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This is plainly to ascribe divinity to 'free will.'
John Calvin -
Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge - knowledge not of God merely...but when we recognize God as a propitious Father through the reconciliation made by Christ, and Christ as given to us for righteousness, sanctification, and life.
John Calvin
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To crave wealth and honor, to demand power, to pile up riches, to gather all those vanities which seem to make for pomp and empty display, that is our furious passion and our unbounded desire.On the other hand, we fear and abhor poverty, obscurity, and humility, and we seek to avoid them by all possible means.
John Calvin -
Let our chief goal, O God, be your glory, and to enjoy You forever.
John Calvin -
The human heart has so many crannies where vanity hides, so many holes where falsehood works, is so decked out with deceiving hypocrisy, that it often dupes itself.
John Calvin -
I exhort all, who reverence the Word of the Lord, to read it, and diligently imprint it on their memory.
John Calvin -
Satan, who is a wonderful contriver of delusions, is constantly laying snares to entrap ignorant and heedless people.
John Calvin -
No man can come to God but by an extraordinary revelation of the Spirit.
John Calvin
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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.
John Calvin -
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.
John Calvin -
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.
John Calvin -
There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.
John Calvin -
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.
John Calvin -
Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?
John Calvin
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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.
John Calvin -
If God contains the fullness of all good things in Himself like an inexhaustible fountain, nothing beyond Him is to be sought by those who strike after the highest good and all the elements of happiness.
John Calvin -
Doubtful prayer is no prayer at all.
John Calvin -
Again I ask whence it happened that the fall of Adam involved, without remedy, in eternal death so many nations, together with their infant children, except because it so seemed good to God? A decree horrible, I confess, and yet true.
John Calvin -
Life is not found in commandments or declarations of penalties, but in the promise of mercy and only in a gratuitous promise.
John Calvin -
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.
John Calvin
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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.
John Calvin -
We ought always to beware of making the smallest claim for ourselves.
John Calvin -
Sometimes it seems things go by too quickly. We are so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take the time to enjoy where we are.
John Calvin -
The subject then of these chapters may be stated thus, - man's only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.
John Calvin