John Calvin Quotes
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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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To search for wisdom apart from Christ means not simply foolhardiness but utter insanity.
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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 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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A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot.
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Unless we endeavor to do good to our neighbor, through our cruelty we transgress this law.
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The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.
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Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of His fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil.
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The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.
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We have been adopted as sons by the Lord with this one condition; that our life expresses Christ, the bond of our adoption. Accordingly, unless we give and devote ourselves to righteousness, we not only revolt from our Creator with wicked perfidy, but we also abjure our Savior Himself.
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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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If God were not to test us, there would be no patience.
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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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Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.
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My heart I give you, Lord, eagerly and entirely.
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For our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity, so that we cannot make the effort to pray.
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Faith is the evidence of divine adoption.
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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 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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If everything proceeded according to their wishes, they would not understand what it means to follow God.
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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.
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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.