Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Sunday, September 28, 2014

28 September 1687 A.D. Francis Turretin Dies—Swiss-Italian Reformed Theologian


28 September 1687 A.D.  Francis Turretin Dies—Swiss-Italian Reformed Theologian

A brief biography is available at:  http://books.google.com/books?id=RiQ2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA529#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wiki offers the following.

Francis Turretin (17 October 1623 – 28 September 1687; also known as François Turretini and Francis Turrettin) was a Swiss-Italian Reformed scholastic theologian.

Turretin is especially known as a zealous opponent of the theology of the Academy of Saumur (embodied by Moise Amyraut and called Amyraldianism), as an earnest defender of the Calvinistic orthodoxy represented by the Synod of Dort, and as one of the authors of the Helvetic Consensus, which defended the formulation of predestination from the Synod of Dort and the verbal inspiration of the Bible.

Contents 








Life


He was the grandson of Francesco Turrettini, who left his native Lucca in 1574 and settled in Geneva in 1592. Francis was born to Benoit Turretin[citation needed] at Geneva on October 17, 1623 and died there on September 28, 1687. He studied theology at Geneva (1640-1644), Leiden (1644), Utrecht, Paris (1645-1646), Saumur (1646-1648),[1] Montauban, and Nîmes.[citation needed] In Paris he also studied philosophy under Roman Catholic Pierre Gassendi. Returning to his native city, he was made pastor of the Italian church there from 1648 to 1687, of the French congregation from 1653-1687, and professor of theology at the Academy of Geneva in 1653.[1] He is the father of Jean Alphonse Turretin, who would do much to dismantle the theology his father promoted.[2]

Works


His Institutio Theologiae Elencticae (3 parts, Geneva, 1679–1685) was the culmination of Reformed scholasticism. The Institutes uses the scholastic method to dispute a number of controversial issues. In it he defended the view that the Bible is God's verbally inspired word. He also argued for infralapsarianism and federal theology. The Institutes was widely used as a textbook, up to its use at Princeton Theological Seminary by the Princeton theologians only to be replaced by Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology in the late 19th century. Of his other disputations, his most important are De Satisfactione Christi disputationes (1666) and De necessaria secessione nostra ab Ecclesia Romana et impossibili cum ea syncretismo (published in 1687). He wrote the Helvetic Consensus, a Reformed confession written against Amyraldianism, with J. H. Heidegger in 1675.[2]

Turretin greatly influenced the Puritans, but until recently, he was a mostly forgotten Protestant scholastic from the annals of church history, though the English translation of his Institutes of Elenctic Theology is increasingly read by students of theology. John Gerstner called Turretin "the most precise theologian in the Calvinistic tradition."[citation needed]

English translations


Institutes of Elenctic Theology. Translated by George Musgrave Giger, edited by James T. Dennison, Jr. (1992). ISBN 0-87552-451-6

Justification an excerpt from Turretin's Institutes (2004). ISBN 0-87552-705-1

The Atonement of Christ. Translated by James R. Willson (1978). ISBN 0-8010-8842-9

Notes




Bibliography


Spencer, Stephen R. (2000). "TURRETIN, FRANČOIS". In Carey, Patrick W.; Lienhard, Joseph T. Biographical Dictionary of Christian Theologians. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press – via Questia (subscription required). Retrieved 13 April 2013. 

This article includes content derived from the public domain Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 1914.

External links


Brief Biography of Turretin - a brief biography of Francis Turretin based on an oral address given by his nephew, and translated into English

Excerpts from Turretin's Institutes in English:

"The Holy Scriptures" - on the Bible

"Forensic Justification" - on how one is made right with God


Article on the Turretin family and the Institutes from the Princeton Review (July 1848)


"Turretin on Justification" an audio series by John Gerstner, long-time professor of church history.

Academic offices
Preceded by
Théodore Tronchin
Chair of theology at the Genevan Academy
1687–1724
Succeeded by
Antoine Maurice, I

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