John Calvin: Trending quotes (page 7)

As quoted in The Visual Theology of the Huguenots: Towards an Architectural Iconology of ...y Randal Carter Working Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.11.12 p.101

God , Painting

“Since God has revealed himself as a Father, we would be guilty of the basest ingratitude if we did not behave as his children.”

John Calvin

Page 19.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God , Children

“Man doubtless has been made subject to vanity—man here been reduced to nothing—man is nothing. And yet how is he whom God exalts utterly nothing? How is he nothing to whom a divine heart has been given? Let us breathe again, brethren. Although we are nothing in our hearts, perhaps something of us may lurk in the heart of God.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 2, Section 25, p. 479
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Heart

“For as the aged, or those whose sight is defective, when any books however fair, is set before them, though they perceive that there is something written are scarcely able to make out two consecutive words, but, when aided by glasses, begin to read distinctly, so Scripture, gathering together the impressions of Deity, which, till then, lay confused in our minds, dissipates the darkness, and shows us the true God clearly.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 6, p. 70
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Books , Age , Reading

“The worship of images is intimately connected with that of the saints. They were rejected by the primitive Christians; but St Irenæus, who lived in the second century, relates that there was a sect of heretics, the Carpocratians, who worshipped, in the manner of Pagans, different images representing Jesus Christ, St Paul, and others. The Gnostics had also images; but the church rejected their use in a positive manner, and a Christian writer of the third century, Minutius Felix, says that “the Pagans reproached the Christians for having neither temples nor simulachres;” and I could quote many other evidences that the primitive Christians entertained a great horror against every kind of images, considering them as the work of demons. It appears, however, that the use of pictures was creeping into the church already in the third century, because the council of Elvira in Spain, held in 305, especially forbids to have any picture in the Christian churches. These pictures were generally representations of some events, either of the New 5 In his Treatise given below. 11 or of the Old Testament, and their object was to instruct the common and illiterate people in sacred history, whilst others were emblems, representing some ideas connected with the doctrines [008] of Christianity. It was certainly a powerful means of producing an impression upon the senses and the imagination of the vulgar, who believe without reasoning, and admit without reflection; it was also the most easy way of converting rude and ignorant nations, because, looking constantly on the representations of some fact, people usually end by believing it. This iconographic teaching was, therefore, recommended by the rulers of the church, as being useful to the ignorant, who had only the understanding of eyes, and could not read writings.6 Such a practice was, however, fraught with the greatest danger, as experience has but too much proved. It was replacing intellect by sight.7 Instead of elevating man towards God, it was bringing down the Deity to the level of his finite intellect, and it could not but powerfully contribute to the rapid spread of a pagan anthropomorphism in the church.”

John Calvin

Source: A Treatise of Relics (1543), p. 10-11

God , People , Way , Quotes

“If God has bestowed on us any excellent gift, we imagine it to be our own achievement; and we swell and even burst with pride.”

John Calvin

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

God , Imagination

“But this we may positively state, that nobody has made any progress in the school of Christ unless he cheerfully looks forward to the day of his death and to the day of the final resurrection.”

John Calvin

Page 78.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Death , School , Christ

“Since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 1, Chapter 1, p. 45
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Nature

“Now let us consider how many relics of the true cross there are in the world. An account of those merely with which I am acquainted would fill a whole volume, for there is not a church, from a cathedral to the most miserable abbey or parish church, that does not contain a piece. Large splinters of it are preserved in various places, as for instance in the Holy Chapel at Paris, whilst at Rome they show a crucifix of considerable size made entirely, they say, from this wood. In short, if we were to collect all these pieces of the true cross exhibited in various parts, they would form a whole ship's cargo. The Gospel testifies that the cross could be borne by one single individual;..”

John Calvin

Traité des reliques http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32136/32136-h/32136-h.html, translators: Krasinski, Valerian, Count, approximately 1780-1855. P. 233.

World , Parting

“Elisabeth, again, while she praises her, is so far from hiding the Divine glory, that she ascribes everything to God. And yet, though she acknowledges the superiority of Mary to herself and to others, she does not envy her the higher distinction, but modestly declares that she had obtained more than she deserved.”

John Calvin

Commentary on Luke 1:43.
Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke

God , Envy

“The poor yield to the rich, the common people to the upper ten, the servants to their masters, the ignorant to the scholars; but there is nobody who does not imagine that he is really better than others.”

John Calvin

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

People , Imagination

“We must know and be out of all doubt, that the Pope hath but a devilish Synagogue, and that all his Clergy is but filth & stench, all these varlets that have cast aside the Church of God, are but vermin. Although the Pope, who is Antichrist, be set in God’s sanctuary, (as we have seen before [2 Thes. 2.4]) yet notwithstanding, he is not worthy to be taken and accounted for a minister of the Church, nor all his mates.”

John Calvin

Sermon on 1 Timothy, ch. 3. The 22 Sermon upon the second Chapter http://www.truecovenanter.com/calvin/calvin_22_on_Timothy.html Sermons on Timothy and Titus (16th-17th century facsimile editions), p. 265. pdf images http://www.puritansermons.com/pdf/calvin05.pdf

God