John Calvin Quotes (161 quotes, page 2)

“It is no small honour that God for our sake has so magnificently adorned the world, in order that we may not only be spectators of this beauteous theatre, but also enjoy the multiplied abundance and variety of good things which are presented to us in it.”

John Calvin

Works (1844) edited by the Calvin translation society, as quoted in Reformed Spirituality: An Introduction for Believers (1991) by Howard L. Rice, p. 59.

God , World

“All things being at God’s disposal, and the decision of salvation or death belonging to him, he orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction.”

John Calvin

In John Allen, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion. Ioannis Calvini Institutio Christianae religionis http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC06656346&id=ONsOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=calvin+%22devoted+from+the+womb%22&as_brr=1#PRA1-PA169,M1 (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1841), p.169.

Death , Men , God , Decision

“It having been said above that God bends all the reprobate, and even Satan himself, at his will, three objections are started. First, that this happens by the permission, not by the will of God. To this objection there is a twofold reply, the one, that angels and men, good and bad, do nothing but what is appointed by God; the second, that all movements are secretly directed to their end by the hidden inspiration of God…”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book I Ch. 18 "The Instrumentality of the Wicked employed by God, while He continues free from every taint" as translated by Henry Beveridge.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Men , God , Angels

“The aversion of the first Christians to the images, inspired by the Pagan simulachres, made room, during the centuries which followed the period of the persecutions, to a feeling of an entirely different kind, and the images gradually gained their favour. Reappearing at the end of the fourth and during the course of the fifth centuries, simply as emblems, they soon became images, in the true acceptation of this word; and the respect which was entertained by the Christians for the persons and ideas represented by those images, was afterwards converted into a real worship. Representations of the sufferings which the Christians had endured for the sake of their religion, were at first exhibited to the people in order to stimulate by such a sight the faith of the masses, always lukewarm and indifferent. With regard to the images of divine persons of entirely immaterial beings, it must be remarked, that they did not originate from the most spiritualised and pure doctrines of the Christian society, but were rejected by the severe orthodoxy of the primitive church. These simulachres appear to have been spread at first by the Gnostics,—i. e., by those Christian sects which adopted the most of the beliefs of Persia and India. Thus it was a Christianity which was not purified by its contact with the school of Plato,—a Christianity which entirely rejected the Mosaic tradition, in order to attach itself to the most strange and attractive myths of Persia and India,—that gave birth to the images.”

John Calvin

Source: A Treatise of Relics (1549), p. 13

People , School , Faith , Religion

“When we come to a comparison of heaven and earth, then we may indeed not only forget all about the present life, but even despise and scorn it.”

John Calvin

Page 74.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Life , Forgetting

“Being humbled, we learn to call upon his strength which alone makes us stand up under such a load of afflictions.”

John Calvin

Page 50.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Affliction , Learning

“Some think that He does not call her 'mother' but only 'woman' so as not to inflict a deeper wound of sorrow on her heart. I do not reject this; but another conjecture is no less probable, that Christ wanted to show that now that He has completed the course of human life, He puts off the condition in which He has lived and enters into the heavenly kingdom where He will rule over angels and men. For we know that Christ's custom always was to recall believers from looking at the flesh. This was especially necessary at His death.”

John Calvin

Commentary on John 19:26
St John

Life , Death , Men , Angels

“I cannot think such language either right, or becoming, or suitable. … To call the Virgin Mary the mother of God can only serve to confirm the ignorant in their superstitions.”

John Calvin

John Calvin, https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1556352468 Epistle CCC to the French church in London, 27th September 1552; translated by Jules Bonnet, p.362

God , Thinking

“For all whom the Lord has chosen and received into the society of his saints ought to prepare themselves for a life that is hard, difficult, laborious, and full of countless griefs. It is the will of their heavenly Father to try them in this manner that he may test them.”

John Calvin

Page 48.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Life

“Nevertheless, our constant efforts to lower our estimate of the present world should not lead us to hate life or to be ungrateful toward God. For this life, though it is full of countless miseries, deserves to be reckoned among the divine blessings which should not be despised. Therefore, if we discover nothing of God’s goodness in it, we are already guilty of no small ingratitude toward him.”

John Calvin

Page 72.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Life , God , Hate , World

“In the mind perfect intelligence flourished and reigned, uprightness attended as its companion, and all the senses were prepared and moulded for due obedience to reason; and in the body there was a suitable correspondence with this internal order. But now, although some obscure lineaments of that image are found remaining in us; yet are they so vitiated and maimed, that they may truly be said to be destroyed. For besides the deformity which everywhere appears unsightly, this evil also is added, that no part is free from the infection of sin.”

