John Calvin Quotes

But a most pernicious error widely prevails that Scripture has only so much weight as is conceded to it by the consent of the church. As if the eternal and inviolable truth of God depended upon the decision of men!

Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty.

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

However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.

If people mean that man has in himself the power to work in partnership with God's grace they are most wretchedly deluding themselves.

We are surrounded by God’s benefits. The best use of these benefits is an unceasing expression of gratitude.

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.

The answer of our prayers is secured by the fact that in rejecting them God would in a certain sense deny His own nature.

The Scriptures should be read with the aim of finding Christ in them. Whoever turns aside from this object, even though he wears himself out all his life in learning, he will never reach the knowledge of the truth.

This is plainly to ascribe divinity to 'free will.'

Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?

Hypocrisy can plunge the mind of a man into a dark abyss, when he believes his own self-flattery instead of God's verdict.

Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.

The subject then of these chapters may be stated thus, - man's only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.

No man can come to God but by an extraordinary revelation of the Spirit.

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.

Because the will renewed is the Lord's work, it is wrongly attributed to man that he obeys prevenient grace with his will as attendant.

There is no wisdom but that which is founded on the fear of God, which Solomon also declares to be the chief part of wisdom.

Let it stand, therefore, as an indubitable truth, which no engines can shake, that the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that he cannot conceive, desire, or design any thing but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure, and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness.

Our prayer must not be self-centered. It must arise not only because we feel our own need as a burden we must lay upon God, but also because we are so bound up in love for our fellow men that we feel their need as acutely as our own. To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.

The grace of God has no charms for men till the Holy Spirit gives them a taste for it.

Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.

For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which, as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know, so nothing is taught but what is expedient to know. Therefore we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture, lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what it is in any way profitable to suppress.

It is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command.

We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.

Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness.

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.

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.

A dog barks when his master is attacked. I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.

By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man

We may rest assured that God would never have suffered any infants to be slain except those who were already damned and predestined for eternal death.

To be Christians under the law of grace does not mean to wander unbridled outside the law, but to be engrafted in Christ, by whose grace we are free from the curse of the law, and by whose Spirit we have the law engraved upon our hearts.

How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ.

The Fanaticism which discards the Scripture, under the pretense of resorting to immediate revelations is subversive of every principle of Christianity. For when they boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods.

True faith is ever connected with hope.

The blindness of unbelievers in no way detracts from the clarity of the gospel; the sun is no less bright because blind men do not perceive its light.

Doctrine is not an affair of the tongue but of the life.

Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

Whenever our sins press hard against us, whenever Satan would drive us to despair, we must hold up this shield, that God does not want us to be overwhelmed in everlasting destruction, for He has ordained His Son to be the salvation of the world.

Whoever shall now contend that it is unjust to put heretics and blasphemers to death will knowingly and willingly incur their very guilt.

Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.

So great and boundless is God's wisdom that he knows right well how to use evil instruments to do good.

It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone.

For our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity, so that we cannot make the effort to pray.

Christ is much more powerful to save, than Adam was to destroy.

Faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration.

It is entirely the work of grace and a benefit conferred by it that our heart is changed from a stony one to one of flesh, that our will is made new, and that we, created anew in heart and mind, at length will what we ought to will.

Those little children have not yet any understanding to desire His blessing; but when they are presented to Him, He gently and kindly receives them, and dedicates them to the Father by a solemn act of blessing.