9
Jul

Bullinger on General and Saving Grace

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism   in God is Gracious: Common and Special Grace

Bullinger:1

We do freely grant both their propositions; to wit, that we are justified by grace, and that works belong to the grace of God, or be the gift of God: but we deny their consequence, and say that it is false; to wit, that works do justify. For if that be true, then may we in like manner truly say, A man doth see; an hand doth belong unto a man: and thereupon infer, therefore a hand doth see. But who would gather so vain a consequent? For all do understand, that a man doth consist of sundry members, and that every member hath his effects and offices. Again, what is he which knows not, that the grace of God, which is otherwise undivided, is divided and distinguished according to the diverse operations which it works? For there is in God a certain (as it were) general grace, whereby he created all mortal men, and by which he sends rain upon the just and unjust: but this grace doth not justify; for if it did, then should the wicked and unjust be justified. Again, there is that singular grace, whereby he doth, for his only-begotten Christ his sake, adopt us to be his sons: he doth not, I mean, adopt all, but the believers only, whose sins he reckons not, but doth impute to them the righteousness of his only-begotten Son our Saviour. This is that grace which doth alone justify us in very deed.

Bullinger, Decades, 3rd Decade, Sermon 9, 1:329-330.

Credit to Tony for the find.

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1Marginal references and footnotes not included; some spelling modernized.

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