Introduction
Introduction The Reformed faith, commonly known as Calvinism, had established itself in the cities of Switzerland, and in England, Scotland, the Dutch Republic, and parts of Germany, with a significant Reformed minority in France. In our period it was, theologically and spiritually, a vast, complex, developing entity. The original vision expressed by the first generation of pioneers—
Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, John Calvin, and others—was in many ways only the foundation on which the succeeding generations built the temple of "Reformed Orthodoxy"
(see below). But Reformed Orthodoxy was far from monolithic, as we shall discover. It had its internal frictions and controversies, its different voices, its own rich history. To freeze-frame one scene from that history (say, the Westminster Assembly of Britain's Reformed theologians), and treat this as the be-all and end-all of the Reformed story, would be to impoverish our understanding almost immeasurably.
This Chapter will seek to introduce readers to the post-Calvin Reformed world in all its varieties, but with two massive qualifications: Reformed theology in England and Scotland receive separate treatments in Chapters
3–5. The only British1 theologian given a substantial place in the current Chapter is William Ames, because of his rather special role in the unfolding drama of Continental European Reformed theology.