The Institution of Christian Religion

Now that Repentance is a singular gift of God, I think it be so well known by the doctrine above taught, that I need not to repeat a long discourse to prove it again.¹ Therefore the church praiseth and hath in admiration the benefit of God, that he hath given the Gentiles repentance unto salvation.² And Paul commanding Timothy to be patient and mild toward the unbelievers, saith: If at any time God give them repentance that they may repent from the snares of the Devil. God in deed affirmeth that he willeth the conversion of all men, and directeth his exhortations generally to all men: but the effectual working thereof hangeth upon the Spirit of regeneration. Because it were more easy to create us men, than of our own power to put on a better nature.³ Therefore in the whole course of regeneration we are not without cause called, the work of God created to good works, which he hath prepared that we should walk in them. Whom soever the lords will is to deliver from death, those he quickeneth with the Spirit of regeneration: not that repentance is properly the cause of salvation, but because it is already seen that it is unseparable from faith and from the mercy of God:⁴ sith (as Isaiah testifieth) there is a redeemer come to him, and to those that in Jacob are returned from their wickedness. This truly standeth steadfastly determined, that were so ever liveth the fear of God, there the Spirit hath wrought unto the salvation of man.⁵ Therefore, in Isaiah, when the faithful complain and lament that they are forsaken of God, they reckon this as a token of being reprobates, that their hearts were hardened by God. The Apostle also meaning to exclude apostates from hope of salvation,⁶ appointeth this reason, that it is impossible for them to be renewed unto repentance: because God in renewing them whom he will not have perish, showeth a token of his fatherly favour, and in a manner draweth them unto him with the beams of his cheerful and merry countenance: on the other side with hardening them, he thundereth against the reprobate, whose wickedness is unpardonable. Which kind of vengeance the Apostle threateneth to wilful apostates,