It has been designed and annotated with the needs of a wide readership in mind. The present translation is newly made from the French of 1541. The author of the Institutes invites us both to know and to live the truth, and thus allow God’s Spirit to transform us. Not doctrine only but its practical use is Calvin’s abiding concern. Avoiding the technical details and much of the polemics of the final work, the Institutes of 1541 offer a clear and comprehensive account of the work of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in creation, revelation and redemption, in the life of the individual Christian and in the worship and witness of the church.
The book accompanied the Reformer throughout his life, growing in size from what was essentially an expanded catechism in 1536 to a full-scale work of biblical theology in 1559/1560.Īmong the intermediate editions of the Institutes, none deserves to be better known than the first French edition of 1541. The Institutes of the Christian Religion is Calvin’s single most important work, and one of the key texts to emerge from the Reformation of the sixteenth century. ‘Any who wish to encounter Calvin’s systematic theology at its most pastoral, freest from controversial preoccupations, and mediated through superlative translation, should devour this rendering of the Reformer’s own French version of the second edition of his Institutes.’ - J.
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