Institutes of the Christian Religion

by John Calvin

our whole life must be spent in the cultivation of righteousness.

From the knowledge of ourselves, furnished by the Law, we learn to discern our own utter powerlessness,

In like manner, the proofs of our utter powerlessness must instantly beget despair of our own strength.

Both feelings are productive of humility and abasement, and hence the sinner, terrified at the prospect of eternal death, (which he sees justly impending over him for his iniquities), turns to the mercy of God as the only haven of safety.

But though in every passage where the favour or anger of God is mentioned, the former comprehends eternity of life and the latter eternal destruction,

"Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgement;"

Such righteousness has no more beauty than the trunk of a body deprived of its head[5]

Nor is religion the principal part merely: it is the very soul by which the whole lives and breathes.

first commandment is of the nature of a preface to the whole Law, that thereafter follow four commandments in the First Table,

Let it be understood, then, that mention is made of deliverance, in order to make the Jews submit with greater readiness to that God who justly claims them as his own.

that the bondage of Israel in Egypt was a type of that spiritual bondage, in the fetters of which we are all bound, until the heavenly avenger delivers us by the power of his own arm,

The purport of this commandment is, that the Lord will have himself alone to be exalted in his people,

and claims the entire possession of them as his own.

abstain from ungodliness and superstition of...

The duties which we owe to God are innumerable, but they seem to admit of being not improperly reduced to four heads:

Adoration,

mean the veneration and worship which we render to him when we do homage to his majesty;

I make part of it to consist in bringing our consciences into subjection to his Law[12].

T...

is secure resting in him under a recognition of ...

Invocation,

may be defined the retaking of ourselves to his promised aid as the only resource in every case of need.

Thanksgiving, is the gratitude which ascr...

praise of all our b...

It is not enough to refrain from other gods.

We must, at the same time, devote ourselves wholly to him, not acting like certain impious despisers,

But here precedence must be given to true religion, which will direct our m...

When duly imbued with the knowledge of him, the whole aim of our lives will be to revere, fear, and worship his majesty, ...

Next, we must beware of superstition,

The words, "before me," go to increase the indignity, God being provoked to jealousy whenever we substitute our fictions in his stead;

Therefore, God having by his present power and grace declared that he had respect to the people whom he had chosen, now, in order to deter them from the wickedness of revolt, warns them that they cannot adopt strange gods without his being witness and spectator of the sacrilege.

Our conscience must, therefore, keep aloof from the most distant thought of revolt,

The grossest vice here prohibited is external idolatry.

The latter forbids the worship of images on any religious ground.

The meaning here is the same as if he had said, that our duty is to cleave to him alone.

It is true, the word used is El, which means God;

Secondly, he calls himself jealous, because he cannot bear a partner.

In like manner, he declares his constant mercy and kindness to the remote posterity of those who love him, and keep his Law.

In the threatening we must attend to what is meant when God declares that he will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.

But the attempt to solve the question in this way is an evasion rather than a true interpretation.

For the punishment denounced here and in similar passages is too great to be confined within the limits of the present life.

We must therefore understand it to mean, that a curse from the Lord righteously falls not only on the head of the guilty indi...

When it has fallen, what can be anticipated but that the father, being deprived of the Spirit of God, will live most flagitiously; that the son, being in like manner forsaken of the Lord, because of his father's iniquity, will follow the same road to destruction; and be followed in his turn by succeeding generations, forming a seed of evil-doers?

interprets this spirtually as well as physically. This may be generally true

If human nature is universally condemned, those on whom the Lord does not bestow the communication of his grace must be doomed to destruction; nevertheless, they perish by their own iniquity, not by unjust hatred on the part of God.

Therefore, when God punishes the wicked and flagitious for their crimes, by depriving their families of his grace for many generations,

The Israelites, after being subjected to a long period of uninterrupted calamities, had begun to say, as a proverb, that their fathers had eaten the sour grape, and thus set the children's teeth on edge;

meaning that they, though in themselves righteous and innocent, were paying the penalty of sins committed by their parents, and this more from the implacable anger than the duly tempered severity of God.

The misery which they suffer in time, and the destruction to which they are finally doomed, are thus punishments inflicted by divine justice, not for the sins of others, but for their own iniquity.

that the divine favour will dwell for ever in the families of the righteous.

Herein is excellent consolation to believers,