Top 100 Quotes About John Calvin
#1. For we never have naked and empty symbols, except when our ingratitude and wickedness hinder the working of divine beneficence.
John Calvin
#2. I exhort all, who reverence the Word of the Lord, to read it, and diligently imprint it on their memory.
John Calvin
#3. Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.
John Calvin
#4. While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.
John Calvin
#5. It is now clear that faith is a singular pledge of paternal love, treasured up for the sons whom he has adopted.
John Calvin
#6. God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.
John Calvin
#7. It is hypocrisy alone that leads men to be careless about themselves, [240] and haughtily to despise others.
John Calvin
#8. Without the Word, there is nothing left for us but darkness.
John Calvin
#9. 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.
John Calvin
#10. I have become used to swallowing insults for so long that I am almost insensitive; yet
John Calvin
#11. He who has learned to look to God in everything he does is at the same time diverted from all vain thoughts.
John Calvin
#12. The more we are oppressed by the cross, the fuller will be our spiritual joy.
John Calvin
#13. Is it not rather meant that it was placed far above us, in order to convince us of our utter feebleness?
John Calvin
#14. It teaches us not to regard others according to their own merits, but to consider in them the image of God to which we owe both honor and love. But
John Calvin
#15. The only right stewardship is that which is tested by the rule of love.
John Calvin
#16. Before we receive any knowledge of God's Fatherly good will for us, the blood of Christ must intercede for us and restore us to God's favor. Besides,
John Calvin
#17. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross.
John Calvin
#18. The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life.
John Calvin
#19. We shall never arrive at true meekness by any other way than by humiliating ourselves and by honoring others from the depth of our hearts.
John Calvin
#20. Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal, until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.
John Calvin
#21. I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness - nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew.
John Calvin
#22. If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture.
John Calvin
#23. Thus our arrogance grows as we seek to exalt ourselves above others, as if we were different from them. Truly, there's no one who does not flippantly and boldly disregard and despise others as inferiors. Yes,
John Calvin
#24. A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot
John Calvin
#25. How childish is the attempt to meet this argument by the following sophism! "We were chosen because we were worthy, and because God foresaw that we would be worthy." We
John Calvin
#26. The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the Creator and Redeemer.
John Calvin
#28. Though Satan instils his poison, and fans the flames of our corrupt desires within us,we are yet not carried by any external force to the commission of sin, but our own flesh entices us, and we willingly yield to its allurements.
John Calvin
#29. Wine is God's special drink. The purpose of good wine is to inspire us to a livelier sense of gratitude to God. - John Calvin
Lauren F. Winner
#30. 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.
John Calvin
#31. We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.
John Calvin
#32. Our true wisdom is to embrace with meek docility, and without reservation, whatever the holy scriptures have delivered.
John Calvin
#33. Many people have accused me of such ferocious cruelty that (they allege) I would like to kill again the man I have destroyed. Not only am I indifferent to their comments, but I rejoice in the fact that they spit in my face.
John Calvin
#34. The sufferings of Christ are the means of forgiveness of sin and eternal glory
John Calvin
#35. There is no wisdom but that which is focused on the fear of God.
John Calvin
#36. We cannot rely on God's promises without obeying his commandments.
John Calvin
#37. We can experience joy in adverse circumstances by holding God's benefits in such esteem that the recognition of them and meditation upon them shall overcome all sorrow.
John Calvin
#38. Faith and patience are exceptional virtues in those that suffer. Patience is the fruit and evidence of faith.
John Calvin
#39. Tears that are shed in time of affliction are rarely tears of penitence, but more likely they are shed out of self pity and pain or sorrow.
John Calvin
#40. All men were created to busy themselves with the labor for the common good.
John Calvin
#41. Faith is the evidence of divine adoption.
John Calvin
#42. And this is the evidence of faith that we never allow ourselves to be torn away from Christ and the promises we have in him. The
John Calvin
#43. There are sons of God who do not yet appear so to us, but now do so to God; and there are those who, on account of some arrogated or temporal grace, are called so by us, but are not so to God.
John Calvin
#44. If we are given gold, would we not test it to determine it's value? If we doubted its genuineness - we would test it by fire ... and so God with us ...
John Calvin
#45. Secondly, [man] should weigh his abilities-or rather lack of abilities.
John Calvin
#46. 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.
John Calvin
#47. We are not to look to what men in themselves deserve but to attend to the image of God which exists in all and to which we owe all honor and love.
John Calvin
#48. Wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.
John Calvin
#49. The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart.
John Calvin
#50. that there is nothing put forth in Scripture which it is not profitable to know.
John Calvin
#51. We must make the invisible kingdom visible in our midst.
