History of Calvin

Luther had the same issues...

Why? They did not wish for schism in God's church because they knew and believed that God had but one church. Eventually, each (and their followers and copiers as well) came to the place where they realized that there was no reforming the Catholic Church, so they eventually broke off and went their own way. It was not an easy issue, however, and the resultant wars that stemmed from their actions devastated Europe.

 

The following is the testimony of a reviled man... Some might recognize the subject matter while to others this may be new material. I'll share the very famous author in a bit after a few responses.




28. Now when deep reflection had drawn up out of the secret depths of my soul all my misery and had heaped it up before the sight of my heart, there arose a mighty storm, accompanied by a mighty rain of tears. That I might give way fully to my tears and lamentations, I stole away from Alypius, for it seemed to me that solitude was more appropriate for the business of weeping. I went far enough away that I could feel that even his presence was no restraint upon me. This was the way I felt at the time, and he realized it. I suppose I had said something before I started up and he noticed that the sound of my voice was choked with weeping. And so he stayed alone, where we had been sitting together, greatly astonished. I flung myself down under a fig tree--how I know not--and gave free course to my tears. The streams of my eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee. And, not indeed in these words, but to this effect, I cried to thee: “And thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord? Wilt thou be angry forever? Oh, remember not against us our former iniquities.”259259 Cf. Ps. 6:3; 79:8. For I felt that I was still enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries: “How long, how long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not this very hour make an end to my uncleanness?”

29. I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or a girl I know not which--coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over again, “Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it.”260260 This is the famous Tolle, lege; tolle, lege. Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the like. So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon. For I had heard 261261 Doubtless from Ponticianus, in their earlier conversation. how Anthony, accidentally coming into church while the gospel was being read, received the admonition as if what was read had been addressed to him: “Go and sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.”262262 Matt. 19:21. By such an oracle he was forthwith converted to thee.

So I quickly returned to the bench where Alypius was sitting, for there I had put down the apostle’s book when I had left there. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.”263263 Rom. 13:13. I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.264264 Note the parallels here to the conversion of Anthony and the agentesin rebus.

30. Closing the book, then, and putting my finger or something else for a mark I began--now with a tranquil countenance--to tell it all to Alypius. And he in turn disclosed to me what had been going on in himself, of which I knew nothing. He asked to see what I had read. I showed him, and he looked on even further than I had read. I had not known what followed. But indeed it was this, “Him that is weak in the faith, receive.”265265 Rom. 14:1. This he applied to himself, and told me so. By these words of warning he was strengthened, and by exercising his good resolution and purpose--all very much in keeping with his character, in which, in these respects, he was always far different from and better than I--he joined me in full commitment without any restless hesitation.

Then we went in to my mother, and told her what happened, to her great joy. We explained to her how it had occurred--and she leaped for joy triumphant; and she blessed thee, who art “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.”266266 Eph. 3:20. For she saw that thou hadst granted her far more than she had ever asked for in all her pitiful and doleful lamentations. For thou didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any other of this world’s hopes, but set my feet on that rule of faith which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream about me. And so thou didst turn her grief into gladness more plentiful than she had ventured to desire, and dearer and purer than the desire she used to cherish of having grandchildren of my flesh.

1. “O Lord, I am thy servant; I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid. Thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving.”267267 Ps. 116:16, 17. Let my heart and my tongue praise thee, and let all my bones say, “Lord, who is like unto thee?” Let them say so, and answer thou me and say unto my soul, “I am your salvation.”

Who am I, and what is my nature? What evil is there not in me and my deeds; or if not in my deeds, my words; or if not in my words, my will? But thou, O Lord, art good and merciful, and thy right hand didst reach into the depth of my death and didst empty out the abyss of corruption from the bottom of my heart. And this was the result: now I did not will to do what I willed, and began to will to do what thou didst will.

But where was my free will during all those years and from what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single moment, whereby I gave my neck to thy “easy yoke” and my shoulders to thy “light burden,” O Christ Jesus, “my Strength and my Redeemer”? How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetness of trifles! And it was now a joy to put away what I formerly feared to lose. For thou didst cast them away from me, O true and highest Sweetness. Thou didst cast them away, and in their place thou didst enter in thyself--sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to them that are exalted in their own eyes. Now was my soul free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust. And I prattled like a child to thee, O Lord my God--my light, my riches, and my salvation.

 

Hmm,that was easy glfredrick -- that was from Augustine --a Calvinist before Calvin existed.I didn't have to google the obvious.

 

Agreed!

Agreed!

I agree that such easy believism is wrong.

