558 Quotes by John Calvin

If people mean that man has in himself the power to work in partnership with God’s grace they are most wretchedly deluding themselves.

We cannot rely on God’s promises without obeying his commandments.

Free will does not enable any man to perform good works, unless he is assisted by grace; indeed, the special grace which the elect alone receive through regeneration. For I stay not to consider the extravagance of those who say that grace is offered equally and promiscuously to all.

Children, who are dealt with more generously and more liberally by their fathers, do not hesitate to show them unfinished projects that they have only begun, or even spoiled a little. Even if they have not succeeded in doing quite what they wanted, they are confident that their obedience and readiness of mind will be accepted. Such children we ought to be, trusting confidently that our most lenient Father will approve of them, however small, rough, or imperfect they may be.

Christ, on the other hand, declares that every single one of God’s creatures is under his hand and care, and that nothing happens by chance. In.

It is a beastly business when people start eating without prayer, and when they are full, they run out without as much as mentioning God’s name.

The angels are the dispensers and administrators of the divine beneficence toward us; they regard our safety, undertake our defense, direct our ways, and exercise a constant solicitude that no evil befall us.

The restoration of the Church shall be of such a nature that it shall last for ever.

I call it not humility, so long as we think there is any good remaining in us. Those who have joined together two things, to think humbly of ourselves before God and yet hold our own righteousness in some estimation, have . . . a pernicious hypocrisy.