Calvin's view of his adversaries

"For what is more consonant with faith than to recognize that we are naked of all virtue, in order to be clothed by God? That we are empty of all good, to be filled by him? That we are slaves of sin, to be freed by him? Blind, to be illumined by him? Lame, to be made straight by him? Weak, to be sustained by him? To take away from us all occasion for glorying, that he alone may stand forth gloriously and we glory in him [cf. I Cor. 1:31; II Cor. 10:17]? When we say these and like things our adversaries interrupt and complain that in this way we shall subvert some blind light of nature, imaginary preparations, free will, and works that merit eternal salvation, even with their supererogations.

"They think it of no concern what belief anyone holds or does not hold regarding God and Christ, if only he submit his mind with implicit faith7 (as they call it) to the judgment of the church. The sight of God's glory defiled with manifest blasphemies does not much trouble them, bprovided no one raises a finger against the primacy of the Apostolic See and against the authority of Holy Mother Church. aWhy, therefore, do they fight with such ferocity and bitterness for the Mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and trifles of that sort, denying that there can be true godliness without a most explicit faith, so to speak, in such things, even though they prove nothing of them from God's Word?"

from the prefatory address to the King of France, in the Institutes