John Calvin: Trending quotes (page 6)

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“Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages of the brothers of Christ.”

John Calvin

Bernard Leeming, "Protestants and Our Lady", Marian Library Studies, January 1967, p.9.

Christ

“Moreover, a true Christian will not ascribe any prosperity to his own diligence, industry, or good fortune, but he will acknowledge that God is the author of it.”

John Calvin

Page 43.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God

“The apostle denies that anyone actually knows Christ, who has not learned to put off the old man, corrupt with deceitful lusts, and to put on Christ.”

John Calvin

Page 20.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Learning , Christ

“When we recognize the rod of a father, should we not show ourselves docile children rather than rebelliously desperate men who have been hardened in their evil doings?”

John Calvin

Page 56.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Men , Children , Evil

“No one in this earthly prison of the body has sufficient strength of his own to press forward with a due degree of watchfulness, and the great majority [of Christians] are kept down with such great weakness that they stagger and halt and even creep on the ground, and so make very slight advances.”

John Calvin

Page 22.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“But it must be admitted that our heart is never seriously inclined to wish for and to mediate on the future life unless it has first thoroughly learned to forsake the vanities of the present world.”

John Calvin

Page 69.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Life , World , Learning , Future

“If all are born and live for the express purpose of learning to know God, and if the knowledge of God, in so far as it fails to produce this effect, is fleeting and vain, it is clear that all those who do not direct the whole thoughts and actions of their lives to this end fail to fulfil the law of their being.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 3, p. 52
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Law , Knowledge , Learning

“We take nothing from the womb but pure filth [meras sordes]. The seething spring of sin is so deep and abundant that vices are always bubbling up form it to bespatter and stain what is otherwise pure…. We should remember that we are not guilty of one offense only but are buried in innumerable impurities…. all human works, if judged according to their own worth, are nothing but filth and defilement…. they are always spattered and befouled with many stains…. it is certain that there is no one who is not covered with infinite filth.”

John Calvin

In John Calvin: A Sixteenth-Century Portrait, 1989, William J. Bouwsma, Oxford University Press, USA, ISBN 0195059514 ISBN 9780195059519, p. 36. http://books.google.com/books?id=ADdQiBaLW_kC&pg=PA36&dq=%22We+take+nothing+from+the+womb+but+pure+filth+%22&hl=en&ei=iu9lTJbUNsL48AbKt92DCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22We%20take%20nothing%20from%20the%20womb%20but%20pure%20filth%20%22&f=false

Spring

“There is deliverance in store only for the man who gives up his selfishness, and whose sole aim is to please the Lord and to do what is right in his sight.”

John Calvin

Page 29.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Selfishness

“This is the highest honour of the Church, that, until He is united to us, the Son of God reckons himself in some measure imperfect. What consolation is it for us to learn, that, not until we are along with him, does he possess all his parts, or wish to be regarded as complete! Hence, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when the apostle discusses largely the metaphor of a human body, he includes under the single name of Christ the whole Church.”

John Calvin

Commentary on Ephesians 1:23.
Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, 1854, Rev. William Pringle, tr., Edinburgh, p. 218. http://books.google.com/books?id=i3o9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA218&dq=%22reckons+himself+in+some+measure+imperfect%22&hl=en&ei=sHrpTcfgN4fX0QH2hMSSAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22reckons%20himself%20in%20some%20measure%20imperfect%22&f=false
Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians

God , Learning , Christ , Parting

“If we are minded to affirm Christ's Kingdom as we ought, we must wage irreconcilable war with him who is plotting its ruin.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill p. 174
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

War , Christ

“The vices of which we are full we carefully hide from others, and we flatter ourselves with the notion that they are small and trivial; we sometimes even embrace them as virtues.”

John Calvin

Page 32.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

“But a faithful believer will in all circumstances mediate on the mercy and fatherly goodness of God.”

John Calvin

Page 45.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God , Faith

“We should not insist on absolute perfection of the gospel in our fellow Christians, however we may strive for it ourselves.”

John Calvin

Page 21.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Perfection

“Scripture points out this difference between believers and unbelievers; the latter, as old slaves of their incurable perversity, cannot endure the rod; but the former, like children of noble birth, profit by repentance and correction.”

John Calvin

Page 57.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Children , Birth

“Where is our acknowledgement of God if our thoughts are fixed on the glamour of our garments?”

John Calvin

Page 85.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God

“In short, knowing that whatever may happen is ordained by the Lord, he will receive it with a peaceful and thankful heart, that he may not be guilty of proudly resisting the rule of him to whom he has once committed himself and all his belongings.”

John Calvin

Page 46.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Peace , Heart

“It is easy to see how superstition, with its false glosses, mocks God, while it tries to please him.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 4, p. 54
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Falseness

“Warned by such evidences of their spiritual illness, believers profit by their humiliations. Robbed of their foolish confidence in the flesh, they take refuge in the grace of God. And when they have done so, they experience the nearness of the divine protection which is to them a strong fortress”

John Calvin

Ps 30:6-7
Page 51.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God , Confidence , Strong

“When we hear any mention of our mystical union with Christ, we should remember that holiness is the channel to do it.”

John Calvin

Page 17.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Christ