Between the Old and the New World

William Ames (1576–1633), a Puritan exile in the Dutch Republic, has long been treated as a marginal figure within Reformed Orthodoxy, and his significance consistently underestimated. This volume challenges that assessment. Bringing together leading international scholars, it reveals a thinker far more sophisticated and influential than previously assumed, whose early theological vision is already discernible in a little-known catechism and whose thought is deeply rooted in medieval scholastic and Ramist philosophical traditions. His contested voluntarism, long the primary reason for his marginalization, is here actively debated among the contributors themselves. The reception section traces his remarkable influence from Hungary and Transylvania to the curricula of Harvard and Yale in the New World.