st,
the sole Author of salvation, by the Holy Spirit, who creates and
preserves faith in us, he treats of God's eternal election; which is
the cause that we, in whom he foresaw no good but what he intended
freely to bestow, have been favored with the gift of Christ, and
united to God by the effectual call of the Gospel.--Lastly, he treats
of complete regeneration, and the fruition of happiness; that is, the
final resurrection, towards which our eyes must be directed, since in
this world the felicity of the pious, in respect of enjoyment, is only
begun.

IV. But as the Holy Spirit does not unite all men to Christ, or make
them partakers of faith, and on those to whom he imparts it he does
not ordinarily bestow it without means, but employs for this purpose
the preaching of the Gospel and the use of the sacraments, with the
administration of all discipline, therefore it follows in the Creed,
"I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," whom, although involved in
eternal death, yet, in pursuance of the gratuitous election, God has
freely reconciled to himself in Christ, and made partakers of the Holy
Spirit, that, being ingrafted into Christ, they may have communion
with him as their head, whence flows a perpetual remission of sins,
and a full restoration to eternal life.

So in the fourth book our Author treats of the Church--then of the
means used by the Holy Spirit in effectually calling from spiritual
death, and preserving the church--the word and sacraments--baptism
and the Lord's supper--which are as it were Christ's regal sceptre, by
which he commences his spiritual reign in the Church by the energy of
his Spirit, and carries it forwards from day to day during the present
life, after the close of which he perfects it without those means.

And as political institutions are the asylums of the Church in this
life, though civil government is distinct from the spiritual kingdom
of Christ, our Author instructs us respecting it as a signal blessing
of God, which the Church ought to acknowledge with gratitude of
heart, till we are called out of this transitory state to the heavenly
inheritance, where God will be all in all.

This is the plan of the Institutes, which may be comprised in the
following brief summary:--

Man, created originally upright, being afterwards ruined, not
partially, but totally, finds salvation out of himself, wholly in
Christ; to whom being united by the Holy Spirit, freely bestowed,
without any r