William Twisse Explained

William Twisse (1578 near Newbury, England  - 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's 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 attacked Jacobus Arminius, and in Dissertatio de scientia media of 1639 adopted 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)
  • https://archive.org/details/ofmoralityoffour00twis

See also

• Scientia media

Further reading

• Sarah Hutton, Thomas Jackson, Oxford Platonist, and William Twisse, Aristotelian, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec., 1978)
• Vernon . E.C. . Twisse, William (1577/8–1646) . online . 2004 . 10.1093/ref:odnb/27921 . 10 November 2013.

Notes and References

1. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp180-184 June 1643: An Ordinance for the calling of an Assembly of Learned and Godly Divines, to be consulted with by the Parliament, for the setling of the Government of the Church
2. http://www.reformation-scotland.org.uk/articles/description-of-westminster-assembly.html Description of the Westminster Assembly – Robert Baillie
3. Web site: William Twisse . 2007-07-15 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20070928011134/http://www.ligonier.org/publishing_solideogloria_meetpuritans.php?puritan_id=68 . September 28, 2007 . . Ligonier Ministries. ligonier.org
4. http://presbyterianreformed.org/articlesbooksShow.php?articlesID=24 The Life and Work of William Twisse – Presbyterian Reformed Church
5. http://met.open.ac.uk/genuki/big/eng/bkm/NewtonLongville/rectors.html Rectors of the Parish Church of St Faith, Newton Longville
6. http://www.scholasticon.fr/Database/Scholastiques_fr.php?ID=1260 William Twisse
7. Twisse, William.

   http://www.st-nicolas-newbury.org/history-rectors.htm .

8. http://www.newbury-society.org.uk/history/Civil%20Wars.htm Newbury in the first of the Civil Wars in England
9. John Milton: Supralapsarians, Sublapsarians, and the Incompetence of God
10. http://www.opc.org/GA/justification.pdf Report on Justification, presented to the Seventy-third General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
11. http://www.theologue.org/ReformedPremill.htm Reformed Theology and Premillennialism
12. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/112.3/canizaresesguerra.html Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra | AHR Forum: Entangled Histories: Borderland Historiographies in New Clothes? | The American Historical Review, 112.3
13. William Twisse; Henry Jeanes; John Goodwin (1653) The riches of Gods love unto the vessells of mercy, consistent with his absolute hatred or reprobation of the vessells of wrath, or, An answer unto a book entituled, Gods love unto mankind ... . Oxford : Printed by L.L. and H.H.
14. William Twisse, A short Survey of the ninth Chapter to the Romans, so farre as it treateth of the Doctrine Of Predestination. Truecovenanter.com. Retrieved on 2012-07-10.
15. William Twisse, THE FIVE POINTS of Grace & of Predestination Defined and Defended Against an Arminian Remonstrant. 5solas.org. Retrieved on 2012-07-10.