John Calvin Quotes
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Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.
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The fire of affliction reveals the quality of our faith.
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God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church.
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Our true wisdom is to embrace with meek docility, and without reservation, whatever the holy scriptures have delivered.
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Those who set up a fictitious worship, merely worship and adore their own delirious fancies; indeed, they would never dare so to trifle with God, had they not previously fashioned him after their own childish conceits.
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Christ's intercession is the continual application of his death to our salvation.
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Can true repentance exist without faith? By no means. But although they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished.
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The Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.
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Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.
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It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.
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We are promised abundance of all good things--yet we are rich only in hunger and thirst. What would become of us if we did not take our stand on hope, and if our heart did not hasten beyond this world!
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Joy is a quiet gladness of heart as one contemplates the goodness of God's saving grace in Christ Jesus.
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At this day . . . the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds, minds which are not afraid to employ the seed of Deity deposited in human nature as a means of suppressing the name of God. Can anything be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God? He will not say that chance has made him different from the brutes; . . . but, substituting Nature as the architect of the universe, he suppresses the name of God.
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Faith is God's work within us.
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It is permissible to use wine not only for necessity, but also to make us merry...... it must be moderate lest men forget themselves, drown their senses,.....in making merry those who enjoy wine feel a livelier gratitude to God.
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For earthly princes lay aside their power when they rise up against God, and are unworthy to be reckoned among the number of mankind. We ought, rather, utterly to defy them.
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God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.
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The Bible is the sceptre by which the Heavenly King rules His Church.
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But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men!
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The Eucharist is the Sacrament of Love; It signifies Love, It produces love. The Eucharist is the consummation of the whole spiritual life.
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But we have nothing of the Spirit except through regeneration. Everything, therefore, which we have from nature is flesh.
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Free will is an empty term.
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Surely in Judas' betrayal it will be no more right, because God both willed that his Son be delivered up, and delivered him up to death, to ascribe the guilt of the crime to God than to transfer the credit for redemption to Judas.
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Then let every one of us, being warned by this sentence of the angel, acknowledge that he as yet cleaves to first principles, or, at least, does not comprehend all those things which are necessary to be known; and that therefore progress is to be made to the very end of life: for this is our wisdom, to be learners to the end.