William Twisse

William Twisse (1578 near Newbury, England – 20 July 1646) was a prominent English clergyman and theologian. He was named Prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly in an Ordinance dated 12 June 1643, putting him at the head of the churchmen of the Commonwealth. He was described by a Scottish member, Robert Baillie, as "very good, beloved of all, and highlie esteemed; but merelie bookish".

Twisse's parents were German. He was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford.

He was appointed chaplain to Elizabeth of Bohemia, by her father James I of England, in 1612. This position was short-lived, and he returned to England from Heidelberg around 1613.

He was then given a living at Newton Longueville. He was involved with Henry Savile in the 1618 edition of the works of Thomas Bradwardine. He was vicar of Newbury from 1620. There he was known as an opponent of William Laud.

He died on 20 July 1646 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, but exhumed in 1661.

Twisse was a strong defender of a Calvinist, supralapsarian position. In his Vindiciae gratiae of 1632 he attacked Jacobus Arminius, and in Dissertatio de scientia media of 1639 adopted certain Dominican arguments, on justification. His views were in a minority at the Westminster Assembly.

A premillennialist, he wrote a preface to the 1643 English translation, Key of the Revelation, of Joseph Mede's influential Clavis Apocalyptica. Mede was a friend and correspondent.

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