Quotes from John Calvin

but will supply our necessities until our warfare is ended, and we are called to triumph: such being the nature of his kingdom, that he communicates to us whatever he received of his Father. Since then he arms and equips us by his power, adorns us with splendour and magnificence

It is the Spirit of God alone who opens the gate of heaven to the elect. Further

Each year, month, and day is governed by a new, a special, providence of God

THE GOAL OF God's work in us is to bring our lives into harmony and agreement with His own righteousness, and so to manifest to ourselves and others our identity as His adopted children.

The illumination of   our minds by the Holy Spirit belongs to our renewal, and thus faith   flows from regeneration as from its source; but since it is by the same   faith that we receive Christ, who sanctifies us by his Spirit, on that   account it is said to be the beginning of our adoption.

himself, even if the means of escape lay before him; nay, he embraces him not less as the avenger of wickedness than as the rewarder of the righteous; because he perceives that it equally appertains to his glory to store up punishment for the one, and eternal life for the other.

If I were inclined to compile a whole volume from Augustine, I could easily show my readers, that I need no words but his.

In regard to the present question, while it explains what our duty is it teaches that the power of obeying it is derived from the goodness of God, and it accordingly urges us to pray that this power may be given us.

True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.

The only reason for security is that our salvation is in God's hand. Our

Although the wicked rise up against us with violence, let us be of a bronze countenance, as Ezekiel says (3:8 f.). Let

Wherefore, when we wander and go astray, we are justly shut out from every species of excuse, because all things point to the right path. But while man must bear the guilt of corrupting the seed of divine knowledge so wondrously deposited in his mind, and preventing it from bearing good and genuine fruit, it is still most true that we are not sufficiently instructed by that bare and simple, but magnificent testimony which the creatures bear to the glory of their Creator. For

The fact is that unless we are extricated by the grace of Christ, we remain subject to the violence of a whole mass of innumerable evils.

since Satan is always breathing down our necks, and is ready and scheming to plunge us into a thousand perils, we ought to be no less watchful and on our guard.

But this passage shows, that what Paul has hitherto meant by the Spirit, is not the mind or understanding (which is called the superior part of the soul by the advocates of freewill) but a celestial gift; for he shows that those are spiritual, not such as obey reason through their own will, but such as God rules by his Spirit.

And this is the evidence of faith that we never allow ourselves to be torn away from Christ and the promises we have in him. The

The church is, as Paul declares, founded on the doctrine of Apostles and Prophets [Eph 2:2]; but these men [of the Roman Catholic Church] speak as if they imagined that the mother owed her birth to the daughter.

The decree is dreadful indeed, I confess.

Let us imagine, for example, a merchant who, entering a wood with a company of faithful men, unwisely wanders away from his companions, and in his wandering comes upon a robber's den, falls among thieves, and is slain. His death was not only foreseen by God's eye, but also determined by his decree. For it is not said that he foresaw how long the life of each man would extend, but that he determined and fixed the bounds that men cannot pass [Job 14:5]. Yet

Faith acquires what the Law requires; nay, the Law requires, in order that faith may acquire what is thus required; nay, more, God demands of us faith itself, and finds not what he thus demands, until by giving he makes it possible to find it.

unless God   feed us daily, the largest accumulation of the necessaries of life will   be of no avail. Though

error can never be eradicated from the heart of man until the true knowledge of God has been implanted in it

By piety I mean that union of reverence and love to God which the knowledge of his benefits inspires.

By these words it is plain he does not make love the cause of forgiveness, but the proof of it.