The five points assert that God saves every person upon whom he has mercy, and that his efforts are not frustrated by the unrighteousness or inability of humans.
They are occasionally known by the acrostic TULIP: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints.
English Reformed Baptist theologian John Gill (1697–1771) staunchly defended the five points in his work The Cause of God and Truth.
[48] The work was a lengthy counter to contemporary Anglican Arminian priest Daniel Whitby, who had been attacking Calvinist doctrine.
Gill goes to great lengths in quoting numerous Church Fathers in an attempt to show that the five points and other Calvinistic ideas were held in early Christianity.