And universal.
And universal.
§ 41. The universality of the promises of the Gospel is proved by all the statements that testify: that God wants all people to be saved and, on the other hand, does not wish for the death of any sinner (Ezek. 18:32; 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:[9]); that Christ made satisfaction for the sins of all people (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2); that all people are called to the kingdom of Christ through the word of the Gospel (Matt. 11:28; 28:19; Mark 16:15); etc. In the treatise On Predestination [Commonplace X], as with a ray of the sun, we have vindicated the universality written in these testimonies from the corruptions of those who imagine an absolute decree of reprobation and claim that there is a hidden will in God contrary to that which He has revealed. Just as the Romanists, on the one hand, urge the condition and merit of our works in the actual promises of the Gospel and deny that they are free, so also the Calvinists, on the other hand, urge an absolute decree of reprobation and deny the universality of the Gospel promises. In so doing both of them undermine the foundation of our comfort and cause the certainty of our salvation to totter; and, therefore, the apostle’s golden statement must be set against both of them: “That is why it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, and the promise may be firm for all his seed, not only to that which is of the Law but also to that which is of the faith of Abraham” (Rom. 4:16). Because there are especially two things—unworthiness and particularity—that terribly torment the sinner2 who is oppressed with the feeling of divine wrath and urge him to despair, therefore against the first specter we must set forth the promise of grace and, to the second, the assertion of universality, as we have shown in our Enchiridion consolatorium morti ac tentationibus in agone mortis opponendum.