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The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart.

John Calvin

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John Calvin
Age: 54 †
Born: 1509
Born: July 10
Died: 1564
Died: May 27
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Protestant Reformer
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Noviomagus Veromanduorum
Jehan Cauvin
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More quotes by John Calvin

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Christ's intercession is the continual application of his death to our salvation.
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It is entirely the work of grace and a benefit conferred by it that our heart is changed from a stony one to one of flesh, that our will is made new, and that we, created anew in heart and mind, at length will what we ought to will.
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If a preacher is not first preaching to himself, better that he falls on the steps of the pulpit and breaks his neck than preaches that sermon.
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Surely in Judas' betrayal it will be no more right, because God both willed that his Son be delivered up, and delivered him up to death, to ascribe the guilt of the crime to God than to transfer the credit for redemption to Judas.
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We unjustly defraud God of his right, unless each of us lives and dies in dependence on His sovereign pleasure.
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Where is our acknowledgement of God if our thoughts are fixed on the glamour of our garments?
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I have never seen either a drop of piety or a grain of truth or ingenuousness - nay, I have never found common sense in any Jew.
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If God were not to test us, there would be no patience.
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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
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In truth we know by experience that song has great force and vigour to move and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.
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Seeing God hath thus set us at liberty, what rashness it is for worms of the earth to make new laws as though God had not been wise enough.
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Hypocrisy can plunge the mind of a man into a dark abyss, when he believes his own self-flattery instead of God's verdict.
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We must always speak of the efficacy of the ministry in such a manner that the entire praise of the work may be reserved for God alone.
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It is a promise which eminently deserves our observation that all who are united to Christ and acknowledge Him to be Christ and Mediator will remain to the end safe from all danger, for what is said of the body of the Church belongs to each of its members since they are one in Christ.
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men are undoubtedly more in danger from prosperity than from adversity. for when matters go smoothly, they flatter themselves, and are intoxicated by their success
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The sum is, that the worship of God must be spiritual, in order that it may correspond with His nature. For although Moses only speaks of idolatry, yet there is no doubt but that by synecdoche, as in all the rest of the law, he condemns all fictitious services which men in their ingenuity have invented.
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Nothing is more dangerous than to be blinded by prosperity.
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Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.
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On the contrary, therefore, Christ declares that the doctrine of the Gospel, though it is preached to all without exception, cannot be embraced by all, but that a new understanding and a new perception are requisite and, therefore, that faith does not depend on the will of men, but that it is God who gives it.
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That man is truly humble who neither claims any personal merit in the sight of God, nor proudly despises brethren, or aims at being thought superior to them, but reckons it enough that he is one of the members of Christ, and desires nothing more than that the Head alone should be exalted.
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