Did Calvin Ever Leave Rome?

By Nathan Cook: Allow me begin by expressing my gratitude to those who took the time to read my humbly submitted article. Also, I appreciate Colin Maxwell’s blatant honesty and courage as I am sure there were other disputers with far less backbone than he.

Now let me begin by qualifying the critic.  Mark 4:10 states, “And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. 11 And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: 12 That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”  It is obvious some people just aren’t supposed to understand parables.  Namely, the unsaved Jews, as is made clear from the scripture.  I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the unsaved fail in their understanding of the parables of Jesus.  So it is, I ask you, the unknown critic, please give the testimony of your faith. Don’t think it odd to be called to record an account of your salvation in light of 1Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”  

  Next allow me to further qualify my critic by ensuring that said critic is not only saved, but also a follower of Christ.  Matthew 4:19 says, “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” As well in Mark 1:17 he states, “And Jesus said unto them, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.”  I ask a simple question, “How many people have you personally (not in Church Service or Sunday School) led to Christ in the last week?”  Don’t think it a harsh or foolish question since Solomon simply states in Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.” Whether you believe men to be predestined or not does not excuse you from the responsibility of being a soul-winner, as is clearly outlined by numerous passages of Scripture.  It would make me a fool to argue with a fool would it not?
Colin Maxwell made the following statement in his comment on my article The Parable That Crushes The Tulip: 

  “The “bade many” is the moment of departure for dear Calvin for he must see the “bade many” as irresistibly called, as every call of God is irresistible according to Calvin and thus the confusion begins.”  Unfortunately you fail to produce any verifiable references to back up your claim. It would appear that you didn’t even look up Calvin’s comments on the said parable: http://is.gd/EE0TJ5  

  My Response is as follows:

  Calvin mistakenly attempts to parallel Matthew 22:1-14 with Luke 14:15-24 two entirely different parables.  He fails horribly in drawing any parallels he only states, with no hermeneutic evidence that Matthew 22 is a more in depth look at Luke 14. This is wholly in adequate hermeneutics.  It may pass muster at the Catholic Church down the street, but not among Bible Believing Baptists.   Therefore, your point would be well taken except that you are speaking of Calvin’s comments on Matthew 22:1-14 a very different parable from Luke 14:15-24, in fact, the only verse he attempts to parallel is Luke 14 verse 23.  It would seem Calvin is the one in need of a lesson in Bible hermeneutics. Furthermore; if you claim yourself a Baptist(I know not whether you do) He mocks your Baptist forefathers with the statement,  “At the same time, I do not disapprove of the use which Augustine frequently made of this passage against the Donatists, to prove that godly princes may lawfully issue edicts, for compelling obstinate and rebellious persons to worship the true God, and to maintain the unity of the faith; for, though faith is voluntary, yet we see that such methods are useful for subduing the obstinacy of those who will not yield until they are compelled.-John Calvin  Choosing to side with a Roman Catholic monk rather than the Donatists (our Baptist forerunners).  He calls them “obstinate and rebellious persons.”  Why?  Because they would not kiss the Pope’s ring or Calvin’s big toe!  He says to “compel “such “persons to worship the true God.”  Whose true God?  The Catholic Churches?   Mary?  The Pope?  Calvin was a FOOL! Plain and simple.  In fact, what he sided with Augustine over in this comment is forcing our forefathers to worship the IDOLS of the Catholic Church, including the POPE, or be burned at the stake, and you want to follow his Theology?  Then it is to your own doom, and the doom of any Baptist foolish enough to run headlong after a hermeneutical indigent like Calvin.  Calvin was and still is little more than a displaced Catholic monk.  Truth is you are trying to explain away Calvin’s doctrine in light of Calvin’s comments.  Which to the student of his writings are two matters diametrically opposed. Calvin is a master of double talk.  Anybody who states otherwise is disingenuous, at best.  
  
Colin Maxwell goes on to state:

  In that very same parable that supposedly “crushes the TULIP” John Calvin spoke of God’s call being resistible. Calvin’s comments on the parable in Luke include this (among others):
“That people arrived at the highest pitch of their crimes, when their haughty rejection of his grace was followed by the madness of cruelty. And yet he does not charge all of them equally with crime; for even at the latest call, which was given by the Gospel, the grace of God was in part ridiculed by careless despisers, and in part was furiously rejected by hypocrites. And thus it usually happens, that ungodly men break out into fiercer rage against God, in proportion to the earnestness with which he invites them to salvation.”
Yes “the confusion reigns” but not in Calvin’s position, but in your factually misleading article.

