Interesting passage from the earliest Swiss reformer

“The good which we shall enjoy is infinite and the infinite cannot be exhausted, therefore no one can become surfeited with it, for it is ever new and yet the same. Then you may hope to see the whole company and assemblage of all the saints, the wise, the faithful, brave, and good who have lived since the world began. Here you will see the two Adams, the redeemed and the redeemer, Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Phineas, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, and the Virgin Mother of God of whom he prophesied, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, the Baptist, Peter, Paul; here too, Hercules, Theseus, Socrates, Aristides, Antigonus, Numa, Camillus, the Catos and Scipios; here Louis the Pious, and your [King Francis I] predecessors, the Louis, Philips, Pepins, and all your ancestors who have gone hence in faith. In short there has not been a good man and will not be a holy heart or faithful soul from the beginning of the world to the end thereof that you will not see in heaven with God” (Zwingli, “Exposition of the Christian Faith,” chapter X).

[Here below is from the editors of the book from which the passage above is taken:]
"The real point is that Zwingli could make the assertion [that Socrates, Camillus, et al. would be in heaven] because it was congruent with his whole conception of the divine sovereignty and the election of grace. The redemptive purpose and activity of God was not limited by the chronology or the geography of the incarnation and the atonement. The decree of election upon which all salvation depends was a decree from all eternity, enclosing men of all generations within its embrace. Chronologically the patriarchs and pious Israelites preceded the coming of the Saviour, but this did not prevent their salvation by anticipatory faith. Similary the pious heathen might well be the recipients of divine grace and redemption even though they remained outside the temporal reach of the Gospel. They were not saved because of their piety, but because of the eternal activity of God in election and atonement. The temporality of the Redeemer's life and death did not set any limit to the possibilities of God's eternal grace. In outward form, no doubt, the assertion was determined by Zwingli's humanistic predilections, but its theological foundation was uncompromisingly Reformed."

Zwingli and Bullinger (Library of Christian Classics) by G. W. Bromiley