The Essential Calvinism

nstead there is a breadth of thought, a fulness of treatment, a judicial dealing with every case which takes into account the reasoning powers of the reader, with the purpose of helping him think instead of furnishing the thought formulated and ready to be fitted into the mind. It would be difficult to find a single subject, even an insignificant one, in the two large volumes, which the author does not submit to reason, and for which he does not make an appeal to authorities in the Scriptures and among the Church Fathers. Then, too, for all its antiquity, the Institutes is a very readable work. The style is lucid, the language pure, the use of words certain, the progress of thought is ever toward a definite end, and there is a wonderful freedom from circumlocution and meaningless phrases. It is quite free also from technical terms, and capable of being easily understood and appreciated by a mind of ordinary training and education. Indeed, one comes certainly to a conclusion that is utterly at variance with the tradition of a dogmatic Calvin, ?that the book was written, not to be a final statement of theology, but simply to serve as an introduction to the study of the Scriptures and as an aid to the interpretation of them. That this conclusion is not amiss is confirmed by the words of Calvin himself in the preface to the edition of 1559: "My design in this work has been to prepare and qualify students of theology for the reading of the divine Word, that they may... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.