Description
Over the past decade, the project of Protestant resourcement has exploded, giving pastors, scholars, and lay-people access to the great thinkers who shaped their tradition. Despite this great progress, many treasures of Reformed theology remain obscured from the lay-person, confined to academics with a working knowledge of Latin and Biblical languages–or, if translated, affordable only by libraries with large budgets.
Synopsis of a Purer Theology, otherwise known as “the Leiden Synopsis,” is one such work. Collecting theological disputations delivered at the University of Leiden in the early 1600s, it is one of the most historically important and theologically comprehensive handbooks of Reformed theology, being a key influence for many Reformed theologians including Herman Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper, Karl Barth, Louis Berkhof, and Richard Muller. And yet, it has remained largely forgotten and left to a handful of Latin-reading scholars.
Now for the first time, the Davenant Press has published this significant work in a full English-only translation, in an affordable and concise two-volume set that includes introductory material to orient the reader to the text.
The Synopsis offers both a snapshot of the state of confessional theology in the 17th-century Dutch Reformed tradition, and also an enduring example of how the project of systematizing doctrine can serve the church. The Leiden professors modeled thoroughness and clarity of thought in the face of confusion, and a vision of irenic Christian unity over brittle doctrinal uniformity.
As Protestants endeavor both to recover their forgotten heritage and to pass it down to the next generation, we need examples of how this has been done before us. The Synopsis of a Purer Theology will serve to bring such illumination and perspective to a generation desperately in need of its boldness, clarity, and wisdom.
Contents
Volume I
Acknowledgements
Introduction
William den Boer & Riemer A. Faber
Preface
Synopsis of a Purer Theology 1625
Disputations
Concerning the Most Sacred Theology
On the Necessity and Authority of Scripture
Concerning the Canonical and Apocryphal Books
On the Perfection of Scripture, and the Futility of Adding
About the Perspicuity and the Interpretation of Holy Scripture
About the Nature of God and his Divine Attributes
On the Holy Trinity
Concerning the Person of the Father and of the Son
On the Person of the Holy Spirit
Concerning the Creation of the World
On the Providence of God
Concerning the Good and Bad Angels
About Man Created in the Image of God
On the Fall of Adam
On Original Sin
On Actual Sin
On Free Choice
Concerning the Law of God
On Idolatry
Concerning the Oath
On the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day
On the Gospel
On the Old and the New Testament
On Divine Predestination
On the Incarnation of the Son of God and the Personal Union of the Two Natures in Christ
On the Office of Christ
On Christ in his State of Humiliation
On Jesus Christ in his State of Exaltation
On the Satisfaction by Jesus Christ
On the Calling of People to Salvation
On Faith and the Perseverance of the Saints
Volume II
Acknowledgements
Disputations
On Repentance
On the Justification of Man in the Sight of God
On Good Works
On Christian Freedom
On the Religious Practice of Invocation
On Almsgiving and Fasting
On Vows
On Purgatory and Indulgences
On the Church
On Christ as Head of the Church, and on the Antichrist
On the Calling of Those Who Minister to the Church,
On the Sacraments in General
On the Sacrament of Baptism
On the Lord’s Supper
On the Sacrifice of the Mass and Its Abuses
On the Five False Sacraments of the Papists
On Church Discipline
On Ecclesiastical Councils or Meetings
On the Civil Magistrate
On the Resurrection of the Body and the Last Judgment
On Life and Death Everlasting and on the End of the World
End Matter
Bibliography
Index