| FRANCIS TURRETIN
October 17, 1623 - September 28, 1687
Francis Turretin was of Italian descent, his great-grandfather being Regulus Turrettini, one of the
chief magistrates of Lusea, Italy and his grandfather was Francis who was the first Protestant
member of the family. Francis left Italy for exile in Geneva where his son, Benedict, was born.
Benedict was a pastor and professor of theology and assisted at the Synod of Ales.
Francis had many distinguished instructors including John Diodati who held the chair of Calvin
and Beza, Theodore Tronchin and Frederick Spanheim. In 1648 Francis became a pastor to the
Italian congregation at the church in Geneva. In 1653, he assumed the chair of his teacher,
Theodore Tronchin. In 1674 he published his greatest work, Institutio Theologiae
Elenecticae
After being seized with violent pains, he died shortly after at the age of sixty-four.
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- "Consubstantiation"
"Is Christ corporeally present in the Eucharist, and is he eaten with the mouth by believers? We
deny against the Romanists and Lutherans."
- "Creationism Or Traducianism" - THE ORIGIN OF
THE SOUL
Although there are various opinions of theologians and philosophers about the origin of the soul,
yet principally there are two to which the others can be referred: one asserting the creation, the
other the propagation, (traducem) of the soul. The former holds all souls to have been
immediately created by God and by creating infused; thus to be produced from nothing and
without any preexisting material. The latter, however, maintains that souls are propagated. The
former is the opinion of almost all the orthodox (with many of the fathers and scholastics). The
latter is embraced by the Lutherans. Tertullian was the author of propagation (traducis) in
Treatise on the Soul (ANF 3:181-235), whom the Luciferians and many of the Latins followed.
- "The Decrees Of God"
"It is absurd for the Creator to depend upon the creature, God upon man and the will of God (the
first cause of all things) upon the things them, selves. But this must be the case if the decrees of
God are suspended on any condition in man."
- "Effectual Calling"
This calling is an act of the grace of God in Christ by which he calls men dead in sin and lost in
Adam through the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, to union with Christ
and to the salvation obtained in him.
- "The Necessity Of The
Atonement"
"The necessity of such an atonement, which is the foundation of all practical piety and all
Christian hopes, must therefore be firmly established, and defended against the fiery darts of
Satan, with which it is attacked by innumerable adversaries."
- "The Object Of Predestination"
"The question is not simply "what" the object of predestination was (as to nature).
For it evident that here we speak of the human race, not the angelic (of which we spoke before).
Rather the question is "of what kind" it was (with re-gard to quality, i.e., how man
was considered in the mind of God predestinating and with what qualities he was clothed;
whether those before the creation and fall or after)."
- "On Justification"
"Is the word Justification always used in a forensic sense in this
argument, or also in a moral and physical? The former we affirm,
the latter we deny, against the Romanists."
- "The Sanctifica
tion Of The Saint"
"Further with regard to the question here agitated between us and the Romanists-whether the
works of believers are and can be called truly good. We must distinguish between truly good and
perfectly good. We have proved before that the latter cannot be ascribed to the works of the
saints on account of the imperfection of sanctification and the remains of sin. But the former is
rightly predicated of them because although they are not as yet perfectly renewed, still they are
truly and unfeignedly renewed. While the Romanists are unwilling to make this distinction, they
falsely charge us with denying that the works of believers are truly good because we maintain that
they are imperfect, since the truth and perfection of works are notwithstanding most diverse and
the former can be granted without the latter."
- "Should Predestination Be Publicly Taught &
Preached?"
"Because it is one of the primary Gospel doctrines, and foundations of faith. It cannot be ignored
without great injury to the Church and to believers, since it is the fount of our gratitude to God,
the root of humility, the foundation and most firm anchor of confidence in all temptations, the
fulcrum of the sweetest consolation, and the most powerful spur to piety and holiness."
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