John Calvin Quotes
-
This is plainly to ascribe divinity to 'free will.'
-
Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
-
Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless.
-
Our physical illnesses serve us for medicines to purge us from worldly affections and retrench what is superfluous in us, and since they are to us the messengers of death, we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God.
-
The very word baptizé, however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient Church.
-
The marks of Jesus are imprisonment, chains, scourgings, blows and stoning in bearing testimony to the Gospel. Galatians 6:17 - 17 Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
-
Men are indeed to be taught that the favour of God is offered, without exception, to all who ask it; but since those only begin to ask whom heaven by grace inspires, even this minute portion of praise must not be withheld from Him. It is the privilege of the elect to be regenerated by the Spirit of God, and then placed under His guidance and government.
-
Satan, who is a wonderful contriver of delusions, is constantly laying snares to entrap ignorant and heedless people.
-
The whole comes to this, that Christ, when he produces faith in us by the agency of his Spirit, at the same time ingrafts us into his body, that we may become partakers of all spiritual blessings.
-
Let this point therefore stand: that those whom the Holy Spirit has inwardly taught truly rest upon Scripture, and that Scripture itself is self-authenticated. . . . Therefore, illumined by his power, we believe neither by our own nor by any one else's judgment that Scripture is from God; but above human judgment we affirm with utter certainty (just as if we were gazing upon the majesty of God himself) that it has flowed to us from the very mouth of God by the ministry of men.
-
Now we shall possess a right definition of faith if we call it a firm and certain knowledge of God's benevolence toward us, founded upon the truth of the freely given promise in Christ, both revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
-
No one has rightly denied himself unless he has wholly resigned himself to the Lord and is willing to leave every detail to his good pleasure. If we put ourselves in such a frame of mind, then, whatever may happen to us, we shall never feel miserable or accuse God falsely because of our lot.
-
Unless we ardently and prayerfully devote ourselves to Christ's righteousness we do not only faithlessly revolt from our Creator, but we also abjure him as our Savior.
-
Whenever our sins press hard against us, whenever Satan would drive us to despair, we must hold up this shield, that God does not want us to be overwhelmed in everlasting destruction, for He has ordained His Son to be the salvation of the world.
-
Nobody seriously believes the universe was made by God without being persuaded that He takes care of His works.
-
I exhort all, who reverence the Word of the Lord, to read it, and diligently imprint it on their memory.
-
Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have.
-
There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.
-
The church is the gathering of God's children, where they can be helped and fed like babies and then guided by her motherly care, grow up to manhood in maturity of faith.
-
There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.
-
The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.
-
Unless men establish their complete happiness in God, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.
-
If we believe heaven to be our country, it is better for us to transmit our wealth thither, than to retain it here, where we may lose it by a sudden removal.
-
Since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only record in which God has been pleased to consign His truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognized unless they are believed to have come from heaven as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them.