Quotes by John Calvin

“For though we very truly hear that the kingdom of God will be filled with splendor, joy, happiness and glory, yet when these things are spoken of, they remain utterly remote from our perception, and as it were, wrapped in obscurities, until that day”

“No man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men: neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief”

“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”

“God tolerates even our stammering, and pardons our ignorance whenever something inadvertently escapes us - as, indeed, without this mercy there would be no freedom to pray”

“Though Satan instills his poison, and fans the flames of our corrupt desires within us,we are yet not carried by any external force to the commission of sin, but our own flesh entices us, and we willingly yield to its allurements”

“For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him when he resists and strives against God”

“There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence”

“However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts”

“Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?”

“Wherever we find the Word of God surely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a church of God.”

“Every one of us is, even from his mothers womb, a master craftsman of idols”

“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”

“Man with all his shrewdness is as stupid about understanding by himself the mysteries of God, as an ass is incapable of understanding musical harmony”

“God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation”

“Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy”

“Mans mind is like a store of idolatry and superstition; so much so that if a man believes his own mind it is certain that he will forsake God and forge some idol in his own brain”

“Each eye can have its vision separately; but when we are looking at anything… our vision, which in itself is divided, joins up and unites in order to give itself as a whole to the object that is put before it.”

“It behooves us to accomplish what God requires of us, even when we are in the greatest despair respecting the results”

“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”

“Yet consider now, whether women are not quite past sense and reason, when they want to rule over men”