John Calvin Quotes
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He makes this favor common to all, because it is propounded to all, and not because it is in reality extended to all; for though Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and is offered through God’s benignity indiscriminately to all, yet all do not receive him.
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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.
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How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ.
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Warned by such evidences of their spiritual illness, believers profit by their humiliations. Robbed of their foolish confidence in the flesh, they take refuge in the grace of God. And when they have done so, they experience the nearness of the divine protection which is to them a strong fortress (Ps 30:6-7).
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The whole world is a theatre for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice, and power, but the Church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it; and the nearer the approaches are that God makes to us, the more intimate and condescending the communication of his benefits, the more attentively are we called to consider them.
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The fact that the evil ones, as long as they live, can be corrected from their errors does not prohibit that they may be justly executed, for the danger which threatens from their way of life is greater and more certain than the good which may be expected from their improvement.
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Whatever a person may be like, we must still love them because we love God.
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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.
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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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It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone.
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Free will is an empty term.
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Prayers belong strictly to the worship of God. Fasting is a subordinate aid, which is pleasing to God no farther than as it aids the earnestness and fervency of prayer.
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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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Every person, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find Him.
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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.
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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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It is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command.
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The sum is, that the worship of God must be spiritual, in order that it may correspond with His nature. For although Moses only speaks of idolatry, yet there is no doubt but that by synecdoche, as in all the rest of the law, he condemns all fictitious services which men in their ingenuity have invented.
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Prayer unaccompanied by perseverance leads to no result.
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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.
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The Bible is the sceptre by which the Heavenly King rules His Church.
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Nevertheless, our constant efforts to lower our estimate of the present world should not lead us to hate life or to be ungrateful toward God. For this life, though it is full of countless miseries, deserves to be reckoned among the divine blessings which should not be despised. Therefore, if we discover nothing of God's goodness in it, we are already guilty of no small ingratitude toward him.
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Against the persecution of a tyrant the godly have no remedy but prayer.
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That man is truly humble who neither claims any personal merit in the sight of God, nor proudly despises brethren, or aims at being thought superior to them, but reckons it enough that he is one of the members of Christ, and desires nothing more than that the Head alone should be exalted.