Assuredly there is but one way in which to achieve what is not merely difficult but utterly against human nature: to love those who hate us, to repay their evil deeds with benefits, to return blessings for reproaches. It is that we remember not to consider men's evil intention but to look upon the image of God in them, which cancels and effaces their transgressions, and with its beauty and dignity allures us to love and embrace them.

We explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.

On the contrary, therefore, Christ declares that the doctrine of the Gospel, though it is preached to all without exception, cannot be embraced by all, but that a new understanding and a new perception are requisite; and, therefore, that faith does not depend on the will of men, but that it is God who gives it.

Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols.

There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.

In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.

Satan, who is a wonderful contriver of delusions, is constantly laying snares to entrap ignorant and heedless people.