Dr. Beeke has done it again!
I was first introduced to the great name Voetius through a primer written by Louis I. Hodges called Reformed Theology Today. In the primer Dr. Hodges mentioned Gisbertus Voetius as having possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of theology. For someone like me such a statement always raises eyebrows, because in my opinion only the names of Owen and Warfield deserve such delineation. The more I read in the history of Calvinistic Theology the more frequent did this name appear, until finally as I was reading Theologoumena Pantodapa John Owen mentioned Voetius as "a scholar of uncommon holiness and passion for the truth". This is an unusual compliment to give one known by his contemporary antagonist as a "dry as dust scholastic." The truth is Voetius was a pastor throughout most of his theological professorship, and commonly preached eight times a week!
As usual Dr. Beeke whets our appetite with this primer of the life and work Gisbertus Voetius. This little book creates a desire to see the works of Voetius translated into English for the benefit of those of us who cannot read the original Latin or Dutch. This work shows Gisbertus Voetius to have traveled over the entire field of theological encyclopedia. Many church histories give the impression that the age of Reformed scholasticism was an age dominated by the cold logic of the Schoolman, the philosophical distinctions of Aristotle, and the passionate polemics of professors without pastorates. But the truth is there was a revival of truth and piety led by men like Voetius. Dr. Beeke shows that a primary concern for men like Voetius was to guard the flock against wolves in sheep’s clothing. Training in scholasticism gave Voetius the ability to distinguish between the sound of a word and its sense, and to put a difference between the call of the shepherd and the cry of the wolf. This book reveals a man whose heart burned with a living piety fueled by the truth of Reformed theology clearly expressed, passionately believe, and lived out in the very presence of Him “whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is in no place.” I highly recommend this book written by a great theologian about a great theologian. Get Gisbertus Voetius: Toward a Reformed Marriage of Knowledge and Piety and read it along side of On the Character of a True Theology and see how the Dutch wedded Biblical scholarship with Theological precision.