   Again Colin Maxwell quotes Calvin’s Commentary (comments) but his comments are in reference to Matthew 22:4 and have no bearing on Luke Chapter 14.  Calvin was wholly in- adequate to espouse theology to a Donatist child much less to a Baptist pastor. Nevertheless Calvin’s doctrine (no such doctrine found in the Bible) of the Effectual Call trumps his individual commentary statements.  

Let’s examine the evidence.
  First, there is only one place in all of scripture from which to draw our doctrine of predestination. Since the doctrine is only espoused once.  It is located in Romans 8:29 “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”   Let us examine the order:

1. Foreknowledge is stated to precede predestination.
   1. This is paramount because this means God’s knowledge guides His predestination.
   2. Calvin’s claims, “Not prescience, but the good pleasure of God the cause of predestination.”-John Calvin Chapter 21 Institutes of the Christian Religion.  This is a complete lie according to Scripture make your choice Baptist Pastor, laymen, or student. Calvin or the Bible?
2. Predestination is stated to precede conformity
   1. This is of great importance because it reveals the reason for the predestination.
   2. Predestination is not for salvation, but rather for conformity to the image of Christ.
   3. Calvin states, “l. The doctrine of Election and Predestination. It is useful, necessary, and most sweet. Ignorance of it impairs the glory of God, plucks up humility by the roots, begets and fosters pride. The doctrine establishes the certainty of salvation, peace of conscience, and the true origin of the Church. Answer to two classes of men: 1. The curious.” .”-John Calvin Chapter 21 Institutes of the Christian Religion.  Calvin or the Bible?
3. Predestination also precedes calling
   1. Since I am already conformed to the image of Christ this calling cannot be the salvation call. Hence, this must be the call of God to service.
   2. 2Timothy 1:9 “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”  Notice how scripture backs up scripture. The calling comes after salvation both times not before.  You can’t be called till you have been saved.
   3. Calvin or the Bible?
4. Call precedes justification
   1. This justification cannot be the justification needed for salvation, but rather the justification that comes with a life wholly dedicated to serving God.
   2. Ro 4:23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.
   3. Looks like salvation is to anyone who believes and justification follows.
   4. Calvin or the Bible?
5. Justification precedes glorification
   1. This glorification is most certainly not a reference to redemption; however, it is a reference to the day I get to cast my many crowns at the feet of my dear Saviour in Heaven.
   2. God receives glory by justifying poor lost sinners like me.
   3. What glory is there is preselecting who you will save? None, the glory is in being freely chosen by your wayward creation.
   4. Calvin or the Bible?

Shall we examine what a baby baptizing, Baptist drowning, just a few years out of Rome, Augustine worshiping Monk has to say about the effectual call.

Predestination to life is the eternal purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he has consistently decreed by his counsel which is hidden from us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he has chosen in Christ out of mankind and to bring them through Christ to eternal salvation as vessels made for honor.-John Calvin

Bible where is the Bible?  There is not one verse in support of this opinion.  
2Timothy 1:9 “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,”  Our salvation was not given us before the world began, our calling in Christ was given us before the world began vast difference.
Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” This of course is the isolated text, if we take it as the Jehovah Witness’ does, there numerous proof texts, and we isolate from all other scripture it would seem to exonerate Calvin. However, when viewed under the light of Romans 8 we see that Calvin has twisted this passage into a mangled mess that leaves Charles Taz Russell looking like a hermeneutical puritan.

We shall never feel persuaded as we ought that our salvation flows from the free mercy of God as its fountain, until we are made acquainted with his eternal election, the grace of God being illustrated by the contrast-viz. that he does not adopt all promiscuously to the hope of salvation, but gives to some what he denies to others.-John Calvin

Not only is this statement at complete odds with Scripture. Calvin makes God a man by making Him unequal. Ezekiel 18:29 “Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? are not your ways unequal?”  Giving to one what you refuse to another based solely on whim is unequal in it’s very definition.
[B]efore I enter on the subject, I have some remarks to address to two classes of men. The subject of predestination, which in itself is attended with considerable difficulty is rendered very perplexed and hence perilous by human curiosity, which cannot be restrained from wandering into forbidden paths and climbing to the clouds determined if it can that none of the secret things of God shall remain unexplored. When we see many, some of them in other respects not bad men, every where rushing into this audacity and wickedness, it is necessary to remind them of the course of duty in this matter. First, then, when they inquire into predestination, let then remember that they are penetrating into the recesses of the divine wisdom, where he who rushes forward securely and confidently, instead of satisfying his curiosity will enter in inextricable labyrinth.-John Calvin

