John Calvin Quotes

178 Sourced Quotes

The poor yield to the rich, the common people to the upper ten, the servants to their masters, the ignorant to the scholars; but there is nobody who does not imagine that he is really better than others.

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

John Calvin
We explain justification simply as the acceptance with which God receives us into his favor as righteous men. And we say that it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of Christ's righteousness.

John Calvin
There is no golden mean between these two extremes; either this early life must become low in our estimation, or it will have our inordinate love.

John Calvin
No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority [of Christians] are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances.

John Calvin
When we hear any mention of our mystical union with Christ, we should remember that holiness is the channel to do it.

John Calvin
Men are indeed to be taught that the favour of God is offered, without exception, to all who ask it; but since those only begin to ask whom heaven by grace inspires, even this minute portion of praise must not be withheld from Him. It is the privilege of the elect to be regenerated by the Spirit of God, and then placed under His guidance and government.

John Calvin
There is nothing in afflictions which ought to disturb our joy.

John Calvin
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

John Calvin
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
We unjustly defraud God of his right, unless each of us lives and dies in dependence on His sovereign pleasure.

John Calvin
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.

John Calvin
There cannot be a surer rule, nor a stronger exhortation to the observance of it, than when we are taught that all the endowments which we possess are divine deposits entrusted to us for the very purpose of being distributed for the good of our neighbour.

John Calvin
The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues.

John Calvin
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
When we come to a comparison of heaven and earth, then we may indeed not only forget all about the present life, but even despise and scorn it.

John Calvin
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
Everyone flatters himself and carries a kingdom in his breast.

John Calvin
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
But we have nothing of the Spirit except through regeneration. Everything, therefore, which we have from nature is flesh.

John Calvin
Unless we ardently and prayerfully devote ourselves to Christ's righteousness we do not only faithlessly revolt from our Creator, but we also abjure him as our Savior.

John Calvin
The more we are oppressed by the cross, the fuller will be our spiritual joy.

John Calvin
Now the great thing is this: we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory. For a sacred thing may not be applied to profane uses without marked injury to him.

John Calvin
We shall never be fit for the service of God, if we look not beyond this fleeting life.

John Calvin
Now we must remark, that there are two parts in the Commandment-the first forbids the erection of a graven image, or any likeness; the second prohibits the transferring of the worship which God claims for Himself alone, to any of these phantoms or delusive shows.

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

John Calvin
The flesh is willing to flatter itself, and many who now give themselves every indulgence, promise to themselves an easy entrance into life. THus men practice mutual deception on each other and fall asleep in wicked indifference.

John Calvin
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
Christ is the most perfect image of God, into which we are so renewed as to bear the image of God, in knowledge, purity, righteousness, and true holiness.

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

John Calvin