John Calvin Quotes
-
The Lord has not redeemed you so you might enjoy pleasures and luxuries or so that you might abandon yourself to ease and indolence, but rather so you should be prepared to endure all sorts of evils.
-
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.
-
We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve but to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love.
-
We must always speak of the efficacy of the ministry in such a manner that the entire praise of the work may be reserved for God alone.
-
God does not bestow his spirit on his people in order to set aside the use of his word, but rather to render it fruitful.
-
All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions.
-
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.
-
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.
-
There is no group or type of people anywhere in the world that is excluded from salvation, because God desires that the gospel be proclaimed to all without exception.
-
The effect of our knowledge rather ought to be, first, to teach us reverence and fear; and, secondly, to induce us, under its guidance and teaching, to ask every good thing from God, and, when it is received, ascribe it to him. For how can the idea of God enter your mind without instantly giving rise to the thought, that since you are his workmanship, you are bound, by the very law of creation, to submit to his authority?-\-\that your life is due to him?-\-\that whatever you do ought to have reference to him.
-
Satan is an astute theologian.
-
For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by His fatherly care, that He is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond Him - they will never yield Him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in Him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to Him.
-
There cannot be a surer rule, nor a stronger exhortation to the observance of it, than when we are taught that all the endowments which we possess are divine deposits entrusted to us for the very purpose of being distributed for the good of our neighbour.
-
It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.
-
Everyone flatters himself and carries a kingdom in his breast.
-
Scripture will ultimately suffice for a saving knowledge of God only when its certainty is founded upon the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, these human testimonies which exist to confirm it will not be vain if, as secondary aids to our feebleness, they follow that chief and highest testimony. But those who wish to prove to unbelievers that Scripture is the Word of God are acting foolishly, for only by faith can this be known.
-
Hatred grows into insolence when we desire to excel the rest of mankind and imagine we do not belong to the common lot; we even severely and haughtily despise others as our inferiors.
-
Those who fall away have never been thoroughly imbued with the knowledge of Christ but only had a slight and passing taste of it.
-
No Task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God's sight.
-
The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.
-
When our faith is tested by suffering "as gold is tried in a furnace" and we depend with confidence on God and rely entirely on his help, we will be granted the most excellent gift of patience and through faith we may victoriously persevere to the end.
-
Elisabeth, again, while she praises her, is so far from hiding the Divine glory, that she ascribes everything to God. And yet, though she acknowledges the superiority of Mary to herself and to others, she does not envy her the higher distinction, but modestly declares that she had obtained more than she deserved.
-
For the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man's house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.
-
It is amazing how much our lack of trust provokes God if we request of him a boon that we do not expect.