Calvin & The Calvinists
By Paul Helm
Banner of Truth. 84 pages. £6.95
ISBN 0 85151 750 1
This slim hardback from the Professor of History and Philosophy of Religion at King's College, London, was first published in 1982 and is controversial in the sense that it is an answer to a problematic historical/theological view, which sought to pit John Calvin against his heirs, the Puritans.
R.T. Kendall's monograph, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649, proposed the novelty that Calvin never taught the classic third point of Calvinism, namely, definite atonement for the elect, but that this was an idea later developed by others. He also proposed that, whereas for Calvin, faith is given by God, for the Puritans from William Perkins onwards, faith is solely a matter of the human will. This is a serious charge, for Kendall's these was worked out in such a way as to accuse the Puritans of teaching (in effect) a modified form of salvation by works.
