John Calvin Quotes
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After 50 years, is it not clear that God has raised up new illnesses connected with fornication? From where do these things come if not from the hand of God? In response to these diseases. The world was astounded, and people were terrified for a time, but they have not, to this day, observed the hand of God.
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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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Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty.
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The fire of affliction reveals the quality of our faith.
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So great and boundless is God's wisdom that he knows right well how to use evil instruments to do good.
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It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone.
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But a faithful believer will in all circumstances mediate on the mercy and fatherly goodness of God.
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The Lord commands us to do good unto all men without exception, though the majority are very undeserving when judged according to their own merits. But scripture here helps us out with an excellent argument when it teaches us that we must not think of man's real value, but only of his creation in the image of God to which we owe all possible honor and love.
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We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.
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Those who fall away have never been thoroughly imbued with the knowledge of Christ but only had a slight and passing taste of it.
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In vain people busy themselves with finding any good of man's own in his will. For any mixture of the power of freewill that men strive to mingle with God's grace is nothing but a corruption of grace. It is just as if one were to dilute wine with muddy, bitter water.
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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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It is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command.
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Though Satan instils his poison, and fans the flames of our corrupt desires within us,we are yet not carried by any external force to the commission of sin, but our own flesh entices us, and we willingly yield to its allurements.
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Satan is an astute theologian.
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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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True it is, that he who has taken off his affection from the goods of this world has already sold all, and has made himself poor, so far as depends upon himself; but the fruit and the proof of this spiritual poverty are, patiently to endure the loss of worldly goods, and without any regret, when it pleases our heavenly Father that we should be despoiled of them.
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We must observe that the knowledge of God which we are invited to cultivate is not that which, resting satisfied with empty speculation, only flutters in the brain, but a knowledge which will prove substantial and fruitful whenever it is duly perceived and rooted in the heart.
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The image of God always abides in the soul, whether this image be obsolete and clouded over as to amount to almost nothing; or whether it be obscured or disfigured, as is the case with sinners; or whether it be clear and beautiful as is the case with the just.
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We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment.
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Where is our acknowledgement of God if our thoughts are fixed on the glamour of our garments?
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Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.
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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.
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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.