Every Reformer that I have read will readily insist that man has a will (even Calvin). That will is held in bondage and, once free, it is capable of doing the works of God. But it is only when man's will is free can it be guided by the Holy Spirit to do the things of God. This is the technically accruate description of what happens. But there is no free will by which man can do things pleasing to God. It is impossible.
AMEN, Harleyd!
Our eyes are so glued to our own achievements that it is difficult to pry ourselves away from the concept that we are free and unfettered and capable of our own righteousness.
Free will was always denied by the apostles and the early church and various church fathers. With the influence of Gnosticism in the third and fourth centuries, men slowly discarded the idea that God sustains all things, and men's minds filled themselves up with their own desires rather than God's determinism.
The reformers, as you say, returned the church to the sound doctrine of predestination -- something Rome has always denied because if God controls this life, then obviously Rome and its magisterium cannot.
It's probably not too late to get into an RCIA class.