Translation, “Allow me, John Calvin, to explain the deeper things of predestination to you.  They are far too dark and mysterious for weak minds such as yours to understand.” This diatribe smacks of mother Rome in all her pomp and popery.  No shock since you can find Calvin referring in every other paragraph to Augustine.

Let it, therefore, be our first principle that to desire any other knowledge of predestination than that which is expounded by the word of God, is no less infatuated than to walk where there is no path, or to seek light in darkness. Let us not be ashamed to be ignorant in a matter in which ignorance is learning. Rather let us willingly abstain from the search after knowledge, to which it is both foolish as well as perilous, and even fatal to aspire.-John Calvin

John Calvin begins with a bad premise and just gets worse.  He begins with there is predestination that is a fact and all scripture must adhere to that fact. This premise is faulty. Had he begun with, “Let us search out this matter.” He could have found the Biblical truth.  John Calvin would have been well advised to have taken his own advice in this matter.
[I]n order to keep the legitimate course in this matter, we must return to the word of God, in which we are furnished with the right rule of understanding. For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which as nothing useful and necessary to be known has been omitted, so nothing is taught but what it is of importance to know.-John Calvin

Yes, so why do you not adhere to what scripture plainly teaches concerning the matter of predestination (the effectual call)?

I admit that profane men lay hold of the subject of predestination to carp, or cavil, or snarl, or scoff. But if their petulance frightens us, it will be necessary to conceal all the principal articles of faith, because they and their fellows leave scarcely one of them unassailed with blasphemy.–John Calvin

I wonder if John could have been talking about my Independent Fundamental Baptist brethren of the day otherwise known as the Donatists.

The predestination by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no man who would be thought pious ventures simply to deny; but it is greatly caviled at, especially by those who make prescience its cause. We, indeed, ascribe both prescience and predestination to God; but we say, that it is absurd to make the latter subordinate to the former.-John Calvin

Here is Calvin’s true problem he does not take scripture as written. He errantly places predestination before knowledge while God clearly places knowledge before predestination. You will have to forgive me if I choose the BIBLE.  Calvin is nothing more than a Saved Catholic monk.  Here is a question, “Why didn’t Calvin leave the Roman Church?”  “Why did he have to be kicked out?”  “Could it be he never really got over his affinity for momma Rome?”
When we attribute prescience to God, we mean that all things always were, and ever continue, under his eye; that to his knowledge there is no past or future, but all things are present, and indeed so present, that it is not merely the idea of them that is before him (as those objects are which we retain in our memory), but that he truly sees and contemplates them as actually under his immediate inspection. This prescience extends to the whole circuit of the world, and to all creatures. By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.-John Calvin

Once again like all good Catholic theologians Calvin reveals his ignorance of scripture and love of self-proclaimed doctrine.  He ignores the fact that God states the purpose of predestination and he goes on to establish his own doctrine and purpose for it.

We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment. In regard to the elect, we regard calling as the evidence of election, and justification as another symbol of its manifestation, until it is fully accomplished by the attainment of glory.-John Calvin

This incomprehensible judgment is neither just, nor blameless if the object of destruction (man) was decided for him rather than man making the decision himself. Launching into a discussion of whether man would or would not have chosen is futile if man is never given an opportunity, which is John Calvin’s clear doctrinal stance.  Statements to the contrary are both disingenuous and untrue.

I will here omit many of the fictions which foolish men have devised to overthrow predestination. There is no need of refuting objections which the moment they are produced abundantly betray their hollowness.-John Calvin

Sounds like avoiding the questions of my faithful, Baptist brethren, also known as the Donatists to me.

