John Calvin Quotes

178 Sourced Quotes

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.

John Calvin
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.

John Calvin
For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known: it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God.

John Calvin
It is no small honour that God for our sake has so magnificently adorned the world, in order that we may not only be spectators of this beauteous theatre, but also enjoy the multiplied abundance and variety of good things which are presented to us in it.

John Calvin
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.

John Calvin
But prosperity, and the happy issue of events, ought also to be attributed to his grace, in order that he may always receive the praise which he deserves, that of being a merciful Father, and an impartial Judge. About the close of the psalm, he inveighs against those ungodly men who will not acknowledge God's hand, amid such palpable demonstrations of his providence.

John Calvin
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.

John Calvin
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.

John Calvin
If we are proud of our talents we betray our lack of gratitude to God.

John Calvin
It is a sign of a perverse and treacherous disposition to wound the good name of another, when he has no opportunity of defending himself.

John Calvin
No one has rightly denied himself unless he has wholly resigned himself to the Lord and is willing to leave every detail to his good pleasure. If we put ourselves in such a frame of mind, then, whatever may happen to us, we shall never feel miserable or accuse God falsely because of our lot.

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

John Calvin
The only right stewardship is that which is tested by the rule of love.

John Calvin
There are people who are known to be very liberal, yet they never give without scolding or pride or even insolence.

John Calvin
It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.

John Calvin
I exhort all, who reverence the Word of the Lord, to read it, and diligently imprint it on their memory.

John Calvin
When we recognize the rod of a father, should we not show ourselves docile children rather than rebelliously desperate men who have been hardened in their evil doings?

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

John Calvin
To crave wealth and honor, to demand power, to pile up riches, to gather all those vanities which seem to make for pomp and empty display, that is our furious passion and our unbounded desire.On the other hand, we fear and abhor poverty, obscurity, and humility, and we seek to avoid them by all possible means.

John Calvin
Prayers belong strictly to the worship of God. Fasting is a subordinate aid, which is pleasing to God no farther than as it aids the earnestness and fervency of prayer.

John Calvin
Satan, who is a wonderful contriver of delusions, is constantly laying snares to entrap ignorant and heedless people.

John Calvin
But the present life should never be hated, except insofar as it subjects us to sin, although even that hatred should not properly be applied to life itself.

John Calvin
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
Faith consists not in ignorance, but in knowledge - knowledge not of God merely...but when we recognize God as a propitious Father through the reconciliation made by Christ, and Christ as given to us for righteousness, sanctification, and life.

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

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

John Calvin
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
Nevertheless, our constant efforts to lower our estimate of the present world should not lead us to hate life or to be ungrateful toward God. For this life, though it is full of countless miseries, deserves to be reckoned among the divine blessings which should not be despised. Therefore, if we discover nothing of God's goodness in it, we are already guilty of no small ingratitude toward him.

John Calvin
The sum is, that the worship of God must be spiritual, in order that it may correspond with His nature. For although Moses only speaks of idolatry, yet there is no doubt but that by synecdoche, as in all the rest of the law, he condemns all fictitious services which men in their ingenuity have invented.

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

John Calvin