Lesson 53 - Reformers and Heretics After Calvin
I.Introduction
A.The Reformed movement in history is quite specific.
B.Was most popular in church history
C.It held to the teachings of the Reformation under the auspice of the works of
1.John Calvin
2.Ulrich Zwingli
3.Martin Bucer
4.Peter Martyr Vermigli
5. Jerome Zanchi
6.Theodore Beza,
7.Zacharias Ursinus.
II.Peter Martyr Vermigli (c. 1499-1562)
A.Was a native of Florence who came under the influence of Juan de Valdes at Naples and attempted reformation in Italy a number of times
B.Being unsuccessful he fled to Zurich under duress and became a professor of theology.
C.He then left per request by Archbishop Cranmer and went to England to teach at Oxford.
D.His importance revolves around methodology rather than Reformed content.
E.He introduced Reformed Theology as a methodological approach that would have a profound influence on that theology later.
III.Jerome Zanchi (c. 1516-1590)
A.Was an Italian and a disciple of Vermigli.
B.His system of thought is most widely known in his Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted.
1.God is the basis for predestination, specifically his foreknowledge.
2.Everything is predestined
IV.Theodore Beza (c. 1519-1605)
A.Was called by Calvin to teach at Geneva and became his successor there.
B.He was an able New Testament scholar and wrote an edition of the New Testament in Greek for scholarship and textural criticism.
C. His main works were Confession of the Christian Faith and Theological Treatises.
V.Zacharias Ursinus (c. 1543-1583)
A.Spent most of his youth at Wittenberg and personally knew Philip Melancthon who was his mentor.
B.He composed, along with Caspar Olevianus the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) that became the confession of faith for the German Reformed Church.
VI.Henry Bullinger wrote the Second Helvetic Confession
A.Is a strongly reformed document with Calvinistic influences.
B.He agrees with the Zurich Consensus, though, on the Lord’s Supper and upholds the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures to a great length.
C.Holy Scripture is the Word of God, wholly inspired by God, and is set out as an important facet of continuity over the whole confession.
D.This is, in some ways, the forerunner of the Westminster Confession of Faith later on.
VII.Benedict Turretini (c. 1588-1631).
A.Benedict was a strictpredestinarian Calvinists
B.His son, after him, was the most important systematic theologian of Calvinist orthodoxy on the Continent.
VIII.Francis Turretin
A.Received his educational training in philosophy at the Academy in Gerrit Keizer.
B.Advancing to the study of theology, he sat under John Diodati, Frederic Spanheim, Alexander Morus, and Theodore Trunchin.
C.He completed his studies at Geneva in 1644 and prepared to go abroad.
D.Turretin would then expose himself to the principle luminaries of Reformed Theology in Leiden, Utrecht, Paris and Saumur.
E.Nine months of study in Paris with the Church Historian David Blondel, Turretin was immersed into the conflict of reformed theology and the theology of MoiseAmyraut
F.Turretin was appointed successor of his mentor Theodore Tronchin in the chair of theology.
G.Francis Turretin’s magnum opus is his InstitutioThelogiaeElecticae (Institutes of Elenctic Theology).
1.This massive work of Reformed scholasticism extends to nearly 1800 pages in the Latin edition of 1847.
2.Written in bulky Latin with sentences frequently lasting nearly a half a page, Turretin’s Institutes are at once familiar, profound, erudite, thorough and precise.
H.Turretin was a Calvinistic Scholastic theologian in an age of Protestant, Catholic, Lutheran and Socinian Scholastics. Like his great predecessor, John Calvin, Turretin entitled his scholastic work Institutio.
I.AfterTurretin’s death, his son, Jean-Alphonse, apostatized and lead Geneva into a host of liberal and unorthodox theological positions
IX.MoiseAmyraut (1596-1664).
A.Amyraut was to give rise to Amyraldianism,
B.A highly deviant aspect trying to stem out of Reformed theology which attempted to take the doctrine of Limited Atonement and replace it with a kind of Universalism
X.Thomas Erastus (c. 1524-1583)
A.Was a Swiss-born professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg.
B.He was Zwinglian in theology but was excommunicated from the church in 1570 for Socinianism.
C.He enacted the view that the State was sovereign over the church, which later became known as “Erastianism” and had an affect on England and a presence at the Westminster Assembly.
XI.Jacobus Harmenzoon (c. 1560-1609) or James Arminius
A.Calvinism was challenged by Jacobus Harmenzoon (c. 1560-1609) or James Arminius.
