Quotes from John Calvin

Once we've concluded that this earthly life of ours is a gift of divine mercy—and grateful recollection of this is our obligation—then we rightly stoop to consider this life's miserable condition. And by such consideration we disentangle ourselves from excessive desire for this life, which— as has been said—is our natural inclination.

the Holy City shall not be moved from its place because God dwells in it and is always ready to bring it help.

PSALM 112    As the majority of mankind expect to prosper by evil deeds, and as they   generally endeavor to enrich themselves by plunder, fraud, and every   species of injustice, the prophet enumerates the blessings of God which   attend those who worship him in purity, in order that we may know that,   in aiming at a life of piety and morality, we shall not lose our   reward.

Priests are set up by the pope and his followers to sacrifice Christ, not to teach the people. But

If you shall be paid what you deserve, you must be punished. What then happens? God has not rendered you the punishment you deserve, but bestows undeserved grace. If you would be estranged from grace, boast of your own merits." Again: "Of yourself you are nothing. Sins are your own, but merits are God's. You deserve punishment, and when the reward comes he will crown his own gifts, not your merits.

the glory of God   is the highest end, to which our sanctification is subordinate.

It is not for us to ask the Lord to discharge us from his army, no matter what fighting we have done. For Christ will have no discharged soldiers, except those who have overcome death itself. . . .

Therefore by the example of Abram, entire self-renunciation is   enjoined, that we may live and die to God alone.

But Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for men's eternal redemption and he alone officiated in that priestly act. He

It is now clear that faith is a singular pledge of paternal love, treasured up for the sons whom he has adopted.

Psalm (145)

But observe, that men then revolted from God, when, having   forsaken his word, they lent their ears to the falsehoods of Satan.   Hence we infer, that God will be seen and adored in his word; and,   therefore, that all reverence for him is shaken off when his word is   despised.

Since men do not create their own life but obtain life precariously from another, it follows that God dwells in them.

Faith rests not on ignorance, but on knowledge.

God established the law itself as the perpetual rule of his church, to be always in the hands of men, and to be followed by all posterity. But

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?

If only we were convinced deep in our hearts that persecutions are among God's blessings, what progress we should make in the knowledge of divine truth! What

So also we, if we are to give ourselves wholly to Christ, must break away from all the entanglements of this world.

All who have not been influenced by the principle of self-denial, have followed virtue merely from the love of praise.

It is absurd to boast of zeal for the law, when one neglects the divine interpretation of it. So

Whence follows the plain conclusion, that if all men were elected, no man would perish.

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.

There is no end and no limit to the obstacles of the man who wants to pursue what is right and at the same time shrinks back from self-denial.

Satan accuses   God of falsehoods of envy, and of malignity, and our first parents   subscribe to a calumny thus vile and execrable.