A friend called attention to this remarkable passage in Calvin’s Institutes (3.24.8): “there is a universal call, by which God, through the external preaching of the word, invites all men alike, even those for whom he designs the call to be a savor of death, and the ground of severer condemnation. Besides this there is a special call which, for the most part , God bestows on believers only, when by the internal illumination of the Spirit he causes the word preached to take deep root in their hearts. Sometimes, however, he communicates it [i.e., the special call] also to those whom he enlightens only for a time, and whom afterwards, in just punishment for their ingratitude, he abandons and smites with greater blindness” (emphasis added).
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