The four studies that make up this book were originally prepared for the Princeton Theological Review in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Calvin's birth. The article by Emile Doumergue deals with Calvin's view of asceticism; Lang's study analyses Calvin's doctrine of natural law; Bavinck's essay discusses Calvin's understanding of common grace; Warfield analyses Calvin's teaching on the knowledge of God.
Emile Doumergue (1844-1937) taught at the Free Theological Faculty of Montauban; August Lang (1867-1945) was at the University of Halle-Wittenberg; Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was
Professor of Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam; and Benjamin B. Warfield
(1851-1921) spent thirty-four years at Princeton Theological Seminary.
Herman Bavinck (1854 - 1921) was professor of theology at the Free University of Amsterdam.
Born on December 13, 1854, in Hoogeveen, Drenthe, Holland, Herman Bavinck was the son of the Reverend Jan Bavinck, a leading figure in the secession from the State Church of the Netherlands in 1834. After theological study in Kampen, and at the University of Leiden, he graduated in 1880, and served as the minister of the congregation at Franeker, Friesland, for a year. In 1882, he was appointed Professor of Theology at Kampen, and taught there from 1883 until his appointment, in 1902, to the Chair of Systematic Theology in the Free University of Amsterdam, where he succeeded the great Abraham Kuyper. Bavinck served until his death in 1921.
Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921) received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1880 and that of Doctor of Laws in 1892 from the College of New Jersey; that of Doctor of Laws from Davidson College in 1892; that of Doctor of Letters from Lafayette College in 1911; and that of Sacrae Theologiae Doctor from the University of Utrecht in 1913.
Warfield was a voluminous writer. During his lifetime he published the following volumes: Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (1886); The Gospel of the Incarnation (1893); Two Studies in the History of Doctrine (1893); The Right of Systematic Theology (1897); The Significance of the Westminster Standards (1898); Acts and the Pastoral Epistles (1902); The Power of God Unto Salvation (1903); The Lord of Glory (1907); Calvin as a Theologian and Calvinism Today (1909); Hymns and Religious Verse (1910); The Saviour of the World (1915); The Plan of Salvation (1915); Faith and Life (1916); and Counterfeit Miracles (1918). The bulk of his writings, however, made their first appearance in Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias and theological magazines, especially the Presbyterian and Reformed Review and its successor the Princeton Theological Review. Following his death, sufficient of this material to make ten large volumes was selected by his literary executors, Ethelbert D. Warfield, William Park Armstrong and Caspar Wistar Hodge, and published by the Oxford University Press.
Emile Doumergue (1844-1937) taught at the Free Theological Faculty of Montauban; August Lang (1867-1945) was at the University of Halle-Wittenberg; Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was Professor of Theology at the Free University of Amsterdam; and Benjamin B. Warfield (1851-1921) spent thirty-four years at Princeton Theological Seminary.