Agreed, except that it was not only anabaptists who "were very sticklish about scriptural authority", and were put to death because of it. William Tyndale, Thomas Cranmer, John Hooper, Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and hundreds, if not thousands, of other "non-anabaptists" have been burned at the stake or martyred in some other way, because they held to the authority of the bible. Latimer's final words as he died in the flames were to his friend Nicholas Ridley: ""Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shall never be put out." These all refused to recant.

I think we are missing each other's points here, James.

You wrote in Post 79:

If Rome is apostasized usurpation, those who came from her have the same authority problem. Usurped authority is no authority at all. If the holy see is the authorized version, then all others have usurped her without authority. She has delegated to no one.
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I replied in Post 81 asking you if you meant that anyone who comes out of an apostate organisation automatically remains apostate. To me, in the context of this thread on the history of Calvin, you were saying that Calvin's authority, and that of Luther and the other Reformers, was worthless, because they had, prior their conversions, been members of an apostate grouping, the RCC.

I didn't think I had disagreed with any of the things you mention in your current message (above): new creature in Christ, the Lord knows those who are His, the dangers and wrongness of the "repeat after me - now you are saved!" nonsense, and joining a church not being the same as being saved. I don't know why you should think I did disagree - maybe I had stated something unclearly, in which case, I apologise.

But I am still left asking the same question: Do you really believe that people in apostate organisations such as the RCC must themselves remain apostate? Do you believe that God cannot or will not work a work of grace in such people's lives? If you do believe that, can you back it up with scripture, because I too am (or try to be) very sticklish about scriptural authority.

Thanks!

 

The Institutes Of The Christian Religion

The following extract is from his Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms.

When it was then published,it was not that copious and labored work which it now is,but only a small treatise containing a summary of the principal truths of the Christian religion;and it was published with no other design than that men might know what was the faith held by those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed by those flagitious and perfidious flatters. That my object was not to acquire fame,appeared from this,that immediately after I left Basel,and particularly from the fact that nobody there knew that I was the author.

 

From : A Pilgrim's Life

Regarding The Institutes:

The Ark (Institutes 1559)

It can be difficult to sail an ark,or a battleship or even a container ship,but Calvin somehow managed it. The final edition of Calvin's Institutes could be compared with any of these types of vessels. The Institutes had drifted onto the market in 1536 as a sailboat,but by 1559 it had grown into a cargo ship,increasing from six to eighty chapters. It had become fully loaded with containers carrying theological freight,which,in Calvin's opinion,ought to be shipped worldwide. It had, however,also turned into a battleship with which Calvin wanted to defend God's glory and human salvation,beating back every enemy's attack on the gospel,and ready to turn and launch attacks on menacing submarines and old fortresses. Of course, the Institutes could also be seen as a sort of Noah's ark,where the great variety of Christian thinkers,pastors,and professors found their places together,where church fathers and scholastics,fellow Reformers and mystics,were given an orderly shelter and thus survived the flood of the ages. Only in such an ark could the truth be kept safe from the waves of heresy and unbelief.

...The book became very big. It was heavy,which is something also said at times of its content,even at times by those who have never read it. Calvin is sometimes supposed to have taught everything that could possibly make him unappealing. Some consider his theology a total disaster on account of that horrible and untenable doctrine of predestination,as well as his pessimistic and fatalistic view of the human condition. In contrast,the fact that the longest chapter of the Institutes is devoted to prayer is quickly forgotten. (p.229)

Furthermore,that this was the work that particularly brought Calvin worldwide success,and for centuries it has spurred on church planting,edification and theological renewal. These facts,however,can hardly be accounted for by the negative image of Calvin. (p.230)

 

From :A Pilgrim's Life

...it was on Christmas Day 1559 that he rerceived the gift of Genevan citizenship. He himself was above all glad that he had not needed to ask for it: he would have felt guilty because people might have been given the impression that he had asked out of selfish ambition. Calvin wanted his only ambition to be God's cause,and in the last years of his life,this was the cause with which he continued to find success. (p.236)

 

David, I sincerely think that the issue for many here on the board is that if there is ANY connection whatsoever with RCC, then ALL is rubbish forever after. That is not only poor scholarship and fundamentalistic at its core, it is also patently false, for one CAN recant and repent no matter one's earlier life, so says the Divine author of our faith. In addition, not every aspect of RC is or has been subject to dismissal. It is not that simple. We ALL stem from catholicism at some level, for there was but one true Church at one point in the history of Christianity and it was "universal" i.e., "catholic" before all the schism and separation.

