French theologian, pastor & reformer (1509-1564)
No religion is genuine unless it be joined with truth.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
A true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
It is not lawful for you to make a compromise with God: to try to fulfill part of your duties and to omit others at your own pleasure.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
Let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments. Though we fall short, our labour is not lost if this day surpasses the preceding one.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
Since Christ has been communicated to you with all his benefits, so that all which is his is made yours, you become a member of him, and hence one with him. His righteousness covers your sins--his salvation extinguishes your condemnation; he interposes with his worthiness, and so prevents your unworthiness from coming into the view of God.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
Since God has revealed himself as a Father, we would be guilty of the basest ingratitude if we did not behave as his children.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
We are promised abundance of all good things--yet we are rich only in hunger and thirst. What would become of us if we did not take our stand on hope, and if our heart did not hasten beyond this world!
JOHN CALVIN
Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul
The large benefits which the divine liberality is constantly bestowing on the wicked are preparing them for heavier judgment. As they neither think that these proceed from the hand of the Lord, nor acknowledge them as his, or if they do so acknowledge them, never regard them as proofs of his favor, they are in no respect more instructed thereby in his mercy than brute beasts, which, according to their condition, enjoy the same liberality, and yet never look beyond it.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
In doing practically only the things which He testifies He cares nothing about, superstition neglects those which He has ordained and said are pleasing to Him or even openly rejects them. Therefore those who (in order to worship God) establish religions which have their source in their own minds, only worship their own dreams.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
We may also fitly remember that Satan has his miracles, which, though they are deceitful tricks rather than true powers, are such a sort as to mislead the simple-minded and untutored.
JOHN CALVIN
Prefatory Address, Institutes of the Christian Religion
If all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
The ceremony of lifting up our hands in prayer is designed to remind us that we are far removed from God, unless our thoughts rise upward.
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him?
JOHN CALVIN
Institutes of the Christian Religion
All things being at God's disposal, and the decision of salvation or death belonging to him, he orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction.
JOHN CALVIN
Ioannis Calvini Institutio Christianae religionis
A dog barks and stands at bay if he sees any one assault his master. I should be indeed remiss, if, seeing the truth of God thus attacked, I should remain dumb, without giving one note of warning.
JOHN CALVIN
letter to the Queen of Navarre, 28 April, 1545
Even if this earth is only a vestibule, we ought undoubtedly to make such a use of its blessing that we are assisted rather than delayed in our journey.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
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.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life
But it must be admitted that our heart is never seriously inclined to wish for and to mediate on the future life unless it has first thoroughly learned to forsake the vanities of the present world.
JOHN CALVIN
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life