Samuel Werenfels

[11] The three in fact admired the "reasonable orthodoxy" of the Church of England, and Turrettini in particular opposed with success the Helvetic Consensus;[12] but Werenfels made the first effective move against it.

[13] Adriaan Heereboord had argued in Cartesian style, against scholasticism for limitations to be put on disputation, which should be bounded by good faith in the participants.

[14] In his dissertation De logomachiis eruditorum (Amsterdam, 1688)[16] Werenfels argued that controversies that divide Christians are often verbal disputes, arising from moral deficiencies, especially from pride.

[2] In the Oratio de vero et falso theologorum zelo he admonished those who fight professedly for purity of doctrine, but in reality for their own system.

He considers it the duty of the polemicist not to combat antiquated heresies and to warm up dead issues, but to overthrow the prevalent enemies of true Christian living.

[17] His conception of his duties as a theological professor was shown in his address, De scopo doctoris in academia sacras litteras docentis.

In his Cogitationes generales de ratione uniendi ecclesias protestantes, quae vulgo Lutheranarum et Reformatorum nominibus distingui solent, he sought a way of reconciling Lutherans and Calvinists.

The work met the approval of Benjamin Hoadly and Samuel Haliday, while being used by Daniel Gerdes to attack Johannes Stinstra.

[2] From 1710 Werenfels (a native speaker of German) was asked to preach sermons in the French church at Basel; they were in a plain style.

[24] Thomas Herne under a pseudonym translated Latin and French works as Three Discourses (1718), at the time of the Bangorian Controversy.