Attention All Calvinists....READ Irenaeus' 2nd Century work "Against Heresies" and you would abandon Calvinism!

I have been re-reading Irenaeus' Against Heresies and there is simply no way that anybody who reads it could remain an Augustinian/Calvinist.  Let Calvinists realize that he was writing AGAINST heretical teachings in his day. And many of the distinctive doctrines of Augustine and subsequently Calvin were considered to be false because it was ONLY heretics who taught them.  Here is one of the many passages that completely refutes the Calvinist concepts of total inability, the bondage of the will and monergism.


“This expression [of our Lord], How often would I have gathered your children together, and you would not, Matthew 23:37 set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free [agent] from the beginning, possessing his own power, even as he does his own soul, to obey the commands…of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is no coercion with God, but a good will [towards us] is present with Him continually…And in man, as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God did kindly bestow on them what was good; but they themselves did not diligently keep it, nor deem it something precious, but poured contempt upon His super-eminent goodness. Rejecting, therefore, the good, and as it were spewing it out, they shall all deservedly incur the just judgment of God, which also the Apostle Paul testifies in his Epistle to the Romans, where he says, But do you despise the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-suffering, being ignorant that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you store to yourself wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. But glory and honor, he says, to everyone that does good. God therefore has given that which is good, as the apostle tells us in this Epistle, and they who work it shall receive glory and honor, because they have done that which is good when they had it in their power not to do it; but those who don’t do it shall receive the just judgment of God, because they did not work good when they had it in their power so to do. But if some had been made by nature bad, and others good, these latter would not be deserving of praise for being good, for such were they created; nor would the former be reprehensible, for thus they were made [originally]. But since all men are of the same nature, able both to hold fast and to do what is good; and, on the other hand, having also the power to cast it from them and not to do it — some do justly receive praise even among men who are under the control of good laws (and much more from God), and obtain deserved testimony of their choice of good in general, and of persevering therein; but the others are blamed, and receive a just condemnation, because of their rejection of what is fair and good. And therefore, the prophets used to exhort men to what was good, to act justly and to work righteousness, as I have so largely demonstrated because it is in our power so to do…
(Book 4, Chapter 37) Source: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103.htm

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