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[Note: <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles-1<\/strong> page.]<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The name of John Calvin is still nearly a household term although he has been dead over four centuries. As a religious reformer, he rode the crest of the sixteenth century reformation, a little younger, but contemporary with Luther, Zwingli, and others less notable. Born in 1509, he was reputedly the most learned man in Europe at the age of 22 years. Calvin was reared in Roman Catholicism but became convinced of its errors in his late teens. Placing himself under Reformer scholastics, he was confirmed in Reformation doctrines and began preaching them by the age of twenty. He was a man of considerable political power, as well as ecclesiastical, practically ruling the city of Geneva for the last twenty years of his life. While Calvin exercised great influence through his preaching, his greater influence was wrought through his pen. It is through his literary efforts that he not only influenced his own generation, but millions of people in succeeding generations down to the present.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Calvin\u2019s most influential work is his Institutes of the Christian Religion<\/em>, completed in 1536 when he was but 27 years old. In this monumental work, Calvin grapples with such weighty issues as predestination, election, grace and free will of man. The Synod of Dort, convened in 1618, crystallized the major doctrinal interpretations of Calvin into five statements as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n This creed has come to be recognized as the definitive statement of Calvin\u2019s theology. \u201cFive-point Calvinism,\u201d as it has been commonly called, has had a pronounced effect upon Protestant faith and practice. All Presbyterian churches are governed by the Westminster Confession of Faith, drawn up in 1648 which is built on Calvin\u2019s five points. Baptist theology is Calvinistic in part. Other religious groups have been similarly affected by it. We shall study these five points in succeeding articles on The Scripture Cache.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n [Note:<\/strong>\u00a0I wrote this article for, and it was published in the \u201cBible Thoughts\u201d Column for the Hood County News<\/em>, Granbury, Texas, June 19, 1977.]<\/span><\/p>\n Attribution:<\/strong> From thescripturecache.com<\/em>; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.<\/span><\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Views: 1[Note: This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles-1 page.] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The name of John Calvin is still nearly a household term although he has been dead over four centuries. As a religious reformer, he rode the crest of the sixteenth…<\/p>\n\n