one significant element of the FV project that really does not have a long and significant representation of adherents in the Reformed tradition — and there is, just one, paedocommunion — then it would be appropriate to try to demonstrate that this element, motch, let’s say, is the thing that makes denials of scoth, hotch, and potch the kind of thing that requires us keep our pistols loose in the holster. But again, this is something that would have to be argued, shown, demonstrated.
So then, to sum up, every distinctive element in the FV project, saving one, has long antecedents in the history of the Reformed faith. Either show that our peculiar combination of these distinctive elements is spiritually deadly, or drop the controversy.