A collection of essays and tracts in theology - The Preterist Archive

TURRETIN.
impressions under which the English clergy laboured
respecting
the Genevan Church. He next visited
Paris, and held public disputations with the doctors
of the Sorbonne.
On his return to
Geneva, he engaged
in the ministry,
and so much was he esteemed by his countrymen,
that the magistrates, to testify their sense of his
merits, created for him a
professorship of ecclesiastical
history. He was afterwards appointed rector
of the Academy of Geneva, and then professor of
theology, which latter office he held till his death in
1737. He filled several other public stations, the
duties of which he discharged with fidelity and
credit.
His theological writings are numerous, and equally
remarkable for their learning and their moderation.
It was a favourite project with him to unite all
the Protestant Churches in one communion. He
deprecated the differences, which churches and
individuals were fond of thrusting
forward as causes
of separation, and laboured to show, that the violent
controversies about metaphysical and abstruse points
in theology, which prevailed in his time, had no
alliance with the true
spirit of Christianity. He
endeavoured to inculcate moderation and rational
inquiry, and to convince the contending parties, that
the religion of Jesus was designed to be a bond of
peace and union. In the prosecution of this purpose
he wrote his treatise on Fundamentals in Religion.