John Calvin

Commentary on Genesis 1. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom01.vii.i.html, (1554)
Genesis (1554)

Intelligence , Sense , Appearance , Evil

“If there had been any unbelief in Mary, that could not prevent God from accomplishing his work in any other way which he might choose. But she is called blessed, because she received by faith the blessing offered to her, and opened up the way to God for its accomplishment.”

John Calvin

Commentary on Luke 1:45 http://www.biblestudyguide.org/comment/calvin/comm_vol31/htm/ix.viii.htm.
Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke

God , Faith , Way

“The name of Christ is used here instead of the Church, because the similitude was intended to apply—not to God's only-begotten Son, but to us. It is a passage that is full of choice consolation, inasmuch as he calls the Church Christ; for Christ confers upon us this honour —that he is willing to be esteemed and recognised, not in himself merely, but also in his members. Hence the same Apostle says elsewhere, (Eph. i. 23,) that the Church is his completion, as though he would, if separated from his members, be incomplete.”

John Calvin

Commentary on 1 Corinthians, 12:12.
Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, 1848, Rev. William Pringle, tr., Edinburgh, Volume 1, p. 405. http://books.google.com/books?id=tQsOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA405&dq=%22calls+the+church+christ%22&hl=en&ei=w3_pTZW2CYLx0gGl2L2WAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAjgU#v=onepage&q=%22calls%20the%20church%20christ%22&f=false
Epistles to the Corinthians

God , Christ

“The belief that the body of the Virgin was not interred on earth, but was taken to heaven, has deprived them of all pretext for manufacturing any relics of her remains, which otherwise might have been sufficiently abundant to fill a whole churchyard; yet in order to have at least something belonging to her, they sought to indemnify themselves for the absence of other relics with the possession of her hair and her milk. The hair is shown in several churches in Rome, and at Salvatierra in Spain, at Macon, St Flour, Cluny, Nevers, and in many other towns. With regard to the milk, there is not perhaps a town, a convent, or nunnery, where it is now shown in large or small quantites. Indeed, had the Virgin been a wet-nurse her whole life, or a dairy, she could not have produced more than is shown as hers in various parts.”

John Calvin

Johnstone and Hunter edition (1854), p. 248
A Treatise of Relics (1543)

Life , Parting

“For just as soon as a visible form has been fashioned for God, his power is also bound to it. Men are so stupid that they fasten God wherever they fashion him; and hence they cannot but adore. And there is no difference whether they simply worship an idol, or God in the idol. It is always idolatry when divine honors are bestowed on an idol, under whatever pretext this is done. And because it does not please God to be worshiped superstitiously, whatever is conferred upon the idol is snatched from him.”

John Calvin

Institutes 1.11.9 as quoted in War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin by Carlos, M. N. Eire p.217

Men , God , Stupidity , Fashion

“No one has rightly denied himself unless he has wholly resigned himself to the Lord and is willing to leave every detail to his good pleasure. If we put ourselves in such a frame of mind, then, whatever may happen to us, we shall never feel miserable or accuse God falsely because of our lot.”

John Calvin

Page 44.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God , Pleasure , Feeling , Falseness

“That they may not become too complacent or delighted in married life, he makes them distressed by the shortcomings of their partners, or humbles them through willful offspring, or afflicts them with the want or loss of children. But, if in all these matters he is more merciful to them, he shows them by diseases and dangers how unstable and passing all mortal blessings are, that they may not be puffed up with vain glory.”

John Calvin

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

Life , Children , Disease , Affliction

“[Elizabeth] calls Mary the mother of her Lord. This denotes a unity of person in the two natures of Christ; as if she had said, that he who was begotten a mortal man in the womb of Mary is, at the same time, the eternal God…. This name Lord strictly belongs to the Son of God 'manifested in the flesh,' (1 Timothy 3:16,) who has received from the Father all power, and has been appointed the highest ruler of heaven and earth, that by his agency God may govern all things.”

John Calvin

John Calvin. "Commentary on Luke 1:43". Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 1. Retrieved 2009-01-07.
Harmony of Matthew, Mark, Luke

God , Nature , Time , Christ

“It is not lawful for you to make a compromise with God: to try to fulfill part of your duties and to omit others at your own pleasure.”

