John Calvin Denies Free-Will!

John Calvin denies free-will and thus, so does James White. To deny free-will is the same thing as saying you are not born-again.

"It is a false and profane assertion, therefore, that none are drawn but those who are willing to be drawn, as if man made himself obedient to God by his own efforts...." [John Calvin, Commentary on the Gospel of John, the Comprehensive John Calvin Collection (Ages Digital Library, 1998); cited in White, The Potter's Freedom (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press Publishing, 2000), 161.]

John Calvin believed and practiced a number of things that many of those who call themselves Calvinists today would consider seriously wrong, if not heresy. For example, he dogmatically affirmed the efficacy of infant baptism to effect forgiveness of sins and entrance into the Kingdom. And in spite of his quarrel with Rome, he taught being baptized by the Roman Catholic priest (done to Calvin as an infant) was efficacious for eternity. The priest could even be a rank unbeliever.

Had he not maintained this Roman Catholic false doctrine, Calvin would have had to submit to rebaptism, which was repugnant to him. He derided the Anabaptists for opposing infant baptism. Anabaptists are usually OSAS Arminians. Their valid, biblical reason-that an infant has not believed in Christ-was scorned by Calvin, and his wrath and that of the other so-called Reformers came upon the Anabaptists. These true evangelicals were persecuted and martyred by both Catholics and Protestants for being baptized by immersion (or without water in burial and resurrection with Christ) after they were saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Rejection of infant baptism was one of the two charges for which Servetus (prosecuted by Calvin the lawyer) was burned at the stake. Calvin wrote, "One should not be content with simply killing such people, but should burn them cruelly."

Calvin promotes the error of baptismal regeneration, of salvation by "some secret method...of regenerating" without "the hearing of faith [of the gospel]," that children of the elect are automatically children of God, and of equating circumcision with baptism: "The promise...is one in both [circumcision and baptism]...forgivenes of sins, and eternal life...i.e., regeneration.... Hence we may conclude, that...baptism has been substituted for circumcision, and performs the same office." [John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998 ed.), IV: xvi, 4.]

Sounds awfully like gnosticism to me. The outward showing of circumcision or baptism do not regenerate with eternal life. How absurd! These are acts that take place after salvation: circumcision for the Hebrews under the Old Covenant and Baptism under the New Covenant.