John Calvin Quotes
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Holiness is not a merit by which we can attain communion with God, but a gift of Christ, which enables us to cling to him, and to follow him.
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Those little children have not yet any understanding to desire His blessing; but when they are presented to Him, He gently and kindly receives them, and dedicates them to the Father by a solemn act of blessing.
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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.
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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.
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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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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 Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ efficaciously unites us to himself.
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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.
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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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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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For though we very truly hear that the kingdom of God will be filled with splendor, joy, happiness and glory, yet when these things are spoken of, they remain utterly remote from our perception, and as it were, wrapped in obscurities, until that day.
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Against the persecution of a tyrant the godly have no remedy but prayer.
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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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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.
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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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Justification by faith is the hinge on which all true religion turns.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.
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Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.
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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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Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.