Quotes from John Calvin

 

There were several men involved in the founding of the reformation they were most notably Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Menno Simons. There was a forth man named Zwingli, that had a huge influence on our current beliefs on Holy Communion. But Luther, Calvin and Simons were the core. These men were all contemporary – they not only lived at the same time but they also corresponded with one another in the early days and collaborated on their doctrines.

First and foremost oOne should know that all three of these men were Roman Catholic priests – they had received all their doctrinal training from the Roman Catholic Church and ultimately where they had no “light” and I use the term loosely here they reached into their bag of Roman Catholic doctrines and dusted one off and made a few minor changes so that they could call it their own.

John Calvin’s doctrines of election, predestination, and eternal security were not personal revelations as has been espoused they came directly from Martin Luther, Calvin claim to fame is that he focused specifically on these doctrines instead of a broader scope.

A case involving women set off the explosion. On Thursday, June 23, 1547, several women appeared before the consistory for having danced. Among them was Francoise Favre, second wife of Ami Perrin. She had already had dealings with the consistory a year before (April 1546), when, refusing to testify against several friends of hers who were guilty of having danced, she stood up to Calvin, thus incurring several days' incarceration. -- This woman was put in prison twice by John Calvin for the crime of dancing

In the same document reciting events in 1547 it reads: It was a time of repression (from John Calvin). The author of the placard posted in Saint-Peter's Cathederal against Calvin was also arrested. Gruet was tortured every day for a month, after the inhuman fashion until he admitted his crime. He was immediately executed at the end of July having his head publicly cut off.
One might wonder what this placard said that caused this man to be put to death --A placard written in Geneva dialect was even posted on the pulpit of Saint Peter.
(Yes Calvin beleived in the Roman Catholic practices with Saints including Saint Mary.) There Abel Poupin (A calvinist priest) was described bluntly as a "big lard-belly," while the (other) venerable pastors were called " renegade priests" who, barely quit of their "monkeries," and intended to "blow smoke in the eyes" of everyone.

. . . And Calvin had the head of Gruet publicly cut off, and his writings were publicly burned in a joyful auto-de-fe in 1550.

Those who refuse to give up the Catholic Faith must be put to the
sword.
--John Calvin (1509-1564)

In writing against the Third Article of the Schleitheim Anabaptists that declared that "the sword is...outside the perfection of Christ.... [so it its place the Anabaptists have instituted a ] the shunning as their heaviest penalty -- without corporal death." This Calvin refuted -- by stressing the Biblical teaching regarding the holy office of the magistrate -- and of capital punishment. Citing Genesis 9:5f; Psalm 82:6f; John 10:34f; Romans 13:1-7 giving him a divine right to kill beleivers and unbeleivers in the name of Christ.

One of John Calvin’s infamous deeds was in ordering the death of  fellow reformer Michael Servetus who preached “Jesus Only” instead of the Trinity.

"If he(Servetus) comes(to Geneva), I shall never let him go out alive if my authority has weight."

"I hope that the verdict will call for the death penalty."

In Geneva, on October 27, 1553, Michael Servetus was tied to a stake and was burned slowly to death:

www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/11716.html

After Servetus escaped excecution from the Roman Catholic Church In Vienne he stopped in Geneva and made the mistake of attending a sermon by Calvin. He was recognized and arrested after the church service.

"Calvin had him [Servetus] arrested as a heretic. Convicted and changed his mind from having him beheaded to having him publicly burned to death."

From the time that Calvin had him arrested on August 14th until his condemnation, Servetus spent his remaining days in a atrocious dungeon with no light or heat, little food, and no sanitary facilities."

During Servetus' trial, Calvin wrote: "I hope that the verdict will call for the death penalty."

*** Note the disciples of John Calvin in obeying his orders put half-green wood around the feet of Servetus so that the fire would burn cool and smoky to prolong Michael Servetus suffering. They then placed a wreath strewn with sulfur on his head. It took over thirty minutes kill him in smoldering fire, while the people of Geneva stood around to watch him suffer and slowly die!