John Calvin

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

God , Pleasure , Law , Parting

“Just as a maistre Fifi mocks those who hold their noses [in his presence]. because he has handled filth for so long that he can no longer smell his own foulness; so likewise do idolaters make light of those who are offended by a stench they cannot themselves recognize. Hardened by habit, they sit in their own excrement, and yet believe they are surrounded by roses.”

John Calvin

Excuse, CR 6.595. as quoted in ibid, p.220

Light

“Nor, in truth, is it of little importance to prevent the suspicion of any difference having arisen between us from being handed down in any way to our posterity; for it is worse than absurd that parties should be found disagreeing on the very principles, after we have been compelled to make our departure from the world.”

John Calvin

Letter to Philip Melanchthon, November 28, 1552.

Truth , World , Way , Departure

“The wicked do not fear God from any unwillingness to offend him, provided they could do so with impunity. … But believers, as has been said, dread the offense even more than the punishment.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book 3, Chapter 2, Section 27, p. 480
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Fear

“We must resist wandering thoughts in prayer. Raising our hands reminds us that we need to raise up our minds to God, setting aside all irrelevant thoughts.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book III Ch. 20 First Rule, para. 1 and 2.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God

“I have already spoken of the effects which the solitary and ascetic life of the early monks produced upon their imagination. The same thing took place amongst the recluses of the convents, but particularly nunneries. “The imaginations of women,” says a celebrated author whom I have already quoted, “as their feelings are more keen and exquisite, are more susceptible and ungovernable than those of men; more obnoxious to the injurious influence of solitude; more easily won upon by the arts of delusion, and inflamed by the contagion of the passions.” Hence we may account for the rapidity with which in orphan houses, cloisters, and other institutions, where numbers of the sex are [122] intimately connected with each other, the sickness, humour, habits, of one, if conspicuous and distinguished, become those of all. I remember to have read in a medical writer of considerable merit, that in a French convent of nuns, of more than common magnitude, one of the sisters was seized with a strange impulse to mew like a cat, in which singular propensity she was shortly imitated by several other sisters, and finally, without a solitary exception, by the whole convent, who all joined at regular periods in a general mew that lasted several hours”

John Calvin

Source: A Treatise of Relics (1543), p. 93

Life , Women , Men , Art

“If we follow our divine calling, we shall receive this unique consolation that there is no work so mean and so sordid that does not look truly respectable and highly important in the sight of God”

John Calvin

Coram Deo!
Gen 1:28; Col 1:1ff
Page 94.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God

“The whole life of Christians ought to be an exercise of piety, since they are called to sanctification. It is the office of the law to remind them of their duty and thereby to excite them to the pursuit of holiness and integrity. But when their consciences are solicitous how God may be propitiated, what answer they shall make, and on what they shall rest their confidence, if called to his tribunal, there must then be no consideration of the requisitions of the law, but Christ alone must be proposed for righteousness, who exceeds all the perfection of the law.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Book III Ch. 19 sect. 2.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Life , God , Law , Exercises

“For he [David] confesses that prosperity had so stupefied and benumbed his senses that he disregarded the grace of God on which he should have depended, relied on himself instead, and imagined that he could not fall.”

John Calvin

Page 50.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God , Imagination , Sense , Dependency

“Depraved custom is just a kind of general pestilence in which men perish not the less that they fall in a crowd.”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Prefatory Address, p. 23
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

Men

“The one condition for spiritual progress is that we remain sincere and humble. Let us keep our end in view, let us press forward to our goal. Let us not indulge in pride, nor give in to our sinful passions. Let us steadily exert ourselves to reach a higher degree of holiness till we shall finally arrive at a perfection of goodness which we seek and pursue as long as we live, but which we shall attain then only, when, freed from all earthly infirmity, we shall be admitted by God into his full communion.”

John Calvin

Page 23.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

God , Passion , Perfection , Sincerity

“For what accords better and more aptly with faith than to acknowledge ourselves divested of all virtue that we may be clothed by God, devoid of all goodness that we may be filled by him, the slaves of sin that he may give us freedom, blind that he may enlighten, lame that he may cure, and feeble that he may sustain us; to strip ourselves of all ground of glorying that he alone may shine forth glorious, and we be glorified in him?”

John Calvin book Institutes of the Christian Religion

Prefatory Address to King Francis as translated by Henry Beveridge, p. 16.
Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536; 1559)

God , Faith , Freedom , Clothes

“The denial of ourselves which Christ has so diligently commanded his disciples from the beginning will at last dominate all the desires of our heart.”

John Calvin

Page 28.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Heart , 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

“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)