{"id":25401,"date":"2015-04-24T05:11:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T10:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/\/us\/?p=25401"},"modified":"2015-04-24T05:11:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T10:11:44","slug":"institutes-of-the-christian-religion-a-review-by-stephen-westcott","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.banneroftruth.org\/us\/resources\/book-review-resources\/2015\/institutes-of-the-christian-religion-a-review-by-stephen-westcott\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Institutes of the Christian Religion’ – A Review by Stephen Westcott"},"content":{"rendered":"

A review by Dr Stephen Westcott of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion<\/em>, translated by Robert White.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

After a long history of publishing Reformation, Puritan, and later Calvinistic books \u2018Banner\u2019 have returned to Reformed foundations by issuing this edition of John Calvin\u2019s Institutes of the Christian Religion.<\/em> This work, above any other, laid the theological foundation for the Reformed Churches and gave them their first systematic theology textbook. Amazingly it is a work that is as relevant and potentially important now as it was then, and as readable, for the translator and publisher have produced it in a very pleasing and attractive format.<\/p>\n

Presenting and explaining the great truths of the Christian faith was a lifetime concern for Calvin. The first edition of his Institutes<\/em> was penned with a specific and urgent purpose: it was an \u2018apology\u2019 for Protestantism presented to Francis I of France in 1536, aimed at mitigating Romanist persecution of the Huguenot Christians, and was written in the scholarly Latin of the day. The work was soon recognised as a masterly summary of biblical truth, and edition after edition was called for, progressively expanded until the final version, in 1559. Translations were soon made into all major European languages, the first English one being that of Norton, in 1561. This was supplanted by the Henry Beveridge version (1845), which held the field until the appearance of the classic and scholarly annotated \u2018McNeil-Battles\u2019 translation of 1960.<\/p>\n

Why the new \u2018Banner\u2019 version? The previous ones were translated from Calvin\u2019s final \u2018definitive\u2019 Latin edition, and are two-volume sets. Translations from Latin are necessarily scholarly. This translation, in contrast, is from Calvin\u2019s French edition of 1541. In his native French Calvin is far less formal, more relaxed in style, and this is excellently conveyed in Robert White\u2019s translation. Also, one thick volume is a more accessible format than a set. What is more, this edition was Calvin\u2019s own favourite, his \u2018essentials\u2019 edition.<\/p>\n

Calvin did not \u2018invent\u2019 Reformed theology. His Institutes<\/em> follow the \u2018Apostles\u2019 Creed\u2019 through four major sections:<\/p>\n

1. Knowledge of God, and of ourselves.
\n2. Christ and salvation accomplished.
\n3. The Holy Spirit and salvation applied.
\n4. The Church.<\/p>\n

Within this framework seventeen solid Chapters present masterly discussions of the place of the Law, Repentance, Faith, Justification, the agreements and differences between the Testaments, Prayer, the Sacraments, the Church, the Christian life, and the Christian\u2019s relation to civil government, and much more. Because it is a modern translation there is nothing \u2018dated\u2019 about this production. It reads as easily as any current systematic theology textbook (and for content, page-for-page, puts most of them into the shade!). Indeed, if a family need just one systematic textbook to give an overview of biblical doctrine, and to use as a reference when questions arise, they could hardly do better than purchase this edition of Calvin. Needless to say it is extremely well produced, as we have come to expect from this publisher.<\/p>\n

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Notes<\/h3>\n
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