This is the official record of events that day:

"Farel (The executioner appointed by John Calvin and the Church) walked beside the condemned man, and kept up a constant barrage of words, (read that as mocking and insulting him as the Romans did to Christ on the cross) in complete insensitivity to what Servetus might be feeling. All he had in mind was to extort from the prisoner an acknowledgement [sic] of his theological error -- a shocking example of the soulless cure of souls. After some minutes of this, Servetus ceased making any reply and prayed quietly to himself. When they arrived at the place of execution, Farel announced to the watching crowd: 'Here you see what power Satan possesses when he has a man in his power. This man is a scholar of distinction, and he perhaps believed he was acting rightly. But now Satan possesses him completely, as he might possess you, should you fall into his traps.'

When the executioner began his work, Servetus whispered with trembling voice: 'Oh God, Oh God!' The thwarted Farel snapped at him: 'Have you nothing else to say?' This time Servetus replied to him: 'What else might I do, but speak of God!
' Thereupon he was lifted onto the pyre and chained to the stake. A wreath strewn with sulfur was placed on his head. When the faggots (logs) were ignited, a piercing cry of horror broke from Servetus 'Mercy, mercy!' he cried. For more than half an hour the horrible agony continued, for the pyre had been made of half-green wood, which burned slowly. 'Jesus, Son of the eternal God, have mercy on me,' the tormented man cried from the midst of the flames ...."

These are quotes from John Calvin after the death of Michael Servetus. 

"Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face."

"Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt."


Another reformer named Sebastian Castellio wrote against what Calvin did to Servetus and he made this tremendous statement: "To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine. It is to kill a man!" Castellio paid a great price for standing up to Calvin. He was hounded and persecuted by John Calvin until his death.

In five years, 1542-46, Geneva, with 16,000 inhabitants, had fifty-seven executions and seventy-six banishments. All these sentences were personally sanctioned by John Calvin.

Recently on a fundamentalist radio station a national program read excerpts from John Calvin’s life. Completely absolving him of Servetus death they claimed that Calvin never ordered this man’s death nor of anyone else – that it was the radicals of the city council of Geneva that acted upon their own – they even asserted that Calvin had pleaded with them that this man would not be executed.  They Spoke of this man being the gentle reformer, who had great humility and meekness and that he was a saint.  This revisionism flies in the face of Calvin’s decrees and words contained in his sermons. This vile revisionism is done to hide the fact that the father or Calvanism was utterly a depraved man who knew not Christ, who had never heard his voice nor seen his shape. John Calvin like Luther did not have a visitation from God. No divine light shown upon him as is asserted in these days by those who blindly and ignorantly follow after him in fundamentalist circles. John Calvin was as corrupt as Herod or the Pharisees and the High Council, and the High Priest at the time of Christ 

CALVIN BELIEVED THAT MAN DID NOT HAVE FREE WILL But John Calvin did not come up with his doctrine on Predestination, Free Will, or Eternal Security on his own as his followers ignorantly and blindly believe today. The fact is that John Calvin received input on all of his notions on these three doctrines from his senior mentor Martin Luther and both of them ultimately received their doctrines from a 6th century Roman Catholic Monk named Saint Augustine.

The following are quotes from Martin Luther
AND now what do those words of Christ, where He saith, "No one can come unto Me except My Father which hath sent Me draw him," (John vi. 44), leave to "Free-will?" For He says it is necessary, that every one should hear and learn of the Father Himself, and that all must be "taught of God." Here, indeed, He not only declares that the works and devoted efforts of "Free-will" are of no avail, but that even the word of the Gospel itself, (of which He is here speaking,) is heard in vain, unless the Father Himself speak within, and teach and draw. "No one can," "No one can (saith He) come:" by which, that power, whereby man can endeavour something towards Christ, that is, towards those things which pertain unto salvation, is declared to be a nothing at all.

