William Twisse
English clergyman and theologian (1578 – 1646)
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William Twisse (1578 – 20 July 1646) was a prominent English clergyman and theologian. He was named prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly in an ordinance dated 12 June 1643,[1] putting him at the head of the churchmen of the Commonwealth. He was described by a Scottish member, Robert Baillie, as "very good, beloved of all, and highlie esteemed; but merelie bookish."[2]
Life
Twisse was born near Newbury, England; his parents were German.[3] He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford.[4] He was appointed chaplain to Elizabeth of Bohemia, by her father James I of England, in 1612. This position was short-lived, and he returned to England from Heidelberg around 1613. He was then given a living at Newton Longueville.[5] He was involved with Henry Savile in the 1618 edition of the works of Thomas Bradwardine.[6] He was vicar of Newbury from 1620.[7] There he was known as an opponent of William Laud.[8]
He died on 20 July 1646 and was buried in Westminster Abbey but exhumed in 1661 and his remains deposited with those of dozens of other Parliamentarians in a pit in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Westminster.
Views
Twisse was a strong defender of a Calvinist supralapsarian position.[9] In his Vindiciae gratiae of 1632 he attacks Jacobus Arminius, and in Dissertatio de scientia media of 1639 he adopts certain Dominican arguments[6] on predestination. His views were in a minority at the Westminster Assembly.[10]
A premillennialist,[11] he wrote a preface to the 1643 English translation, Key of the Revelation, of Joseph Mede's influential Clavis Apocalyptica. Mede was a friend and correspondent.[12]
Works
- A Discovery of D. Jackson's Vanity (1631) against Thomas Jackson
- Vindiciae Gratiae (Amsterdam, 1632)
- Dissertatio de scientia media tribus libris absoluta (Arnhem 1639)
- The Riches of Gods Love (1653),[13] with Henry Jeanes and John Goodwin
- An Examination of Mr. Cotton's Analysis of The Ninth Chapter of Romans[14]
- The Five Points of Grace and of Predestination[15]
- Of the Morality of the Fourth Commandment
- A Treatise of Mr. Cotton's Clearing Certaine Doubts Concerning Predestination
- The Doctrine of the Synod of Dort and Arles, Reduced to the Practice (1650)
- Of the morality of the Fourth Commandment, as still in force to binde Christians : delivered by way of answer to the translator of Doctor Prideaux his lecture, concerning the doctrine of the Sabbath (1641) OL 14032019M