John Calvin Quotes
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True it is, that he who has taken off his affection from the goods of this world has already sold all, and has made himself poor, so far as depends upon himself; but the fruit and the proof of this spiritual poverty are, patiently to endure the loss of worldly goods, and without any regret, when it pleases our heavenly Father that we should be despoiled of them.
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As by the revolt of the first man, the image of God could be effaced from his mind and soul, so there is nothing strange in His shedding some rays of grace on the reprobate, and afterwards allowing these to be extinguished.
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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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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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There can be no courage in men unless God supports them by his Word.
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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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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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It is a most blessed thing to be subject to the sovereignty of God.
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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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All our words ought to be filled with true sweetness and grace; and this will be so if we mingle the useful with the sweet.
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All truth is God's truth.
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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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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 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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Christ is much more powerful to save, than Adam was to destroy.
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The marks of Jesus are imprisonment, chains, scourgings, blows and stoning in bearing testimony to the Gospel. Galatians 6:17 - 17 Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
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True faith is ever connected with hope.
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Repentance is the true turning of our life to God, a turning that arises from a pure and earnest fear of Him; and it consists in the mortification of the flesh and the renewing of the Spirit.
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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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Free-will cannot will good and of necessity serves sin.
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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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The very word baptizé, however, signifies to immerse; and it is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient Church.
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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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Justification by faith is the hinge on which all true religion turns.