31
Aug

Kimedoncius on General Love

   Posted by: CalvinandCalvinism   in God is Love: Electing and Non-Electing Love

And of that election of such as shall be saved, and have been predestinate unto eternal life from all eternity, do we now entreat. And it is in very deed all one with the predestination of Saints, as I have said, but that in some respect it differs. For Predestination motes an eternal & firm purpose of God, of bestowing grace & glory upon whom he will: but Election adds something, namely, as far forth as he wills the eternal life to some before others, seeing he reprobates some, as Thomas very well, and after him other schoolmen have observed. It is also called Love, according to that Romans “9. Jacob I have loved, but Esau have I hated.” God surely loves all men. For he loves all things that be, and abhors nothing that he has made, and has mercy upon all, and spares all, as it is in II. of Wisdom. But there be degrees of love. For he loves some, as his creatures, others as members of his son, as Augustine at large shows. Tra. No. in Joh. And very fitly Thomas in the foresaid place, Art. 3. God loves all men, yea, all his creatures, as far forth as he wills any good to all. Yet he wills not every good thing to all. Therefore as much as to some men he wills not this good ting, which is eternal life, he is said to hate and reprobate them. He assigns a difference between the election, & and the love of God, which differ only in reason, and in God are really one and the same. “The predestination of some to eternal salvation,” (says he) “presupposes, that God wills their salvation, and thereunto appertains election and love: Love truly in respect that he wills unto them this benefit of eternal salvation. For to love is to will some good above others. But election in respect that he wills this good to some above others, seeing he reprobates some.”

Jacob Kimedoncius, The Redemption of Mankind: Three Books: Wherein the Controversy of the Universality of the Redemption and Grace by Christ, and his Death for All Men, is Largely Handled, trans., by Hugh Ince, (London: Imprinted by Felix Kingston, 1598), 250-251.

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