John calvin quotes

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

Humility is the beginning of true intelligence.

We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.

When I took the leap, I had faith I would find a net; Instead I learned I could fly.

Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.

When God designs to forgive us he changes our hearts and turns us to obedience by His Spirit.

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

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

When our faith is tested by suffering "as gold is tried in a furnace" and we depend with confidence on God and rely entirely on his help, we will be granted the most excellent gift of patience and through faith we may victoriously persevere to the end.

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.

Peace is not to be purchased by the sacrifice of truth.

We must not think that [God] takes no notice of us, when He does not answer our wishes: for He has a right to distinguish what we actually need.

God would remain absolutely hidden if we were not illuminated by the brightness of Christ.

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.

Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with nothing to offer and everything to recieve

On the one hand, undeserved success gives no satisfaction... but, on the other hand, well-deserved failure gives no satisfaction either.

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.

I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? Everything in Christ.

A perfect faith is nowhere to be found, so it follows that all of us are partly unbelievers.

Whenever the Lord holds us in suspense, and delays his aid, he is not therefore asleep, but, on the contrary, regulates all His works in such a manner that he does nothing but at the proper time.

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.

Nothing, including human suffering, happens by chance.

When the Bible speaks, God speaks.

Without the Gospel everything is useless and vain.

If a preacher is not first preaching to himself, better that he falls on the steps of the pulpit and breaks his neck than preaches that sermon.

We must make the invisible kingdom visible in our midst.

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.

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.

It is a most blessed thing to be subject to the sovereignty of God.

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.

God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.

The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.

Whatever a person may be like, we must still love them because we love God.

While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.

A man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous.

There is also an old proverb, that they who pay much attention to the body generally neglect the soul.

We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.

Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.

The happiness promised us in Christ does not consist in outward advantages-such as leading a joyous and peaceful life, having rich possessions, being safe from all harm, and abounding with delights such as the flesh commonly longs after. No, our happiness belongs to the heavenly life!

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

Free will does not enable any man to perform good works, unless he is assisted by grace; indeed, the special grace which the elect alone receive through regeneration. For I stay not to consider the extravagance of those who say that grace is offered equally and promiscuously to all

Let us be peaceable as near as we can: let us relent of our own right: let us not strive for these worldly goods, honour and reputation: let us bear all wrongs and outrages, rather than be moved to any debate through our own fault. But in the meanwhile, let us fight for God's truth with tooth and nail.

No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief.

The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life.

But those who wish to prove to unbelievers that Scripture is the Word of God are acting foolishly, for only by faith can this be known.

Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.

We are nowhere forbidden to laugh, or be satisfied with food...or to be delighted with music or to drink wine.

Human will does not by liberty obtain grace, but by grace obtains liberty.

The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.

Prayer unaccompanied by perseverance leads to no result.

Doubtful prayer is no prayer at all.

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

When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious.

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.

Let us consider this settled, that no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection.

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.

We cannot rely on God's promises without obeying his commandments.

The pastor ought to have two voices: one, for gathering the sheep; and another, for warding off and driving away wolves and thieves. The Scripture supplies him with the means of doing both.

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

True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.

Unless God's Word illumine the way, the whole life of men is wrapped in darkness and mist, so that they cannot but miserably stray.

Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.

Holiness is not a merit by which we can attain communion with God, but a gift of Christ, which enables us to cling to him, and to follow him.

God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.

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

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.

Where God's Spirit does not reign, there is no humility, and men ever swell with inward pride.

Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ.

For it was not after we were reconciled to him by the blood of his Son that he began to love us, but he loved us before the foundation of the world, that with his only begotten Son we too might be sons of God before we were anything at all.

Those who fall away have never been thoroughly imbued with the knowledge of Christ but only had a slight and passing taste of it.

Let our chief goal, O God, be your glory, and to enjoy You forever.

All true knowledge of God is born out of obedience.

Our physical illnesses serve us for medicines to purge us from worldly affections and retrench what is superfluous in us, and since they are to us the messengers of death, we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God.

We should never insult others on account of their faults, for it is our duty to show charity and respect to everyone.

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.

Only those who have learned well to be earnestly dissatisfied with themselves, and to be confounded with shame at their wretchedness truly understand the Christian gospel.

To make intercession for men is the most powerful and practical way in which we can express our love for them.

We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.

Joy is a quiet gladness of heart as one contemplates the goodness of God's saving grace in Christ Jesus.

The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.

Unless we fix certain hours in the day for prayer, it easily slips from our memory.

There is no place for faith if we expect God to fulfill immediately what he promises.

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.

Prayer doesn't change things - God changes things in answer to prayer.

The majesty of God in itself goes beyond the capacity of human understanding and cannot be comprehended by it.. We must adore its loftiness rather than investigate it, so that we do not remain overwhelmed by so great a splendor.

Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.

If God does nothing random, there must always be something to learn.

Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.

Faith is the evidence of divine adoption.

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

Prayer is the chief exercise of faith.

I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.

You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.

The fire of affliction reveals the quality of our faith

When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.

For what is idolatry if not this: to worship the gifts in place of the Giver himself?

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

Sometimes it seems things go by too quickly. We are so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take the time to enjoy where we are.

The Bible is the sceptre by which the Heavenly King rules His Church.

Pagan philosophers set up reason as the sole guide of life, of wisdom and conduct; but Christian philosophy demands of us that we surrender our reason to the Holy Spirit; and this means that we no longer live for ourselves, but that Christ lives and reigns within us (Rom 12:1; Eph 4:23; Gal 2:20).

Prosperity inebriates men, so that they take delights in their own merits.

Things that are seen are temporal; things that are unseen are eternal.

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.

The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the creator and Redeemer.

There can be no courage in men unless God supports them by his Word.

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.

That man is truly humble who neither claims any personal merit in the sight of God, nor proudly despises brethren, or aims at being thought superior to them, but reckons it enough that he is one of the members of Christ, and desires nothing more than that the Head alone should be exalted.

The first part of a good work is the will, the second is vigorous effort in the doing of it. God is the author of both. It is, therefore, robbery from God to arrogate anything to ourselves, either in the will or the act.

For we are not all equally afflicted with the same disease or all in need of the same severe cure. This is the reason why we see different persons disciplined with different crosses. The heavenly Physician takes care of the well-being of all his patients; he gives some a milder medicine and purifies others by more shocking treatments, but he omits no one; for the whole world, without exception, is ill (Deut 32:15).

Man's mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain.

Satan is an astute theologian.

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

God is not limited to any person, but calls freely whomsoever He pleases, and bestows on those who are called whatever rewards He thinks fit.

My heart I give you, Lord, eagerly and entirely.

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.

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

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.

A man that extols himself is a fool and an idiot

Whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of His fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil.

There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.

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.

Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority.

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.

men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success

Their [the Jews] rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.