John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)

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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.

John Calvin
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

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

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
It having been said above that God bends all the reprobate, and even Satan himself, at his will, three objections are started. First, that this happens by the permission, not by the will of God. To this objection there is a twofold reply, the one, that angels and men, good and bad, do nothing but what is appointed by God; the second, that all movements are secretly directed to their end by the hidden inspiration of God...

John Calvin
But as a heathen tells us, there is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God.

John Calvin
The whole comes to this, that Christ, when he produces faith in us by the agency of his Spirit, at the same time ingrafts us into his body, that we may become partakers of all spiritual blessings.

John Calvin
Nothing good can proceed from our will until it be formed again, and that after it is formed again in so far as it is good, it is of God, and not of us.

John Calvin
How can it be said that the weakness of the human will is aided so as to enable it to aspire effectually to the choice of good, when the fact is, that it must be wholly transformed and renewed?

John Calvin
Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation.

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

John Calvin
The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ efficaciously unites us to himself.

John Calvin
Faith is a knowledge of the benevolence of God toward us, and a certain persuasion of His veracity.

John Calvin
When we see that the whole sum of our salvation, and every single part of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must beware of deriving even the minutest portion of it from any other quarter.

John Calvin
It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God's face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.

John Calvin
Faith consists, not in ignorance, but in knowledge, and that, not only of God, but also of the divine will.

John Calvin
As by the revolt of the first man, the image of God could be effaced from his mind and soul, so there is nothing strange in His shedding some rays of grace on the reprobate, and afterwards allowing these to be extinguished.

John Calvin
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.

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

John Calvin
Our true wisdom is to embrace with meek docility, and without reservation, whatever the holy scriptures have delivered.

John Calvin
Can true repentance exist without faith? By no means. But although they cannot be separated, they ought to be distinguished.

John Calvin
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.

John Calvin
Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.

John Calvin
God orders what we cannot do, that we may know what we ought to ask him.

John Calvin
If grace acts in us, grace, and not we who do the work, but will be crowned.

John Calvin