B.While a young teen, as a servant in a public inn, a patron noticed his wit and keen intellect for someone at such a young age, and as a result this patron decided to offer him the chance at schooling in the University of Utrecht.
C.He financially supported Arminius until his death, and then another patron continued to pay for his education.
XII.“Article 16
1. We believe that, all the posterity of Adam being thus fallen into perdition and ruin by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest Himself such as He is; that is to say, merciful and just: merciful, since He delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom He in His eternal and unchangeable counsel of mere goodness has elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without any respect to their works; just, in leaving others in the fall and perdition wherein they have involved themselves.”
XIII.After a year or two he was found to be a scandalous man.
A.It was his practice to teach the doctrines of grace in alignment with the Confession in class, but then distributed private confidential manuscripts among his pupils.
B.By this “double-mindedness” he was able to continue in his popularity, while at the same time he was infecting the students under him of the same errors of “Arminianism” which he really believed.
XIV.Arminius’
A.Goal was to unite all Christians, except the papists, under one common form of doctrinal brotherhood.
B.If this was truly the case, why was it so difficult for him to be “tried” theologically in an open forum?
C.His agenda and motives prove that his goal is true, but not for the good of the church.
D.His views (which are unorthodox and heretical) he agreed substantially in the five doctrines set forth by his predecessors in a more refined manner.
E.He died in 1609 before he could ever be brought openly before a public Synod. Most hoped that with the death of Arminius that Arminianism would die quickly.
F.Unfortunately, his infectious doctrine had overwhelmed too many younger students and a group called the Remonstrants arose soon after.
XV.TheRemonstrants
A.Organized into a body and set forth a “Remonstrance” to the States General of Holland, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.
B.The word “Remonstrance” means “vigorously objecting or opposing.”
C.These men were persuaded that they ought to continue Arminius’ teaching in a precise and ordered form.
D.Their goal was to solicit the favor of the government, and to secure protection against the ecclesiastical censures to which they felt themselves exposed.
XVI.As much as it may be deplorable to some that the State involves itself in the affairs of the church today, in days of old the practice was quite different.
A.Prince Maurice of Orange
1.The prince of the day for the region, was opposed to the work of the Remonstrants and desired a National Synod against them.
2.As a result of Prince Maurice’s determination to rid the Netherlands of Arminianism, on November 13, 1618 a national council commenced in the city of Dordtrecht (also abbreviated as “Dort” or “Dordt”.)
3.The synod consisted of
a.39 pastors and
b.18 ruling elders from Belgic churches,
c.And 5 professors of the University of Holland.
d. There were also delegates from Reformed churches throughout the region.
e.At least 4 ministers and 2 elders from each province attended the Synod: men from France, Switzerland, the Republic of Geneva, Bremen and Embden, as well as varied deputies of the Belgic church, some English Puritans such as Joseph Hall and John Davenant, and delegates from Scotland.
f.With such a sublime gathering, Joseph Hall was compelled to say that, “There was no place upon earth so like heaven as the Synod of Dordt, and where he should be more willing to dwell.”
B.The Synod of Dordt convened to examine the Arminian’s Remonstrance as well as their Christian walk. Both their doctrine and life were “on trial.”
C.After the Synod convened in 1619, they gave the following censure by unanimous decision – for they seriously and responsibly examined the Arminian tenants,
D. “Condemned them as unscriptural, pestilential errors,” and pronounced those who held and published them to be “enemies of the faith of the Belgic churches, and corrupters of the true religion.”
XVII.Johannes Cocceius (c. 1603-1669)
A.Developed in his Summa doctrinae de foedereettestamentodei the classical statement on covenant theology or federal theology.
B.He demonstrated that God established his relationship with men through the Covenant of Redemption, Covenant of Works and Covenant of Grace.
C.Herman Witsius later developed this in the Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man and it has become the center for Calvinistic orthodoxy concerning Covenant Theology.
XVIII.MoiseAmyraut (c. 1596-1664).
A.In France Calvinism took a turn for the worse under the teachings
B.Amyraut attempted to wed Arminianism and Calvinism together.
C.This is impossible biblically, theologically and logically. In attempting to do so, his presuppositions about systematic theology overrode his understanding of the biblical text and biblical theology.
D.He filtered the text of the Bible through his newly created Amyraldian grid.
E.Amyraut thought that he could continue to adhere to the Canons of Dordt and at the same time provide a picture of God’s love to all mankind that would be more faithful to Scripture, and indeed to Calvin, than the thoroughly particularistic approach in the second quarter of the 17th century by the orthodox Puritan Divines.
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