John Calvin Quotes
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The whole gospel is contained in Christ.
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In a way, the futile excuses many people use to cover their superstitions are demolished. They think it is enough to have some sort of religious fervor, however ridiculous, not realizing that true religion must be according to God's will as the perfect measure; that He can never deny Himself and is no mere spirit form to be changed around according to individual preference.
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The flesh is willing to flatter itself, and many who now give themselves every indulgence, promise to themselves an easy entrance into life. THus men practice mutual deception on each other and fall asleep in wicked indifference.
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God is undoubtedly ready to pardon whenever the sinner turns. Therefore, he does not will his death, in so far as he wills repentance. But experience shows that this will, for the repentance of those whom he invites to himself, is not such as to make him touch all their hearts. Still, it cannot be said that he acts deceitfully; for though the external word only renders, those who hear it, and do not obey it, inexcusable, it is still truly regarded as an evidence of the grace by which he reconciles men to himself.
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You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.
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The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.
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To search for wisdom apart from Christ means not simply foolhardiness but utter insanity.
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A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot.
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The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.
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Prayers will never reach God unless they are founded on free mercy.
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Original sin, therefore, appears to be a hereditary, depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all the parts of the soul, rendering us obnoxious to the divine wrath and producing in us those works which the scripture calls 'works of.
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For it was not after we were reconciled to him by the blood of his Son that he began to love us, but he loved us before the foundation of the world, that with his only begotten Son we too might be sons of God before we were anything at all.
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My heart I give you, Lord, eagerly and entirely.
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If God were not to test us, there would be no patience.
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Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.
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If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God.
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Even if this earth is only a vestibule, we ought undoubtedly to make such a use of its blessing that we are assisted rather than delayed in our journey.
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The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the creator and Redeemer.
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It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"! (Institutio III.2.3)
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For our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity, so that we cannot make the effort to pray.
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No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority of Christians are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances.
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For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him?
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To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.
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God orders what we cannot do, that we may know what we ought to ask him.