Top 411 Quotes & Sayings by John Calvin
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French theologian John Calvin.
Last updated on September 10, 2024.
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.
God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray.
Every one of us is, even from his mother's womb, a master craftsman of idols.
I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels.
Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?
All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.
There is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not glisten before God.
There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
We must remember that Satan has his miracles, too.
The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.
For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God.
There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.
Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ.
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.
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.
Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.
You must submit to supreme suffering in order to discover the completion of joy.
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.
Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.
However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.
Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men.
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.
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.
Whatever a person may be like, we must still love them because we love God.
When I took the leap, I had faith I would find a net; Instead I learned I could fly.
While all men seek after happiness, scarcely one in a hundred looks for it from God.
We shall never be clothed with the righteousness of Christ except we first know assuredly that we have no righteousness of our own.
How do we know that God has elected us before the creation of the world? By believing in Jesus Christ.
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.
The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble.
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.
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.
The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.
Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.
God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.
Peace is not to be purchased by the sacrifice of truth.
Prayer doesn't change things - God changes things in answer to prayer.
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.
Faith is like an empty, open hand stretched out towards God, with nothing to offer and everything to recieve
The surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves.
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.
If God does nothing random, there must always be something to learn.
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.
The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life.
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.
Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, there a church of God exists, even if it swarms with many faults.
True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.
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.
Satan is an astute theologian.
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.
Humility is the beginning of true intelligence.
I gave up all for Christ, and what have I found? Everything in Christ.
Whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone, strives after something beyond absolute perfection.
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.
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.
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!
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.
When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers.
Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.
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.
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