More from Irenaeus (if ONLY Calvinists would read his work!!!)

Calvinists simply don't know Church History. They don't know what the earliest Christian scholars/theologians/apologists believed. There is NOT a hint of monergism in Irenaeus' works. Not a hint of the doctrines that we know today as Calvinism.  And why not?  Because it didn't exist in the Church.  Some of the Calvinists' doctrines can be found in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, but not IN THE CHURCH!  Where then? Amongst the Gnostics!!  This is what history records. 

Here are two more passages from Against Heresies that demonstrate the Apostolic faith as it was understood by a spiritual grandson of the Apostle John was not the faith of Augustine and Calvin. 

"All such passages demonstrate the independent will of man, and at the same time the counsel which God conveys to him, by which He exhorts us to submit ourselves to Him, and seeks to turn us away from [the sin of] unbelief against Him, without, however, in any way coercing us. No doubt, if anyone is unwilling to follow the Gospel itself, it is in his power [to reject it], but it is not expedient. For it is in man's power to disobey God, and to forfeit what is good… If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things, and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will, in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God.

And not merely in works, but also in faith, has God preserved the will of man free and under his [man’s] own control, saying, According to your faith be it unto you; Matthew 9:29 thus showing that there is a faith specially belonging to man, since he has an opinion especially his own. And again, ‘All things are possible to him that believes’; Mark 9:23 and, Go your way; and as you have believed, so be it done unto you. Matthew 8:13 Now all such expressions demonstrate that man is in his own power with respect to faith. And for this reason, he that believes in Him has eternal life while he who believes not the Son has not eternal life, but the wrath of God shall remain upon him. John 3:36. In the same manner, therefore, the Lord, both showing His own goodness, and indicating that man is in his own free will and his own power, said to Jerusalem, How often have I wished to gather your children together, as a hen [gathers] her chickens under her wings, and you would not!... Matthew 23:37-38."

Against Heresies (Book 4, Chapter 37)