Nor does that at all profit "Free-will," which the Diatribe [the Discussion by Erasmus] brings forward out of Augustine, by way of casting a slur upon this all-clear and all-powerful Scripture—'that God draws us, in the same way as we draw a sheep, by holding out to it a green bough.' By this similitude he would prove, that there is in us a power to follow the drawing of God. But this similitude avails nothing in the present passage. For God holds out, not one of His good things only, but many, nay, even His Son, Christ Himself; and yet no man follows Him, unless the Father hold Him forth otherwise within, and draw otherwise!—Nay, the whole world follows the Son whom He holds forth!

But this similitude harmonizes sweetly with the experience of the godly, who are now made sheep, and know God their Shepherd. These, living in, and being moved by, the Spirit, follow wherever God wills, and whatever He holds out to them. But the ungodly man comes not unto Him, even when he hears the word, unless the Father draw and teach within: which He does by shedding abroad His Spirit. And where that is done, there is a different kind of drawing from that which is without: there, Christ is held forth in the illumination of the Spirit, whereby the man is drawn unto Christ with the sweetest of all drawing: under which, he is passive while God speaks, teaches, and draws, rather than seeks or runs of himself.

Sect. 163.

I WILL produce yet one more passage from John, where, he saith, "The Spirit shall reprove the world of sin, because they believe not in me." (John xvi. 9).

You here see, that it is sin, not to believe in Christ: And this sin is seated, not in the skin, nor in the hairs of the head, but in the very reason and will. Moreover, as Christ makes the whole world guilty from this sin, and as it is known by experience that the world is ignorant of this sin, as much so as it is ignorant of Christ, seeing that, it must be revealed by the reproof of the Spirit; it is manifest, that "Free-will," together with its will and reason, is accounted a captive of this sin, and condemned before God. Wherefore, as long as it is ignorant of Christ and believes not in Him, it can will or attempt nothing good, but necessarily serves that sin of which it is ignorant.

In a word: Since the Scripture declares Christ everywhere by positive assertion and by antithesis, (as I said before), in order that, it might subject every thing that is without the Spirit of Christ, to Satan, to ungodliness, to error, to darkness, to sin, to death, and to the wrath of God, all the testimonies concerning Christ must make directly against "Free-will;" and they are innumerable, nay, the whole of the Scripture. If therefore our subject of discussion is to be decided by the judgment of the Scripture, the victory, in every respect, is mine; for there is not one jot or tittle of the Scripture remaining, which does not condemn the doctrine of "Free-will" altogether!

But if the great theologians and defenders of "Free-will" know not, or pretend not to know, that the Scripture everywhere declares Christ by positive assertion and by antithesis, yet all Christians know it, and in common confess it. They know, I say, that there are two kingdoms in the world mutually militating against each other.

—That Satan reigns in the one, who, on that account is by Christ called "the prince of this world," (John xii 31), and by Paul "the God of this world;" (2 Cor. iv. 4), who, according to the testimony of the same Paul, holds all captive according to his will, who are not rescued from him by the Spirit of Christ: nor does he suffer any to be rescued by any other power but that of the Spirit of God: as Christ testifies in the parable of "the strong man armed" keeping his palace in peace.

—In the other kingdom Christ reigns: which kingdom, continually resists and wars against that of Satan: into which we are translated, not by any power of our own, but by the grace of God, whereby we are delivered from this present evil world, and are snatched from the power of darkness. The knowledge and confession of these two kingdoms, which thus ever mutually war against each other with so much power and force, would alone be sufficient to:" seeing that, we are compelled to serve in the kingdom of Satan, until we be liberated by confute the doctrine of "Free-will a Divine Power. All this, I say, is known in common among Christians, and fully confessed in their proverbs, by their prayers, by their pursuits, and by their whole lives. . . .

