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.

Zwingli:

Sins of the World and cognate phrases:

Various works:

1) Today certain persons preach human ravings most wantonly, and try to frighten minds truly free, teaching that there is sin where there is no sin, and most cruelly murdering the soul. The Apostles taught that the Son of God out of pure generosity did not so much pardon the sins of all as give himself up as an expiatory offering for all. Ulrich Zwingli, “Early Writings,” Defence Called Archeteles, (Durham, N.C: Labyrinth Press, [1987]), p., 258.

2) Therefore the birth had to be absolutely pure of every stain, because He that was born was also God. Second, on account of the nature of the sacrificial victim. For that had to be free from all blemish, as the law of Moses required, though that only applied to the purity of the flesh, Heb 9:9. How much more had the victim to be absolutely spotless which made atonement for the sins not only of all who had been, but of all who were yet to come!… Of this figure I shall say nothing more, since it is perfectly clear in itself and through the notices of all who have spoken of it. Furthermore, the John who baptized the Son of God, as soon as he saw Christ coming towards him, pointed out to his disciples with the words: “Behold the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!” John 1:29. Ulrich Zwingli, Commentary on True and False Religion, (Durham, N.C: Labyrinth Press, 1981), p., 112 and 113.

3) A little while after he says [Jn 1:29-31]: “John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world… The divine Baptist shows by these words that Christ is the lamb that atones for the universal disease of sin, and that he himself is preaching a baptism of repentance before Him that He may be made manifest to Israel. For when man through repentance has come to the knowledge of himself, he is forced to take refuge in the mercy of God. But when he has begun to do that, justice makes him afraid. Then Christ appears, who has satisfied the divine justice for our trespasses. When once there is faith in Him, then salvation is found; for He is the infallible pledge of God’s mercy. For “he that gave up a Son for us, how will he not with him also give us all things?” Roms 8:32. Zwingli, Commentary on True and False Religion, (Durham, N.C: Labyrinth Press, 1981), p., 122-123.

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Calvin:

O if my people had hearkened to me! By the honorable designation which God gives to the people of Israel, He exposes the more effectually their shameful and disgraceful conduct. Their wickedness was doubly aggravated, as will appear from the consideration, that although God called them to be his people, they differed nothing from those who were the greatest strangers to him. Thus he complains by the Prophet Isaiah, “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” (Isaiah 1:3) The Hebrew particle lu, which I have rendered O if! is not to be understood as expressing a condition, but a wish; and therefore God, I have no doubt, like a man weeping and lamenting, cries out, O the wretchedness of this people in wilfully refusing to have their best interests carefully provided for! He assumes the character of a father, and observing, after having tried every possible means for the recovery of his children, that their condition is utterly hopeless, he uses the language of one saddened, as it were, with sighing and groaning; not that he is subject to human passions, but because he cannot otherwise express the greatness of the love which he bears towards us.

The Prophet seems to have borrowed this passage from the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32:29, where the obstinacy of the people is bewailed in almost the same words: “Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” He means tacitly to upbraid the Jews, and to impress upon their minds the truth, that their own perverseness was the only cause which prevented them from enjoying a state of great outward prosperity.

If it is objected, that God in vain and without ground utters this complaint, since it was in his power to bend the stiff necks of the people, and that, when he was not pleased to do this, he had no reason to compare himself to a man deeply grieved; I answer, that he very properly makes use of this style of speaking on our account, that we may seek for the procuring cause of our misery nowhere but in ourselves. We must here beware of mingling together things which are totally different as widely different from each other as heaven is distant from the earth. God, in coming down to us by his word, and addressing his invitations to all men without exception, disappoints nobody. All who sincerely come to him are received, and find from actual experience that they were not called in vain. At the same time, we are to trace to the fountain of the secret electing purpose of God this difference, that the word enters into the heart of some, while others only hear the sound of it. And yet there is no inconsistency in his complaining, as it were, with tears, of our folly when we do not obey him.

In the invitations which he addresses to us by the external word, he shows himself to be a father; and why may he not also be understood as still representing himself under the image of a father in using this form of complaint? In Ezekiel 18:32, he declares with the strictest regard to truth, “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth,” provided in the interpretation of the passage we candidly and dispassionately take into view the whole scope of it. God has no pleasure in the death of a sinner: How? Because he would have all men turned to himself. But it is abundantly evident, that men by their own free-will cannot turn to God, until he first change their stony hearts into hearts of flesh: yea, this renovation, as Augustine judiciously observes, is a work surpassing that of the creation itself.

Now what hinders God from bending and framing the hearts of all men equally in submission to him? Here modesty and sobriety must be observed, that instead of presuming to intrude into his incomprehensible decrees, we may rest contented with the revelation which he has made of his will in his word. There is the justest ground for saying that he wills the salvation of those to whom that language is addressed, (Isaiah 21:12,) “Come unto me, and be ye converted.” In the second part of the verse before us, we have defined what it is to hear God. To assent to what he speaks would not be enough; for hypocrites will grant at once that whatever proceeds from his mouth is true, and will affect to listen just as if an ass should bend its ears. But the clause is intended to teach us that we can only be said to hear God, when we submit ourselves to his authority. Calvin, Commentary, Psalm 81:13.

[For the Harvest] This is the second reason, from the next cause, or order of nature requiring harvest when the corn is white, John. 4:35. “Lift up your eyes,” says Christ, and look on the fields, “for they are already white to harvest.” Therefore being ripe, the time of the harvest is at hand. This “ripeness” signifies that the measure of the Church’s calamities, Anti-Christ’s tyranny, and the inequity of the wicked was now full, as God in Gen. 18:21. says touching the sins of the Sodomites: that he was come to see whither they were come to the full height or not: And Christ of the Pharisees: Matt. 23:32. Full yee up the measure of your fathers.” This also commends both the patience and justice of God: The Lord is not slack in his judgement, but is patient towards us, not willing that any should perish: but by longsuffering leads us to repentance. So then he will execute judgement most justly, because he will do it, till there be no hope of the world’s recovery, and that the sins of men are come to that height as none shall have cause to complain either of the overmuch haste or severity of the Judge.

David Pareus, A Commentary Upon the Divine Revelation of the Apostle and Evangelist, John (Amsterdam: Printed by C.P. Anno, 1644), 361.