John Calvin
#53. the Bible was to him the vehicle of God's power first, and secondly of our knowledge of Him.
John Calvin
#54. The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.
John Calvin
#55. Even Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that the Roman Catholic church, up to the Council of Trent, was basically orthodox - a true church with sound fundamental doctrines as well as significant error.
Norman Geisler
#56. We are taught that the salvation of all the elect is as certain as that God's power is invincible. Besides,
John Calvin
#57. If at any time, then we are troubled at the small number of those who believe, let us, on the other hand, call to mind, that none comprehend the mysteries of God save those to whom it is given.
John Calvin
#58. 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.
John Calvin
#59. those who see the nightly splendor of the moon are possessed by perverse ingratitude if they do not recognize the goodness of God.
John Calvin
#60. We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.
John Calvin
#61. By these words it is plain he does not make love the cause of forgiveness, but the proof of it.
John Calvin
#62. Our faith in doctrine is not established until we have a perfect conviction that God is its author.
John Calvin
#63. Scripture points out this difference between believers and unbelievers; the latter, as old slaves of their incurable perversity, cannot endure the rod; but the former, like children of noble birth, profit by repentance and correction.
John Calvin
#64. True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.
John Calvin
#65. Our assurance, our glory, and the sole anchor of our salvation are that Christ the Son of God is ours, and we in turn are in him sons of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven, called to the hope of eternal blessedness by God's grace, not by our worth.
John Calvin
#66. Faithful is the Lord, who has made himself our debtor, not by receiving any thing from us, but by promising us all things, (August. in Ps. 32, 109, et alibi).
John Calvin
#67. The evil in our desires typically does not lie in what we want, but that we want it too much.
John Calvin
#68. The law, in so far as it leads men to put their confidence in it, consigns them necessarily to death. The
John Calvin
#69. I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway.
John Calvin
#70. There is no group or type of people anywhere in the world that is excluded from salvation, because God desires that the gospel be proclaimed to all without exception.
John Calvin
#71. For he contrasts shadows with revelation, and absence with manifestation.
John Calvin
#72. It behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results.
John Calvin
#73. The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.
John Calvin
#74. Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.
John Calvin
#75. 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.
John Calvin
#76. God promised by the mouth of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the church ...
John Calvin
#77. 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.
John Calvin
#78. You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy.
John Calvin
#79. God orders what we cannot do, that we may know what we ought to ask of him.
John Calvin
#80. the word predestinate refers not to election but to that decree or purpose of God by which he has ordained that his own bear the cross. In
John Calvin
#81. On the one hand, undeserved success gives no satisfaction ... but, on the other hand, well-deserved failure gives no satisfaction either.
John Calvin
#82. Christ cannot be seen except in the spiritual life which the world does not possess. No
John Calvin
#83. He who neglects to pray alone and in private, however assiduously he frequents public meetings, there gives his prayers to the wind.
John Calvin
#84. But it is evident that the servants of Christ are treated with less humanity than adulterers, robbers, and other malefactors of their kind. This
John Calvin
#85. There is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God.
John Calvin
#86. The more closely we see ourselves being watched by our enemies, the more time intent we should be to avoid their slanders.
John Calvin
#87. Shall we, indeed, distinguish between right and wrong by that judgment which has been imparted to us, yet will there be no judge in heaven?
John Calvin
#88. He gave the tree of life its name, not because it could confer on man that life with which he had been previously endued, but in order that it might be a symbol and memorial of the
John Calvin
#89. Thus, to have a proper understanding of the gospel, we must recognise that we need to lean entirely upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his mercy alone as our only hope of salvation. We
John Calvin
#90. Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.
John Calvin
#91. For it is better, with closed eyes, to follow God as our guide, than, by relying on our own prudence, to wander through those circuitous paths which it devises for us.
John Calvin
#92. Unless we endeavor to do good to our neighbor, through our cruelty we transgress this law
John Calvin
#93. Indeed, a Christian ought to be disposed and prepared to keep in mind that he has to reckon with God every moment of his life.
John Calvin
#94. There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
John Calvin
#95. Therefore, it is blasphemous to give the title Son to anyone but Christ.
John Calvin
#96. If we are proud of our talents we betray our lack of gratitude to God.
John Calvin
#97. Because of the great distance between us and his heavenly glory, he himself came down to us through the Word. This
John Calvin
#98. Therefore, we are today far from wrong in applying this prophecy to the papists, who urge celibacy and abstinence from foods more forcefully than any precept of God. They
John Calvin
#99. Christ's intercession is the continual application of his death to our salvation.
John Calvin
#100. We should learn that there is no light in the law, or even in the whole Word of God, without Christ who is the Sun of Righteousness.
John Calvin
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