Quotes from John Calvin

all those who storm heaven like giants, without Christ's help, are deprived of any right knowledge of God. Anyone

For even if the Word in his immeasurable essence united with the nature with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine that he was confined therein. Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin's womb, to go about earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning.

Now God's image is the perfect excellence of human nature which shone in Adam before his defection, but was subsequently so vitiated and almost blotted out that nothing remains after the ruin except what is confused, mutilated, and disease-ridden. Therefore in some part it now is manifest in the elect, in so far as they have been reborn in the spirit; but it will attain its full splendor in heaven.

We should forever keep in mind that we must not brood on the wickedness of man, but realize that he is God's image bearer.

As all future events are uncertain to us, so we hold them in suspense, as if they might incline to one side or the other. Yet in our hearts it nonetheless remains fixed that nothing will take place that the Lord has not previously foreseen.

ought we to put confidence in men who conduct themselves with rashness, and, though they assume authority in God's name, yet have no certain and lawful calling? We may learn, then, how neither angels nor men ought to be held in such honor as to induce us to receive whatever they bring forward, unless the Almighty has appointed them to be his ministers and interpreters.

All the Apostles abound in exhortations, admonitions and rebukes, for the purpose of training the man of God to every good work, and that without any mention of merit. Nay, rather their chief exhortations are founded on the fact, that without any merit of ours, our salvation depends entirely on the mercy of God.

Now, if any one should object, that it is unjust for the innocent   to bear the punishment of another's sin, I answer, whatever gifts God   had conferred upon us in the person of Adams he had the best right to   take away, when Adam wickedly fell.

true knowledge of God and of the secret of his wisdom comes from faith, because the obedience of faith opens to us the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven.

This renewal, indeed, is not accomplished in a moment, a day, or a year, but by uninterrupted, sometimes even by slow progress God abolishes the remains of carnal corruption in his elect, cleanses them from pollution, and consecrates them as his temples, restoring all their inclinations to real purity, so that during their whole lives they may practice repentance, and know that death is the only termination to this warfare.

Men will never worship God with a sincere heart, or be roused to fear and obey Him with sufficient zeal until they properly understand how much they are indebted to His mercy.

At present, likewise, there are among Christians new Stoics who think it a vice not only to groan and weep, but even to be sad or upset. And indeed, these ridiculous ideas generally come from idle men.

Christ descended to us, to bear us up to the Father, and at the same time to bear us up to himself, inasmuch as he is one with the Father.

no one truly belongs to the church and is counted among God's children, unless he first becomes a new man. This

It is not denied that there is room for improvement; but what I maintain is, that the nearer any one approaches in resemblance to God, the more does the image of God appear in him. That believers may attain to it, God assigns repentance as the goal towards which they must keep running during the whole course of their lives.

This far, indeed, we differ from each other, in that everyone appropriates to himself some peculiar error; but we are all alike in this, that we substitute monstrous fictions for the one living and true God—

But he immediately adds another clause, to teach us, that if anything in us tends to life, it is what the Spirit produces; for no spark of life proceeds from our flesh.

the reason for God's keeping some for himself and rejecting others is to be sought nowhere but in God himself. When

It is, indeed, true for pagans that the greatest blessing is not to be born, and the next, to die immediately.

the anger   of God proceeds with a slow step to avenge itself, but that it   compensates for its tardiness by the severity of its punishment.

when we are angered by the sins of   others, we should beware lest a temptation of an opposite kind should   take possession of our minds.

those who see the nightly splendor of the moon are possessed by perverse ingratitude if they do not recognize the goodness of God.

To this it must be added that a sincere love of the law of God is a sure sign of our adoption because it is a work of the Spirit. . .

Who does not see that Paul descends from a general to a   particular adoption, in order to teach us, that not all who occupy a   place in the Church are to be accounted as true members of the Church?