This volume studies Socinianism in its relationship to "liberal" currents in reformed Protestantism, namely Dutch Remonstrants, English Latitudinarians and parts of the French Huguenots. What effects did its transition from Poland to the "modernized" intellectual milieus in the Netherlands and England have?

Socinianism has often been studied in national contexts and apart from other currents like Arminianism. This volume is especially interested in the “in-betweens”: the relationship of Anti-trinitarianism to “liberal” currents in reformed Protestantism, namely Dutch Remonstrants, English Latitudinarians and some French Huguenots. This in-between also has a local aspect: the volume studies the transformations that Anti-trinitarianism experienced in the complicated transition from its origins in Italy and its refuge in Poland, Moravia and Transsylvania to Prussia, to the Netherlands and later to England. What effects did this transfer have on the dynamics of pluralization in the progressive Netherlands? How did the Socinians overcome social adaptation from a group of exiles to a diffuse movement of modernization? How did they manage to connect within the new milieu of Arminians, Cartesians, Spinozists and Lockeans? Contributors include: Hans W. Blom, Roberto Bordoli, Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton, Didier Kahn, Dietrich Klein, Florian Mühlegger, Martin Mulsow, Jan Rohls, Luisa Simonutti, and Stephen David Snobelen.

19 October 2009 marked the 400th anniversary of the death of Jacobus Arminius in Leiden. He was esteemed for the way in which he sought a via media between strict Calvinism and a more humanistic variant of Christian belief. However, because of his deviation from mainstream Calvinism, he has also been violently attacked. Was he a pioneer, who enriched the Reformed tradition by opening it towards new horizons, or a heretic, who founded a new tradition, as an alternative to Reformed theology? The day of the death of this remarkable theologian was commemorated with a conference at Leiden University on Arminius, Aminianism, and Europe (9 and 10 October 2009). The main contributions to that conference are collected in this book. The first part contains some essays on the thinking of Arminius himself: the structure of his theology, his relation to Augustine, and to Rome. The second part deals with Arminianism. Was it influenced by Socinianism, as its opponents often claimed? How was it received in Europe: in Germany, Switzerland (Geneva), England, and Ireland? How far did Arminianism prepare the way for the ideals of the Enlightenment, which made its entry later on in the seventeenth century? An extensive iconography of Jacobus Arminius and an annotated bibliography of all his known writings complete, in the third part, this volume.

This book provides a significant rereading of political and ecclesiastical developments during the English Revolution, by integrating them into broader European discussions about Christianity and civil society. Sarah Mortimer reveals the extent to which these discussions were shaped by the writing of the Socinians, an extremely influential group of heterodox writers. She provides the first treatment of Socinianism in England for over fifty years, demonstrating the interplay between theological ideas and political events in this period as well as the strong intellectual connections between England and Europe. Royalists used Socinian ideas to defend royal authority and the episcopal Church of England from both Parliamentarians and Thomas Hobbes. But Socinianism was also vigorously denounced and, after the Civil Wars, this attack on Socinianism was central to efforts to build a church under Cromwell and to provide toleration. The final chapters provide a new account of the religious settlement of the 1650s.

This book is a study of the Anglican Reformed tradition (often inaccurately described as Calvinist) after the Restoration. Hampton sets out to revise our picture of the theological world of the later Stuart period. Arguing that the importance of the Reformed theological tradition has frequently been underestimated, his study points to a network of conforming reformed theologians which included many of the most prominent churchmen of the age. Focussing particularly on what these churchmen contributed in three hotly disputed areas of doctrine (justification, the Trinity and the divine attributes), he argues that the most significant debates in speculative theology after 1662 were the result of the Anglican Reformed resistance to the growing influence of continental Arminianism. Hampton demonstrates the strength and flexibility of the Reformed response to the developing Arminian school, and shows that the Reformed tradition remained a viable theological option for Anglicans well into the eighteenth century. This study therefore provides a significant bridge linking the Reformed writes of the Elizabethan and early Stuart periods to the Reformed Evangelicals of the eighteenth century. It also shows that, throughout its formative period, Anglicanism was not a monolithic tradition, but rather a contested ground between the competing claims of those adhering to the Church of England's Reformed doctrinal heritage and the insights of those who, to varying degrees, were prepared to explore new theological avenues.

Richard A. Muller, P. J. Zondervan Professor of Historical Theology, Calvin Theological Seminary --

Roger Olson sets forth classical Arminian theology and addresses the myriad misunderstandings and misrepresentations of it through the ages. For anyone interested in the Calvinist/Arminian debate, this irenic yet incisive book argues that classical Arminian theology has a rightful place in the evangelical church because of its deep roots within Reformational theology.

Simon Episcopius (1583-1643), who began his theological career as the protégé of Jacobus Arminius, led the Arminians at the Synod of Dort and was instrumental in guaranteeing Arminianism's survival. This book breaks new ground by clearly showing how, in the process of working out the implications of the theological trajectories which Arminius established, Episcopius introduced significant changes in his master's theology. It begins by demonstrating changes between Episcopius' early theological works and Arminius' writings, and then even greater changes in his mature theological work, Institutiones Theologicæ. It defends the idea that Arminianism represented a pre-Calvinist movement within the Netherlands, which not only rejected Genevan predestination, but also intentionally moved away from Reformed Scholasticism. This book is useful for seminars in early Arminian theology and the Arminian controversy in the Netherlands.

This volume is the first to adopt systematically a comparative approach to the role of ancient texts and traditions in early modern scholarship, science, medicine, and theology. It offers a new method for understanding early modern knowledge.