I theorize that Martin Luther and John Calvin were so guilt ridden for their killings and crimes that they both knew that they were hell bound. So for personal vanity they chose to believe that they were predestined,-- that they could falsely claim that by faith were absolved of all sin no matter how heinous it was, and that because of divine election they were eternally secure -- so that to find fault with their election their predestined call was no matter how corrupt they were was not their fault but to find fault with God Himself. THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN MADE RIGHTEOUS AND WALK UPRIGHTLY BEFORE THE LORD NEED NO SUCH DOCTRINE TO HIDE BEHIND. Only the most perverse of sinners, need such assurances and to give such assurances to their followers so that they would not abandon them as prescribed by Christ and the Apostles scripture.

These corrupt doctrines to assure corrupt believers of a salvation they shall never see    has become the underpinnings of all evangelicalism, all fundamentalism, and all Pentecostalism, for all those who confess that they hold no such doctrine in word and deed affirm that they indeed believe they are eternally secure – and that is why the church is in the state that it is today.  

Isaiah 30:1 Woe to the rebellious children, saith the LORD, that take counsel, but not of me; and that cover with a covering, but not of my spirit, that they may add sin to sin:

Amos 6:1 Woe to them that are at (careless) ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

Calvin's Doctrine on Infant Baptism
As Calvin states: "the Anabaptists began to assail us." Understandably so. For the Calvinists had opposed the revolutionism of the Anabaptists -- including their revolutionary repudiation of infant baptism for covenant children. "Clearly, the revolutionary Anabaptists had broken with the Historic Church in a very major way." (Whereas Luther and Calvin did not they remained Roman Catholic lite in their doctrines and beliefs)

Calvin further observed that "Servetus, not the least among the Anabaptists," also wrongly assumes that "infants...are unable to believe." To Servetus, for that reason, all infants still "lie under condemnation."

Servetus [himself] afterwards adds that no man becomes our brother, unless by the spirit of adoption -- which is only conferred by the hearing of faith."To which Calvin answered: "Who will presume from this (That Servantus has said) to prescribe the law to God -- and say that He may not ingraft infants into Christ by some other secret method" than by hearing the Word physically through one's ears? (Servantus was argueing that one can only be saved through the hearing of the Gospel being preached -- Calvin did not believe that. Instead he belived that in infant baptism was one saved, and then once saved always saved.)

In a letter to Servetus, Calvin made an even more pertinent remark. "We say that Christ extends His hand to the children of holy parents as soon as they are born or conceived ('simul ac nascitur') -- in order to liberate them from the general guilt of sin." (Calvin is stating here that is even without being baptized that they are saved.)

Calvin's Wife

Some four years after first publishing the Institutes, Calvin married a "converted" Anabaptist widow in 1540. But neither she herself was never rebaptized on becoming a Presbyterian nor were their three children baptised as infants.

Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. That he had done so, precisely to persuade the Romish King Francis that the Calvinists stood with the Romanists against those Satanic Anabaptists.

In his Institutes, Calvin therefore attacked the "madness" of these "certain giddy men... (Enthusists guided by emotion) -- who while they make a great display of the superiority of the Spirit..., deride the simplicity of those who only delight in what they [the Anabaptists] call 'the dead and deadly letter.' (This is so ironic that it is the children of the ana-baptists that deride the pentecostals and the Charismatics with these same words and charges.) But I wish they would tell me what 'spirit' it is whose 'inspiration' raises them to such a 'sublime' height that they dare despise the doctrine of Scripture!" (Anabaptists were Spirit-filled Christians who despiesed the doctrines and teachings of men like the Roman Cathokic Church and their agents like Luther and Calvin.)

Added Calvin,"some Anabaptists in the present age mistake some indescribable sort of frenzied excess for the regeneration of the Spirit, (Being born of the spirit) holding that the children of God..." They say the Spirit will not bid you do anything that is wrong (A quote from the Apostle John) --provided you sincerely and boldly leave yourself to His agency.

