John Calvin Quotes
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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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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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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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Faith consists, not in ignorance, but in knowledge, and that, not only of God, but also of the divine will.
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When we come to a comparison of heaven and earth, then we may indeed not only forget all about the present life, but even despise and scorn it.
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It is amazing how much our lack of trust provokes God if we request of him a boon that we do not expect.
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The Creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite, and at the same time, the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells of God.
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Satan is an astute theologian.
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The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.
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There is within every soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.
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Free-will cannot will good and of necessity serves sin.
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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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There is but one Church in which men find salvation, just as outside the ark of Noah it was not possible for anyone to be saved.
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There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love.
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Friendship is the source of the greatest pleasures, and without friends even the most agreeable pursuits become tedious.
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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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True peace consists in not separating ourselves from the will of God.
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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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Whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum Gratiani: The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry: the clothing you shut away, to the naked: and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless.
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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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There can be no courage in men unless God supports them by his Word.
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The Human heart is an idol factory.
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Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge - knowledge not of God merely...but when we recognize God as a propitious Father through the reconciliation made by Christ, and Christ as given to us for righteousness, sanctification, and life.
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Unless men establish their complete happiness in God, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.