Samuel Werenfels was a Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 theologian. Werenfels was born at Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 and died there.

After finishing his theological and philosophical studies at Basel, he visited the universities at Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

, Bern, Lausanne

Lausanne

Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...

, and Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. On his return he held, for a short time, the professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

ship of logic

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

, and in 1685 became professor of Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 at Basel. The next year he undertook an extensive journey through Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, and the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, one of his companions being Gilbert Burnet

Gilbert Burnet

Gilbert Burnet was a Scottish theologian and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was respected as a cleric, a preacher, and an academic, as well as a writer and historian...

. In 1687 he was appointed professor of rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

, and in 1696 became a member of the theological faculty, occupying successively, according to the Basel custom, the chairs of dogmatics and polemics, Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

, and New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. He was thus in a manner compelled to manifest a many-sided activity.

In his De logomachiis eruditorum (Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, 1688) Werenfels shows how often controversies that divide even Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

s are at bottom mere verbal disputes arising from moral

Moral

A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...

 deficiencies, especially from pride. He proposed to do away with such disputes by making a universal lexicon of all terms and concepts. In the Oratio de vero et falso theologorum zelo he admonishes those who fight professedly for purity of doctrine but in reality for their own system to show their zeal where the fruits of faith are wanting and Christian love has grown cold. He considers it the duty of the polemic

Polemic

A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...

ist not to combat antiquated heresies and to warm up dead issues, but to overthrow the prevalent enemies of true Christian living. His epigram on the misuse of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 is well known: " This is the book in which each both seeks and finds his own dogmas."

He had a high conception of his duties as a theological professor, as shown in his address, De scopo doctoris in academia sacras litteras docentis. He believed that it was more important to care for the piety of candidates for the ministry than for their scholarship. It was his belief that a professor of practical theology is as necessary as a professor of practical medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

. He represented a theology that put doctrinal quibbles in the background and laid emphasis upon the pure doctrine which demands a Christian life of purity and love. He stood for the necessity of a special revelation of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

, and defended the Biblical miracles as confirmations of the words of the divine evangelists. In his Cogitationes generales de ratione uniendi ecclesias protestantes, quae vulgo Lutheranarum et Reformatorum nominibus distingui solent, he sought away of reconciling the two branches of the Protestant Church.

Werenfels's writings went through many editions, as did the sermons he preached in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, which were received with great applause, and were translated into German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Dutch

Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

. During the last twenty years of his life he lived in retirement in order to devote his whole time to the care of his soul's welfare, though his solicitude for students did not cease.

It is all the more surprising, on this account, that he thought proper to issue from his retirement and take part in the proceedings against Johann Jakob Wettstein

Johann Jakob Wettstein

Johann Jakob Wettstein was a Swiss theologian, best known as a New Testament critic.-Youth and study:...

for heresy, especially as he had himself in 1720 expressed the opinion that fallible man ought not to decide upon the regularity of another's faith. He expressed regret afterward at having become involved in the affair.

His Sylloge dissertationum theologicarum appeared first Basel, 1609; a further collection of his works is Opuscula theologica, philologica, et philosophica (Basel, 1718, new ed., 3 vols., 1782).