Samuel Werenfels (; 1 March 1657 – 1 June 1740) was a Swiss theologian. He was a major figure in the move towards a "reasonable orthodoxy" in Swiss Reformed theology. Life Werenfels was born at Basel in the Old Swiss Confederacy, the son of archdeacon Peter Werenfels and Margaretha Grynaeus. After finishing his theological and philosophical studies at Basel, he visited the universities at Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, and Geneva. On his return he took on the duties, for a short time, of the professorship of logic, for Samuel Burckhardt. In 1685 he became professor of Greek at Basel. In 1686 Werenfels undertook an extensive journey through Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, one of his companions being Gilbert Burnet. In 1687 he was appointed professor of rhetoric, 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, and New Testament. Werenfels received a call from the University of Franeker, but rejected it. In 1722 he led a successful move to have the Helvetic Consensus set aside in Basel, as divisive. He was member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel of London. During the last twenty years of his life he lived in retirement. He took part in the proceedings against Johann Jakob Wettstein for heresy, but expressed regret afterwards at having become involved. He died in Basel. Views of the "triumvirate" Werenfels represented a theology that put doctrinal quibbles in the background. His epigram on the misuse of the Bible is well known as: "This is the book in which each both seeks and finds his own dogmas." In the Latin original it is Hic liber est in quo sua quærit dogmata quisque, Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua.s:Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/99 He advocated instead the historical-grammatical method. With Jean-Alphonse Turrettini and Jean-Frédéric Osterwald, Werenfels made up what has been called a "Helvetic triumvirate", or "Swiss triumvirate", of moderate but orthodox Swiss Calvinist theologians. Their approach began to converge with the Dutch Remonstrants, and the English latitudinarians. Their views promoted simple practical beliefs, rationality and tolerance. They were later charged with being a "Remonstrant trio", and Jan Jacob Schultens defended them. The three in fact admired the "reasonable orthodoxy" of the Church of England, and Turrettini in particular opposed with success the Helvetic Consensus; but Werenfels