Known for his multi-volume theological treatise, The Institutes, John Calvin was first and foremost a practitioner. As pastor and reformer in Geneva during the Protestant Reformation, he shared the following— which make their way to this edition of Eleventary.
1. “We should ask God to increase our hope when it is small, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown.”
2. “There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.”
3. “If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house, then in a field, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”
4. “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.”
5. “It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility ‘faith’!”
6. “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”
7. “There is no knowing that does not begin with knowing God.”
8. “However many blessings we expect from God, His infinite liberality will always exceed all our wishes and our thoughts.”
9. “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.”
10. “Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves.”
11. “In forming an estimate of sins, we are often imposed upon by imagining that the more hidden the less heinous they are.”