The investigation of union with Christ and justification has been dominated by the figure of John Calvin. Calvin's influence, however, has been exaggerated in our own day. Theologians within the Early Modern Reformed tradition contributed to the development of these doctrines and did not view Calvin as the normative theologian of the tradition. John V. Fesko, therefore, goes beyond Calvin and explores union with Christ and justification in the Reformation, Early Orthodox, and High Orthodox periods of the Reformed tradition and covers lesser known but equally important figures such as Juan de Valdes, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Girolamo Zanchi, William Perkins, John Owen, Francis Turretin, and Herman Witsius. The study also covers theologians that either lie outside or transgress the Reformed tradition, such as Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Faustus Socinus, Jacob Arminius, and Richard Baxter. By treating this diverse body of figures the study reveals areas of agreement and diversity on these two doctrines. The author demonstrates that among the diverse formulations, all surveyed Reformed theologians accord justification priority over sanctification within the broader rubric of union with Christ. Fesko shows that Reformed theologians affirm both union with Christ and the golden chain of salvation, ideas that moderns find incompatible. In sum, rather than reading an individual theologian isolated from his context, this study provides a contextual reading of union with Christ and justification in the Early Modern Reformed context.

An international community of Reformed churches emerged during the sixteenth century. Although attempts were made by Calvinists to reach agreement over key beliefs, and to establish uniformity in patterns of worship and church government, there were continuing divisions over some ideas and differences between local practices of moral discipline and religious life. However, Reformed intellectuals developed common ideas about rights of resistance against tyrants, communities prayed, fasted and donated money to aid brethren in distress, and many Calvinists across the Continent developed a strong sense of collective identity. Beyond Calvin considers the Reformed churches of Europe in an international and comparative context from around 1540 to 1620. Graeme Murdock: - Discusses how Calvinism operated as an international movement by looking at links between Reformed churches, communities and states - Explains what Reformed churches across the Continent stood for - Focuses on how Calvinists sought to purify the practice of Christian religion, and to renew European politics, society and culture - Examines both the strengths and limits of the international Reformed community

The Reformed (or Calvinist) universities of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe hosted rich, Latin-language conversations on the nature of politics, the powers of kings and magistrates, resistance, revolution, and religious warfare. Nevertheless, it is too often assumed that Reformed political thought did not develop beyond John Calvin’s Institutes of 1559. This book remedies this problem, presenting extracts from major Reformed theologians and intellectuals (including Peter Martyr Vermigli, Guillaume de Buc, David Pareus, Lambert Daneau, and Bartholomäus Keckermann) which demonstrate both continuity and change in Reformed political argument. These men taught in France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Low Countries, and England, between the 1540s and 1660s, but they were read in universities throughout the North Atlantic world into the eighteenth century. Should all political action be subject to God’s direct command? Were humans capable of using their own God-given reason to tell right from wrong? Was it ever just to resist tyrants? Was religious difference enough by itself to justify war? Their political doctrines often aroused the greatest controversy in their own time; this is generally the first time that these extracts from their works have been translated into English. These texts and translations are accompanied by an introduction placing these authors in the context of the great European religious wars, advice on further reading, and a full bibliography.