This happened under the influence of ideas of the Anabaptists which were ideas also seen in the Donatists in North Africa in 311 A. D. ( Jack Hoad, The Baptist, London, Grace Publications, 1986, page 32 ) and these ideas then spread to Calvinists through the Congregationalist and Baptist movements, and to Lutherans through Pietism ( although much of Lutheranism recoiled against the Pietist movement after the mid-19th century ).

However, the conspicuous austerity of life among many sects accused of antinomianism ( such as Anabaptists or Calvinists ) suggests that these accusations are often, or even mostly, made for rhetorical effect.

Neither the Anabaptists nor the Calvinists were protected under the peace, so many Protestant groups living under the rule of a Lutheran prince still found themselves in danger of the charge of heresy.

The ideal of individual religious tolerance on a national level was, however, not addressed: neither the Reformed nor Radical churches ( Calvinists and Anabaptists being the prime examples ) were protected under the peace ( and Anabaptists would reject the principle of cuius regio eius religio in any case ).

Tolerance was not officially extended to Calvinists until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and most Anabaptists eventually relocated to the New World or were exterminated.

This viewpoint is commonly held by Anabaptists and some Evangelical churches such as Baptists, many Pentecostals, Plymouth Brethren and segments of the Restoration Movement, but it is rejected by most branches of Christianity, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Church of the East, Independent Catholic Churches, Lutherans, Presbyterians and other traditional Calvinists, as well as the vast majority of Anglicans and Methodists, who variously affirm the doctrine of the real presence.

Protestant historians would typically argue that this is historically what the Christian church was before Emperor Constantine and the State church of the Roman Empire, see Early Christianity, and did not appear again until the Protestant Reformation in groups such as the Calvinists and some particular radical movements such as the Anabaptists.

Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans, Dutch Calvinists, English Puritans, English Catholics, Scottish Presbyterians, French Huguenots, German and Swedish Lutherans, as well as Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Moravians and Jews of various nationalities.

After some political maneuvering, the Dutch Calvinists were able to convince Prince Maurice of Nassau to deal with the situation.

This Synod of Dort was open primarily to Dutch Calvinists ( Arminians were excluded ) with Calvinist representatives from other countries, and in 1618 published a condemnation of Arminius and his followers as heretics.

* Total depravity – Arminians agree with Calvinists over the doctrine of total depravity.

* Substitutionary effect of atonement – Arminians also affirm with Calvinists the substitutionary effect of Christ's atonement and that this effect is limited only to the elect.

Classical Arminians would agree with Calvinists that this substitution was penal satisfaction for all of the elect, while most Wesleyan Arminians would maintain that the substitution was governmental in nature.

* Extent of the atonement – Arminians, along with four-point Calvinists or Amyraldians, hold to a universal drawing and universal extent of atonement instead of the Calvinist doctrine that the drawing and atonement is limited in extent to the elect only, which many Calvinists prefer to call ' particular redemption '.

In the late 16th century many anti-Trinitarians, persecuted both by Calvinists and by the Inquisition, sought refuge in Transylvania, then under Turkish overlordship and with close links to Istanbul.

Protestantism in France was considered a grave threat to national unity, as the Huguenot minority felt a closer affinity to ( and often allied themselves with ) German and Dutch Calvinists than with their fellow Frenchmen.

Wesley maintained the Arminian doctrines that were dominant in the 18th-century Church of England, while Whitefield adopted Calvinism through his contacts with Calvinists in Scotland and New England.

Calvinists who hold the infralapsarian view of predestination usually prefer that term to " sublapsarianism ," perhaps with the intent of blocking the inference that they believe predestination is on the basis of foreknowledge ( sublapsarian meaning, assuming the fall into sin ).

There, he participated in a series of debates, particularly regarding the contentious issue of Calvinism versus Arminianism ( siding with the Calvinists against the Remonstrants ).

Any who " fall away " ( that is, do not persevere in the Christian faith until death ) is assumed not to have been truly converted to begin with, though Calvinists do not claim to know with certainty who did and who did not persevere.

The Arminians were perceived as ready to compromise with the Spanish, whereas the Dutch Calvinists were not, so Arminianism was considered by some to be political treason ; in 1617 – 8 there was a pamphlet war and Francis van Aarssens expressed the view that the Arminians were working for Philip IV of Spain.