Again, in many people's minds today, anything with reference or regard to Catholic is automatically reviled and consigned to the devil himself, which is in essence blasphemy against God, who built His church by the acts of His divinely elected apostles.

While we can be against current and some historical RC theology and dogma as it perverts and transcends the Scriptural revelation of God, we cannot be against God's church on the whole simply for carrying the name "Catholic."

 

"that Church of which we are still members—which has never defiled its garments, but which, never having had any alliance with the Church of Rome has never needed to be reformed—that Church under its different names, Paulitians, Novations, Albigenses, Lollards, Wyckliffites, Anabaptists, Baptists—has always suffered." —Charles Spurgeon, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

 

Am I being over-simplistic when I say that although the Reformation may have started as an effort to re-form an apostate denomination along biblical lines, it very quickly became clear that this was not going to happen, and so the reformers came out of the apostate body?

Further on in Spurgeon's sermon, "Fire! Fire! Fire!" he spoke well of the Reformation:

Did the Church of Rome in more modern times burn one of our glorious reformers—John Huss—yet did not Martin Luther come forward as if the ashes of Huss had begotten Luther?
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Of course both Huss and Luther had been Roman Catholics, but that fact did not cause Spurgeon to speak or write of them as if their former allegience detracted in any way from their post-conversion lives. Here is something about the book, The Forgotten Spurgeon:

From the time he started preaching in England in 1853 till his death in
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1892, Spurgeon’s belief in the work of the Reformers and the pre-eminent, monergistic sovereigntyof God never wavered. Here’s a sample of Spurgeon’s comments on the subject:

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- “The old truth that Calvin preached, that Augustine preached, that Paul preached, is the truth that I must preach today, or else be false to my conscience and my God. I cannot shape the truth; I know of no such thing as paring off the rough edges of a doctrine. John Knox’s gospel is my gospel. That which thundered across Scotland must thunder through England again.”
- “My position, as pastor of one of the most influential churches, enables me to make myself heard, and my daily labor is to revive the old doctrines of Gill, Owen, Calvin, Augustine, and Christ.”

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Indeed, Luther was a Roman priest trying to reform the holy see. This caused no small amount of consternation among that astute conclave. Martin lost his frock and his salvation(anathamatized he was) available only through being a member in good standing of that hallowed universal body.

Luther struck out on his own--kind-of-sort-of. He took many of the trappings of the mother church: universal church, salvation by works, infant baptism and a modified version of trans-substantiation.

There were others of these so-called reformers who had similar doctrinal errors which have not gone away in the last 500 years. Calvin is in this group. He is surely a pedobaptist.

This is a real authority problem. If Rome had the authority to carry out the commission, she surely did not give authority to another. If Rome had no authority to start she had no authority to give anyway. We are still looking at usurped authority. Who has the authority to baptize given by Jesus in Mt. 28:18-20????:BangHead:

Eslewhere in Christendom: Joseph Smith Jr. said Jesus told him the authority was lost and was re-established in and through Joseph Smith Jr. in 183x. Now if you are not under this restored authority in the LDS, you are on the outside looking in. This group has been reformed at least once since Joe Smith was dubbed by the way. What ever happened to believing God rather than men?

Now what? What is in your wallet?

Peace,

Bro. James

 

Simply, the authority is and has never been the church -- but Christ.

 

Sure sounds like Jesus is vesting His authority in Mt. 16 and 28. That leaves two possibilities: the papacy or the New Testament Church. If one rejects the holy see, where could the authority be vested?

Peace,

Bro. James

 

"We did not commence our existence at the Reformation. We were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born. We never came from the Church of Rome for we were never in it. . . .[We were p]ersecuted alike by Romanists and Protestants of almost every sect" —Charles Spurgeon

 

You are going to be slapped down every time you make an analogy between the Reformers and the LDS Church. Quit while you're behind.

 

From : A Pilgrim's Life

Calvin himself had little use for money. When he was accused of being greedy,it only made him and others laugh,"for everyone knows that just this year I tutned down an offer of a raise,and did so with such persistence that I swore under oath that I would not preach a single sermon more if they did not stop offering it." Calvin also discarded as ridiculous the rumor that he had sold a piece of land for good money. In and around Geneva,everyone knew that he did not own even a square inch of property. "For I have not made it this far,and in fact I use the furniture that belongs to someone else. Neither the table from which we eat,nor the bed in which we sleep,belongs to us." (219,220)

 

Sure "sounds" like it -- to rebellious humans who want their own way above God's way... But a careful exegesis of that passage points to Christ as retaining the power and the authority. He grants His church (note: HIS church) to be a part of His work, but the church is not king, Christ is King.