"Who is not amazed at such monstrous doctrines? And yet, this philosophy is popular with those who -- blinded by insane lusts -- have thrown off common sense. (Worldly and earthly sense or reasoning) But what kind of Christ, pray, do they fabricate? What kind of Spirit do they belch forth? (Prophesy with)

"He is not a Spirit of giddiness, rushing rashly and precipitately, without regard to right and wrong

"But why dwell longer in refuting that brutish frenzy [of the Anabaptists]? To Christians, the Spirit of the Lord is not a turbulent phantom which they themselves have produced by dreaming -- or received ready-made by others. (by visions or by prophetic utterances) But the truely religious seek the knowledge of Him -- from Scripture (Alone)." (This is a reference to Luther's Sola Scriptura instead of Sola dictum Dei -- hearing the word that proceedeth from the mouth of the Father)

Calvin: "I have decided to inform the reader more amply, by inserting here the ramblings of Monsieur Anthony Pocquet.... He begins to 'froth at the mouth' -- On the surface, Monsieur Anthony Pocquet has become a demi-angel -- hearing him speak in such a lofty manner, as if he no longer had sensations of anything except heavenly matters.... (This is probably the origin of the phrase "So heavenly minded -- No earthly good.")

"He pretends to save the world from the simple and pure teaching of the Scripture. (Dead letter of the law, and the doctrines and traditions of the men that would use that dead letter to promote themselves and their denominations) As if it were the wisdom of Christians to search after new revelations! (As if it were wisdom to hear the word that proceedeth from the mouth of the Father.) And he now calls it 'a double [portion of] spirit' -- to pass beyond the contents of (age-old corrupt denominational interpretations of) Scripture!

"Still, whenever it suits them, they interpret Scripture in a totally different sense.... What he calls 'the natural law of growing and multiplying'; and what he adds about our having to return to that, in order to experience original innocence-

"These serpents twist the terms.... 'Spirit' to them is not derived from the grace of regeneration.(Calvin here lumps salvation and the baptism of the Holy Ghost together as one and the same) Rather is it the fantasy that God is in us, (A fantasy that Christ Paul the Apostle spoke of in detail) and that we must permit Him to do whatever 'He' wants. We also see what they mean by the life which we have in Jesus Christ. I.e., that everything is lawful -- and there is no evil, provided we are not conscious of it....

Monsieur Anthony Pocquet...is a wolf in sheepskin.... We should not allow this wicked man to bring such shame on a Christian people.... He says...we are under the law of 'love'.... I ask him, whether Moses and the judges did not hear the people's disputes and decide them? What sort of a scatterbrained man is it who plunges across [the] country on the basis of badly-founded speculations?(being let by the spirit - Is spoken of also by Christ and the Apostles)... His daydreams are so silly and absurd, that among sane intelligent people it is enough to have pointed them out -- so that one can be on guard....

"He says that medicine came into the world through the suggestion of the evil spirit. I say...that it came from God, inasmuch as it is a knowledge of carefully using the gifts of creation which He gives us.... He [Pocquet] says we are not obligated to do God's Commandments (read this as Pauls Ye are not under law but under grace).... This loathsome teaching...is not only repugnant to God, but so full of detestable errors as to make one's hair stand on end!"

All of these things today are said of Pentecostals, and Charismatics by the baptists and Fundamentalists who centuries ago lost their roots and forgot the merciful Christ that saved them drew him to himself and filled them with all manner of signs wonders and gifts of the Spirit. They forget that over 150,000 of their forefathers in the 1500's were slain for theri faith by Catholics, John Calvin and Martin Luther.

One final though In 1620 a group of people fled from europe to America called the Pilgrims .As a child I was taught they fled from religious persecution, to be able to pray and seek God as they willed to do. For all intents and purposes the Pilgrims were quakers or spirit-filled Christains. Few know today what country they flee from? Holland. And fewer still know the tyranical church that Pilgrms fled from? The Dutch Reformed Church -- Which were followers of the murdering persecuter of the bretheren -- John Calvin.

Think about that when you celebrate Thanksgiving this year.