When Paul declares that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, he certainly shows that no regard is had to our own worth; for it is just as if he had said, Since in the whole seed of Adam our heavenly Father found nothing worthy of his election, he turned his eye upon his own Anointed, that he might select as members of his body those whom he was to assume into the fellowship of life.-John Calvin

John Calvin makes a mistake of context when considering the statement above.  Paul is speaking to saved people, of course they were chosen, by foreknowledge, before the foundations of the world.  Context is everything as any Bible student knows.  However, a Catholic monk never lets context trump predetermined doctrine.  The church is right, and if the Bible disagrees, then the Bible is wrong, and the Church is right.  Therefore, John Calvin’s Doctrine is right because he says so, and if the Bible reveals faults, then the Bible is wrong, and John Calvin is right.  Any bible student who has done a cursory study of Catholic hermeneutics understands this to be so and can see that John Calvin’s work is rife with Catholic hermeneutics rather than Donatist purity.

The question considered is the origin and cause of election. The advocates of foreknowledge insist that it is to be found in the virtues and vices of men. For they take the short and easy method of asserting, that God showed in the person of Jacob, that he elects those who are worthy of his grace; and in the person of Esau, that he rejects those whom he foresees to be unworthy. Such is their confident assertion; but what does Paul say? “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, [Rebecca,] The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” If foreknowledge had anything to do with this distinction of the brothers, the mention of time would have been out of place. Granting that Jacob was elected for a worth to be obtained by future virtues, to what end did Paul say that he was not yet born?-John Calvin

Calvin reveals either his ignorance or his own double speak here.  Just moment ago if you have been reading, Calvin stated God sees all time before Him as present, no past, no future. Therefore, God would have seen Esau as bad from the start (present) to the end (present). Calvinists always want it both ways.  So which is it Johnny Boy does God see all time as present or does God have foreknowledge make up your mind cultist.  Fight on, Baptist brethren, fight on.

Why should men attempt to darken these statements by assigning some place in election to past or future works? This is altogether to evade what the Apostle contends for-viz. that the distinction between the brothers is not founded on any ground of works, but on the mere calling of God, inasmuch as it was fixed before the children were born.-John Calvin

Calvin returns to making unfounded statements. Shocker like all double speakers they cannot give context, for context requires foundation.

Now, let the supreme Judge and Master decide on the whole case. Seeing such obduracy in his hearers, that his words fell upon the multitude almost without fruit, he to remove this stumbling-block exclaims, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.” “And this is the Father’s will which has sent me, that of all which he has given me I should lose nothing.”-John Calvin

Careful crossing dispensations, Mr. Calvin.  Jesus has not yet shed His blood and those to whom he refers are his disciples at present.  Your attempt to widen the range is to do so in principle only and not in reality.  I don’t expect a Catholic monk to understand dispensations since Catholic priest still don’t.

Observe that the donation of the Father is the first step in our delivery into the charge and protection of Christ. Some one, perhaps, will here turn round and object, that those only peculiarly belong to the Father who make a voluntary surrender by faith. But the only thing which Christ maintains is that though the defections of vast multitudes should shake the world, yet the counsel of God would stand firm, more stable than heaven itself, that his election would never fail.-John Calvin

John Calvin makes a comical statement here of “voluntary surrender by faith.”  Election does away with volunteerism by its very nature. Any statement to the contrary is a bald-faced lie and we all know who the father of all lies is……

[P]aul says, that the Father “has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,” that these riches are not common to all, because God has chosen only whom he would. And the reason why in another passage he commends the faith of the elect is, to prevent any one from supposing that he acquires faith of his own nature; since to God alone belongs the glory of freely illuminating those whom he had previously chosen.- John Calvin

John Calvin here fails to recall that God’s choosing is based upon God’s foreknowledge not God’s foreknowledge upon God’s choosing.  His repeated return to catholic hermeneutics is his theological undoing.

We come now to the reprobate, to whom the Apostle at the same time refers. For as Jacob, who as yet had merited nothing by good works, is assumed into favor; so Esau, while as yet unpolluted by any crime, is hated. If we turn our view to works, we do injustice to the Apostle, as if he had failed to see the very thing which is clear to us. Moreover, there is complete proof of his not having seen it, since he expressly insists that when as yet they had done neither good nor evil, the one was elected, the other rejected, in order to prove that the foundation of divine predestination is not in works.-John Calvin

Forgive me if the charade is getting old at this point. Dear, little, Johnny argues a mute point. No, Baptist argues salvation by works we argue salvation by grace through faith in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It is no fault of ours that we do not adhere to little Johnny’s false doctrine of salvation by predestination, rather than the biblical (Ephesians 2:8, 9) salvation by grace.