On the initiative of Gaspard de Coligny, the Calvinists attempted to colonize the New World to find a new home for their religion, with the likes of Pierre Richier and Jean de Léry.

Although Arminius and Wesley both vehemently rejected this view, it has sometimes inaccurately been lumped together with theirs ( particularly by Calvinists ) because of other similarities in their respective systems such as conditional election, unlimited atonement, and prevenient grace.

Calvinists note that the argument assumes that either God's love is necessarily incompatible with corruption or that God is constrained to follow the path that some men see as best, whereas they believe God's plans are not fully known to man and God's reasons are his own and not for man to question ( compare Rom.

Calvinists contend that God extends mercy and grace to whom He will according to His plan ( Romans 8 ), and administers justice ( which, by its very nature is the punishment for sin, and thus in every way good and holy in concordance with the character of God ) to all others.

Furthermore, Calvinists argue that the doctrine of universalism is in contradiction with several passages of scripture.

Historians estimate that in the 1560s, more than half of the nobility were Calvinist ( or Huguenot ), and 1, 200 – 1, 250 Calvinist churches had been established, by 1562 with the outbreak of war, there were 2 million Calvinists.

When it became clear that Henri of Navarre would not rennounce his Protestantism the Duke of Guise signed the Treaty of Joinville ( December 31, 1584 ), on behalf of the League, with Philip II of Spain, who supplied a considerable annual grant to the League over the following decade to maintain the civil war in France, with the hope of destroying the French Calvinists.

In other words, Arminians believe that they owe their election to their faith, whereas Calvinists believe that they owe their faith to their election.

Traditional Calvinists believe in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, which says that because God chose some unto salvation and actually paid for their particular sins, he keeps them from apostasy and that those who do apostatize were never truly regenerated ( that is, born again ) or saved.

Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and in that sense were Calvinists ( as many of their earlier opponents were, too ), but also took note of radical views critical of Zwingli in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva.

The Edict further provides that Catholics and Lutherans ( but not Calvinists, Hussites or members of other sects ) are to be allowed to practice their faith.

Quentin Skinner has argued that several critical modern innovations in contract theory are found in the writings from French Calvinists and Huguenots, whose work in turn was invoked by writers in the Low Countries who objected to their subjection to Spain and, later still, by Catholics in England.

According to Calvinists, since God has drawn the elect to faith in Christ by regenerating their hearts and convincing them of their sins, and thus saving their souls by His own work and power, it naturally follows that they will be kept by the same power to the end.

Altars, to which Calvinists, unlike Lutherans, took strong exception, were typically completely removed, and in some large churches, like Utrecht Cathedral, large tomb monuments put where they stood, partly to make their return more difficult if political conditions changed.

Calvinists deny that their scheme is a form of determinism and instead uphold the free agency and moral responsibility of the individual.

Several groups, including Anglicans, Puritans, Lutherans, and Calvinists, claimed him as one of their own.

In the following year he began publishing a monthly periodical ( Scherzhafte und ernsthafte, vernüftige und einfältige Gedanken über allerhand lustige und nutzliche Bücher und Fragen ) in which he ridiculed the pedantic weaknesses of the learned, taking the side of the Pietists in their controversy with the orthodox, and defending mixed marriages of Lutherans and Calvinists ; he also published a volume on natural law which emphasized natural reason and a paper defending marriage between Lutherans and members of the Reformed church.

Despite the efforts of Calvinists to maintain the dominance of their system, some Congregational churches, especially in the older settlements of New England, gradually developed leanings toward Arminianism, Unitarianism, Deism, and transcendentalism.

Finally, the faction that had supported Piotr of Goniądz ' arguments broke all ties with the Calvinists and organized their own synod in the town of Brzeziny on June 10, 1565.

Even after Emperor Joseph II proclaimed toleration in 1781, only Lutherans and Calvinists were allowed to openly practice their faith.

The words ' Calvinist ' and ' Confucian ' do not imply that Calvinists or Confucians worship John Calvin or Confucius, but that they are followers of their respective teachings.

Ill-prepared for the realities of the New World and, above all, torn apart by theological controversy which sets the Catholics and Calvinists among them against one another, these French pioneers see their dreams of colonisation gradually dissipate.