Page:A Collection of Essays and Tracts, Volume 1, Part 1.djvu/15

 TURRETIN.

name of was long conspicuous in the theological school of Geneva. Three persons of this name, Benedict Turretin, Francis Turretin, and John Alphonsus Turretin, father, son, and grandson, were successively professors of theology in that place. The last of the three was the most distinguished, and was the author of the Discourse or Fundamentals in Religion, with which the present work commences.

He was born at Geneva, 1671, and after making, with close application and under the best teachers, extraordinary proficiency in his studies at home, he went to Leyden, where he attended the lectures of Spanheim, and completed his education. In this place he wrote a treatise, pointing out the great varieties of opinion in the Church of Rome, which was intended to counteract the influence of Bossuet's work on the Variations in the Protestant Churches. From Leyden he went to England, where he became acquainted with Tillotson, Burnet, and Wake, and is said to have done much towards correcting the erroneous