attached his promise. As Berkhof explains this view, God “is not absolutely bound to them but ordinarily binds himself to them.” God has appointed them as the ordinary means through which He works His grace in the hearts of sinners, and their willful neglect can only result in spiritual loss.… The special grace of God operates only in the sphere in which the means of grace function. This truth must be maintained over against the Mystics, who deny the necessity of the means of grace. God is a God