John Calvin Quotes
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But we have nothing of the Spirit except through regeneration. Everything, therefore, which we have from nature is flesh.
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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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If we are proud of our talents we betray our lack of gratitude to God.
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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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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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Men are indeed to be taught that the favour of God is offered, without exception, to all who ask it; but since those only begin to ask whom heaven by grace inspires, even this minute portion of praise must not be withheld from Him. It is the privilege of the elect to be regenerated by the Spirit of God, and then placed under His guidance and government.
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Life is not found in commandments or declarations of penalties, but in the promise of mercy and only in a gratuitous promise.
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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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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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Angels are the dispensers and administrators of the divine beneficence toward us.
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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 name of Christ excludes all merit of our own.
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Satan is an astute theologian.
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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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Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.
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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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...nothing good can proceed from our will until it be formed again, and that after it is formed again in so far as it is good, it is of God, and not of us.
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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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This is plainly to ascribe divinity to 'free will.'
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The principle exercise which the children of god have is to pray. For in this way they give true proof of their faith.
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Whensoever God's truth is defaced or when any man turns away from the pure simplicity of the Gospel, we must not in any wise spare him, but although the whole world should set itself against us, yet must we maintain the case with invincible constancy, without bending for any creature.
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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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Justification by faith is the hinge on which all true religion turns.
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Christians rejoice even while they truly sorrow - because their rejoicing is in the hope of heaven... While joy overcomes sorrow, it does not put an end to it.