The human mind, when it hears this doctrine, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated. This they do ignorantly and childishly since there could be no election without its opposite reprobation.-John Calvin

Soundly stated, Dear John, for we reject both of your false claims on biblical basis. We do not expect you to understand because it would require you to replace the writings of Augustine with a common man’s Bible.  Which was readily available to him but you seldom seem to use it. Go ahead read his Institutes and watch the shocking lack of scripture.  In John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (should be Catholic Religion) Book 1- The Knowledge of God the Creator.  The book is 18 sections 186 chapters with only 459 verses total used.  That means there are only 2.5 verses per chapter of proof text.  Someone has an inflated ego and believes they know more about who God is than does God.

Foolish men raise many grounds of quarrel with God, as if they held him subject to their accusations. First, they ask why God is offended with his creatures who have not provoked him by any previous offense; for to devote to destruction whomsoever he pleases, more resembles the caprice of a tyrant than the legal sentence of a judge; and, therefore, there is reason to expostulate with God, if at his mere pleasure men are, without any desert of their own, predestinated to eternal death. If at any time thoughts of this kind come into the minds of the pious, they will be sufficiently armed to repress them, by considering how sinful it is to insist on knowing the causes of the divine will, since it is itself, and justly ought to be, the cause of all that exists-John Calvin

Here, John Calvin swiftly dismisses question, not by answering, but rather by stating that questioning God is evil in its very nature.  He would be well advised to put down his pen and pick up his Bible for it is rife with questions of men and answers of a loving God.

Let human temerity then be quiet, and cease to inquire after what exists not, lest perhaps it fails to find what does exist. This, I say, will be sufficient to restrain any one who would reverently contemplate the secret things of God. Against the audacity of the wicked, who hesitate not openly to blaspheme, God will sufficiently defend himself by his own righteousness, without our assistance, when depriving their consciences of all means of evasion, he shall hold them under conviction, and make them feel their guilt.-John Calvin

This is little more than double talk. It is meant only to confuse those who are seeking an answer from a man (John Calvin) who could supply them none.  John Calvin could not answer the Bible believers of his day nor can his adherent answer the Bible believers of ours.
I say with Augustine, that the Lord has created those who, as he certainly foreknow, were to go to destruction, and he did so because he so willed. Why he willed it is not ours to ask, as we cannot comprehend, nor can it become us even to raise a controversy as to the justice of the divine will.-John Calvin

Here is the true stripe of the man. He was in agreement with a Catholic Monk on the matter of the mode of salvation.  This should be enough to close every book Calvin ever wrote and cast it into a burning furnace. Any man who is in agreement with a Mary worshipping, idol petitioning, Pope’s big toe kissing so called scholar is a reprobate and a heretic.

Another argument which they employ to overthrow predestination is that if it stand, all care and study of well doing must cease. For what man can hear (say they) that life and death are fixed by an eternal and immutable decree of God, without immediately concluding that it is of no consequence how he acts, since no work of his can either hinder or further the predestination of God? Thus all will rush on, and like desperate men plunge headlong wherever lust inclines.-John Calvin

It seems that Calvin had much rather discuss the surface issues than the scriptural discrepancies with his false doctrine. Also, those who say such things would we logically and biblically correct. Johnny your imbecilic attempt to simply lead your willing masses away with the swoosh of your red herring pen does not dissuade the studied Bible student from calling, “Heresy, Heresy!”  Romans 11:11 “I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. 12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?”

But Scripture, while it enjoins us to think of this high mystery with much greater reverence and religion, gives very different instruction to the pious, and justly condemns the accursed license of the ungodly. For it does not remind us of predestination to increase our audacity, and tempt us to pry with impious presumption into the inscrutable counsels of God, but rather to humble and abase us, that we may tremble at his judgment, and learn to look up to his mercy. This is the mark at which believers will aim.-John Calvin

What, Johnny boy, fails to say here is if a man is predestined and nothing in the man draws the man. How does the man know he is saved? Elected? Predestined?  What if he only thinks he is with his unelected mind, but he really isn’t? He can’t question because questioning is evil (see previous).  Johnny is not only confused himself but confusing his followers. Well hath Jeremiah said in 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  If a man cannot trust the statements of Romans 10:9-13 for salvation then there is no salvation because the heart of man is a deceiver and will deceive you into thinking you are elect even though you arent’ Johnny boy!!!!!!!!
If the end of election is holiness of life, it ought to arouse and stimulate us strenuously to aspire to it, instead of serving as a pretext for sloth. How wide the difference between the two things, between ceasing from well-doing because election is sufficient for salvation, and its being the very end of election, that we should devote ourselves to the study of good works. Have done, then, with blasphemies which wickedly invert the whole order of election.-John Calvin

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny, if election is election then you cannot invert the order. Also, accepting your predetermined interpretation then what is, is and cannot be changed.  Johnny doesn’t even have confidence in his own false doctrine here.
 
Before we have quit of the subject, observe these quotes and let’s play Augustine or Calvin?

Therefore I ought flint to show that the faith by which we are Christians is the gift of God if I can do that more thoroughly than I have already done in so many and so large volumes… and so we first give the beginning of our faith to God, that His supplement may also be given to us again, and whatever else we faithfully ask.

           -Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 3

One who would do this very thing it was said by the prophet, “Thou wilt turn and quicken us;” so that not only from one who refused to believe he was made a willing believer, but, moreover, from being a persecutor, he suffered persecution in defence of that faith which he persecuted. Because it was given him by Christ “not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.”

            -Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 4

Man, therefore, unwilling to resist such clear testimonies as these, and yet desiring himself to have the merit of believing, compounds as it were with God to claim a portion of faith for himself, and to leave a portion for Him; and, what is still more arrogant, he takes the first portion for himself and gives the subsequent to Him; and so in that which he says belongs to both, he makes himself the first, and God the second!

            -Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints 6

The truth is Calvin and Augustine are interchangeable on the subject.  It is no mystery when you consider that Jesus says in Matthew 10:24, “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.”  

You improperly assumed I was unstudied.  However, it is you who failed to read your own proof text.  I am well aware of Calvin’s comments, I am also aware of Calvin’s chronic misinterpretation of predestination. This is my topic rather than his isolated, topical, double speak comments.  Let us thoroughly examine with some aptitude Calvin’s comment as given by you.
That people arrived at the highest pitch of their crimes, when their haughty rejection of his grace was followed by the madness of cruelty. And yet he does not charge all of them equally with crime; for even at the latest call, which was given by the Gospel, the grace of God was in part ridiculed by careless despisers, and in part was furiously rejected by hypocrites. And thus it usually happens, that ungodly men break out into fiercer rage against God, in proportion to the earnestness with which he invites them to salvation.-John Calvin

Where does Calvin draw the conclusion that they were not all charged equally? The scripture speaks nothing to this charge.  In fact, as we trail deeper into the passage we find these truths to be self evident:

1. The feast was prepared for the owner plus three households.
   1. The addition of more is not supported by the text
   2. This would be Calvin’s effectual call.
2. The rejection immediately expanded the call to four house holds
   1. Somehow the effectual call, that is irresistible, was resisted by the ones for whom it was prepared.
   2. The irresistible call was then miraculously broadened to the  
      1. Poor
      2. Maimed
      3. Halt
      4. Blind
3. The call to that was once to only three families was now not sufficient to be filled by four.
4. The call was miraculously increased to the
   1. Highways
   2. Hedges

Confusion? Yes, Calvin was a confused man. He was never able to lay by his catholic roots as is evident from his frequent mentions of Augustine.  I stand by what I have written to the letter and call Calvin’s Doctrine of the Effectual Call just what it is HERESY!!!!! It was HERESY then, it is HERESY now!!!!!!!!!! Any Baptist who calls himself a Calvinist is claiming to be a Catholic at heart.  Flee back to the safety of Scripture, my dear Baptist brethren, and leave Calvin’s writings to rot as should rotten fruit born of a bad vine(Rome)!  Allow me to close by saying once again that I covet your time in reading my article.  An Author without a Reader  is like a book without words. Thank you once again.

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Pastor Nathan Cook

Nathan Cook is the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Riverside, CA. He grew up on the mission field in Canada. Nathon made a profession of faith as a child, but actually accepted Christ at the age of 18 while already working in full-time Christian service which is when he realized his need of the Saviour.  Pastor Cook has helped to restore three churches under the direction of his late Pastor Emeritus, James Johnston.  When Pastor Johnston accepted the call to Faith Baptist Church In Riverside the church was not far from closing the doors, but under his leadership and God’s divine hand it has returned to a thriving, fellowship of loving Christians averaging 250 per Sunday.  [/box]

Article submitted to Independentbaptist.com