John Calvin Quotes
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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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A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.
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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.
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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.
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Nothing, including human suffering, happens by chance.
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But prosperity, and the happy issue of events, ought also to be attributed to his grace, in order that he may always receive the praise which he deserves, that of being a merciful Father, and an impartial Judge. About the close of the psalm, he inveighs against those ungodly men who will not acknowledge God's hand, amid such palpable demonstrations of his providence.
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All truth is God's truth.
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The Angels are the dispensers and administrators of the Divine beneficence toward us. They regard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us.
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When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutest portion of it from any other quarter.
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It is a most blessed thing to be subject to the sovereignty of God.
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The happiness promised us in Christ does not consist in outward advantages-such as leading a joyous and peaceful life, having rich possessions, being safe from all harm, and abounding with delights such as the flesh commonly longs after. No, our happiness belongs to the heavenly life!
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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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Free-will cannot will good and of necessity serves sin.
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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.
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Rejoicing refers to moderation of spirit when the mind keeps itself in calmness under adversity and does not give indulgence to grief. Constant praying is the way of 'rejoicing perpetually', for by this means we ask from God alleviation in connection with all our distresses.
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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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The name of Christ excludes all merit of our own.
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But the present life should never be hated, except insofar as it subjects us to sin, although even that hatred should not properly be applied to life itself.
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Accursed is that peace of which revolt from God is the bond, and blessed are those contentions by which it is necessary to maintain the kingdom of Christ.
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True peace consists in not separating ourselves from the will of God.
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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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There is also an old proverb, that they who pay much attention to the body generally neglect the soul.
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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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The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues.