Quote by Sinclair B. Ferguson

“Though Kuyper's views on special and common grace and sphere sovereignty are a source of difficult questions about the broader "Christian culture" issue, it is important to note that they also underline important aspects of his ecclesiology. Kuyper believed that common grace, under the lordship of the eternal Son of God, preserved this world with its natural activities and institutions. Special grace, on the other hand, under the lordship of the incarnate Son of God, bestowed saving blessing and thereby ushered in something new. The ministry of the saving grace belong particularly to the institutional church and its means of grace. The idea of sphere sovereignty, for Kuyper, indicated that the authority and activity of the church has a monopoly , as it were, over its distinctive work of ministering special , saving, recreating grace to god's people through its word, sacraments, government, and discipline. Kuyper's terms and categories may have been innovative, bu the larger idea of the church's preeminence in the outworking of Christ's redemptive work should have been familiar to those nurtured in the Reformed tradition.”