John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)

54 Sourced Quotes

View all John Calvin Quotes
For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any book, however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written, are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.

John Calvin
In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.

John Calvin
Since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only record in which God has been pleased to consign His truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognized unless they are believed to have come from heaven as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them.

John Calvin
He who has learned to look to God in everything he does is at the same time diverted from all vain thoughts.

John Calvin
But, as sculpture and painting are gifts of God, what I insist on is, that both shall be used purely and lawfully, that gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon us, for His glory and our good, shall not be preposterously abused, nay, shall not be perverted to our destruction.

John Calvin
Prayers will never reach God unless they are founded on free mercy.

John Calvin
To know God as the sovereign disposer of all good, inviting us to present our requests, and yet not to approach or ask of him, were so far from availing us, that it were just as if one told of a treasure were to allow it to remain buried in the ground.

John Calvin
We are not to reflect on the wickedness of men but to look to the image of God in them, an image which, covering and obliterating their faults, an image which, by its beauty and dignity, should allure us to love and embrace them.

John Calvin
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
No man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which we possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.

John Calvin
Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?

John Calvin
God works in his elect in two ways: inwardly, by his Spirit; outwardly, by his Word.

John Calvin
Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves.

John Calvin
Whether each of the faithful has a particular angel assigned him for his defense, I cannot venture certainly to affirm; not one angel only has the care of every one of us, but that all the angels together with one consent watch over our salvation....

John Calvin
A man will be justified by faith when, excluded from righteousness of works, he by faith lays hold of the righteousness of Christ, and clothed in it, appears in the sight of God not as a sinner, but as righteous...

John Calvin
If true religion is to beam upon us, our principle must be, that it is necessary to begin with heavenly teaching, and that it is impossible for any man to obtain even the minutest portion of right and sound doctrine without being a disciple of Scripture.

John Calvin
The true wisdom of man consists in the knowledge of God the creator and Redeemer.

John Calvin
Hence that dread and amazement with which as Scripture uniformly relates holy men were struck and overwhelmed whenever they beheld the presence of God. Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance until they have.

John Calvin
The Angels are the dispensers and administrators of the Divine beneficence toward us. They regard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us.

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

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
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