John Calvin Quotes

God does not bestow his spirit on his people in order to set aside the use of his word, but rather to render it fruitful.

The subject then of these chapters may be stated thus, - man's only righteousness is through the mercy of God in Christ, which being offered by the Gospel is apprehended by faith.

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

Life is not found in commandments or declarations of penalties, but in the promise of mercy and only in a gratuitous promise.

So great and boundless is God's wisdom that he knows right well how to use evil instruments to do good.

Faith is the evidence of divine adoption.

The unborn baby, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and should not be robbed of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.

It is only the goodness of God sensibly experienced by us which opens our mouth to celebrate His praise.

Justification by faith is the hinge on which all true religion turns.

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

When pain and suffering strike, our faith is well founded if it is standing on the promises of God. For all of God's promises have strong confirmation in Christ.

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.

All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions

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.

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.

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.

The answer of our prayers is secured by the fact that in rejecting them God would in a certain sense deny His own nature.

For it is better, with closed eyes, to follow God as our guide, than, by relying on our own prudence, to wander through those circuitous paths which it devises for us.

The most accomplished in the Scripture are fools, unless they acknowledge that they have need of God for their schoolmaster all the days of their life.

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.

Nothing, including human suffering, happens by chance.

Their [the Jews] rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone.

The word "hope" I take for faith; and indeed hope is nothing else but the constancy of faith.

We are surrounded by God’s benefits. The best use of these benefits is an unceasing expression of gratitude.

Concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, we must also be aware that he is our Advocate, and that without him we cannot approach God.

The church is the gathering of God's children, where they can be helped and fed like babies and then guided by her motherly care, grow up to manhood in maturity of faith.

It is certain that not one drop of rain falls without God's sure command.

Our true and genuine wisdom can be summed up as the knowledge of God and the knowledge of ourselves.

Man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols.

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

Prosperity inebriates men, so that they take delights in their own merits.

Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.

I exhort all, who reverence the Word of the Lord, to read it, and diligently imprint it on their memory.

The door is closed to prayer unless it is opened with the key of trust.

Because I know that I am not my own master, I offer my heart as a true sacrifice to the Lord.

Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.

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

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.

Prayer unaccompanied by perseverance leads to no result.

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

Knowledge of the sciences is so much smoke apart from the heavenly science of Christ.

Against the persecution of a tyrant the godly have no remedy but prayer.

If we are proud of our talents we betray our lack of gratitude to God.

I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness - nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew.

Faith is tossed about by various doubts, so that the minds of the godly are rarely at peace.

The only right stewardship is that which is tested by the rule of love.

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.

Faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ.

Augustine does not disagree with this when he teaches that it is a faculty of the reason and the will to choose good with the assistance of grace; evil, when grace is absent.

But the present life should never be hated, except insofar as it subjects us to sin, although even that hatred should not properly be applied to life itself.